The effects of media multitasking on Consumers’ Brand Memory and Brand Attitude : the moderating role of task relevance and program involvement

The effects of Media Multitasking on Consumers’ Brand Memory and

Brand Attitude. The moderating role of task relevance and program

involvement.

Martha Irida Evropa

Master’s thesis

Graduate School of Communication

Persuasive Communication

St. number: 11117524

Supervisor: Ewa Maslowska

Date: 03/02/2017

Abstract

This study examined the effects of media multitasking, with two relevant versus two irrelevant to each other tasks, on consumers’ cognitive and attitudinal responses to television commercials. In line with the limited capacity theory (Lang, 2000) and the multiple resource theory (Basil, 1994), this study explored the detrimental effects of media multitasking on cognitive

responses to advertising, especially when multitasking with two irrelevant to each other tasks. Moreover, the current study examined the mediating role of brand memory and the moderating role of program involvement. The laboratory experiment that was conducted (N= 92) showed that for viewers who are highly involved with the program that they are watching, the effects of multitasking with two incongruent tasks are even more detrimental, which consequently leads to even more negative brand attitudes.

“Multitasking arises out of distraction itself” Marilyn Vos Savant

Introduction

Today’s constantly changing media landscape has provided consumers with countless media options, such as television, internet, online blogs and newspapers. As a consequence, media

consumption nowadays is more complex than ever, especially since viewers often use two or sometimes even more media simultaneously. This new behavioral trend of processing information from more than one medium simultaneously is termed media multitasking (Xu, 2008). The reason why media multitasking has been especially prevalent during the recent years is the rapid uptake of the mobile devices, which introduced a new multimedia environment (ofcom.com, 2015). People, now, can have access to numerous things, like their e-mails, their social media accounts, search engines, online newspapers, magazines and blogs. As technology is moving forward it is bringing remarkable differences in the media use across generations.

In their survey about multitasking differences across three generations, Carrier, Cheever, Rosen, Benitez and Chang (2009) found that people who belong in the Net Generation (born after 1980) are more likely to adopt multitasking habits and they multitask more often compared to the other two older generations. Therefore, it is a common thing for teenagers and young adulys to text while they are doing their homework or scroll down their Facebook timeline while watching television. Actually, the combination of Television with while surfing the internet is the most common way that 83% of people media multitask in their everyday lives (ofcom.com, 2015). Particularly, consumers under 30 years old watch television while browsing on the internet more

than 40% of the time (Armbruster, 2008). For these reasons, the current research was focused on young adults (19 to 25 years old).

However, even if teenagers and young adults are more familiar with media multitasking habits, this does not necessarily mean that they are able to process effectively different kinds of information, which is transmitted at the same time. A study using magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) found that the sense of simultaneous processing or multitasking is just an illusion, but in fact it is a constant switching of orders during processing (Knutson, Wood and Grafman, 2004; Xu, 2008). Previous studies about multitasking and task switching have shown that during multitasking perceived task demand is higher (David, Xu, Srivastava, & Kim, 2013) and this results in significant drops in task performance due to cognitive overload (Aagaard, 2014).

But what does this mean for consumers’ memory? Imagine that you are sitting on your couch, checking your e-mail or browsing on social media. However, your attention is focused on the

television showing your favorite show. Suddenly the show is interrupted by the usual television commercials. It does not matter to you, you just switch your focus of attention to your smartphone, so that you do not have to pay any attention to the television commercials at all. Previous research has shown that viewers who are media multitasking perceive the brand placements in movies as less disturbing compared to viewers who are not media multitasking (Yoon, Choi, & Song, 2011). In fact previous researchers (Srivastava, 2013; Van Cauwenberge, Schaap, & van Roy, 2014; Segijn,

Voorveld, & Smit, 2016) have already discovered the negative impact of multitasking on recall. Then, what does this mean for consumers’ attitude towards the advertised brands? According to Jeong’s and Hwang’s (2012) research, multitasking reduces the level of comprehension and counterarguing. Under these circumstances, consumers’ resistance against the advertising messages is being decreased and this results in a positive brand attitude (Segijn, Voorveld & Smit, 2016). On the other hand, multitasking makes it more difficult for the consumers to remember the advertised

brands that they previously watched and this could result in a negative brand attitude (Segijn, Voorveld & Smit, 2016). These mixed results make it even more crucial for the current study to explore the role that multitasking plays on brand attitude formation.

This research focuses on the effects of media multitasking between television and internet use on young consumers’ brand memory and attitudinal responses. Memory effects may occur either with intentional (explicit) recollection of information about a past event or with unintentional

(implicit) recollection of this information (Choi, Lee & Li, 2013). Although researchers often measure brand memory using explicit measures, such as free brand recall and brand recognition, a use of an implicit brand recognition is necessary in order to have a more clear idea about the underlying mechanisms of multitasking (Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016). Therefore, for the purposes of this research, both explicit and implicit brand memory were measured.

Moreover, it is argued that sometimes, consumers are more motivated to process information than other times. Particularly, this increased motivation to process information often exists when multitasking with two relevant to each other tasks (e.g. watching a television show and reading an article about it). Under these circumstances, recall and recognition should be easier for the viewers (Srivastava, 2013). Another important factor that could result in viewers’ increased motivations to process information is their level of involvement with the program that they are watching.

