The effect of emotionally-arousing ad appeals on memory: time and fit matter

This research studies the effect of emotional arousal communicated in ad appeals on consumers’ memory of the ad. Isolating and studying the level of arousal – one dimension of affect communicated in the ad, as opposed to valence – we examine the moderating roles of two factors: retention time (i.e., immediate vs. delayed memory) and the fit between ad-arousal and the ad claim. The results of three experiments show that ad-arousal inhibits...