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The Effects of Program Involvement and Ease of Message Counterarguing on Advertising Persuasiveness
JOURNAL OF CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY, 1(3), 225-238 Copyright @ 1992, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
The Effects of Program Involvement and Ease of Message Counterarguing on Advertising Persuasiveness Punam Anand Columbia University Brian Sternthal Northwestern University
We investigated the effect of program involvement on the persuasive impact of an advertising message placed within the program. We found that an increase in program involvement enhanced the persuasive impact of an easy-to-counterargue advertising message and reduced the impact of a diflicult-to-counterargue advertising message. These findings suggest that program environments generally have similar effects on the persuasiveness of contiguously presented advertising messages, as have been observed for distractors on concurrent message presentations. The implications of these findings for advertising theory and practice are discussed.
Advertising practitioners share the belief that the program environment and editorial environment play important roles in determining the impact of advertising. Results of a survey conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation indicated that understanding the impact of editorial environments was the top research priority among the nearly 200 advertisers, agencies and research supplier personnel queried (see Chook, 1985). Support for the belief that advertising effectiveness is moderated by the program environment has been reported in the marketing literature (cf. Kennedy, 1971; Wright, 1974, 1981; Yuspeh, 1979). For example, Kennedy (1971) found that advertising presented in the context of a situation comedy induced greater recall than when the same messages were shown in the context of a suspense thriller. Yuspeh (1979) observed that the recall of advertising was Requests for reprints should be sent to Punam Anand, Columbia University, 517 Uris Hall, Graduate School of Business, New York, NY 10027.
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affected by the television programs in which they were placed and that this outcome occurred for different types of programs. These findings establish the program environment as a factor that can affect the audience's responses to advertising placed within the program. But the findings are not informative about when or why programs produce particular advertising effects. Some insight about how programs affect advertising messages is offered in a study conducted by Soldow and Principe (1981). Their procedure involved presenting television commercials in one of three contexts: no program, a program that the audience perceived to prompt low involvement, and a program that was perceived to prompt high involvement. They found that subjects had greater recall of the commercials' contents and more favorable evaluations of the advertised products when the program environment was absent or prompted little involvement than when the program environment prompted high involvement. A similar inverse relationship between program involvement and advertising recall has been observed by other investigators (Bryant & Comisky, 1978; Thorson, Reeves, & Schleuder, 1985). These observations raise the possibility that program material distracts people from processing an advertising message. Viewed from this perspective, Soldow and Principe's (1981) finding can be explained by hypothesizing that increasing program involvement prompted greater thought about the program during the presentation of the subsequent advertising message. This resulted in diminished message processing, which was manifested by a reduction in its recall and persuasiveness. Wright (1981) reached a similar conclusion in his interpretation of a study by Krugman (1967). The results of this study indicated that an audience generated fewer thoughts about ads when they were embedded in a program of celebrity interviews than when the program contained less interesting sociopolitical material. As Wright noted: the celebrity material stirred greater interest.., thereby causing more distraction. The lower thought production to ads sandwiched between the celebrity interviews could have been caused by subjects continuing to respond to the lead-in celebrity interview even though the ad had begun. (p. 271) These observations seem to offer practitioners a choice among two unattractive alternatives. On the one hand, if advertising is placed in interesting and involving programs, the program is likely to distract the audience from processing the advertising message. On the other hand, if less distracting programs are chosen, their uninteresting and uninvolving character is likely to attract a small audience for the advertising message. Perhaps a more promising way to extend current knowledge about program effects is to examine Wright's (1981) assertion that a program acts as a distractor. This view suggests the possibility that programs may affect accompanying
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(contiguously presented) ads in the same manner as has been found for concurrent distractors in the psychology literature. Like other distractors, programs may be expected to reduce the processing of an accompanying ad in some circumstances, but enhance ad processing in other situations (see Petty & Brock, 1981; Petty, Wells, & Brock, 1976). The Petty et al. studies indicate that message characteristics may determine whether a distractor enhances or undermines message processing, and evidence that this latter outcome occurs would be of particular interest to advertisers in selecting message executions. In this article, we examine whether the circumstances in which a distractor has been shown to enhance and limit the persuasive effect of a concurrent message produces similar effects when a program is presented prior to an advertising message. As a starting point, we review literature relevant to the effects of distraction on concurrently presented messages. This analysis suggests circumstances in which distractors enhance and limit the persuasive impact of accompanying messages. These circumstances are represented in our research to assess whether the program material affects contiguously presented advertising messages in the same manner as has been found for concurrent distractors.
DISTRACTION EFFECTS The persuasive effects of messages under varying conditions of concurrent distraction have been the focus of numerous investigations (see reviews by Baron, Baron, & Miller, 1973; Petty & Brock, 1981). Characteristic of this research, subjects are presented with a message while they are performing an additional task that serves as a distractor. Subjects then evaluate the object advocated in the message. These studies indicate that distraction may have two quite different effects. In some studies it has been shown to reduce the impact of the message by decreasing reception of the message information (e.g., Haaland & Venkatesan, 1968), whereas in other studies distraction increases message agreement by reducing the production of counterarguments (e.g., Festinger & Maccoby, 1964; Osterhouse & Brock, 1970). One factor that appears to moderate these disparate effects of distraction is the ease with which a message can be counterargued. A study by Petty et al., (1976) illustrates the interactive effects of distraction and the extent of message counterarguability on persuasion. Subjects were exposed to a communication that presented either weak and thus easy-to-counterargue assertions or strong and therefore ditiicult-to-counterargue assertions. While listening to the message, subjects in the distraction condition also monitored letters appearing on a large screen. This latter task was not performed by subjects in the control condition. The findings indicated that for the easy-to-counterargue message, distraction increased agreement with the message, whereas the oppo-
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site outcome was observed in response to the difficult-to-counterargue message. The prevailing explanation for such concurrent distraction effects is in terms of the thought disruption hypothesis (Petty & Brock, 1981). According to this view, the extent of message agreement is mediated by the generation of arguments that support the communication advocacy and by eounterarguments to the message position. Agreement is enhanced when there is an increase in the production of support arguments and a reduction in the production of counterarguments. Distraction is thought to influence the favorableness of message evaluations by disrupting the activation of support arguments and counterarguments. Which type of thought is likely to be disrupted depends on how dominant it is in the absence of distraction. More specifically, when a message prompts the generation of counterarguments (i.e., easy-to-counterargue message), the introduction of a concurrent distraction causes a reduction in counterargumentation, and thus agreement with the message is enhanced. In contrast, when a message primarily generates support arguments (i.e., difficult-to-eounterargue message), distraction has been found to reduce the incidence of these arguments and thereby cause agreement to decline (Petty et al., 1976). In this study, we examined whether the thought disruption hypothesis, which has been shown to explain the effects of distractors that are concurrent with a message presentation, also offers a plausible account for the effect of a program distractor that is presented contiguously with an advertising message. For this purpose, subjects were presented with advertising in the context of a program. Two independent variables were manipulated: advertising message counterarguability and the level of program involvement. Subjects' thoughts and brand evaluations were measured. Evidence favoring the thought disruption would be obtained if people continued to think about the program during the presentation of the advertising message. More specifically, the expectations that when the message was easy to counterargue, increasing program involvement would prompt a decrease in counterargumentation and more favorable brand evaluations. By contrast, when the message was difficult to counterargue, we anticipated that increasing program involvement would reduce the extent of support argumentation and the favorableness of brand evaluations. Support for these predictions would be of both theoretical and practical interest. From a theoretical perspective, confirming evidence would broaden the domain of phenomena explained by the thought disruption hypothesis to include the effects of both concurrent and contiguous distractors. From an applied perspective, such outcomes would show that increasing program involvement does not necessarily reduce the impact of accompanying advertising messages, as the program distraction literature suggests, and would identify situations in which increasing program involvement may actually enhance the impact of an accompanying advertising appeal.