Specifically, viewers who dislike the program that they are watching are usually less aware of the embedded brand placements (Yoon, Choi, & Song, 2011)

In sum, although consumers rarely engage in single-medium behaviors (Yoon, Choi, & Song, 2011), only a few studies have examined the effects of multitasking on advertising (Yoon, Choi, and Song 2012; Chinchanachokchai, Duff, and Sar 2015; Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016).Thus, the purpose of the current research is to examine the effects of multitasking and the relevance between the two tasks on consumers’ cognitive and attitudinal responses. Moreover, the current research aims

to provide further theoretical insight in this topic by testing both implicit and explicit brand memory, and by testing the possible moderating role of program involvement. This is particularly relevant to today’s constantly changing multimedia environment where advertisers and marketers seem to have little control, since consumers now can now freely choose where to switch their focus of attention when they are media multitasking.

Theoretical framework Cognitive responses to advertising

A good theoretical starting point in order to examine how media multitasking affects consumers’ advertising processing is Lang’s (2000) limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing (LC4MP). According to this model, message processing involves three major sub-processes. Encoding is the act of getting the message out of the environment and creating mental representations. Because this process is quick, automatic and unconscious, any information that is not encoded gets lost. The second sub-process is storage. This process involves creating associations between a new information and an already stored information. The more links a person creates between the old and the new memory, the more vividly the information is stored. The last sub-process is called retrieval and it involves recreating a mental representation of a message. In other words, a person searches the associative memory for a piece of information and reactivates it into the networking memory (Lang 2000; 2006). These three sub-processes are related to three different memory measures, which will be explained later.

However, multitasking involves the processing of two or more tasks simultaneously and therefore, it requires more cognitive resources than a single task (Srivastava, 2013). People do not always have sufficient resources to process a message (Lang, 2000). In situations where the resources are not sufficient for information processing, the performance suffers. Previous studies

have already examined the effects of multitasking on task performance in various contexts, such as watching television with news crawl (Bergen, Grimes & Potter, 2005), watching television while doing homework (Pool, Koolstra & Voort, 2003) and using laptops when attending to classes (Hembrooke & Gay, 2003). In all of these studies, the results show detrimental effects of multitasking on task performance (David, Xu, Srivastava, & Kim, 2013). Therefore, this study expects that, since multitasking has a negative effect on the performance in many different tasks, it also affects negatively consumers’ cognitive responses to television advertising.

Another theory that can help explain the effects of multitasking is multiple resource theory (Basil, 1994). Unlike Lang’s (2000) limited capacity theory, which proposes that there is one common pool for resources, multiple resource theory posits that there are two different modalities, auditory and visual (Basil, 1994;Wickens, 2002). According to multiple resource theory, some tasks require a single information processing modality (e.g. visual processing) while other tasks require two distinct information processing modalities (visual and auditory processing). When two different messages need separate pools for processing (e.g. a visual message and an audio message), there is no competition for the same resources, because they come from two different pools. However, when a task combination involves competition for similar resources, there is a negative effect in task performance. For example, listening to two audio messages simultaneously may cause a great loss of information. On the other hand, reading while listening to music requires two different resources. In the latter case the loss of information will not be that great (David, Xu, Srivastava, & Kim, 2013). Television is an already complicated medium, since television programs contain both auditory and visual information (Basil, 1994). Browsing the internet also requires visual information processing. Thus, watching television and browsing at the same time could exceed a person’s mental processing capacities, which leads to “cognitive overload” (Lang, 2000; Mayer & Moreno, 2003). In line with limited capacity theory and multiple resource theory it is expected that watching television while

simultaneously browsing will lead to higher cognitive load and consequently to lower brand memory.

Task relevance. The heuristic-analytic theory of reasoning (Evans, 1989) posits that people focus their attention on those task features that appear to be relevant to prior knowledge. Unlike to analytic reasoning, which is slow and requires attention, heuristic processes are fast and automatic (Evans, 2008). Hence it is expected that multitasking is linked more with heuristic processes than analytic reasoning. In fact, earlier research demonstrated that, while watching television, people often browse on websites that are thematically relevant to the program that they are watching (Collins, 2008). This might include a variety of activities, like searching actors’ names, voting or reading articles about the program that they are watching. As it was explained above, paying

attention to multiple tasks may increase cognitive demands. However, when two tasks share common goals, task performance may be improved (Moreno & Mayer, 1999). Congruence has been

frequently used as an explanation of why consumers appear to have better memory for stimuli related to each other (Angell, Gorton, Sauer, Bottomley, & White, 2016).

According to an international study conducted by Microsoft Advertising (2014), those people who access content unrelated to the primary task are the most common type of multitaskers. Usually, this type of multitasking is distracting, and it isolates the focus of attention to one of the tasks only (Angell, Gorton, Sauer, Bottomley, & White, 2016). However, despite these interesting results of Microsoft’s study, so far, only a few researchers have considered task relevance as an important factor moderating the effects of multitasking. In line with previous research (Van Cauwenberge, Schaap, & van Roy, 2014;Angell, Gorton, Sauer, Bottomley, & White, 2016; Jeong & Hwang, 2016), this study expects that brand memory will be lower when there is no fit between the activities.

