How Do Consumers Respond

To Storylines in Television Advertisements?A Principal-Components Analysis Tool

Helps Decipher Moment-to-Moment Evaluations

JENNIFER L. BURTON

High Point University,

jburton@ highpo in t.edu

LEIGH MCALISTER

McCombs School o f

Business

m calister@ m ccom bs.

utexas.edu

WAYNE D. HOYER

McCombs School o f

Business

wayne. hoyer@ mccombs.

utexas.edu

Marketers and advertisers long have searched for new and more powerful ways to

measure the effectiveness of advertising. One data source that has proven useful is

consumers’ moment-to-moment affective responses to television advertisements. The

current study examined consumers’ moment-to-moment advertisement evaluations by

applying a form of principal-components analysis that allows researchers to understand

divergence in consumer response and link this divergence to specific elements of the

advertisement’s storyline. Application of this technique revealed a consistent principal-

component structure across a sample of advertisements and demonstrated a link between

each principal component and consumers’ retrospective advertisement and brand

evaluations.

INTRODUCTION

Advertisers have a number of tools to measure the effectiveness of a television advertisement to enhance brand recall, change brand attitudes, or influence consumers to purchase a product (Poels and Dewitte, 2006). There are relatively few diag­nostic tools, however, that gauge how consumers respond to different plot elements in an advertise­ment or identify the various aspects of advertise­ment executions that lead to positive brand attitudes.

Given that consumers likely will respond differ­ently to various plot elements in an advertisement,

it is important for advertisers to have a better understanding of meaningful differences in con­sumer response. This knowledge should ensure a match between the delivered message and the informational and entertainment needs of their tar­get audience.

Beginning in the 1980s, a technique involv­ing "moment-to-moment" evaluations has been used to track consumers' moment-to-moment emotional responses while watching a television advertisement. This dynamic measure—collected electronically—provides continuous reports of the

• Applying p rinc ipa l-com ponents analysis to consum ers ’ m om ent-to -m om ent eva luations o f te levis ion

adve rtisem en ts a llows researchers to d iscover d ivergence in consum er response and tie th is

d ivergence to executional e lem ents o f advertisem ents.

• Exam ining th e rotated com ponent m atrix w ill ind icate exactly which m om ents o f the adve rtisem en t

are causing d ivergence in consum er response and the extent o f th is d ivergence.

• Regressing p rinc ipa l-com ponent scores aga inst consum er dem ograph ics allows researchers to

de te rm ine w hether ta rge t custom ers are responding positively or negatively to various aspects o f

the a dve rtisem en t’s storyline.

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HOW DO CONSUMERS RESPOND TO STORYLINES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS?

consumer's level of positive or negative affect while watching an advertisement.The output of such measurements can be reported in a graph that depicts the level of affect a consumer experiences at every moment of the advertisement {i.e., that consumer's "affect trace").

Since the advent of continuous-response measurement, researchers and practi­tioners have drawn many insights into advertising effectiveness from consumers' moment-to-moment affective responses to advertisements. For instance, the peak, final moment, and overall linear trend of an "affect trace" are more predictive of consumers' retrospective advertisement evaluations than the sum or average of all moments (Baumgartner, Sujan, and Padg­ett, 1997). In that scenario, the peak is the highest level of affect consumers experi­ence on average while watching an adver­tisement. The final moment is the level of affect consumers experience on average during the last second of the advertise­ment. The linear trend of an affect trace is the slope of the regression line that best fits the average affect trace produced by all of consumers' pooled responses.

Another interesting insight into adver­tising effectiveness pertains to the rela­tionship between moment-to-moment evaluations of surprise and humor in television advertising. Advertisements in which the peak of average moment- to-moment surprise precedes the peak of average moment-to-moment humor generate the highest average ratings of retrospective humor (Woltman Elpers, Mukherjee, and Hoyer, 2004). Addition­ally, viewers will experience the highest retrospective evaluations of humor when the peak of average moment-to-moment surprise occurs later in the advertisement (Woltman Elpers et al, 2004).

This stream of research highlights the value of moment-to-moment data in understanding the optimal timing of

52 J D U R n flL O F H D U E R T IS If lG R E S E A R C H March 2015

affective peaks and the sequence of emo­tions that result in the highest retrospective advertisement evaluations. There are some weaknesses in this stream of research, however:

• Existing applications of moment-to- moment data typically use the adver­tisement as the unit of analysis, average responses from a large sample of con­sumers, and the pooled data to form conclusions regarding the optimal tim­ing of affect generation. Considerable heterogeneity in consumers' moment-to- moment emotional responses, however, gets masked by aggregating consumer responses and analyzing the average affect trace for each advertisement.

• Current applications of moment-to- moment evaluations are ineffective at linking the patterns identified in the affect trace with actual executional elem­ents of the advertisement. Although prior research suggests that advertise­ments should have a high peak that occurs at the end of the advertisement, it does not provide much insight into how advertisers can construct a storyline that results in high levels of affect at the peak or final moment of an advertisement.

