From entertainment to persuasion: how attitudes toward advertising shape responses to brand placement and television advertising.

Abstract

Introduction: Embedded brand communication is increasingly encountered alongside explicit advertising, yet audience-level differences may determine which format is more persuasive.

Methods: In a randomized online experiment, adults recruited from a United States consumer panel were assigned across seven cells representing brand placement, 30-s television advertising, combined exposure, or control for Heinz and Snapple. Participants viewed full-length sitcom content and completed multi-item measures of attitude toward advertising (AttADV), brand attitude, and purchase intention.

Results: General attitudes toward brand placement were more favorable than attitudes toward conventional television advertising. Exposure format interacted with AttADV for both focal brands: at low AttADV, placement produced more favorable brand attitudes than a 30-s advertisement, whereas no statistically significant difference between formats was detected at mean or high AttADV; the study was not designed to establish equivalence at these levels. Combined exposure produced no statistically significant improvement in brand attitude or purchase intention relative to either single-exposure condition, though the study was insufficiently powered to rule out small incremental effects.

Discussion: The findings support an audience-by-format account of persuasion in which embedded brand communication is most advantageous among viewers who are less receptive to conventional advertising. They also indicate that additional cross-format exposure does not necessarily yield incremental benefit. Testing the same psychological pattern across two familiar brands within full-program viewing provides a comparatively naturalistic basis for examining persuasion in increasingly integrated media environments.