H1: Multitasking has a negative effect on brand memory and this effect is stronger for irrelevant multitasking than for relevant multitasking

The role of program involvement. The way that the information will be processed when media multitasking depends not only on the relevance between the two tasks, but also on the personal relevance with the transmitted message. The allocation of attention may be influenced by both external factors (e.g. message’s size) and internal factors (e.g. motivational relevance)

(Kazakova, Cauberghe, Hudders, & Labyt, 2016). According to Lang’s LC4MP there are motivational differences in the way people process messages. Specifically, when people are motivationally involved with a message, information is encoded and stored automatically in their brains, which also makes it easier for the retrieval process to happen (Lang, 2006). In other words, when individuals feel involved with a message, they are expected to pay more attention to it (Lang, 2000). In this way, Lang’s model is similar to other dual-process models, such as the elaboration likelihood model (ELM)

The ELM (Petty & Cacioppο, 1986) posits that there are two different ways in which consumers respond to persuasive messages, the central (explicit) and the peripheral (implicit) route (Belch & Belch, 2015). A central processing route assumes that the message is highly relevant to the individual and there is both the motivation and the ability to process a message. On the other hand, when one of these two clues is missing, a peripheral processing route is taken, and the message is not thoroughly processed (Liu & Shrum, 2009). Previous research has shown that when the motivation to process a message is high, the recall of the advertised brands is also high (Angell, Gorton, Sauer, Bottomley, & White, 2016). For this reason, the current research expects that, when multitasking, memory will be lower for the viewers who are not involved with the program that they are watching.

H2: The effect of multitasking on brand memory is moderated by involvement with the program. Multitasking has a more negative effect on memory when involvement is low.

Attitudinal responses to advertising

Multitasking can also affect consumers’ brand attitudes. However, the conclusions of previous research concerning the attitudinal responses to advertising are not very clear. Some of the previous studies on multitasking follow the limited capacity theory and the ELM route (Jeong & Hwang, 2012; Jeong & Hwang, 2016; Kazakova, Cauberghe, Hudders & Labyt, 2016; Segijn, Voorveld & Smit, 2016). Due to cognitive overload and distraction caused by trying to focus attention on two different tasks, a peripheral route to persuasion is more likely to occur. Distraction may limit the viewer’s ability to process information in terms of comprehension and counterarguing (Jeong & Hwang, 2012). This means that the viewer is not able to elaborate thoroughly upon the persuasive message. This reduced counterarguing leads to message acceptance (Moyer-Guse and Nabi 2010). However, Jeong’s and Hwang’s (2012) research assumes only an increased persuasion and not an attitude change. Additionally, this research was not empirically tested for advertisements.

Other studies also suggest that attitude change may occur due to the peripheral message processing caused by multitasking. According to Buller’s (1986) meta-analytic review, distraction leads to reduced comprehension and counterarguing which consequently leads to a weak but positive attitude change. Jeong’s and Hwang’s (2016) meta-analytic review showed that multitasking results to a positive swift on attitudinal outcomes. However, still it is not known whether these results are applicable to advertising. In fact Jeong and Hwang (2015) examined the effects of multitasking on opinion change by using advertisement in the stimuli, but they found no effect of multitasking on attitude change.

Finally Segijn’s, Voorveld’s and Smith’s (2016) research posits that on the one hand, reduced counterargument when multiscreening leads to positive brand attitudes and purchase intentions, but on the other hand, the viewer’s difficulty to recognize the advertised brands leads to negative attitudes towards the ad banner. Additionally, when comparing the strength of recognition and

comprehension on attitude change, the latter has the strongest effect. Taking this into consideration, it seems that brand memory is a more accurate mechanism in order to explore the effects of media multitasking on consumer’s brand attitude. In line with limited capacity theory, the ability of someone to recognize an advertised brand depends on the brain’s ability to recode and/or store the message, and when a person multitasks it is more difficult to recode and/or store messages due to cognitive overload (Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016). The mere exposure effect posits that people tend to recognize things that they are familiar with and like them more than unfamiliar stimuli (Zajonc, 1980). Consequently, the distraction that is caused to viewers’ attention by multitasking may lead to a failure to recognize and remember the advertised brands, which may further lead to negative brand attitudes. Therefore, the current research expects that not only multitasking leads to a more negative brand attitude, but also that this relationship is mediated by consumer’s brand

memory. Moreover, the moderating role of program involvement (H2) on the relationship between multitasking and brand memory is expected. Hence, in line with H1, it is expected that:

H3: Multitasking has a negative effect on brand attitude and this effect is stronger for irrelevant multitasking than for relevant multitasking.

Further, to explain how multitasking works, a moderated mediation effect is hypothesized: H4: Multitasking has a negative effect on brand memory, which consequently leads to decreased brand attitude, and the effect of multitasking on memory is moderated by program involvement.

Method Participants and procedure

To test the hypotheses, a between-subject experiment was conducted. In total 92 Greek university students, from the Democritus University of Thrace, participated in the experiment (M= 21.26, SD=1.73) and 50% of them were males. For the purpose of the experiment three different

classes of students were used (Department of Early Childhood and Department of Primary Level Education), one for each experimental condition. Hence, the distribution was not entirely random, but there were no significant differences between the groups (see Results).

The three conditions in the study were single medium exposure, relevant multitasking and

irrelevant multitasking. All the participants were exposed to the same video stimulus, a part of an

episode from a popular Greek television comedy series, which was interrupted by television commercials. The only difference was that while watching the episode, the participants in the relevant multitasking condition were simultaneously reading a series of online articles in a blog that was relevant to the program and the participants in the irrelevant multitasking condition were reading a series of online articles in a blog that was irrelevant to the program. The participants in the single medium condition were exposed to the stimulus only, without doing something else.