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METHOD Advertising Message To test the thought disruption hypothesis, a suitable way to manipulate the counterarguability of the advertising message was needed. The most obvious candidate for this purpose was a message strength manipulation of the sort used by Petty et al. (1976) in their study of concurrent distraction. Several observations, however, led us not to employ this alternative. From an applied perspective, it seemed unlikely that practitioners could be prompted to employ weak advertising messages purposely even if there is as a theoretical expectation that such an appeal would enhance message impact. And from a methodological perspective, Areni and Lutz's (1988) research questions whether message strength manipulations merely involve variations in valence. To circumvent these issues, another means of varying advertising counterarguability was sought. Regan and Cheng's (1973) research suggests that ease of message processing affects counterargumentation in much the same way as the message strength variable. That is, easy-to-process messages appear to prompt greater counterargumentation than difficult-to-process messages. Furthermore, Galizio and Hendrick's (1972) research suggests that a message may be easier to process when it is read than when the same communication is sung to music. We applied these observations to our research by developing two auditory advertising messages. These appeals were presented to subjects via a tape recorder. One message, which was read dramatically, was expected to be easy to counterargue. The other message, which contained the same verbal content as the read appeal but was sung to a piano accompaniment, was expected to be more difficult to counterargue. Furthermore, to enhance the likelihood that the sung message was relatively difficult to counterargue, a tempo of 100 beats per minute was used. Holbrook (1981) suggested that such a fast tempo may make the communication relatively difficult to counterargue. Both the read and sung messages advocated the use of Mountain Dew TM soft drink. The selection of Mountain Dew TM was partly based on the notion that as a member of the soft drink category it would be of interest to the subject population tested. Also, Mountain Dew TM was selected because it is a moderately used brand, thus making it likely that message recipients would have both supporting arguments and counterarguments to an appeal promoting its use. The read and sung versions of the communication for the Mountain Dew TM advertised the product as one that is thirst quenching, smooth, of good quality, and appropriate for different occasions. These arguments were selected on the basis of research conducted by the soft drink's producer. The same amount of time was required to present the two messages, and they were recorded by professional talent.
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A pretest was conducted to assess whether our messages differed in their counterarguability. Twenty-seven subjects, who did not participate in the main experiment but were drawn from the same subject pool, heard the read or sung advertising message three times. These messages were not presented in the context of a program to facilitate an assessment of the ease of counterarguability manipulation unencumbered by other factors. We found that more counterarguments were evoked in response to the read message (M = 2.05, SD = 1.20) than the sung message (M = .72, SD = 1.04), F(1, 25) = 8.26, p < .001, thus offering evidence congenial with the view that the manipulation prompted variation in advertising counterarguability.'
Program Distraction In designing the program distractor manipulation, we anticipated that there would be a narrow range in which a program may distract people from processing a contiguous message. If the program was not involving and interesting, it will not disrupt people from processing the advertising message. If the program was involving and interesting, subjects may not process the advertising at all. Thus a program had to be developed that would not induce too much or too little involvement and interest. The literature provides some guidelines for varying the level of program involvement. There is impressive evidence emerging in studies of text processing (e.g., Britton & Tesser, 1982), stereotyping (Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987), and advertising messages (Thorson et al., 1985) to suggest that stimulus complexity affects involvement in processing and thus the distractive power of the stimulus. More specifically, the finding is that, in relation to complex materials, "simple materials are more meaningful and engage cognitive capacity more" (Thorson et al., 1985, p. 432). These observations imply that a simple program may be more involving and interesting and thus serve as a more powerful distractor than a more complex program. A pilot study involving 15 subjects was conducted to calibrate the program distraction variable. A program in the form of songs was presented. The songs selected were recent rock-and-roll releases (2 weeks prior to the experiment) by the Jones Sisters. Rock-and-roU music was chosen because this type of ~In addition to this pretest, a study was conducted to assess whether the type of message presented was likely to represent some construct other than ease of counterarguability. Subjects rated the read and sung versions of the message on mood items (e.g., "I am in a good mood"), message-induced feelings (e.g., insulted), and attitude toward the message execution (e.g., unpleasant or pleasant). The data indicate that the two versions of the message did not induce different moods, message feelings, or attitudes toward the message execution. The data also suggest that one exposure to the message may not have provided sufficient opportunity to process the messages content. Thus in the pretest and the main study, three exposures to the read or sung message were used.