The authors of the current study have extended this earlier research by present­ing an application of principal-components analysis (PCA). The goal: to uncover diver­gence in consumers' moment-to-moment evaluations and link this divergence to specific elements of a television advertise­ment's storyline. Their technique used the individual as the unit of analysis and explored the full range of reactions (both positive and negative) that consumers experience in their moment-to-moment evaluations of a single advertisement.

Application of this technique revealed a consistent principal-component structure

across a dated sample of Super Bowl advertisements in which the principal components corresponded to different ele­ments of an advertisement's storyline: the storyline introduction, premise, develop­ment, and conclusion. The researchers then demonstrated that consumers' reactions to each storyline element had a positive influ­ence on consumers' retrospective adver­tisement evaluations and that divergence in consumer response could be predicted by demographic characteristics of the viewing audience.

THEORETICAL DEVELOPMENT AND

HYPOTHESES

An important objective of this research was to introduce an application of PCA that would capture heterogeneity in consum­ers' moment-to-moment advertisement evaluations and tie this heterogeneity to specific elements of the advertisement's storyline. The proposed PCA application is based on a technique that summarizes one variable measured a large number of times with a smaller number of underlying prin­cipal components (Bradlow, 2002). This method differs from traditional applica­tions of PCA that summarize a large num­ber of variables with a smaller number of underlying principal components.

The authors found variation of PCA was ideal for repeated measures and time series data. It also could identify key trends in the data and indicate the time period over which these trends were occurring. Apply­ing this technique to moment-to-moment advertisement evaluations would identify the moments of the advertisement during which some consumers responded posi­tively and other consumers responded negatively. It also would allow the researcher to identify executional adver­tisement elements that caused this diver­gence in response.

Using this variation of PCA (Bradlow, 2002), the authors of the current study

HOW DO CONSUMERS RESPOND TO STORYLINES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS?

expected to find divergence in consumer response to each consecutive element of an advertisement's storyline. On a broad level in prior research, stories were conceptual­ized as portraying a sequence of consecutive events consisting of a beginning (introduc­tion of a situation), middle (development of a situation), and end (conclusion of a situa­tion; Fergusson, 1961; Stem, 1994). Such a format is consistent with more micro-level analyses of storyline construction, such as the incongruity-resolution model of humor (Alden, Mukerjee, and Hoyer, 2000) and the classical dramatic model (Padgett and Allen, 1997; Stem, 1994).

In addition to the three proposed storyline elements, the current authors believed that consumers' moment-to-moment evalu­ations also would show divergence at the initial introduction of the advertising stimulus. This line of thought was consist­ent with research showing that consumers often would form "thin-slice" impressions and evaluations of people based on as few as 2 seconds of video evidence (Ambady, Bemieri, and Richeson, 2000; Ambady and Rosenthal, 1992). Thin-slice judgments refer to consumers' evaluations of stimuli made over a very short time duration that prior research has shown to be very consistent and accurate (Ambady et ah, 2000; Ambady and Rosenthal, 1992).

The current authors, therefore, proposed that consumers would show divergence in their moment-to-moment evaluations during four consecutive elements of an advertise­ment's storyline—the storyline introduction, premise, development, and conclusion:

• The storyline introduction represents the initial presentation of the advertis­ing stimulus where consumers form thin-slice impressions based on the first few seconds of an advertisement.

• The storyline premise represents the portion of the advertisement in which

an advertiser introduces the character, setting, and basic idea around which to build a story.

• The storyline development is the phase of the advertisement in which the adver­tiser introduces a plot twist or an incon­gruity that needs resolution and builds consumers' anticipation for the storyline conclusion and brand claims.

• The storyline conclusion normally con­tains resolution of the incongruity or drama introduced in the development phase of the advertisement and ends with a punch line and transition into the brand claims.

Formally:HI: Principal-components analysis of

consumers' moment-to-moment advertisem ent evaluations will reveal a four-principal- component structure, reveal­ing divergence in consumer response at the storyline intro­duction, premise, development, and conclusion.

The existence of divergence in consumer response during these four storyline ele­ments would be meaningless unless the authors could demonstrate that consum­ers' levels of affect during each of these storyline segments were a significant pre­dictor of consumers' retrospective adver­tisement and brand evaluations. Evidence suggesting that consumers' levels of affect during the storyline introduction would predict that retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations came from find­ings that consumers' thin-slice judgments made about people after viewing a few seconds of videotape footage were highly accurate (Ambady et ah, 2000; Ambady and Rosenthal, 1992).