The experiment was conducted in a classroom suitable for 30-40 students, and the

participants of each condition entered the classroom all together. The instructions that were given to them were to sit comfortably and try to behave like they would behave in their living rooms. The participants in the two multitasking conditions were asked to pay attention to the stimulus while taking a look at the given blog link from their smartphones. The participants in the single medium exposure were kindly asked to pay attention to the stimulus only and not to talk to each other. Once participants had watched the whole episode, they could answer the questionnaire.

The questionnaire was translated from English to Greek and back to English to make sure that the translation is accurate. It was divided into two parts (see Appendix A). The first part contained a word fragment completion task, a free brand recall test and a brand recognition test for the advertised brands that the participants previously watched. In the second part the participants answered some questions about the advertised brands and their purchase behaviour. The reason why the questionnaire was divided in two parts was in order to ensure that the respondents would not look

at the names of the brands that were located before the end of the questionnaire when they were filling the tests at the beginning of the questionnaire. Additional control questions (e.g. program familiarity, attitude towards the episode,) were added as a distraction between the three memory tests. The whole procedure lasted approximately 35 minutes.

Materials

The stimulus consisted of an edited episode of the popular Greek TV series “μην αρχίζεις τη μουρμούρα” (Don’t start nagging). In the middle of the episode five different Greek television commercials were added: Mythos (beer), Korres (beauty products), Nestea (refreshments), AB Vasilopoulos (sumermarket chain) and Total (yogurt). The whole video, including the commercials, lasted 21 minutes.

For the two multitasking groups two different blogs were used. For the irrelevant

multitasking group the blog “ksestravosou.blogspot.nl”, which contained many different topics was used (see appendix B). For the relevant multitasking group the blog that was used had the same name with the TV series (minarxizeis.blogspot.nl) and it consisted of news about the TV series and

interviews with the actors that star in it (see appendix C).

Measures Brand Memory

For the purpose of this experiment, both implicit and explicit brand memory was measured. In the so far existing literature brand memory is often measured explicitly, with recognition tasks or free recall tests. These tasks however seem to be unable to measure automatic and unconscious processing (Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016). Explicit memory involves intentional and conscious recollection of past information.However, during multitasking, consumers often are being exposed

to advertising messages without realizing it. Therefore this habit fits better with unconscious information processing (Choi, Lee, & Li, 2013). Jacoby (1991) argued that recognition could occur also implicitly and that it is responsible for a sense of familiarity due to unconscious processing and prior exposure to a message. This means that even if the recipients do not remember being

previously exposed to the message they are still able to retrieve it. Therefore, for the purpose of this experiment, participants’ brand memory was measured both implicitly and explicitly, using three different memory measures.

There is a fit between the three sub-processes of information processing in Lang’s (2000; 2006) model and the three brand measures of this experiment. Encoding is generally described as a fast and unconscious process, which means that occurs implicitly, storage is indexed by cued recall which fits with the brand recognition task. Finally free brand recall is a good indicator of the later stage in memory, retrieval.

A good example of an implicit memory measure is a word fragment completion task

(Schacter, 1987). In this experiment implicit brand memory was measured by asking the participants to fill the blank spaces with each brand’s name; for each brand one letter was given as a hint.

Explicit brand memory was measured with two different ways: brand recall and brand recognition. In the brand recall task participants were asked to write down the names of the brands that they

previously watched, without any hints given. Finally, in the brand recognition task a list of 10 pictures representing 10 different brands was given to the participants and they were asked to circle the five brands that they previously watched. All three memory measures were measured by using percentages according to the number of each participant’s right answers.

Brand attitude

To measure the attitude towards the five advertised brands a 7-point sematic differential scale was used (Chang & Thorson 2004;). The scale consisted of four items with the endpoints Bad/Good,

Unappealing/Appealing, Not attractive/Attractive, Not interesting/Interesting. First, the brand attitude for each brand separately was measured and after constructing five different brand attitude scales, one for each brand, a scale for measuring a general attitude towards all five of the advertised brands was created. A factor analysis revealed that the five items load on one factor (Eigenvalue= 2.48, explained variance= 49.56, Cronbach’s α= .74, Μ= 4.44, SD= .90).

Program involvement

To measure program involvement two items were used. Both of the items were on a 7-point scale and they represented how often the participants watch the specific television program (never/ I have never missed an episode) and the degree to which the participants enjoy watching this

television program (not at all/ very much). By using these two items a variable named “program involvement” was created (eigenvalue = 1.82, explained variance= 90.85, Cronbach’s α= .90, M= 4.11, SD= 1.55).

Control variables

Other variables that were used as control variables were, age, gender, attitude towards the episode (eigenvalue= 3.07, explained variance= 76.72, Cronbach’s α= .90, M= 4.69, SD= 1.12), attitude towards the blog (eigenvalue= 3.22, variance explained= 80.59, Cronbach’s α = .92, M= 4.25, SD= .92), multitasking experience, perceived attention to the blog, perceived attention to the episode and purchase behaviour.

Results Randomization and manipulation check

The three groups did not different in respect to age (F (2,88)= .50, p= .61), gender (χ²(2)= .61, p= .74), episode attitude (F (2,88)= 3.21, p= .06), blog attitude (F (1,57)= .80, p= .38), and program involvement (F (2,88)= 1.72, p= .18).

