Like the ad. Like the brand? Chicken, or egg?

Charles Foster and Erik du Plessis

Neurological science shows that rational and emotional processing (e.g. of advertising messages) are not alternatives or in a sequential hierarchy of effects, but simultaneous, integrated and reflexive: rational processing takes place in an emotional context.

Like the Ad. Like the Brand? Chicken, or Egg?

Erik du PlessisandCharles Foster

In 1990 (1) Alexander Biel published a paper entitled: Love the ad. Buy the product? This reported the results of the Advertising Research Foundations (ARF) Copy Research Validity Project which showed ad liking to be the most predictive measure of advertising effectiveness, as detailed by Haley and Baldinger in the Journal of Advertising Research (JAR) (2).

Subsequently there have been many papers by research companies that felt their methodology for testing advertising is threatened by this loving of advertising proposition, arguing...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands