Can Nature Help Marketers?
Assessing the Differential Impact of Natural
versus Urban Scenery on Product Memory
Aline Lindenblatt
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Can Nature Help Marketers?
Assessing the Differential Impact of Natural versus Urban
Scenery on Product Memory
University of Groningen
Faculty of Business and Economics
MSc Marketing Management
Master Thesis
18 June 2015
Supervisor: dr.Yannick Joye
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ndsupervisor: dr. JC Hoekstra
Aline Lindenblatt
Star Numanstraat 71, 9714JK Groningen
a.lindenblatt@gmail.com
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Abstract
Environmental psychology proposes that nature offers substantial emotional and cognitive benefits. These positive effects of actual nature can be transferred to virtual nature by viewing pictures or watching videos that illustrate natural scenery. Integrating nature into marketing and especially advertising has become common practice, as virtual nature suffices to reduce stress and enhance cognitive functioning. In comparison to nature, urban scenery does not seem to be beneficial and may even work counterproductively. Based on Attention Restoration Theory, this research hypothesizes that nature imagery presented as a video positively influences the ability to memorize product details. Moreover, it explores the role of product involvement and an individual’s relatedness to nature in the relationship between nature and memory. By making use of an online survey, an experimental study was conducted by showing participants a video of either a natural or an urban environment and presenting them with either a low- or a high-involvement product. Findings confirmed the hypothesis that the nature video is more restorative than the urban one; however do not assert the hypothesized relation between nature and memory. In addition, no effect was found for product involvement. Nature Relatedness was found to positively correlate with product memory. Despite the lack of evidence for some of the relationships, it was ascertained that people who have an easy access to nature, i.e. having parks or green spaces nearby their houses, achieved higher memory scores for the remembered product details than respondents with a difficult access to nature. Concluding, this research provides marketers with new insights on how both real and virtual nature can help them in effectively advertising their products.
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Table of Content
1. Introduction ... 5
1.1 Structure of the Thesis ... 7
2. Literature Review ... 8
2.2 Nature as Restorative ... 8
2.3 The Effects of Nature on Memory ... 11
2.3.1 Real nature ... 11
2.3.2 Virtual nature ... 12
2.4 Nature versus Urban Environments ... 14
2.5 Product Involvement ... 15 2.6 Nature Relatedness ... 16 2.7 Hypotheses ... 17 3. Methodology ... 19 3.1 Research design ... 19 3.2 Participants ... 19 3.3 Materials ... 19 3.3.1 Videos ... 19 3.3.2 Product Characteristics ... 21 3.4 Measurements ... 21 3.4.1 Memory ... 21 3.4.2 Restoration ... 22 3.4.3 Nature Relatedness ... 23 3.4.4 Control questions ... 23
3.5 Procedure of the Survey ... 24
4. Results ... 25
4.1 Descriptive Statistics and Preliminary Results ... 25
4.2 Analyses of Hypotheses ... 27
4.2.1. Environmental Conditions on Memory ... 27
4.2.2 Effect of Environment on Restoration Scale ... 29
4.2.3 Relation between Restoration and Product Memory ... 30
4.2.4. The Role of Nature Relatedness... 31
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5. Discussion ... 34
5.1 Conclusion of findings ... 34
5.2 Managerial Implications ... 37
5.3 Limitations and Future Research ... 38
References ... 41
Appendix 1: Online questionnaire ... 46
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“The enjoyment of scenery employs the mind without fatigue and yet exercises it;
tranquilizes it and yet enlivens it.”
- Frederick Law Olmsted
1. Introduction
Suppose you are watching your favorite TV program during a Friday evening while relaxing on the sofa. The next commercial break begins with an advertisement for the new VolvoXC70, which depicts the beautiful scenery of Sweden. You are fascinated by this landscape and like the nature that it includes. However, most people would after that either zap to another program or watch the other commercials waiting for their program to continue without contemplating whether that natural scenery influenced them in any way. In this thesis, I claim that based on psychological research viewing pictures or videos of nature has a positive effect on the memory of product information.
Over the last years, integrating nature into marketing and advertising has become common practice and marketers make use of leveraging positive associations of nature to their products and services, especially for sustainable products (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2008). Milka, the German chocolate confectioner, makes use of the association of their milk chocolate
with cows grazing on fields in the German Alps1 (YouTube, 2015). Cars are another common category of products incorporating nature into commercials, as exemplarily shown in the advertisements of the Volvo XC60 and XC702 (Figure 1), presenting the beautiful country of Sweden.
It is a well-known fact that human beings have the desire and need to feel connected to nature (Kellert & Wilson, 1993), originating from ancestral life nearly 200,000 of years ago (O’Neil,
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIVd0lazYas
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbvdzQ7uVPc
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2013). As humans evolved within natural surroundings, it has been speculated that they are predisposed to harmonize with it and may be missing something fundamental when withdrawn from nature (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1998). As human beings have an inherent desire for nature, this might be one reason why natural elements and environments have proven to positively affect an individual’s cognitive capacities (attention and memory) and emotional states (mood) (Mayer et al., 2009; Holden & Mercer, 2014). Even more, nature has been shown to reduce negative behaviors and states like aggression, stress and depression (Mayer et al., 2009). Spending time in nature (Berman et al., 2008), having a natural view from one’s dormitory window (Tennesson & Cimprich, 1995) or studying in an environment with natural elements (Holden & Mercer, 2014) present good examples of experiencing the restorative effects of nature (Berman et al., 2008).
Although positive effects are stronger for exposure to actual than to virtual nature (Mayer et al., 2009), the effects of real nature identified by many researchers, can also be transferred to viewing pictures and videos that depict natural scenery, as it is commonly the case in advertising (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2009). Hence, Ulrich (1981) claims that even only visually exposing people to nature scenes can reduce stress and enhance cognitive functioning. This virtual nature will evermore be a part of consumers’ everyday lives (Levi & Kocher, 1999), as people increasingly move to cities and have less free time to enjoy ‘real’ nature.
In comparison to people from rural areas, research has shown that growing up and living in a city has “dissociable impacts on social evaluative stress processing” (Lederbogen et al., 2011, p. 498) and therefore people may seek relief from mental fatigue and pressures in nature recreation (Hartig et al., 2003). When comparing rural versus urban settings on the state of mind of consumers, all the research until now discovered that viewing nature has a more positive influence on the psychophysiological states of the individual than city scenery (Ulrich, 1981; Berman et al., 2008). Being exposed to an urban environment does not only help less in reducing stress, but may actually work against emotional well-being (Ulrich, 1981).
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essential that consumers do not only watch the advertisements, but additionally remember the advertised content so that they will have this brand in mind when having the opportunity to buy it at a later point in time. Therefore, the thesis aims at answering the following research question:
To what extent do videos featuring natural scenery as opposed to urban scenery lead to an improved memory of product descriptions consumers are exposed to?
Furthermore, it might be worthwhile to research whether the positive effects of nature on memory make a difference for low- versus high-involvement products (television vs. detergent). People usually take more time and effort to evaluate high- involvement products. Therefore, the research also tests whether product involvement plays a role in the relationship between the different environment scenes and memory.
Moreover, people vary in their preference and liking for nature and therefore the videos of nature may have a different effect on people. Hence, the Nature Relatedness of individuals, that is the extent to which individuals are drawn to nature, will be tested to find out whether this construct will serve as a moderator for the hypothesized (positive) effect of nature videos on memory.
1.1 Structure of the Thesis
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2. Literature Review
In the Biophilia Hypothesis of Kellert and Wilson it is claimed that human beings have an “innate love for the natural world, universally felt by all”, which is a result of our ancestral history, having ancestors who spent their whole life in the wilderness of nature (Kellert & Wilson, 1993). However, nature can have different meanings to different individuals and the definition of nature can change across time and space. Mountains, lakes and the seas are idyllic places for human beings, yet the possibility of many people, especially urban dwellers, to visit such destinations may be highly unlikely. Natural environments do not need to be distant settings or large areas. Even natural elements such as clouds or sunsets, which can be attended effortlessly, are highly fascinating and restoring (Kaplan, 1995). Therefore, this thesis will define nature as “areas containing elements of living systems that include plants and non-human animals […] from a small urban park to ‘pristine wilderness’ ” (Bratman et al., 2012, p.121-122).
2.2 Nature as Restorative
Nature, as defined above, can have positive influences on human beings, of which we are most of the time not fully aware. Two major theories that discuss the restorative effects of nature have been developed to understand the underlying importance of nature to human beings and its positive influences: Stress Recovery Theory (SRT) and Attention Restoration
Theory (ART). Whereas SRT views restoration as being obtained by the healing power of nature that diminishes negative thoughts and feelings (Ulrich, 1981), ART emphasizes that the restorative effect is gained by the ability of nature to replenish attentional capacity (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1998).
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types of vegetation dominated settings has proven to be stress-reducing. According to SRT, stress reduction will occur very rapidly after exposure to nature and thus within minutes, landscapes with water and vegetation are able to reduce states of arousal and negative thoughts (Ulrich, 1981).