Additionally, these thin-slice judg­ments formed a reference point for future

evaluations of the featured stimulus (Walker Naylor, 2007). Prior research also had suggested that many aspects of the storyline premise—such as appearance of the spokesperson (Priester and Petty, 2003), pleasant music (Park and Young, 1986), appealing scenes (Maclnnis and Price, 1987), and pleasant situations (Batra and Ray, 1986)—had positive relation­ships with retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations.

The current authors also expected a positive relationship between the storyline development and retrospective advertise­ment and brand evaluations. Prior research had shown that a well-developed storyline, with an unexpected twist that draws con­sumers' attention, generated more posi­tive advertisement and brand evaluations (Escalas, Moore, and Britton, 2004). More­over, previous findings had demonstrated that advertisements which incorporated an incongruous moment that was surprising to consumers created the highest levels of humor (Woltman Elpers et ah, 2004).

Finally, prior research had suggested that the level of affect consumers experienced at the conclusion of an advertisement had a strong influence on retrospective adver­tisement and brand evaluations. Moment- to-moment research on appeal and humor showed that the peak and final moment were highly predictive of retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations, and advertisers should try to make the peak level of affect occur as late in the advertise­ment as possible (Baumgartner et ah, 1997; Woltman Elpers et ah, 2004).

Based on this evidence, the authors hypothesized:

H2: The level of affect consumersexperience during the storyline introduction will have a positive relationship with retrospec­tive advertisement and brand evaluations.

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H3: The level of affect consumersexperience during the storyline premise will have a positive relationship w ith retrospec­tive advertisem ent and brand evaluations.

H4: The level of affect consumersexperience during the storyline development will have a positive relationship w ith retrospec­tive advertisem ent and brand evaluations.

H5: The level of affect consumersexperience during the storyline conclusion will have a positive relationship w ith retrospec­tive advertisem ent and brand evaluations.

METHODOLOGY

Sample

The data utilized in the current study were collected by a marketing research firm dur­ing the 2-week period after the 2004 Super Bowl, starting on February 2 and ending on February 16. A total of 11,759 consum­ers had been recruited via search engines and portals such as Google and Yahoo and presented with an opportunity to view and rate the Super Bowl advertisements of that year. To prevent survey fatigue, consumers had been allowed to evaluate no more than five advertisements. No incentives had been offered to consumers to participate in or complete the survey. Therefore, an average of 940 respondents had provided moment-to-moment ratings on 46 of the 61 television advertisements from the 2004 Super Bowl.

Overall, the consumer panel was 60 per­cent female and 40 percent male, with 89 percent of participants residing within the United States (representing all 50 states) and 11 percent of respondents resid­ing outside of the United States. The demo­graphics of the sample represented a wide

range of ages, incomes, educational levels, and ethnicities:

• Thirty percent of the sample was older than the age of 60, 59 percent was between the ages of 40 and 59, 9 percent was between the ages of 20 and 39, and 3 percent of the sample was younger than the age of 20.

• Seven percent of the sample had a grad­uate degree, 21 percent had a bachelor's degree, 49 percent had some college or an associate's degree, 21 percent had a high school degree, and 4 percent had less than a high school degree.

• For household income, 17 percent of consumers made more than $75,000 per year, 23 percent between $50,000 and $75,000 per year, 21 percent between $35,000 and $49,999, 22 percent between $20,000 and $34,999, and 17 percent less than $20,000 per year.

• Eighty-three percent of the consumer panel was white or Caucasian, 5 percent was African American, 4 percent was Asian, South Asian, or a Pacific Islander, and 7 percent was of other ethnic back­ground or declined to say.

Although this sample is nearly 11 years old, the main purpose of the study was to introduce a new method of analysis; the authors believe, therefore, that the age of the data should not impact any of the methods, findings, or recommendations.

Measures

After agreeing to participate in the study, consumers first answered demographic questions (gender, age, ethnicity, educa­tion, income, and geographic location) and then read detailed instructions that explained the process by which they would evaluate the television advertisements.

The method of collecting moment-to- moment evaluations in this study was

similar to that used in earlier moment- to-moment research (e.g., Baumgartner et al., 1997; Woltman Elpers et al., 2004). Consumers viewed an advertisement on their computer screen and concurrently used a mouse to guide a slider located on the screen beneath the advertisement that indicated how appealing they thought the advertisement was at each moment. Consumers were instructed to begin at the midpoint of the scale (level 5), which rep­resented neutral appeal (neither appealing nor unappealing). From there, consumers were instructed to move the slider con­tinuously while viewing the commercial to reflect how appealing (values greater than 5) or unappealing (values less than 5) the advertisement was at each moment. The computer recorded the position of the slider on the 11-point scale at 1-second intervals throughout the advertisement.

After viewing each advertisement, con­sumers were asked for their retrospective evaluations of that advertisement on the following eight dimensions:

• overall appeal,• overall information value,• overall persuasiveness,• overall uniqueness,• overall ability to identify w ith the

advertisement,• overall believability,• overall likelihood to purchase the prod­

uct, and• overall attitude toward the brand.