In order to check whether the participants payed attention to both the episode and the blog, two control questions were used in which the participants had to indicate the right answer. The question about the episode was from an episode scene, in which the participants had to answer “what the old lady at the supermarket thought that Harry was”; the answers were (a) a student, (b) a

homeless or (c) an immigrant. Additionally, the participants in the two multitasking conditions had to answer one more question about what was the topic of the first online article in the blog that they previously read; the answers for the irrelevant multitasking condition were (a) a beach without sea, (b) a lake without water or (c) an animal without fur; the answers for the relevant multitasking condition were (a) an interview with Nadia Kontogeorgie, (b) an interview with Panos Vlachos or (c) an interview with Eleni Kokkidou. Almost 97% of the participants answered the control question about the episode right, and almost 94% answered the control question about the blog right. This means that participants were actually multitasking, since they payed attention to both tasks. Cognitive responses

Brand memory .To test H1, one-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted with multitasking as independent variable and the three brand memory measures (i.e. implicit brand memory, brand recall and brand recognition) as dependent variables. The analyses showed significant results only for implicit brand memory and brand recognition. Particularly for implicit brand memory, (F (2, 88)= 8.27, p< .01) Tukey HSD post hoc comparisons demonstrated that implicit brand memory was higher for the single medium condition (M= 66.45, SD= 29.84)

compared to the irrelevant multitasking condition (M= 38.71, SD= 24.73, M difference= 27.74, p < .001). There were no significant differences between the two multitasking conditions (M difference = 13.14, p= .16) nor between the single medium and the relevant multitasking condition (M=51.85,

SD=25.57, M difference= 14.60, p= .10). A similar pattern occurred for brand recognition (F (2, 88)

= 3.64, p < .05). Tukey HSD post hoc comparisons demonstrated that brand recognition was higher for the single medium condition (M= 65.81, SD= 23.21) compared to the irrelevant multitasking

condition (M= 50.97, SD = 21.81), M difference= 14.84, p< .05). Again, there are no significant differences between the two multitasking conditions (M difference = .89, p= .99) nor between the single medium and the relevant multitasking condition (M difference= 13.95, p= .08). For brand recall (F (2, 88) = .46, p= .63) the analysis showed no significant differences for any of the three groups. Since the differences between implicit brand memory and brand recognition were significant, H1 is partly supported.

Program involvement. To test H2, several moderation analyses were conducted, by following the process procedure by Hayes (2013). For this purpose, two dummy variables were constructed. Because the independent variable consists of three levels (single medium exposure, relevant multitasking and irrelevant multitasking), two dummy variables are enough to test the moderating role of program involvement on brand memory. The first dummy variable was named

irrelevant multitasking and it corresponded to a contrast between multitasking with two irrelevant

tasks versus single medium exposure. Likewise, the second dummy variable was named relevant

multitasking and it corresponded to a contrast between multitasking with two relevant to each other

tasks versus single medium exposure. The reason why this procedure was followed is because process by Hayes (2013) provides slopes for the independent variable predicting the dependent variable at different levels of the moderator (i.e. standardized mean, one SD above the mean and one SD bellow the mean). This means that it provides results for multitasking’s effect on brand memory for three different levels of program involvement (low, medium and high). Therefore, to test the interaction effect between multitasking and program involvement, for each of the three brand memory measures, two different analyses were conducted, one for each dummy variable.

For implicit brand memory the model (F(4, 87)= 8.69, p< .001, R²= .21) showed that

although program involvement does not predict implicit brand memory (b= 1.93, t(87)= .83, p = .41), irrelevant multitasking significantly predicts implicit brand memory (b= -26.63, t(87)= -3.72, p < .001). Also, the interaction effect between program involvement and irrelevant multitasking on

implicit brand memory is significant (b= -9.06, t(87) = -2.02, p= .046). Specifically, the slopes for irrelevant multitasking on implicit brand memory at each level of program involvement show that there is no relationship when the program involvement is low. However, there is a significant negative effect of irrelevant multitasking on implicit brand memory when the program involvement is average (b= -26.63, t(87)= -3.72, p< .001) and high (b= -40.57, t(87)= -5.69, p< .001). The second model (F(4, 84)= 4,35, p< .05, R²= .20) shows that, although relevant multitasking predicts implicit brand memory, the predictions are not significant for program involvement nor the interaction effect between program involvement and relevant multitasking on implicit brand memory is significant.

For brand recall the overall model (F(4,87)= 4.33, p< ,01, R²= .14) shows that neither

program involvement (b= 1.19, t(87)= -.66, p= .51), nor irrelevant multitasking (b=-4.30, t(87)= -.66,

p= .51) significantly predict brand recall. However the interaction of these two variables on brand

recall is significant (b= -14.46, t(87)= -3.71, p< .001). Particularly the slopes for irrelevant

multitasking on brand recall at each level of program involvement show that there is no relationship for low (b= 17.92, t(87)= 1.79, p= .08) and average program involvement (b= -4.29, t(87)= -.66, p= .51). However, when the program involvement is high there is a significant negative effect of

irrelevant multitasking on consumers’ brand recall (b= -26.52, t(87)= -3.54, p< .001). In other words, when viewers are not highly involved with the program, multitasking with two incongruent tasks does not have an effect on the brand recall. However, when the viewers are highly involved with the program that they are watching, then multitasking with two incongruent tasks has a negative effect on brand recall. According to the second model (F(4, 84)= .26, p= .90, R²= .01), there are no significant predictions nor for relevant multitasking nor for any one of the other variables.