A study by Ottoson and Grahn (2008) supports this claim by comparing people who currently experience a psychological crisis. They found out that individuals are less affected by their crisis when they have regular contact with the natural environment than people who are not experiencing nature to such a great extent. They highlight nature as “a type of remedy, aid, resource or catalyst” and an enabler of an enhanced state of health (p.66). Ulrich (1981) claims that reactions to environments may happen unconsciously and that an individual is therefore not aware of the impact in cognitive processes he experiences: This “healing power of nature […] can occur without recognition and most noticeably to individuals who have been stressed before the experience” (Ulrich from Bratman et al., 2012, p.122).
The second theory, Attention Restoration Theory (ART), claims that nature has the power to restore the brain’s ability to focus and concentrate and replenish attention (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1998). According to White et al. (2013) feeling restored can be equaled to feeling “calm, relaxed, revitalized and refreshed”. Individuals are exposed to several stress and arousal factors every day, from driving to work and concentrating on the traffic, to watching commercial breaks during their evening TV program. The longer an individual has to pay attention to these factors, the harder it gets for him to stay focused on important things and hold in any distraction. This state of mind is referred to as mental fatigue (Kaplan, 1995). When people experience contact with natural landscapes, however, this translates into a recovery from mental fatigue (Hartmann et al., 2013).
Kaplan (1995) differentiates between directed attention or fascination, building up on the work of James (1892) and his distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention. While “voluntary attention is effortful and can be tiring, involuntary attention is effortless and allows the attentional system to rest and recover” (Berto, 2005, p. 249). Involuntary attention occurs when stimuli are interesting or exciting; in contrast, voluntary attention refers to a situation when an individual forces himself to pay attention to something that is not really interesting, which may be exhaustive (Kaplan & Berman, 2010). When interacting with environments with fascinating qualities (e.g. a sunny day at a lake), this invokes involuntary attention
modestly (Berman et al., 2008) and allows our attentional reserves to replenish, which are then
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directed attention required in natural environments and “attention is typically captured in a bottom-up fashion by features of the environment itself” (Berman et al., 2008, p.1207). Therefore one is better able to perform tasks which require directed-attention abilities after a visit to nature (Berman et al., 2008). In comparison to nature, “urban environments contain bottom-up stimulation that captures attention dramatically” (e.g. a big street with cars and car horns) and moreover demand directed attention to overcome that stimulation, therefore making urban environments less restorative (Berman et al., 2008, p.1207). Hence, the combination of captivating involuntary attention modestly while concurrently limiting the need for directed attention, is what provides an environment with the ability to be restorative (Kaplan & Berman, 2010).
According to Kaplan (1995), a (natural) landscape must incorporate four essential components to allow for the restorative effects: “being away” (ability of escaping from concerns of daily life and routines), “fascination” (aspects of an environment that innately capture attention without directed effort), “extent” (the scope of experience) and “compatibility” (match between the environment and an individual’s intentions and inclinations).
Berman et al. (2008) analysed the restorative effect of nature by letting participants take a walk either in a park or in the city and letting them do a backwards digit span. For that, participants heard digit sequences and were required to repeat them in backwards order. Performance on backwards digit-span significantly improved when participants walked in nature, but not when they walked downtown. The authors concluded that nature is an effective means to improve cognitive abilities. White et al. (2013) analysed feelings of restoration of participants after exposure to different environments. The findings also coincide with recent research that people feel more restored after visiting natural environments. The authors further distinguish between coastal visits that were associated with the highest feeling of restoration and were associated with more restoration than rural/countryside environments, which however were experienced as more restorative than urban green/open spaces. This restorative effect of the natural environment might be one reason why urban dwellers are increasingly seeking the contact with nature (Hartig et al., 2003).
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greatest and how they might be able to improve memory levels of the viewers. As the previous discussed research suggests, nature could be an ideal means to achieve this improved memory levels.
2.3 The Effects of Nature on Memory
2.3.1 Real nature
Memory is considered as one of the most important variables when measuring advertising effectiveness (Hartmann et al., 2013), as there is frequently a time lag between consumers watching an advertisement and having the opportunity of buying the advertised product (Keller, 1987; Fennis & Stroebe, 2010). Therefore, it is of crucial importance that consumers have enough cognitive capacities to remember claims made in such an advertisement.
Nature may serve as a help for improving these essential capacities, as human beings “derive physical and psychological benefits from spending time in the natural world” (Mayer et al., 2009, p.607-608). A direct support for the positive effect of nature on memory was found by Holden and Mercer (2014). The two authors compared the memory performance of students in two different lecture halls, one being completely artificial and windowless and the other one having rich, natural light due to large windows and small plants, flowers and natural scent. After listening to the same lecture, students in the “natural” lecture hall remembered significantly more information provided in the lecture than those in the artificial lecture hall, thereby supporting the positive effect that natural elements have on memory performance. Three studies by Mayer et al. (2009) conclude that, in line with ART, exposure to nature positively affects an individual’s cognitive capacities (attention and memory) and emotional states (mood). Even more, consistent with SRT the authors have verified that nature reduces negative behaviors and states like aggression, stress and depression. As nature has proven to positively affect cognitive processing, they also successfully tested that it can affect more complex processes, such as reflecting on a life problem.
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those with less natural or built views. Moreover, nature near a person’s apartment also has an effect on attention: Kuo and Sullivan (2001) compared aggression levels between inhabitants from the inner city living in more barren buildings with people living in greener buildings. The former had a higher level of mental fatigue accompanied with being more likely to use aggression or violence when dealing with problems. The authors explained this result by the nature views that may have positively impacted attention and memory processes and therefore may serve as a mediator for reduced aggression levels. Although these reported restorative effects of nature are beneficial to human beings, the lifetime of this influence has to be taken into account: the positive impact may quickly diminish as soon as the individual has returned to his regular environment (Holden & Mercer, 2014).
According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2015) 54% of the total global population lives in urban areas (in comparison to 34% in 1960). Thus, it is difficult for people to get access to nature and nature is becoming scarce (Levi & Kocher in Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2008). Moreover, a marketer cannot influence whether people had a walk in a park before seeing an advertisement or whether they have plants in their living room. Therefore, for a marketer to make use of the restorative effects of nature and the improved cognitive processes accompanying it, nature can be incorporated into advertisements. Over the last years, this has increasingly become common practice and marketers make use of creating positive associations of nature to their products and services, especially for green products (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2008).
2.3.2 Virtual nature
As our society increasingly becomes urbanized, people seek the experience of simulated nature, like being exposed to virtual nature in the media in order to obtain the psychological benefits that nature offers. This virtual nature will increasingly be a part of a consumer’s everyday lives (Levi & Kocher, 1999) and may serve “as a surrogate for the ‘real’ contact with nature” (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2008, p.834).
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message. Most importantly, while having a beneficial and restorative atmosphere on the viewer, these spectacular nature scenes do not divert attention away from the advertisement itself, which would otherwise be counterproductive to the brand.
Also Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibanez (2008) show that the representation of nature in the media (“virtual nature”) can lead to emotional experiences that are similar to “real” nature. However, the positive effect of nature in advertisements depends on the extent of familiarity with the scenery. Central European mountain scenery or Mediterranean coastlines evoked more positive emotional responses and more favorable attitudes towards the advertisement than advertisements which represent unfamiliar natural environments (Hartmann & Apaolaza-Ibanez, 2009).
Concluding, due to its restorative potential, nature is assumed to positively affect cognitive capacities, in this case memory, whereas urban scenery is often going to work counterproductively. Based on these links between nature and memory, I decided to test whether nature indeed has a positive effect on memory, as compared to urban scenery, which is assumed to have a negative effect on memory, as the restorative effects are not present there. The research is summarized in Figure 1. This figure shows the different relationships between the exposure to videos of different scenery (natural vs. urban vs. control) (independent variable) and the memory of product descriptions (dependent variable). The third condition will serve as a control condition to explore whether there is a difference between the sceneries and not being exposed to any of the environments.
Figure 2 Basic model
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In the following, the three different relationships are further elaborated and additional variables will be added to this basic model.
2.4 Nature versus Urban Environments
In order to explain the reason behind the distinction of nature versus urban scenery, the following paragraph is going to shed some light on the contrast of these different environments and their effect on cognitive processes, including memory. As numerous researchers have demonstrated the restorative effect of natural environments, it is worthwhile comparing the two different environments with one another to filter out differences between them.
As nature is filled with stimuli that only mildly grab attention (soft fascination) and therefore allows “directed-attention abilities a chance to replenish” (p.1207), urban environments contain stimuli that capture an individual’s attention dramatically (hard fascination) (Berman et al., 2008). Moreover, daily life in the city requires directed attention, such as avoiding to be hit by a car, and thus makes it less restorative as life on the countryside (Berman et al., 2008). The authors based this conclusion on two experiments: The first involved taking a walk in a park or in the city, the second let participants view pictures of either nature or urban settings. Both, the real and virtual nature improved the cognitive processes of participants, as opposed to the real and virtual urban environment.