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intervention has been used successfully in previous research (Baron et al., 1973; Regan & Cheng, 1973) and because the popularity of the music style may make it more likely that subjects will think about the songs during presentation of the advertising message. In the high-involvement program condition, the same song was presented three times, whereas in the low-involvement program condition, the song presented in the high-involvement condition plus two other songs recorded by the same group composed the program. Each song segment was self-contained (i.e., the refrain followed by one verse and the refrain) and required about the same amount of time to present. After the exposure phase, subjects listed their thoughts and rated the segments on two 7-point scales ranging from not involving (1) to involving (7) and boring (1) to interesting (7). We expected that the presentation of three new songs would be sufficiently complex that they would not involve subjects as fully as the presentation of the same song three times. To assess this possibility, responses on the involvement and interest measures were combined to form a scale because they were highly consistent. Scores on this scale ranged from 1 to 7. We found that subjects who heard the same song segment repeated three times rated the song as more involving and interesting (M = 4.68) than did subject who had heard that song along with two different songs (M = 3.02), F(1, 14) = 7.69, p < .001. This finding suggested that the same program composed of the same song was more likely to be distracting than the program that included different songs. Subjects' responses on the thoughts measure were consistent with those found on the scaled measures. The thoughts generated by subjects who had heard the same song three times suggested that they rehearsed the tune and words. Thus their thoughts included information presented in the song (e.g., "you let me know I'm alive"). By contrast, subjects who heard three different songs generated thoughts that were more superficial and focused on the execution style (e.g., "good beat to dance to"). These outcomes again suggest that the same song prompted greater distraction than different songs.
Procedure Thirty-one undergraduates were recruited to participate in an evaluation of headphones as a device for communicating information. Subjects were run in small groups, with all treatments represented in each group. They were informed that one of the considerations was the ease with which they could understand information provided via the headphones. This cover story was used to provide subjects with a logic for the presentation of the message and program distraction. To justify repeated exposures, subjects were informed they would hear some material more than once because previous studies had shown that practice could affect the evaluation of headphones as communication devices.
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Following the cover story, the programs and ads were transmitted via headphones. Depending on the treatment to which subjects were assigned, either the read or sung advertising message was presented in the context of a high- or low-involvement program. Subjects then listed the thoughts that had occurred to them during the presentation of the advertising on a separate sheet of paper provided for this purpose. The thoughts generated by subjects were classified into five categories by two independent judges, who were in agreement on 95% of their classifications. The judges resolved discrepancies in a meeting. One category was composed of thoughts pertaining to the song segments ("these songs have a good beat"). We refer to these as program thoughts. Another category, which was labeled support arguments, represented positive thoughts congenial with the message position (e.g., "I'm thirsty for a Mountain Dew"). A third category was composed of counterarguments, that is, some form of refutation of the message advocacy (e.g., "it sounds too sweet"). A fourth category of thoughts was related to the message execution and included evaluations of the source and presentation style (e.g., "the announcer has a deep voice"). And finally, unrelated thoughts were ones that were irrelevant to the stimulus or the experiment (e.g., "I have to finish my homework"). Subjects then evaluated the brand on four 4-point scales ranging from bad (l) to good (4), unpleasant (1) to pleasant (4), dislike (1) to like (4), and unenjoyable (I) to enjoyable (4). They also provided information on their experience with the product category and the brand as well as their familiarity with the program context.
RESULTS Manipulation Checks
Program involvement. We assessed the extent to which the program was involving and thus distracted people from processing the advertising message. This involved examining the number of program thoughts subjects claimed to have generated during the advertising presentation. The effects of the experimental conditions on program thoughts are shown in Table 1. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that subjects reported having generated more thoughts in the high-involvement condition wherein the same program was repeated (M = 2.56) than in the low-involvement condition wherein programs were different (M = 1.36), F(1, 27) = 10.54, p < .004. These results are consistent with the pretest finding that presenting the same program multiple times was more involving and therefore served as a greater distraction than different programs. We also found that subjects generated
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TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations for Program Thoughts, Support Arguments, Counterarguments, Message Execution, Unrelated Thoughts and Brand Evaluations Categorized by Treatments Read Ad Low Program Involvement a
Program thoughts Support arguments Counterarguments Message execution Unrelated thoughts Brand evaluations
Sung Ad
High Program Involvement b
Low Program Involvement c
High Program Involvement d
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
1.93 0.00 2.71 2.13 .87 3.40
1.26 0.00 .76 1.46 .99 1.25
2.91 1.88 1.38 2.00 .29 4.48
1.31 2.36 .92 1.67 .76 1.36
.78 1.37 .78 1.86 1.00 3.70
1.14 1.58 .44 .90 1.00 1.27
2.22 .57 2.00 1.67 .56 2.48
1.33 .53 .58 1.00 .88 0.47
Not~ Larger numbers indicate a greater number of thoughts or more favorable brand evaluations. an : 7. bn = 8. Cn = 9. dn = 7.
more program thoughts in the read condition (M ---- 2.42) than the sung condition (M = 1.50), F(1, 27) = 7.82, p < .009. This finding is consistent with the premise that the read message was easier to counterargue than the sung appeal. The interaction between message counterarguability and program distraction on program thoughts was not significant (F < 1).
Message counterarguability. We employed the procedures used by Petty et al. (1976) to check the counterarguability manipulation. An examination of treatment effects of counterargumentation indicated that significantly more of these arguments were generated in the easy-to-counterargue read message condition (M = 2.05) than in the difficult-to-counterargue sung message condition (M = 1.39), F(1, 27) = 7.68, p < .01. There were no significant differences between the two messages on support arguments, message execution thoughts, and unrelated thoughts (Fs < 1; see Table 1 for means). Thus it appears that the read and sung messages provide a viable means of varying counterarguability.
Support and Counterargumentation The number of different types of thoughts classified by the independent variables are shown in Table 1. We found that the interaction between message counterarguability and program involvement was significant on both the support arguments, F(1, 27) = 5.94,p < .02, and the counterarguments measure,
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F(1, 27) = 26.40, p < .001. 2 To assess these outcomes more closely, contrasts were performed. This analysis showed that, as predicted, increasing program involvement reduced the number of counterarguments in the easy-to-counterargue read condition, F(1, 27) = 8.69, p < .007. Also as predicted, increasing program involvement resulted in a significant decrease in the number of support arguments generated in the difficult-to-counterargue condition, F(1, 27) = 4.16, p < .05. The thought disruption hypothesis is also supported in a correlation analysis relating program thoughts, support arguments, and counterarguments. This involved computing a Pearson's correlation coefficient, indicating the covariation in the number of different types of thoughts for each experimental condition (Table 2). This analysis offers support for the thought disruption hypothesis. In the easy-to-counterargue read condition, more program thoughts were related to fewer counterarguments as program involvement increased. Similarly, in the difficult-to-counterargue sung condition, more program thoughts were associated with fewer support arguments as program involvement increased.