Finally for brand recognition the overall model (F(4,87), p< .05, R²= .08) shows that only irrelevant multitasking (b= -14.58, t(87)= -2.34, p< .05) significantly predicts brand recognition. Neither program involvement predicts brand recognition, nor is the interaction between irrelevant multitasking and program involvement on brand recognition significant. The results are similar with

the second model (F(4, 84)= 2.63, p< .05, R²= .12), according to which only relevant multitasking predicts brand recognition (b= -15.69, t(84)= -2.27, p< .05). There are not significant predictions either for program involvement or for the interaction between program involvement and relevant multitasking.

These effects are opposite to what was expected. Therefore, H2 is rejected. In other words, the data show a negative interaction effect between program involvement and multitasking on consumers’ brand memory, but only for implicit brand memory and brand recall and only when comparing irrelevant multitasking versus single medium exposure.

Attitudinal responses

Brand attitude. To test H3, an ANOVA was conducted with multitasking as independent variable and brand attitude as dependent. For the general attitude towards all of the five advertised brands (F (2, 88) = 1.01, p= .37) the analysis showed no significant differences between any of the three experimental conditions. However, some additional analyses were conducted to test the attitude towards each brand separately and they showed some significant differences for some of the brands. Particularly, for the “Mythos” brand (F (2, 88) = 4.62, p < .05) the Tukey HSD post hoc comparisons showed that participants in the single medium condition (M= 4.45, SD= 1.34) had a significantly higher attitude towards the brand compared to the participants in the irrelevant multitasking

condition (M= 3.67, SD= 1.30), p< .05. For the brand “Korres” (F (2, 88) = 7.12, p< .01) the post hoc comparisons showed a significant difference between the single medium (M= 3.56, SD= 1.75) and the irrelevant multitasking condition (M= 4.85, SD= 1.12), M difference= 1.28, p< .01).

Although there are some significant differences between the participants in the single medium condition and the participants in the irrelevant multitasking condition, in general these results do not support H3. In other words, there is not a negative direct effect of multitasking on consumers’ brand attitude.

The meditating role of brand memory. To test H4, first several mediation analyses were conducted by following the process procedure by Hayes (2013). In order to examine whether brand memory influences the relationship between multitasking and brand attitude, the same two dummy variables that were constructed to test H2 were used. Therefore, two different analyses were

conducted for each of the three brand memory measures, with multitasking as independent variable, brand attitude as dependent variable and brand memory as mediator. The mediation analyses

revealed that only the confidence intervals for implicit brand memory with irrelevant multitasking did not contain zero (see Table 1). Thus, there is a significant indirect effect of multitasking with an irrelevant second task on brand memory but this effect was significant only for the implicit brand memory measures and not for brand recall and brand recognition.

The second step was to test whether this indirect effect of multitasking on brand attitude through brand memory is moderated by program involvement. To do this, several moderated mediation analyses were conducted again by following the process procedure by Hayes (2013) and by using the same variables as in the previous analyses. The only difference is that this time program involvement was added as a moderator of the relationship between multitasking and brand memory. The moderated mediation analyses revealed that only the confidence intervals for implicit brand memory and brand recall with irrelevant multitasking did not contain zero (see table 2). Hence, there is a moderated mediation, but this effect is significant only for the implicit brand memory and brand recall and only when multitasking with two incongruent tasks. Particularly, the slopes for the indirect effect of irrelevant multitasking on brand attitude through implicit brand memory at each level of program involvement show that there is no relationship when the program involvement is low (b= -.04, SE= .08, BCACI [-.25, .09]). However, for average (b= -.14, SE= .08, BCACI [-.39, -.02] and high program involvement (b= -.24, SE= .15, BCACI [-.65, -.02] this effect is significantly negative. The slopes for the indirect effect of irrelevant multitasking on brand attitude through brand recall at each level of program involvement show that when program involvement is low (b= .15, SE= .11,

BCACI [.007, .46] or average (b= -.03, SE= .05, BCACI [-.15, .06] there is no significant moderated mediation. However, for high program involvement this relationship is significantly negative (b= -.20, SE= .11, BCACI [-.49, -.05]. These results, partly support H4. Indeed, multitasking has a negative effect on brand memory, which consequently leads to decreased brand attitude. However, this is true only when multitasking with two incongruent tasks and this effect is significant only for implicit brand memory and brand recall. Additionally, this effect is moderated by program

Discussion

This study examined the role of media multitasking on consumers cognitive and attitudinal responses, and it provides four contributions to the literature of media multitasking. First, although previous research has proved multitasking’s implicit (Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016) and explicit effects (Kazakova, Cauberghe, Hudders, & Labyt, 2016), this research is the first to include both implicit and explicit memory measures. As it was expected, media multitasking negatively affects consumers’ brand memory, both implicitly and explicitly. As previous research has already shown (Cardoso-Leite et al., 2015), people who are multitasking have to handle a large amount of

information, which can be very distracting. Although significant differences between the groups were found only for implicit brand memory and brand recognition, these results may be explained by LC4MP. According to Lang’s (2006) LC4MP, the free brand recall task is associated with retrieval, the last of the three sub-processes of information processing, which is the most difficult one, because

the individuals must search their associative memory network and retrieve a specific piece of information. In the free brand recall task the participants had to recall all five of the advertised brands without any hints given. Therefore, it looks like this task was equally difficult for all of the participants, no matter the experimental condition that they were assigned to.