These evaluations, measured on a 7-point scale, were highly correlated at the indi­vidual level for each of the advertisements (0.81 < a < 0.94) and yielded an overall Chronbach alpha of 0.92. The authors, there­fore, created a composite variable (for each consumer, for each advertisement) reflect­ing consumers' retrospective advertise­ment and brand evaluations by averaging consumers' ratings on all eight dimensions.

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Principal-Components Method

To identify the elements driving heteroge­neity in consumers' moment-to-moment affective evaluations of television adver­tisements, the authors used an earlier protocol for performing PCA on repeated measures data (Bradlow, 2002). Just as that protocol was able over time to iden­tify key moments that drove cumulative penetration rates for durable goods, the current authors could use this technique to understand what key moments of an advertisement drive divergence in con­sumer response.

• First, the authors applied PCA with vari- max rotation to the moment-to-moment evaluations collected for their sample of 46 Super Bowl advertisements. For each advertisement, the input matrix con­tained moment-to-moment responses for each consumer who evaluated the advertisement, with rows representing consumers and columns representing moments.

The output from this analysis would consist of a chart highlighting the number of principal components that explained variation in consumers' moment-to-moment advertisement evaluations and the percent of variance explained by each principal component. The authors retained all principal com­ponents with eigenvalues greater than 1 (Kaiser, 1960).

Additionally, the output would con­tain the rotated component matrix that indicated the extent to which each moment of the advertisement loaded on a particular principal component. This allowed the research to identify the executional elements of the advertise­ment that were driving divergence in consumer response.

When performing the PCA, it was important to assign each consumer a principal-component score using

regression based on the principal- component coefficient matrix.

• Next, the authors plotted the average affect trace for the consumers scoring in the top decile of each principal com­ponent to depict how the seconds of the advertisement associated with a particu­lar principal component impacted con­sumers' affected traces positively.

Likewise, by plotting an average affect trace for the consumers with the lowest scores (usually the bottom 10 percent) on that principal component, the authors illustrated how the seconds of the adver­tisement associated with a particular principal component could produce a negative impact on consumers' affect traces. The resulting graphs illustrated how consumers reacted either positively or negatively during specific plot ele­ments associated with each principal component.

• Finally, the authors found, marketers can better understand which consumers are reacting positively and negatively to each storyline element by regressing consumers' principal-component scores by various demographic and psycho­graphic characteristics collected from the viewing sample.

ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

This section presents the current study's hypothesis tests and findings that the authors believe can apply across all tel­evision advertisements. It also presents an application of the PCA technique on a sample advertisement to demonstrate the depth of the insights it can provide when applied to specific advertisements.

Findings across All Advertisements

The authors' first hypothesis (HI) had stated that applying PCA to moment- to-moment ratings for all 46 Super Bowl

advertisements in the current study's sam­ple would reveal a consistent principal- component structure corresponding to the storyline introduction, premise, develop­ment, and conclusion.

Results showed that 45 of the 46 adver­tisements contained four principal com­ponents corresponding to the storyline introduction, premise, development, and conclusion, supporting the first hypothesis. (Some of the advertisements contained a fifth principal component that appeared to be related to calibration error or noise [to be discussed later in this article]). Specifically:

• The storyline introduction represented consumers' thin-slice reactions to the presented stimulus, lasted for an aver­age of 4 seconds, and explained an aver­age of 10.1 percent of the variance in consumers' moment-to-moment ratings.

• The storyline premise corresponded to the part of the advertisement where the advertiser introduced the main char­acters, setting, and a general premise on which to build a story. The story­line premise lasted for an average of 7 seconds and explained an average of 17.5 percent of the variance in consum­ers' moment-to-moment ratings.

• The storyline development corre­sponded to the section of the advertise­ment where the advertiser introduced an unexpected plot twist. The storyline development lasted for an average of 10 seconds and explained an average of 23.4 percent of the variance in consum­ers' moment-to-moment responses.

• The storyline conclusion corresponded to the resolution of the story presented in the advertisement and lasted an aver­age of 12 seconds and explained an aver­age of 31.3 percent of the variance in consumers' moment-to-moment ratings.

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It is important to highlight some excep­tions to the four-principal-component structure uncovered across Super Bowl advertisements. Although 45 of the 46 advertisements contained four principal components corresponding to the storyline introduction, premise, development, and conclusion, 14 of the advertisements con­tained an additional fifth principal compo­nent. This additional principal component corresponded to the first 3.5 seconds of the advertisement, on average, and explained an average of 7.2 percent of the variance in consumers' moment-to-moment ratings. Graphs of the fifth principal component, however, suggested that this component may be related to calibration error, as some consumers seemed to have had a more immediate response to the advertising stimuli than others.