Additional Thoughts Analysis Although our study, as well as prior distraction research, has focused on respondents' dominant thoughts, we also examined nondominant thoughts to enhance our understanding of how message recipients were reacting to the message information. The general finding is that the pattern of responses on nondominant thoughts was the opposite of that on dominant thoughts. Specifically, increasing program involvement increased support argumentation, F(1, 27) = 8.69, p < .007, in the read message condition and increased counterarguments, F ( I , 27) = 23.16, p < .001, in the sung condition. These results are assessed in greater detail in the Discussion section.
Brand Evaluations Means and standard deviations for brand evaluations categorized by the independent variables are shown in Table 1. Factor analysis of the brand evaluation items indicated that the four evaluative items loaded on a single factor. The four items were averaged to form an evaluation score. Cronbach's alpha showed that this scale was reliable (a = .98). An A N O V A revealed that message counterarguability and program involvement did not have main effects on brand evaluations (Fs < 1). However, the interaction between message counterarguability and program involvement rrhe main effectof programdistraction on support and counterargumentationis not significant as expected(for support arguments, F < 1; for counterargumentation, F[I, 27] = 1.06,p > .30).
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TABLE 2 Pearson's Correlations Between Program Thoughts, Support Arguments, and Counterarguments Categorized by Treatments Program Thoughts Read Ad Low Program Involvement
Support arguments Counterarguments
Sung Ad
High Program Involvement
Low Program Involvement
High Program Involvement
r
p
r
p
r
p
r
p
.00 .44
.00 .08
.57 -- .49
.03 .05
--.46 -- .44
.001 .06
--.94 -- .69
.07 .02
was significant, F(1, 27) = 8.10, p < .01. Both the planned contrasts outlined in the second hypothesis were supported. Specifically, in the easy-to-counterargue read condition, more favorable brand evaluations occurred when program involvement was high than when it was low, F(1, 27) ---- 3.18, p < .05, whereas in the difficult-to-counterargue sung condition, high program involvement induced less favorable brand evaluations than did a low level of involvement, F(1, 27) = 5.06, p < .02. These findings support the thought disruption hypothesis.
Other Measures An ANOVA also indicated that none of the background variables affected cognitive responses or brand evaluations. Experience with the product category, experience with the brand, and familiarity with the song segments prior to the experiment did not have significant effects on the thought measures or brand evaluations (Fs < 1).
DISCUSSION It is widely recognized that distracting people during a message presentation can have varied effects. When the message is easy to counterargue, increasing the extent to which people are distracted from processing it, at least to some level, reduces the likelihotxt of message counterargumentation, and the favorableness of brand evaluations is enhanced. By contrast, when the message is more difficult to counterargue, increasing a concurrent distraction reduces processing of the message content, and the persuasive impact of the communication declines. Our research extends this analysis by showing that the same outcomes
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found when message and distractor are presented concurrently also may be obtained when the distractor is in the form of a program that is presented contiguously with an advertising message. Specifically, we found that when the verbal content of the advertising had an easy-to-counterargue read appeal, prompting increased involvement and interest in processing program material served as a distractor that reduced counterargnmentation and enhanced the favorableness of brand evaluations. However, introducing the same increase in program involvement resulted in decreased support argumentation and reduced favorableness of brand evaluations when the advertising message had a difficult-to-counterargue sung appeal. Despite the overall value of the thought disruption hypothesis in interpreting our data, several findings are not adequately explained by this hypothesis. One question is: What thoughts do people rely on when distraction disrupts the generation of their dominant thoughts? What thoughts do people rely on to make evaluations when the introduction of distraction reduces their counterargumentation to an easy-to-process appeal or their support argumentation to a difficult-to-process communication? Our data suggest that in these circumstances people may base their evaluations on whatever thoughts are most readily accessible. In the easy-to-counterargue read message condition, people appeared to rely on message-based support arguments perhaps because these arguments were readily accessible given the recent processing of the message. Along these lines, Petty et al. ( 1976) found that increasing distraction during the presentation of an easy-to-counterargue message prompted an increase in support arguments, though this latter effect did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. A similar analysis can be applied when distractors reduce the generation of support arguments, as in the difficult-to-counterarguesung message condition. The thought disruption hypothesis suggests that distraction should disrupt message processing in the difficult-to-counterargue condition. Thus, when asked to make a subsequent evaluation, message-related support arguments will not be readily accessible to people in these circumstances. Perhaps the paucity of message arguments induced people to rely on other accessible information to form their evaluations. As these thoughts were likely to be less favorable than message-based thoughts, agreement with the advertising declined. Further research is needed to explore this issue. From a practical perspective, our research and data suggest that the program environment is an important determinant of the persuasiveness of contiguously presented advertising messages. More specifically, our research implies that when advertising is easy to counterargne, it is appropriate to place it in a program environment that the audience finds involving and interesting and thus likely to disrupt counterargumentation to the message. Similarly, our findings imply that a program that prompts relatively limited involvement and interest is appropriate if the advertising was difficult to counterargue. Although these strategies appear to be obvious deductions from our re-
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search, caution is warranted in their application. Consider, for example, the choice of a program environment for a difficult-to-counterargue advertising message. It has been found that on repeated exposures such messages can prompt counterargumentation (Cacioppo & Petty, 1979). If this were to occur, the choice of a low-distraction program environment for the diflicult-tocounterargue message is appropriate at the outset of a campaign, but will lose its appropriateness over time. The point of this analysis is that program environment is but one of the means available for influencing the attention people devote to processing an advertising message, and repeated exposures to a message may be an equally viable way to increase message processing. More research is needed to identify other variables that may be used strategically to influence the extent of message processing. Research may also be directed at exploring the robustness of the involvement construct to explain the effects of programs on accompanying advertising. Although our research and that reported in the literature suggest that the impact of musical, comedy, and drama formats can be explained in terms of involvement (see Kennedy, 1971), it remains to be determined whether other formats can be interpreted in involvement terms. The impact of news and sports programming on contiguously presented commercials is a particularly appropriate issue for study because this format is emerging as important environments for advertising. Undoubtedly, such studies will refine our understanding of program environment effects. Our theorizing and data are perhaps best viewed as a starting point from which such work may proceed. Nevertheless, it is apparent that program environments can have similar effects on message persuasiveness to those observed when a distractor and message are presented concurrently, and that these effects can be explained by a common hypothesis. Our research also suggests that the selection of program environments for advertising should not only be based exclusively on audience size and cost considerations but also on people's involvement with the program.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Punam Anand gratefully acknowledges the support of the Columbia Business School Research Fund.