Hartmann and Apaolaza-Ibanez (2009) also researched the influence of pictures by showing participants fictitious advertisements which only varied in the content of the image: pleasant natural scenery or urban scenery. Although they did not test cognitive processes after being exposed to the photographs, they observed that the attitude toward advertisement and brand was higher for pictures with biospheric content than for the urban ones. The most liked print advertisements were those depicting mountain lakes and creeks, while the rocky desert and the city were least liked by participants. Additionally, they measured emotional responses (pleasure, arousal, happiness, freedom, safety and interest) to the pictures and concluded that the urban scenery scored lowest in feelings of freedom and relaxation, and second lowest on pleasure, happiness, safety and interest.
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to counteract emotional well-being. Supporting this view of decreased mental health in cities, Lederbogen et al. (2011) detected that mood and anxiety disorders as well as schizophrenia are more frequent in people living in the city. Because of the more stressful social environment in cities, urban dwellers are at heightened risk for chronic disorders and poor stress processing (Lederbogen et al., 2011).
This might be one reason why governments all over the world are taking measures to protect the natural environment and are campaigning for more green spaces and parks in urban areas. The UK Localism Act 2011 states that it “will provide important new opportunities for communities to expand the provision of green spaces […] and enable local people to play a bigger role in planning, designing, managing and maintaining community green spaces for […] recreational and leisure purposes” (UK Government, 2011, p.1). Also the German government demands more green spaces in city areas to protect the climate and the biological variety (Proplanta, 2015). This importance of parks and wilderness date back to the influential landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted who contended that nature refreshes an individuals’ whole system (Olmsted, 1865). His ideas formed an essential justification of providing parks and preserving wilderness for public use (Ulrich et al., 1991).
2.5 Product Involvement
Not only the content of the advertisement itself, be it nature or urban, may influence a consumer. Individuals in some cases make well-informed choices and actively search for and use information when it comes to making decisions about purchasing a product (Zaichowsky, 1985). However, in many other instances, consumers make immediate decisions every day which do not involve processes of high-cognitive effort (Zaichowsky, 1985). Therefore, the distinction between high- and low-involvement products is important to understand a consumer’s thinking and cognitive processes when being exposed to an advertisement. Zaichowsky (1985) give the following definition of involvement: “A person’s perceived relevance of the object based on inherent needs, values and interests” (p.342).
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consumers are highly involved, they engage in an extensive search for information and process this information more actively and deeply, whereas consumers who are not involved will not exert these behaviors (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985). Antil (2001) asserts that in a case of low involvement, consumer are “unconcerned, unreasoning, unthinking and in general, simply do not care” (p.207). Moreover, according to Wu (n.d.), the higher the involvement of a consumer towards a product, the higher is the importance of the advertising content.
As products differ in their way consumers think about them, this needs to be considered in this research. It might be of importance whether the positive effect of nature on memory is only present for high involvement products, as they are usually thought through more by consumers (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985). For example, when consumers are not in search for a new car, they may not attend to car advertisements as deeply as they would when they want to buy a new one. Therefore -regardless of whether the advertisement contains nature scenes- they may not be restored by nature and thus not remember the products details if they do not watch the advertisements closely and reflect on its content, which they do with high-involvement products.
2.6 Nature Relatedness
Despite the health and cognitive benefits of nature discussed earlier, there is a substantial difference in the extent that people are drawn to nature. Whether people like to be out in nature or care about the environment depends on their individual levels of relatedness to the natural world (Nisbet et al., 2009, Mayer & Frantz, 2004). Two different questionnaires developed by Nisbet et al. (2009) and Mayer and Frantz (2004) measure an individual’s beliefs and relationships with the environment, presented as a self-report measure. For this research, the former questionnaire is used, which contains 21 statements, for example “I feel very connected to all living things and the earth” (p.724).
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2.7 Hypotheses
While discussing the different variables and their relationships, it has become evident that nature and urban environments capture the attention of individuals differently. As stated in 2.2 there is only minimal directed attention required in natural environments. These natural environmental capture attention modestly, whereas urban environments are full of characteristics that capture attention dramatically, making urban environments less restorative (Berman et al., 2008). Therefore, it may be reasonable to hypothesize that:
H1: A video featuring representations of natural scenery will be more restorative than the video featuring urban scenery.