Another notable exception to the four- principal-component structure was an advertisement for Schick Quattro, which was the shortest advertisement in the sample at 15 seconds. Due to its truncated length, this advertisement only had three principal components, as the length was unable to accommodate four storyline components.

The authors' remaining hypotheses (H2 to H5) had predicted a positive relation­ship between consumers' level of affect during each of the storyline components and consumers' retrospective advertise­ment and brand evaluations. The authors tested these relationships in a regression of consumers' factor scores on each of the identified principal components against the overall composite variable represent­ing consumers' retrospective advertise­ment and brand evaluations.

The regression equation was significant (F = 956.69, p < 0.001, R2 = 0.24) and, as predicted, the storyline introduction (|3 = 0.04, t = 5.24, p < 0.001), premise (P = 0.14, t = 19.27, p < 0.001), development (P = 0.18, t = 25.20, p < 0.001), and conclusion (p =

0.43, t = 61.23, p < 0.001) all had positive relationships with consumers' retrospec­tive advertisement and brand evalua­tions, confirming hypotheses 2 through 5 (See Table 1). Consumers' reactions to the calibration period did not have any impact on retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations (t = -0.48, p = n.s.; See Table 1).

The findings across advertisements indi­cated that advertisers were using a similar storyline format in delivering their com­mercial messages to target audiences and that each storyline element could cause divergence in consumers' moment-to- moment ratings and ultimately impact their retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations.

Accordingly, the authors urge advertis­ers to pay close attention to the develop­ment of each segment of the advertising storyline and ensure that target consumers are responding positively. This is because consumers' moment-to-moment reactions during each storyline segment are predic­tive of their retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations.

The findings also suggest that consumers' moment-to-moment ratings become more

TABLE 1

important at each successive stage in the advertisement and confirm prior research that consumers' level of the affect at the conclusion of the advertisement is most pre­dictive of consumers' retrospective adver­tisement evaluations (e . g Baumgartner et al, 1997; Woltman Elpers et al.r 2004).

Applying the PCA Technique to a Sample

Advertisement

Having examined the consistent principal- component structure across advertise­ments and the relationship between these components and consumers' retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations, the authors applied the same technique to a single advertisement.

An advertisement for Lay's Potato Chips was chosen because of its overall appeal (ranked number 6 by consumers who participated in the study) and its story­line potentially upsetting to older and/or female consumers.

A total of 978 consumers viewed and provided moment-to-moment ratings and retrospective evaluations for the sample Lay's potato chip television advertise­ment. Principal-components analysis of the

Relationship Between Principal Components and Retrospective Ad

Evaluations____________________________________________________Unstandardized Standardized Coefficients Coefficients

Principal Components Model BStd.Error Beta f Sig.

(Constant) 28.62 0.058 489.73 0.000

Affect During Calibration Period -0.03 0.058 -0 .0 0 3 -0 .4 8 0.630

Affect During Storyline Introduction (H2) 0.31 0.058 0.037 5.24 0.000

Affect During Storyline Premise (H3) 1.13 0.058 0.136 19.27 0.000

Affect During Storyline Development (H4) 1.47 0.058 0.177 25.20 0.000

Affect During Storyline Conclusion (H5) 3.58 0.058 0.431 61.23 0.000

F = 956.69, p < 0.001 Adjusted R2 = 0.24

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moment-to-moment evaluations yielded five components with eigenvalues greater than 1, accounting for 88 percent of the variance in moment-to-moment ratings across consumers.

A graph of the resulting analysis clearly illustrated that the peaks and troughs associated with consumers' factor scores provided much more information than the steadily increasing average affect trace that was typically the unit of analysis in this stream of research (See Figure 1).

Interpretation of Results on Sample

Advertisement

The first 3 seconds of the advertisement represented the calibration period, when some consumers reacted more quickly to the advertisement stimulus than others. Divergence in consumer response occurred when an adult son kissed his elderly

parents good-bye and ate the last potato chip from the bowl they were sharing.

Reactions to this advertisement segment were not as strong as reactions toward oth­ers; some consumers responded positively and others negatively to this storyline ele­ment. This principal component had an eigenvalue of 2.5 and explained 8.2 percent of the variance in moment-to-moment rat­ings (See Figure 1).

The next 3 seconds of the advertisement represented the storyline introduction where consumers formed their initial reac­tions to the presentation of the advertise­ment stimulus. Divergence in consumers' moment-to-moment affect traces occurred when the adult son accidentally dropped a brand new bag of Lay's potato chips on his way out the door.

Consumers' reactions to this compo­nent were a bit stronger than the first, with

some consumers responding positively and other consumers reacting negatively. This principal component had an eigen­value of 2.7 and explained 9.1 percent of the variance in consumers' moment-to- moment evaluations (See Figure 1).