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The Effects of Program Involvement and Ease of Message Counterarguing on Advertising Persuasiveness Punam Anand Columbia University Brian Sternthal Northwestern University
We investigated the effect of program involvement on the persuasive impact of an advertising message placed within the program. We found that an increase in program involvement enhanced the persuasive impact of an easy-to-counterargue advertising message and reduced the impact of a diflicult-to-counterargue advertising message. These findings suggest that program environments generally have similar effects on the persuasiveness of contiguously presented advertising messages, as have been observed for distractors on concurrent message presentations. The implications of these findings for advertising theory and practice are discussed.
Advertising practitioners share the belief that the program environment and editorial environment play important roles in determining the impact of advertising. Results of a survey conducted by the Advertising Research Foundation indicated that understanding the impact of editorial environments was the top research priority among the nearly 200 advertisers, agencies and research supplier personnel queried (see Chook, 1985). Support for the belief that advertising effectiveness is moderated by the program environment has been reported in the marketing literature (cf. Kennedy, 1971; Wright, 1974, 1981; Yuspeh, 1979). For example, Kennedy (1971) found that advertising presented in the context of a situation comedy induced greater recall than when the same messages were shown in the context of a suspense thriller. Yuspeh (1979) observed that the recall of advertising was Requests for reprints should be sent to Punam Anand, Columbia University, 517 Uris Hall, Graduate School of Business, New York, NY 10027.
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affected by the television programs in which they were placed and that this outcome occurred for different types of programs. These findings establish the program environment as a factor that can affect the audience's responses to advertising placed within the program. But the findings are not informative about when or why programs produce particular advertising effects. Some insight about how programs affect advertising messages is offered in a study conducted by Soldow and Principe (1981). Their procedure involved presenting television commercials in one of three contexts: no program, a program that the audience perceived to prompt low involvement, and a program that was perceived to prompt high involvement. They found that subjects had greater recall of the commercials' contents and more favorable evaluations of the advertised products when the program environment was absent or prompted little involvement than when the program environment prompted high involvement. A similar inverse relationship between program involvement and advertising recall has been observed by other investigators (Bryant & Comisky, 1978; Thorson, Reeves, & Schleuder, 1985). These observations raise the possibility that program material distracts people from processing an advertising message. Viewed from this perspective, Soldow and Principe's (1981) finding can be explained by hypothesizing that increasing program involvement prompted greater thought about the program during the presentation of the subsequent advertising message. This resulted in diminished message processing, which was manifested by a reduction in its recall and persuasiveness. Wright (1981) reached a similar conclusion in his interpretation of a study by Krugman (1967). The results of this study indicated that an audience generated fewer thoughts about ads when they were embedded in a program of celebrity interviews than when the program contained less interesting sociopolitical material. As Wright noted: the celebrity material stirred greater interest.., thereby causing more distraction. The lower thought production to ads sandwiched between the celebrity interviews could have been caused by subjects continuing to respond to the lead-in celebrity interview even though the ad had begun. (p. 271) These observations seem to offer practitioners a choice among two unattractive alternatives. On the one hand, if advertising is placed in interesting and involving programs, the program is likely to distract the audience from processing the advertising message. On the other hand, if less distracting programs are chosen, their uninteresting and uninvolving character is likely to attract a small audience for the advertising message. Perhaps a more promising way to extend current knowledge about program effects is to examine Wright's (1981) assertion that a program acts as a distractor. This view suggests the possibility that programs may affect accompanying
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(contiguously presented) ads in the same manner as has been found for concurrent distractors in the psychology literature. Like other distractors, programs may be expected to reduce the processing of an accompanying ad in some circumstances, but enhance ad processing in other situations (see Petty & Brock, 1981; Petty, Wells, & Brock, 1976). The Petty et al. studies indicate that message characteristics may determine whether a distractor enhances or undermines message processing, and evidence that this latter outcome occurs would be of particular interest to advertisers in selecting message executions. In this article, we examine whether the circumstances in which a distractor has been shown to enhance and limit the persuasive effect of a concurrent message produces similar effects when a program is presented prior to an advertising message. As a starting point, we review literature relevant to the effects of distraction on concurrently presented messages. This analysis suggests circumstances in which distractors enhance and limit the persuasive impact of accompanying messages. These circumstances are represented in our research to assess whether the program material affects contiguously presented advertising messages in the same manner as has been found for concurrent distractors.
DISTRACTION EFFECTS The persuasive effects of messages under varying conditions of concurrent distraction have been the focus of numerous investigations (see reviews by Baron, Baron, & Miller, 1973; Petty & Brock, 1981). Characteristic of this research, subjects are presented with a message while they are performing an additional task that serves as a distractor. Subjects then evaluate the object advocated in the message. These studies indicate that distraction may have two quite different effects. In some studies it has been shown to reduce the impact of the message by decreasing reception of the message information (e.g., Haaland & Venkatesan, 1968), whereas in other studies distraction increases message agreement by reducing the production of counterarguments (e.g., Festinger & Maccoby, 1964; Osterhouse & Brock, 1970). One factor that appears to moderate these disparate effects of distraction is the ease with which a message can be counterargued. A study by Petty et al., (1976) illustrates the interactive effects of distraction and the extent of message counterarguability on persuasion. Subjects were exposed to a communication that presented either weak and thus easy-to-counterargue assertions or strong and therefore ditiicult-to-counterargue assertions. While listening to the message, subjects in the distraction condition also monitored letters appearing on a large screen. This latter task was not performed by subjects in the control condition. The findings indicated that for the easy-to-counterargue message, distraction increased agreement with the message, whereas the oppo-
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site outcome was observed in response to the difficult-to-counterargue message. The prevailing explanation for such concurrent distraction effects is in terms of the thought disruption hypothesis (Petty & Brock, 1981). According to this view, the extent of message agreement is mediated by the generation of arguments that support the communication advocacy and by eounterarguments to the message position. Agreement is enhanced when there is an increase in the production of support arguments and a reduction in the production of counterarguments. Distraction is thought to influence the favorableness of message evaluations by disrupting the activation of support arguments and counterarguments. Which type of thought is likely to be disrupted depends on how dominant it is in the absence of distraction. More specifically, when a message prompts the generation of counterarguments (i.e., easy-to-counterargue message), the introduction of a concurrent distraction causes a reduction in counterargumentation, and thus agreement with the message is enhanced. In contrast, when a message primarily generates support arguments (i.e., difficult-to-eounterargue message), distraction has been found to reduce the incidence of these arguments and thereby cause agreement to decline (Petty et al., 1976). In this study, we examined whether the thought disruption hypothesis, which has been shown to explain the effects of distractors that are concurrent with a message presentation, also offers a plausible account for the effect of a program distractor that is presented contiguously with an advertising message. For this purpose, subjects were presented with advertising in the context of a program. Two independent variables were manipulated: advertising message counterarguability and the level of program involvement. Subjects' thoughts and brand evaluations were measured. Evidence favoring the thought disruption would be obtained if people continued to think about the program during the presentation of the advertising message. More specifically, the expectations that when the message was easy to counterargue, increasing program involvement would prompt a decrease in counterargumentation and more favorable brand evaluations. By contrast, when the message was difficult to counterargue, we anticipated that increasing program involvement would reduce the extent of support argumentation and the favorableness of brand evaluations. Support for these predictions would be of both theoretical and practical interest. From a theoretical perspective, confirming evidence would broaden the domain of phenomena explained by the thought disruption hypothesis to include the effects of both concurrent and contiguous distractors. From an applied perspective, such outcomes would show that increasing program involvement does not necessarily reduce the impact of accompanying advertising messages, as the program distraction literature suggests, and would identify situations in which increasing program involvement may actually enhance the impact of an accompanying advertising appeal.