There is another factor that plays an important role in consumers’ cognitive evaluations of advertising, namely the congruence between the two tasks. In line with previous research, consumers seem to be less cognitively loaded when they are engaged to congruent media activities (Van

Cauwenberge, Schaap, & van Roy, 2014; Wang, Irwin, Cooper, & Srivastava, 2014;Angell, Gorton, Sauer, Bottomley, & White, 2016). According to the results, participants in the relevant multitasking condition were able to remember more of the advertised brands compared to the participants in the irrelevant multitasking. In fact, the difference in brand memory between the participants in the relevant multitasking condition and the single medium exposure was not that large compared to the participants in the irrelevant multitasking condition. Therefore, multitasking with two congruent tasks should decreases cognitive load and improves brand memory.

The second contribution of this research is the examination of the moderating role of program involvement in the relationship between multitasking and brand memory. Particularly, according to the limited capacity theory (Lang, 2000; 2006) and the ELM (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), when viewers are highly involved with the program that they are watching, they are more motivated to process the transmitted information thoroughly. For this reason it was expected that brand memory should be higher for the participants who were highly involved with the television program.

However, the results revealed the exact opposite. When comparing irrelevant multitasking with single medium exposure, brand memory was significantly lower for participants who were high- or average-involved with the television program.

However, these unexpected results can be explained. Television commercials interrupt the content that viewers desire to watch, and usually this interruption is being perceived as intrusive and unlikable (Kazakova, Cauberghe, Hudders, & Labyt, 2016). High involvement with a television program leads the viewer to perceive the commercial brakes as more intrusive and negatively influences the commercials’ effectiveness (Choi, Lee, & Li, 2013). As the involvement with the program increases, viewers are more likely to switch their attention to an external source rather than pay attention the commercials (Celsi & Olson, 1988). Moreover, the fact that there was an important difference between the groups, only when comparing the irrelevant multitasking group with the single medium exposure group, provides further support for the hypothesis that multitasking with two congruent tasks is less detrimental for viewers’ attention compared to multitasking with two incongruent tasks. In a nutshell, these results indicate that when multitasking with two relevant tasks, consumers who are involved with a television program are more annoyed by the commercial brakes and they do not pay any attention to them.

The third contribution of this study in the media multitasking literature, is the examination of a possible mediating role of brand memory in consumers’ attitudinal responses to advertising. Although, the outcomes revealed that consumers’ evaluations are not directly affected by multitasking, this negative effect can be explained by the reduced brand memory. Particularly, according to the results, the lower the brand memory is, the more negative the consumers’ evaluation towards the advertised brands will be. As it was already explained, the field’s literature does not provide clear conclusions about whether multitasking has a positive or a negative effect on consumers’ brand attitude formation. On the one hand, some researchers support the opinion that multitasking decreases comprehension and coutnterarguing, which consequently has a positive effect on attitude change (Jeong & Hwang, 2016). On the other hand, recent research supports that lower brand memory results to a difficulty for the consumers to recognize the advertised brands, which

leads to negative attitudes towards these brands (Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016). In line with the second theory, it was found that when media multitasking with two irrelevant tasks, consumers’ implicit brand memory and brand recall were lower and consequently, their attitude towards these brands was lower as well. However, this does not necessarily mean that media multitasking cannot result in a positive brand attitude through reduced comprehension and counterarguing.

According to Segijn’s, Voorveld’s and Smit’s (2016) study, both of these effects are possible to happen, but when comparing them to each other, the negative effect of brand memory on brand attitude is the strongest. Yet, this always depends on the task combination. According to the multiple resource theory, when two tasks compete for the same modalities (e.g. visual processing) structural interference occurs (Kahneman, 1973). Thus, it is argued that when two tasks share the same modalities, in our case audio and visual processing for the television episode and visual processing for the online blog, then the outcome is difficulty in remembering all such information, which leads to negative brand attitude (Segijn, Voorveld, & Smit, 2016). However it is also possible, that under different circumstances multitasking could result to a positive attitude change (e.g. the

advertisements on Spotify and reading, when there is no competition for the same modalties).

The fourth and last contribution of this study is that program involvement moderates the relationship between multitasking and brand attitude through brand memory. Particularly, it seems that there is a snowball effect, according to which, as the involvement with the program increases, less advertised brands are remembered which leads to a more negative brand attitude formation. What is most bizarre here is that both the simple mediation and the moderated mediation analyses revealed large differences between the groups only for implicit brand memory and brand recall. In fact for all of the analyses that were conducted, implicit brand memory was the only measure that provided important differences between the experimental conditions. These outcomes create

questions about whether after all multitasking enhances unconscious processing because of the need to process both visual and audio stimuli (Treisman, 1988) and hence it should be examined by using implicit memory measures.

Limitations

Although the results are interesting, caution is needed before generalizing the results due to several limitations. First of all, multitasking itself is something that cannot be easily controlled under experimental conditions. In other words, it is something that happens naturally and even sometimes unconsciously. Therefore, even if there were control questions and self-reported measures about participants’ perceived attention to the stimuli, it can never be ensured whether the participants were actually media multitasking during the whole procedure. Secondly, the participants of each

experimental condition watched the television episode and answered the questionnaires all together. Because around 30 people were in the same classroom while processing information that they had to retrieve after the experiment, there is a small possibility that this could cause an extra distraction for their attention. Last but not least, for the same reason, and although clear instructions about not cheating when filling the questionnaire were given, it cannot be ensured that the respondents answered the questionnaire all by themselves without looking at other participants’ answers.

Notwithstanding the limitations, this study provides further theoretical insight into various aspects of the media multitasking field by showing the importance of task relevance, program

involvement and brand memory for the consumers’ brand attitude formation. Moreover, this research provides important practical implications for advertisers and marketers. In accordance to the results, when media multitasking, consumers are not able to remember the advertisements, which

consequently leads to negative attitudes towards these brands. Of course this is not the desirable outcome for organizations who spend huge amounts of money in television advertisements that

appear to be inefficient after all. These negative brand evaluations might be mitigated by creating television advertisements that are original, unconventional and hence attract attention. If low brand memory is what affects brand evaluations negatively, then creating commercials that attract

consumers’ attention and are easier to remember, might lead to positive brand evaluations. Cross-media campaigns might also improve consumer’s brand memory. Since consumers already try to pay attention on two different media at the same time, then being simultaneously exposed to the same brands via different media should increase consumers’ memory.

Multitasking is a crucial issue, in the field of marketing and advertising in today’s

multimedia environment. Nowadays, consumers rarely engage in single medium activities, and often they are being exposed to various products and brands simultaneously through different mediums (Yoon, Choi, & Song, 2011). Advertisers seem to have little control over this situation so far. For this reason, further investigation is needed in order to help advertisers and marketers to understand how they can overcome such problems. Future research should pay more attention to the moderating role of program involvement for both brand memory and brand attitude. Finally, because of large differences in the results between the three brand memory measures that were used, future research should elaborate more on the comparison between different brand memory measures, both explicit and implicit.

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APPENDIX A Questionnaire for the irrelevant multitasking condition

Thank you very much for your participation in the current research. In the following pages you will be asked to answer some questions about the episode that you previously watched.

This questionnaire is a part of my Master’s thesis and it is conducted in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and hence your answers will be used for research purposes only, and not for any commercial purposes.

This questionnaire is divided into two parts which you can answer anonymously. After filling the first part of the questionnaire you will be given the second part. The estimated time that you will need in order to fill the questionnaire is approximately 10 minutes. This research is interested in your real and honest opinion. Hence there are no right and wrong answers.

Thanks in advance Martha Irida Evropa

1

_Part

1. Do you remember any of the advertised brands that you previously watched? Please fill as many advertised brands names as you remember bellow.

1. _ _ _ ο_ 2. _ _ _ _ _s 3. _ _s_ _ _

4. _ _ _α_ _ _ _ _ _ _ λ_ _ 5. _ _ _α_ _

2. Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements about the episode that you previously watched:

I believe that this episode of the “Don’t start nagging” TV series is:

1 (Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1 (not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1 (not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Very attractive) 1(not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

3. Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statement about the online blog that you previously read:

I believe that ksestravosou.blogspot.nl is:

1 (Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1 (not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1 (not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very attractive) 1 (not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

4. Please indicate how often you watch the “Don’t start nagging” TV series: 1 (Never) 2 3 4 5 6 7(I have never missed an episode)

5. Please indicate the degree to which you enjoy watching the “Don’t start nagging” TV series 1 (Not at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very much)

6. Please indicate the degree to which you media multitask while watching TV 1 (Never) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (Always)

7. Please write down as many advertised brands that you previously watched as you can remember 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

8. What thought the old lady in the supermarket that Harrys was? a. Student

b. Homeless c. Immigrant

9. What was the first article in the blog ksestravosou.blogspot.gr about? a. A beach without sea

b. A lake river without water c. An animal without fur

10. Please select from the following list the five advertised brands that you remember watching previously

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10.

End of questionnaire’s first part. You are kindly asked to hand it in and you will be given directly the second and last part of the questionnaire.

2

_Part

11. Please indicate the degree to which you payed attention to the episode of “Don’t start nagging” TV series from 0 (no attention at all) to 100 (full attention)

12. Please indicate the degree to which you payed attention to ksestravosou.blogspot.nl from 0 (no attention at all) to 100 (full attention)

Please indicate your level of agreement with each one of the following statements 13. I believe that Mythos is:

1(Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1(not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1(not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very attractive) 1(not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

14. I believe that brand Korres is:

1 (Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1 (not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1 (not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very attractive) 1 (not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

15. I believe that brand Nestea is:

1(Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1(not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1(not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very attractive) 1(not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

16. I believe that AB Vasilopoulos is:

1 (Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1 (not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1 (not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very attractive) 1 (not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

17. I believe that Total is:

1(Very bad) 2 3 4 5 6 7 (very good) 1 (not appealing at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very appealing) 1 (not attractive at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very attractive) 1(not interesting at all) 2 3 4 5 6 7(very interesting)

1 How often do you buy “Mythos” products?

1 (never ) 2 3 4 5 6 7(everyday)

2 How often do you buy “Korres” products?

1 (never) 2 3 4 5 6 7(everyday)

3 How often do you buy “Nestea” products?

1 (never) 2 3 4 5 6 7(everyday) 4 How often do you buy “AB Vasilopoulos” products?

1 (never) 2 3 4 5 6 7(everyday)

5 How often do you buy “Total” products?

1 (never) 2 3 4 5 6 7(everyday) 6 Gender Male Female DK/DA 7 Age

APPENDIX B

APPENDIX C