The storyline premise occurred during the next 7 seconds of the advertisement when Spanish music with a fast tempo began and the elderly husband and wife started to race to the fallen bag of Lay's potato chips. During this storyline seg­ment, the husband tripped his wife with his cane and regained the lead in the race to the dropped bag of Lay's.

Some consumers had a steep increase in affect during the storyline premise, the researchers observed. Other consumers had a decrease in affect during this segment but had a slight increase in affect when the race began. These consumers generally were

— Bottom Ten Percentile -Average Affect Trace -------Top Ten Percentile

Son Eats Last Chip

Son Drops _L Bag of

Lay’s

Race to Bag o f Lay’s Begins and Husband Trips Wife With Cane

- 4 ----------- ----T

Husband Stabs Wife in

Back with Cane

Husband Wins Race to Chips, but Wife Has His Dentures

T-Son Returns Home to Get

the Lay’s

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

M om ent in the Ad

Figure 1 Lay’s Potato Chip Ad-Affect Traces for the Top and Bottom Deciles for Each Principal Component Compared to the Average Affect Trace

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HOW DO CONSUMERS RESPOND TO STORYLINES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS?

displeased with the storyline until the race began between the elderly couple for the fallen bag of potato chips. The storyline premise component had an eigenvalue of 5.5 and explained 18.3 percent of the vari­ation in consumers' moment-to-moment evaluations (See Figure 1).

Divergence in consumer response also occurred during the next 11 seconds of the advertisement, where the elderly man stabbed his wife in the back with his cane to hold her down on the floor, and he eventu­ally won the race to the fallen bag of Lay's. This advertisement segment represented the introduction of the unexpected plot twist that normally occurs in the storyline development. The plot twist in this segment occurred when the elderly wife stole her hus­band's dentures so that he would be unable to eat the potato chips he had just won.

As with the other storyline elements, some consumers responded positively and others responded negatively. This princi­pal component had an eigenvalue of 9.4 and explained 31.5 percent of the variation in consumers' moment-to-moment evalua­tions (See Figure 1).

The storyline conclusion was repre­sented by the last 6 seconds of the adver­tisement, w ith the return of the son to claim his mistakenly dropped bag of Lay's potato chips. In the conclusion segment, the son grabbed the bag of potato chips from his elderly father and kissed him good-bye again.

As w ith the other elements of the advertisem ent's storyline, consum ers reacted either positively or negatively to the conclusion. The conclusion principal component had an eigenvalue of 6.1 and explained 21.4 percent of the variation in consumers' moment-to-moment evalua­tions (See Figure 1).

Implications for AdvertisersThe foregoing analysis demonstrates sig­nificant divergence in consumer response

to five storyline elements. An important concern for many advertisers would be w hether their target consumers are responding positively or negatively to each storyline element.

To address this concern, advertisers can regress consumers' scores on each of the identified principal components against the demographic characteristics collected on those consumers.

In the case of the Lay's potato chip adver­tisement, demographics did not determine whether consumers had positive or negative reactions to the calibration period (F = 0.39, p = n.s.), storyline introduction (F = 0.79, p = n.s.), storyline premise (F = 1.77, p = n.s.), or storyline conclusion (F = 1.83, p = n.s.; See Table 2). However, the storyline develop­ment that featured the elderly husband using violent tactics against his wife to win the race was liked particularly by young people ((5 = -0.16, p < 0.01), men (P = 0.12, p < 0.01), and consumers from the United States (p = 0.10, p < 0.01) (F = 9.08, p < 0.001, Adjusted R2 = 0.05) (See Table 2). Not surprising, con­sumers who responded unfavorably to the

storyline development tended to be older, female, and from outside the United States.

The power of the proposed principal- components analysis technique can be dem onstrated more effectively on an actual sample advertisement. The rotated components matrix will identify the exact moments in the advertisement that cause divergence in consumer response, allow­ing the researcher to tie patterns in con­sumers' affect traces to actual executional elements of the advertisement.

Additionally, the study examined the resulting affect traces from consumers scor­ing in the top and bottom 10 percent for each principal component. The findings revealed significant divergence in consumer response that was masked by examining the average affect trace. An examination of the average affect trace revealed that affect steadily increased throughout the advertise­ment until it reached a high peak at the end of the advertisement (See Figure 1).

In contrast, however, the examination of the average affect trace typical of prior research, did not

TABLE 2

Regressions Explaining Principal Component Scores with Respondent Demographics

Dependent Variable = CalibrationStorylineIntroduction

StorylinePremise

StorylineDevelopment

StorylineConclusion

Gender 0.004 -0 .017 -0 .0 4 2 0 .1 2 ** 0.089

Ethnicity -0 .0 1 2 0.017 -0 .0 2 1 -0 .0 3 3 0.297

Age 0.029 -0 .0 4 8 0.047 -0 .1 6 * * 0.114

Education Level -0 .01 4 0.041 0 .07* -0 .0 3 6 0.089

Household Income 0.021 -0 .0 2 8 -0 .037 0.038 0.079

U.S. Resident -0 .02 7 0.006 0.042 0 .1 0 ** 0.532

FValue 0.39, 0.79, 1.77, 9.08, 1.83,

p = n.s. p = n.s. p = n.s. p < 0.001 p = n.s.