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METHOD Advertising Message To test the thought disruption hypothesis, a suitable way to manipulate the counterarguability of the advertising message was needed. The most obvious candidate for this purpose was a message strength manipulation of the sort used by Petty et al. (1976) in their study of concurrent distraction. Several observations, however, led us not to employ this alternative. From an applied perspective, it seemed unlikely that practitioners could be prompted to employ weak advertising messages purposely even if there is as a theoretical expectation that such an appeal would enhance message impact. And from a methodological perspective, Areni and Lutz's (1988) research questions whether message strength manipulations merely involve variations in valence. To circumvent these issues, another means of varying advertising counterarguability was sought. Regan and Cheng's (1973) research suggests that ease of message processing affects counterargumentation in much the same way as the message strength variable. That is, easy-to-process messages appear to prompt greater counterargumentation than difficult-to-process messages. Furthermore, Galizio and Hendrick's (1972) research suggests that a message may be easier to process when it is read than when the same communication is sung to music. We applied these observations to our research by developing two auditory advertising messages. These appeals were presented to subjects via a tape recorder. One message, which was read dramatically, was expected to be easy to counterargue. The other message, which contained the same verbal content as the read appeal but was sung to a piano accompaniment, was expected to be more difficult to counterargue. Furthermore, to enhance the likelihood that the sung message was relatively difficult to counterargue, a tempo of 100 beats per minute was used. Holbrook (1981) suggested that such a fast tempo may make the communication relatively difficult to counterargue. Both the read and sung messages advocated the use of Mountain Dew TM soft drink. The selection of Mountain Dew TM was partly based on the notion that as a member of the soft drink category it would be of interest to the subject population tested. Also, Mountain Dew TM was selected because it is a moderately used brand, thus making it likely that message recipients would have both supporting arguments and counterarguments to an appeal promoting its use. The read and sung versions of the communication for the Mountain Dew TM advertised the product as one that is thirst quenching, smooth, of good quality, and appropriate for different occasions. These arguments were selected on the basis of research conducted by the soft drink's producer. The same amount of time was required to present the two messages, and they were recorded by professional talent.
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A pretest was conducted to assess whether our messages differed in their counterarguability. Twenty-seven subjects, who did not participate in the main experiment but were drawn from the same subject pool, heard the read or sung advertising message three times. These messages were not presented in the context of a program to facilitate an assessment of the ease of counterarguability manipulation unencumbered by other factors. We found that more counterarguments were evoked in response to the read message (M = 2.05, SD = 1.20) than the sung message (M = .72, SD = 1.04), F(1, 25) = 8.26, p < .001, thus offering evidence congenial with the view that the manipulation prompted variation in advertising counterarguability.'
Program Distraction In designing the program distractor manipulation, we anticipated that there would be a narrow range in which a program may distract people from processing a contiguous message. If the program was not involving and interesting, it will not disrupt people from processing the advertising message. If the program was involving and interesting, subjects may not process the advertising at all. Thus a program had to be developed that would not induce too much or too little involvement and interest. The literature provides some guidelines for varying the level of program involvement. There is impressive evidence emerging in studies of text processing (e.g., Britton & Tesser, 1982), stereotyping (Bodenhausen & Lichtenstein, 1987), and advertising messages (Thorson et al., 1985) to suggest that stimulus complexity affects involvement in processing and thus the distractive power of the stimulus. More specifically, the finding is that, in relation to complex materials, "simple materials are more meaningful and engage cognitive capacity more" (Thorson et al., 1985, p. 432). These observations imply that a simple program may be more involving and interesting and thus serve as a more powerful distractor than a more complex program. A pilot study involving 15 subjects was conducted to calibrate the program distraction variable. A program in the form of songs was presented. The songs selected were recent rock-and-roll releases (2 weeks prior to the experiment) by the Jones Sisters. Rock-and-roU music was chosen because this type of ~In addition to this pretest, a study was conducted to assess whether the type of message presented was likely to represent some construct other than ease of counterarguability. Subjects rated the read and sung versions of the message on mood items (e.g., "I am in a good mood"), message-induced feelings (e.g., insulted), and attitude toward the message execution (e.g., unpleasant or pleasant). The data indicate that the two versions of the message did not induce different moods, message feelings, or attitudes toward the message execution. The data also suggest that one exposure to the message may not have provided sufficient opportunity to process the messages content. Thus in the pretest and the main study, three exposures to the read or sung message were used.
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intervention has been used successfully in previous research (Baron et al., 1973; Regan & Cheng, 1973) and because the popularity of the music style may make it more likely that subjects will think about the songs during presentation of the advertising message. In the high-involvement program condition, the same song was presented three times, whereas in the low-involvement program condition, the song presented in the high-involvement condition plus two other songs recorded by the same group composed the program. Each song segment was self-contained (i.e., the refrain followed by one verse and the refrain) and required about the same amount of time to present. After the exposure phase, subjects listed their thoughts and rated the segments on two 7-point scales ranging from not involving (1) to involving (7) and boring (1) to interesting (7). We expected that the presentation of three new songs would be sufficiently complex that they would not involve subjects as fully as the presentation of the same song three times. To assess this possibility, responses on the involvement and interest measures were combined to form a scale because they were highly consistent. Scores on this scale ranged from 1 to 7. We found that subjects who heard the same song segment repeated three times rated the song as more involving and interesting (M = 4.68) than did subject who had heard that song along with two different songs (M = 3.02), F(1, 14) = 7.69, p < .001. This finding suggested that the same program composed of the same song was more likely to be distracting than the program that included different songs. Subjects' responses on the thoughts measure were consistent with those found on the scaled measures. The thoughts generated by subjects who had heard the same song three times suggested that they rehearsed the tune and words. Thus their thoughts included information presented in the song (e.g., "you let me know I'm alive"). By contrast, subjects who heard three different songs generated thoughts that were more superficial and focused on the execution style (e.g., "good beat to dance to"). These outcomes again suggest that the same song prompted greater distraction than different songs.
Procedure Thirty-one undergraduates were recruited to participate in an evaluation of headphones as a device for communicating information. Subjects were run in small groups, with all treatments represented in each group. They were informed that one of the considerations was the ease with which they could understand information provided via the headphones. This cover story was used to provide subjects with a logic for the presentation of the message and program distraction. To justify repeated exposures, subjects were informed they would hear some material more than once because previous studies had shown that practice could affect the evaluation of headphones as communication devices.
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Following the cover story, the programs and ads were transmitted via headphones. Depending on the treatment to which subjects were assigned, either the read or sung advertising message was presented in the context of a high- or low-involvement program. Subjects then listed the thoughts that had occurred to them during the presentation of the advertising on a separate sheet of paper provided for this purpose. The thoughts generated by subjects were classified into five categories by two independent judges, who were in agreement on 95% of their classifications. The judges resolved discrepancies in a meeting. One category was composed of thoughts pertaining to the song segments ("these songs have a good beat"). We refer to these as program thoughts. Another category, which was labeled support arguments, represented positive thoughts congenial with the message position (e.g., "I'm thirsty for a Mountain Dew"). A third category was composed of counterarguments, that is, some form of refutation of the message advocacy (e.g., "it sounds too sweet"). A fourth category of thoughts was related to the message execution and included evaluations of the source and presentation style (e.g., "the announcer has a deep voice"). And finally, unrelated thoughts were ones that were irrelevant to the stimulus or the experiment (e.g., "I have to finish my homework"). Subjects then evaluated the brand on four 4-point scales ranging from bad (l) to good (4), unpleasant (1) to pleasant (4), dislike (1) to like (4), and unenjoyable (I) to enjoyable (4). They also provided information on their experience with the product category and the brand as well as their familiarity with the program context.
RESULTS Manipulation Checks
Program involvement. We assessed the extent to which the program was involving and thus distracted people from processing the advertising message. This involved examining the number of program thoughts subjects claimed to have generated during the advertising presentation. The effects of the experimental conditions on program thoughts are shown in Table 1. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated that subjects reported having generated more thoughts in the high-involvement condition wherein the same program was repeated (M = 2.56) than in the low-involvement condition wherein programs were different (M = 1.36), F(1, 27) = 10.54, p < .004. These results are consistent with the pretest finding that presenting the same program multiple times was more involving and therefore served as a greater distraction than different programs. We also found that subjects generated
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TABLE 1 Means and Standard Deviations for Program Thoughts, Support Arguments, Counterarguments, Message Execution, Unrelated Thoughts and Brand Evaluations Categorized by Treatments Read Ad Low Program Involvement a
Program thoughts Support arguments Counterarguments Message execution Unrelated thoughts Brand evaluations
Sung Ad
High Program Involvement b
Low Program Involvement c
High Program Involvement d
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
1.93 0.00 2.71 2.13 .87 3.40
1.26 0.00 .76 1.46 .99 1.25
2.91 1.88 1.38 2.00 .29 4.48
1.31 2.36 .92 1.67 .76 1.36
.78 1.37 .78 1.86 1.00 3.70
1.14 1.58 .44 .90 1.00 1.27
2.22 .57 2.00 1.67 .56 2.48
1.33 .53 .58 1.00 .88 0.47
Not~ Larger numbers indicate a greater number of thoughts or more favorable brand evaluations. an : 7. bn = 8. Cn = 9. dn = 7.
more program thoughts in the read condition (M ---- 2.42) than the sung condition (M = 1.50), F(1, 27) = 7.82, p < .009. This finding is consistent with the premise that the read message was easier to counterargue than the sung appeal. The interaction between message counterarguability and program distraction on program thoughts was not significant (F < 1).
Message counterarguability. We employed the procedures used by Petty et al. (1976) to check the counterarguability manipulation. An examination of treatment effects of counterargumentation indicated that significantly more of these arguments were generated in the easy-to-counterargue read message condition (M = 2.05) than in the difficult-to-counterargue sung message condition (M = 1.39), F(1, 27) = 7.68, p < .01. There were no significant differences between the two messages on support arguments, message execution thoughts, and unrelated thoughts (Fs < 1; see Table 1 for means). Thus it appears that the read and sung messages provide a viable means of varying counterarguability.
Support and Counterargumentation The number of different types of thoughts classified by the independent variables are shown in Table 1. We found that the interaction between message counterarguability and program involvement was significant on both the support arguments, F(1, 27) = 5.94,p < .02, and the counterarguments measure,
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F(1, 27) = 26.40, p < .001. 2 To assess these outcomes more closely, contrasts were performed. This analysis showed that, as predicted, increasing program involvement reduced the number of counterarguments in the easy-to-counterargue read condition, F(1, 27) = 8.69, p < .007. Also as predicted, increasing program involvement resulted in a significant decrease in the number of support arguments generated in the difficult-to-counterargue condition, F(1, 27) = 4.16, p < .05. The thought disruption hypothesis is also supported in a correlation analysis relating program thoughts, support arguments, and counterarguments. This involved computing a Pearson's correlation coefficient, indicating the covariation in the number of different types of thoughts for each experimental condition (Table 2). This analysis offers support for the thought disruption hypothesis. In the easy-to-counterargue read condition, more program thoughts were related to fewer counterarguments as program involvement increased. Similarly, in the difficult-to-counterargue sung condition, more program thoughts were associated with fewer support arguments as program involvement increased.
Additional Thoughts Analysis Although our study, as well as prior distraction research, has focused on respondents' dominant thoughts, we also examined nondominant thoughts to enhance our understanding of how message recipients were reacting to the message information. The general finding is that the pattern of responses on nondominant thoughts was the opposite of that on dominant thoughts. Specifically, increasing program involvement increased support argumentation, F(1, 27) = 8.69, p < .007, in the read message condition and increased counterarguments, F ( I , 27) = 23.16, p < .001, in the sung condition. These results are assessed in greater detail in the Discussion section.
Brand Evaluations Means and standard deviations for brand evaluations categorized by the independent variables are shown in Table 1. Factor analysis of the brand evaluation items indicated that the four evaluative items loaded on a single factor. The four items were averaged to form an evaluation score. Cronbach's alpha showed that this scale was reliable (a = .98). An A N O V A revealed that message counterarguability and program involvement did not have main effects on brand evaluations (Fs < 1). However, the interaction between message counterarguability and program involvement rrhe main effectof programdistraction on support and counterargumentationis not significant as expected(for support arguments, F < 1; for counterargumentation, F[I, 27] = 1.06,p > .30).
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TABLE 2 Pearson's Correlations Between Program Thoughts, Support Arguments, and Counterarguments Categorized by Treatments Program Thoughts Read Ad Low Program Involvement
Support arguments Counterarguments
Sung Ad
High Program Involvement
Low Program Involvement
High Program Involvement
r
p
r
p
r
p
r
p
.00 .44
.00 .08
.57 -- .49
.03 .05
--.46 -- .44
.001 .06
--.94 -- .69
.07 .02
was significant, F(1, 27) = 8.10, p < .01. Both the planned contrasts outlined in the second hypothesis were supported. Specifically, in the easy-to-counterargue read condition, more favorable brand evaluations occurred when program involvement was high than when it was low, F(1, 27) ---- 3.18, p < .05, whereas in the difficult-to-counterargue sung condition, high program involvement induced less favorable brand evaluations than did a low level of involvement, F(1, 27) = 5.06, p < .02. These findings support the thought disruption hypothesis.
Other Measures An ANOVA also indicated that none of the background variables affected cognitive responses or brand evaluations. Experience with the product category, experience with the brand, and familiarity with the song segments prior to the experiment did not have significant effects on the thought measures or brand evaluations (Fs < 1).
DISCUSSION It is widely recognized that distracting people during a message presentation can have varied effects. When the message is easy to counterargue, increasing the extent to which people are distracted from processing it, at least to some level, reduces the likelihotxt of message counterargumentation, and the favorableness of brand evaluations is enhanced. By contrast, when the message is more difficult to counterargue, increasing a concurrent distraction reduces processing of the message content, and the persuasive impact of the communication declines. Our research extends this analysis by showing that the same outcomes
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found when message and distractor are presented concurrently also may be obtained when the distractor is in the form of a program that is presented contiguously with an advertising message. Specifically, we found that when the verbal content of the advertising had an easy-to-counterargue read appeal, prompting increased involvement and interest in processing program material served as a distractor that reduced counterargnmentation and enhanced the favorableness of brand evaluations. However, introducing the same increase in program involvement resulted in decreased support argumentation and reduced favorableness of brand evaluations when the advertising message had a difficult-to-counterargue sung appeal. Despite the overall value of the thought disruption hypothesis in interpreting our data, several findings are not adequately explained by this hypothesis. One question is: What thoughts do people rely on when distraction disrupts the generation of their dominant thoughts? What thoughts do people rely on to make evaluations when the introduction of distraction reduces their counterargumentation to an easy-to-process appeal or their support argumentation to a difficult-to-process communication? Our data suggest that in these circumstances people may base their evaluations on whatever thoughts are most readily accessible. In the easy-to-counterargue read message condition, people appeared to rely on message-based support arguments perhaps because these arguments were readily accessible given the recent processing of the message. Along these lines, Petty et al. ( 1976) found that increasing distraction during the presentation of an easy-to-counterargue message prompted an increase in support arguments, though this latter effect did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. A similar analysis can be applied when distractors reduce the generation of support arguments, as in the difficult-to-counterarguesung message condition. The thought disruption hypothesis suggests that distraction should disrupt message processing in the difficult-to-counterargue condition. Thus, when asked to make a subsequent evaluation, message-related support arguments will not be readily accessible to people in these circumstances. Perhaps the paucity of message arguments induced people to rely on other accessible information to form their evaluations. As these thoughts were likely to be less favorable than message-based thoughts, agreement with the advertising declined. Further research is needed to explore this issue. From a practical perspective, our research and data suggest that the program environment is an important determinant of the persuasiveness of contiguously presented advertising messages. More specifically, our research implies that when advertising is easy to counterargne, it is appropriate to place it in a program environment that the audience finds involving and interesting and thus likely to disrupt counterargumentation to the message. Similarly, our findings imply that a program that prompts relatively limited involvement and interest is appropriate if the advertising was difficult to counterargue. Although these strategies appear to be obvious deductions from our re-
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search, caution is warranted in their application. Consider, for example, the choice of a program environment for a difficult-to-counterargue advertising message. It has been found that on repeated exposures such messages can prompt counterargumentation (Cacioppo & Petty, 1979). If this were to occur, the choice of a low-distraction program environment for the diflicult-tocounterargue message is appropriate at the outset of a campaign, but will lose its appropriateness over time. The point of this analysis is that program environment is but one of the means available for influencing the attention people devote to processing an advertising message, and repeated exposures to a message may be an equally viable way to increase message processing. More research is needed to identify other variables that may be used strategically to influence the extent of message processing. Research may also be directed at exploring the robustness of the involvement construct to explain the effects of programs on accompanying advertising. Although our research and that reported in the literature suggest that the impact of musical, comedy, and drama formats can be explained in terms of involvement (see Kennedy, 1971), it remains to be determined whether other formats can be interpreted in involvement terms. The impact of news and sports programming on contiguously presented commercials is a particularly appropriate issue for study because this format is emerging as important environments for advertising. Undoubtedly, such studies will refine our understanding of program environment effects. Our theorizing and data are perhaps best viewed as a starting point from which such work may proceed. Nevertheless, it is apparent that program environments can have similar effects on message persuasiveness to those observed when a distractor and message are presented concurrently, and that these effects can be explained by a common hypothesis. Our research also suggests that the selection of program environments for advertising should not only be based exclusively on audience size and cost considerations but also on people's involvement with the program.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT Punam Anand gratefully acknowledges the support of the Columbia Business School Research Fund.
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