Brand Placements in Movies: The Impact of Modality, Prominence and Plot Connection on Attitude and Behavioral Intention

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of three essential brand placement characteristics on brand attitudes towards and purchase intentions of brands placed in movies. Previous studies examining the effectiveness of brand placement have yielded mixed results. The mixed findings indicate that not all brand placements are equally effective. This may be due to a differentiating impact of varying types of brand placements. Modality, prominence and plot connection are key constructs of brand placement that have been repeatedly shown to influence brand placement effectiveness. In the past, a majority of empirical studies measured the effectiveness of brand placements in terms of how well they are remembered (Babin and Carder 1996; Gupta and Lord 1998; Johnstone and Dodd 2000; Nelson 2002; Roehm, Roehm and Boone 2004; Vollmers and Mizerski 1994). However, since research has shown that recall may be a poor predictor of persuasion (Mackie and Asuncion 1990), research on the effectiveness of brand placements should rather focus on attitude and behavior effects. This study investigates differences in respondents’ attitudes (affective) and purchase intention (conative) towards the placed brands, according to the placements’ varying levels of modality, prominence and plot connection. To explain these effects, we draw from Paivio’s dual-coding theory (1986), the Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad and Wright 1994) and Russell’s (in)congruency principle (2002).