Adjusted R-Squared -0 .0 0 4 -0 .0 0 1 0.005 0.047 0.005

** is significant at p < 0.01; * is significant at p < 0.05Notes: Gender is coded: Men = 1, Women = 0. Ethnicity is coded: White = 1, Minority = 0. U.S. Resident is coded: U.S. Resident = 1; Non-U.S. Resident = 0

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• reveal that some consumers had not liked the chosen characters or the setting that consisted of a beautiful Mediterra­nean veranda;

• reveal that certain consumers had responded unfavorably to the violent epi­sodes between the elderly man and his wife as they raced for the bag of Lay's; or

• show that certain consumers had not enjoyed the conclusion of the advertise­ment where the son returned home to claim the bag of Lay's.

Additionally, the authors found, regressing factor scores against consumers' demo­graphic or psychographic characteristics could reveal exactly who was responding well or poorly to various executional ele­ments of the advertisement. In the sample advertisement, older people and women responded negatively to the scene where the elderly husband used violence against his wife to win the race and the twist where the elderly wife stole her husband's dentures so that he was unable to eat the potato chips.

Application of this technique would suggest that Lay's should change these aspects of the storyline if women or older consumers were to become an important target demographic.

DISCUSSION

The primary objective of this research was to introduce an application of PCA that can provide researchers with a deeper under­standing of moment-to-moment television advertisement evaluations. The authors applied the technique on a sample of 46 Super Bowl advertisements and found a consistent principal-component structure across most of the advertisements. The study also demonstrated that each of the identified principal components had a pos­itive relationship with retrospective adver­tisement and brand evaluations.

The authors also provided a detailed application of the technique on a sample advertisement for Lay's potato chips. The single-advertisement analysis specifically demonstrated how the technique links divergence in consumers' moment-to- moment evaluations with actual execu­tional elements of the advertisement and how demographic characteristics of the viewer can predict divergence in consum­ers' moment-to-moment reactions.

The proposed application of PCA repre­sented an improvement over current tech­niques of analyzing moment-to-moment emotional responses to advertisements because current research applications aggregate consumer responses and use the average affect trace for each advertisement as the unit of analysis (e.g., Baumgartner et al., 1997; Woltman Elpers et al., 2004). Although this earlier practice has provided interesting theoretical and managerial insights, the current authors' application of PCA reveals considerable heterogeneity in consumers' moment-to-moment ratings that is masked when examining the aver­age affect trace.

The authors believe their proposed technique allows researchers and practi­tioners to

• understand individual differences in consumers' affect traces,

• capture the source and magnitude of divergence in consumer response, and

• tie this divergence to actual executional elements of the advertisement.

Application of the PCA technique revealed a consistent principal-component structure across advertisements indicating that vari­ations in consumers' moment-to-moment responses are driven by four storyline ele­ments—the introduction, premise, devel­opment, and conclusion:

• Divergence caused by the storyline introduction reflected consumers' differ­ing reactions to the presentation of the advertising stimulus during the first few seconds of the advertisement;

• divergence during the storyline prem­ise reflected consumers' differing reac­tions to the characters, setting, and basic premise of the advertisement;

• divergence during the storyline develop­ment represented different reactions to the plot as it thickened and introduced an unexpected twist; and

• finally, divergence during the storyline conclusion reflected differing reactions to the manner in which the advertiser could bring the story to a close and resolve any unexpected plot twists intro­duced earlier in the advertisement.

The current research also demonstrated a positive relationship between consumers' reactions to each of the identified storyline elements and consumers' retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations. Because of the role each storyline compo­nent played in creating positive retrospec­tive advertisement and brand evaluations, it is important that advertisers pay close attention to storyline construction.

Indeed, television advertisers should seek to reduce divergence in consumer response to increase overall advertising appeal, or at least ensure that their target consumers will respond positively to each storyline element. Regressing factor scores against the demographic and psycho­graphic characteristics of the target audi­ence can help advertisers ensure that target consumers are responding positively to each storyline element.

It also is important to note that the impact of each storyline component on retrospec­tive advertisement and brand evaluations

M arch 2 0 1 5 J D U R M 1 L O F H D U E R T IS II1G R E S E A R C H 59

HOW DO CONSUMERS RESPOND TO STORYLINES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS?

increases through each successive stage. Consumers' reactions to the storyline intro­duction, therefore, have the smallest impact on retrospective evaluations, and reactions to the storyline conclusion have the strong­est impact. This is consistent with prior research emphasizing the importance of the final moment and linear trend in predicting retrospective advertisement evaluations (.e.g., Baumgartner et al, 1997; Woltman Elp- ers et al, 2004).

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

The authors of the current study believe that the collection of consumers' moment-to- moment advertisement evaluations and use of the proposed PCA technique provide tel­evision advertisers with important insights that can guide the development and execu­tion of their advertising campaigns.

Generally, this approach would work on any type of finished advertisement that has an externally paced time component to it, such as finished radio and television advertisements. In selecting a sample size, standard conventions would apply using the formula n/[ 1 + (n/population)]. If a mass advertiser, therefore, were to create a national advertisement geared for the entire U.S. population, a sample size of approximately 385 consumers would be adequate. In cases where advertisers gen­eralize their results to smaller target audi­ences, smaller samples could be used, as would be appropriate.

The proposed PCA approach could be used in either pre-market or in-market test­ing. Specifically,

• Pre-market, this technique could be used to gauge the success of various advertis­ing executions by examining the extent to which divergence in consumer response occurs, and exploring the magnitude of consumers' positive and negative responses to various advertising execu­tions. Advertisements that have the least

divergence in consumer response, and the most positive moment-to-moment advertisement evaluations, would have the highest effectiveness, once launched.

Another advantage to using this tech­nique pre-market is that it would allow advertisers to change certain elements of the storyline that do not test well with their target audience. Developing a sto­ryline that would be sure to resonate with target audiences could help advertisers maximize their return on investment, once launched, the authors believe.

• In-market advertisers could use this technique to evaluate the positive and negative effects various advertising executions would have on consumers' moment-to-moment evaluations. The media plan could, then, be adjusted to provide the most airplay to the adver­tising executions that perform best in-market.

Another interesting in-market appli­cation of this technique would be for advertisers to build a database that records what happens in the storyline introduction, premise, development, and conclusion along with the levels of affect consumers experience during each of these storyline elements.

Companies that do this with all their advertising executions would, then, be able to explore what characters, settings, storyline premises, jokes, surprises, and conclusions work the best (and worst) for their target consumers and continue to use (or not use) executional elements in the future that have been shown to work well in the past.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

The current study was conducted on the Internet, and ratings were not obtained in the context of television programming or household distractions that typically accompany advertising viewership. This

limitation, however, did not hinder the study's primary objectives:

• to illustrate an application of PCA to moment-to-moment data;

• to demonstrate a consistent principal- component structure across advertise­ments; and

• to link the resulting principal compo­nents with retrospective advertisement and brand evaluations.

One interesting extension of this research would be to collect additional information about respondents prior to their exposure to the advertisement. For example, prior brand attitude, prior brand relationship, level of involvement with the product cat­egory, and perceptions of similarity in the product category all likely would influence consumers' moment-to-moment responses to advertisements.

With such measures, researchers and practitioners can relate moment-to- moment patterns of response to the ability of an advertisement to change attitudes. Moreover, they can capture psychographic and experiential factors that likely will have a greater impact on advertisement judgments than the demographic variables collected for this study.

Future research should examine how individual-difference variables (such as prior attitude and involvement) influ­ence moment-to-moment affect traces and how these influences ultimately are trans­lated into brand attitudes and purchase intentions. <QI)

Jennifer L. B urton is an assistant professor o f m arketing

a t High Point University in High Point, North Carolina. Her

research specialty areas are m arketing communications,

a ttitu d e and persuasion, and jud g m e n t and decision

m aking. Prior to ente ring academ ia, Burton worked fo r

6 years in p roduct and m arketing m anagem ent in the

telecommunication and industrial equipment industries for

com panies such as MCI and Harris Group Incorporated.

6 0 JOUIMRL Of HDUERTISII1G RESEARCH March 2015

HOW DO CONSUMERS RESPOND TO STORYLINES IN TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENTS?

Leigh M cA lister is the Ed and Molly Smith Chair in

Business Administration at the McCombs School

o f Business at the University o f Texas in Austin. Her

research focuses on determinants of firm value and

implications o f Web communications. McAlister has won

several teaching and research awards, and her work has

been published in the Journal o f Consumer Research,

Journal o f Marketing, Journal o f Marketing Research,

Marketing Science, Journal o f Retailing and many other

academic journals.

W ayne D. H oyer is chairman of the marketing department

a t the McCombs School o f Business at the University of

Texas in Austin. His research interests include consumer

information processing and decision making, cause-

related marketing, branding (including brand personality

and brand sabotage), and advertising information

processing (including miscomprehension and humor).

He has published more than 100 articles in academic

marketing journals, including the Journal o f Consumer

Research, Journal o f Marketing Research, Journal

o f Marketing, Journal o f the Academy o f Marketing

Science, and Journal o f Retailing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors thank Jonathan Novick of Research

and Opinions, Inc., and Jan Gollins of The Delta

Modeling Group for providing the data for this analysis.

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