As Bratman et al. (2012) concluded, urban stimuli do not possess the four essential components being away, fascination, extent and compatibility and therefore are not able- as nature is though- to restore our direct attentional capabilities. Based on these insights from the literature, it is hypothesized that:
H2: People who have been exposed to videos featuring representations of natural scenery as opposed to urban scenery will better be able to remember product details.
ART claims that being exposed to nature helps to restore the fatigued mind, and previously in this thesis it was discussed that individuals are better able to concentrate after seeing pictures and videos of nature. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) suggests, that when an individual’s ability and opportunity to process an advertisement is high, which is the case when they are restored by nature, they are more motivated to thoughtfully consider the message (Fennis & Stroebe, 2010). Therefore, it is assumed that with more concentration and attention after the nature condition, participants can more easily remember claims about “difficult” (high involvement) products and are more willing to engage in deep processing:
H3: After exposure to videos featuring natural scenery, people will engage in deeper processing and are therefore better able to remember product details of high- involvement products as opposed low-involvement products.
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H4: The higher the Nature Relatedness of an individual, the more positive will be the relationship between videos featuring representations of natural scenery and the performance of memory.
Figure 3 Conceptual and extended model
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3. Methodology
The previous chapter has summarized recent literature relevant for the topic, concluding with hypotheses and the conceptual model. In order to test this model, empirical research is conducted. This chapter will specify the methodology for this research and is divided into five parts: research design, participants, materials of the study, the measurement of the different variables and the procedure of the questionnaire.
3.1 Research design
Data was obtained by means of an online experiment via the research platform Qualtrics. In the experiment, manipulation was achieved through two different videos that participants were asked to watch (in the control group, participants did not watch any of the videos) and by varying the product and its characteristics that participants saw afterwards. Thus, this research is comprised of a 3 (video with natural scenery versus video with urban scenery versus no video) by 2 (high-involvement product and low-involvement product) design. Both variables were manipulated on a between-subject basis, as respondents were randomly assigned to the different levels of “exposure to scenery” and “involvement” in order to avoid participant awareness bias.
3.2 Participants
The questionnaire was distributed mostly among young people living in Germany and the Netherlands. Potential participants received a link through the social media platforms Facebook and Xing, through email and the snowball technique, as this is a fast and flexible way of distribution. In addition, this gave them the possibility to take part in the study at their preferred time and location. The study was accessible via computer and smartphone and it was online during a two weeks’ time period. It was recommended to fill out the questionnaire via the computer. In total, 128 participants filled out the entire survey.
3.3 Materials
3.3.1 Videos
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“Look around, noticing all aspects of your environment. Pay attention to the colors. Notice the textures. Imagine yourself breathing in the air; notice any smells that may be present. Imagine any sounds you may hear. Let yourself take in all the aspects of the environment in front of you.”(Weinstein et al, 2009, p. 1328).
The nature video was shot on a spring day outside the city of Groningen, in order to prevent any participant noticing the setting, which could create a bias in the rating of the restoration statements. In the nature video, participants saw a canal, a field, trees and cows (Figure 4) while in the city video they are exposed to a huge street with cars, busses and traffic lights (Figure 5). The city video was shot in the city of Münster. The settings for the videos were chosen, as the elements are supposed to be known and experienced by every participant before.
Figure 4 Screenshot of the nature video
Figure 5 Screenshot of the urban video
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3.3.2 Product Characteristics
When measuring memory performance in this study, a differentiation was made between high and low-involvement products. According to Laurent and Kapferer (1985), TV sets are experienced to be of high risk and therefore associated with high-involvement, while detergents are a low-involvement product. “Typical” high-involvement products like cars were not chosen, as they are predominantly purchased by men (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985). The pictures of the television and the detergent presented to the participants only showed the product itself and not any particular brand to rule out the possibility that participants knew the brand, which might otherwise have influenced their willingness and ability to remember the product attributes. The nine product characteristics per product (television and detergent) were chosen by the author to be comparable. One example of a characteristic is the weight of the two products with and without their packaging (Table 1). The full table with all nine characteristics can be found in Table 1 in Appendix 1.
Television Detergent Weight with Packaging 8.1 kg 1.8 kg Weight without Packaging 7.3 kg 1.3 kg
Table 1 Example of Product Characteristics in the Survey
3.4 Measurements
3.4.1 Memory
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was counted to measure their level of memory performance (ranging from 0= very bad performance to 9= best performance).
Figure 6 Example for answer possibilities
3.4.2 Restoration
The level of restoration is measured by using the scale of Hartig et al. (1997). It helps to assess the restorative potential of existing and proposed settings. The authors developed the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS) with the aim to “(a) represent the constructs being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility and; (b) distinguish between environments differing in restorative potential” (p.179). The scale consists of 16 items and participants had to indicate on a 7-point Likert scale the extent to which the environment they experienced before fit the given statements (0=not at all; 7=completely). An example statement for the construct being away is: “Spending time here gives me a good break from my day-to-day routine”, while an example for the construct fascination is “There is much to explore and discover here” (see Table 2 in Appendix 1 for the entire scale). The authors tested the scale in four studies and concluded that it is an effective means to measure restorative quality in environments.
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Compatibility (0.896). Regarding the subcategory Coherence, the “Alpha if Item deleted” for the statement “It was chaotic there” indicates an alpha of 0.781 Therefore, this item should be taken out of further analyses with this subscale.
3.4.3 Nature Relatedness
The Nature Relatedness (NR) Scale by Nisbet et al. (2009) was chosen as an appropriate scale to measure a person’s relation to nature as a possible moderator. It covers a more extensive catalogue of issues than the scale of Mayer and Frantz (2004) and moreover evaluates the “affective, cognitive and experiential aspect of an individual’s connection to nature” (p.715). The 21 statements are further divided into three sub-sections: NR-Self, NR-Perspective and NR-Experience. NR-Self statements reflect “feelings and thoughts about one’s personal connection to nature” (p.723); NR-Perspective is made up of declarations reflecting an “external, nature-related worldview, a sense of agency concerning individual human actions and their impact on all living things” (p.723); NR-Experience represents statements about the “physical familiarity with the natural world, the level of comfort with and desire to be out in nature“ (p.725). Participants have to rate all 21 statements on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The entire Nature Relatedness Scale can be found in Figure 1 and 2 in Appendix 1.
For the reliability analysis to be performed for the Nature Relatedness Scale, first the reversed questions are recoded. The scale shows a strong internal consistency with Cronbach’s Alpha for the entire scale being 0.811. For NR-Self the Alpha is 0.747 and for NR-Experience 0.681. For NR-Perspective Cronbach’s Alpha is only 0.523. When deleting the item “The state of nonhuman species is an indicator of the future for human”, Cronbach’s Alpha would increase to 0.618. Therefore, this item is not taken into account in further analysis.
3.4.4 Control questions
Several control questions were incorporated in the survey, which describe respondents and give insights into the representativeness of the sample. They can also give additional information about possible effects in the conceptual model. The following questions were asked: What is your gender? This is a nominal variable with the options Male and Female;
How old are you? This was asked in an open question resulting in interval data; How many hours do you approximately spend in nature? This is a nominal variable with a 4-point scale
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access to nature? This is a nominal variable with a 7-point scale with the answer possibilities
very difficult to very easy.
3.5 Procedure of the Survey
When clicking on the link, participants were told that this survey was conducted within the scope of my Master Thesis at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. They were told that the study was about how exposure to different environments can help marketers in advertising products. When moving on to the questionnaire, they first had to answer some questions about their gender and age. After that, they were asked to indicate their current mood level on a scale from 0 (the worst ever) to 100 (the best ever).
The second part of the survey consisted of watching the videos. Here, participants were randomly assigned to one of the three possible experimental manipulations. Thus, they either saw the video featuring natural scenery (n = 42), the video of an urban setting (n = 45) or no video at all (n = 41). Participants in the groups watching the video were asked to fill out some statements regarding the video, aimed at measuring their restoration level.
The third part showed respondents either a picture of a television (n = 66) or of a detergent (n = 62) with nine product characteristics below it. They were summoned to suppose buying a new product like this and to remember all attributes well. For this they had 50 seconds time. From a small pre-study before the survey was launched, this time was figured out to be neither too long nor too short. After that, a distraction task was incorporated into the survey, to avoid that participants were thinking about the product characteristics or even trying to learning them by heart. For that, they had to retype a short paragraph from a book without typing any “E” or “e”.
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4. Results
This chapter discusses the results of this study. First, descriptive statistics of all the participants are presented. Since the study included three different experimental conditions, it is tested whether demographical differences exist between the groups. In the last part of this chapter, the hypotheses are tested by using Analysis of Variance and Correlation.
4.1 Descriptive Statistics and Preliminary Results
194 respondents participated in the study. 66% of all respondents completed the questionnaire until the end, therefore the 65 partial responses were excluded, amounting to 128 as the total sample size used for further analysis. From the 65 unfinished surveys, 29 respondents did not even fill out the first question and therefore just saw the beginning block (duration of the survey between 5 and 50 seconds) and only one respondent completed the distraction task, while the others dropped out at that task or even before that.
The total “cleaned” sample of 128 participants consisted of 29.7% male and 70.3% female participants, with a mean age of 23.55 (SD = 5.19). As the online link was mostly distributed to friends via Facebook and on university Facebook pages, the majority of respondents are students and under 25 (78.9%). Respondents are mainly aged between 21 and 24 (61.7%), with 17 being the youngest respondent and 47 being the oldest.
The mood of participants was assessed in the beginning of the survey, after the control questions. Participants had to indicate the mood they were in at that moment, using a sliding scale ranging from 0 (the worst ever) to 100 (the best ever) (scale taken from Sherman et al, 2009). The mean mood of participants was 59.91 (SD = 16.26) with a minimum of 5.00 and a maximum of 90.00. In later analyses, mood was not found to be a statistically significant covariate or variable, therefore does not play an important role in this research.
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Figure 7 Graph showing how easy it was to get access to nature for participants in the sample
In order to rule out differences between the experimental groups concerning the demographic variables age and gender, a Chi square test is performed in order to examine whether there are significant differences in the demographic variable gender between the three different groups. The results show that gender has no statistical significant differences among the three scenarios (χ²= 1.015, p >.05). As age is a metric variable, a one-way ANOVA is performed to see whether the second demographic variable is significantly different across the three experimental groups. The ANOVA (F=1.105; p= .360) shows that the null hypothesis (there are no significant differences) cannot be rejected (p >.05) and thus, the three conditions did not significantly differ with respect to demographic variables.
To gain more insights into the distribution of the data, normality tests are used for the dependent variable and the moderator variable by assessing skewness and kurtosis statistics. Since the independent variable is a categorical variable, normality testing will not be applied. The skewness statistic can be used to see whether the data is symmetrical and normally distributed, whereas the kurtosis statistic shows how peaked or flat the distribution is. Skewness statistics between -0.5 and 0.5 is interpreted as normal and kurtosis statistics are normally peaked when between -1.96 and 1.96. Both variables are relatively normal distributed; only the dependent variable is slightly negatively skewed (Table 2), which makes it appropriate to continue with the analysis.
5% 14% 10% 17% 31% 23%
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Variable Skewness Std. Error Skewness Kurtosis Std. Error Kurtosis Right answer (DV) -.781 .214 .066 .425 Nature Relatedness (moderator) -.192 .214 -.105 .425
Table 2 Normality test for dependent and moderator variable
4.2 Analyses of Hypotheses
In the following, the different hypotheses are tested and it is assessed which variables play an important role in this research. When first checking for outliers in the dependent variable, the rule of thumb (Mean±3SD) calculates that the three outliers in the boxplot (Appendix 2, Figure 1) are still in range and therefore no cases have to be taken out.
4.2.1. Environmental Conditions on Memory
In order to analyse whether the amount of right answers (performance of memory) is significantly different in nature vs. urban video vs. no video, the analysis of variance (ANOVA) has to be performed. The categorical variable experimental condition indicates which condition respondents were in.
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Additionally, a Tukey post hoc test showed no significant differences between any of the six different conditions (nature video and TV, nature video and detergent, urban video and TV, urban video and detergent, no video and TV, no video and detergent) regarding the dependent variable right answers (see Appendix 2, Table 2).
In order to check whether the environmental condition had an influence on the individual questions asked about the product details, several two-way ANOVAs were conducted for each of the nine product details (e.g. length, height etc.) as the dependent and the experimental
condition and type of product as the independent variables. However, for only one of the
variables the ANOVA showed a significant difference of p < 0.05 (Table 3). Item of DV (right
answer)
Main effects Interaction
Environmental condition Type of Product Environmental condition*type of product Length F(2,122)= 1.79 p = .172 F(1,122)= 1.78 p = .185 F(2,122)= .370 p = .692 Height F(2,122)= .230 p = .795 F(1,122)= 1.85 p = .176 F(2,122)= .16 p = .850 Weight with Packaging F(2,121)= .33 p = .722 F(1,121)= 1.26 p = .263 F(2,121)= 1.41 p = .246 Weight without Packaging F(2,121)= .55 p = .580 F(1,121)= 4.96 p = .028 F(2,121)= .28 p = .758 Color F(2,122)= .06 p = .938 F(1,122)= .12 p = .728 F(2,122)= .27 p = .767 Consumer Review F(2,122)= .56 p = .571 F(1,122)= .51 p = .479 F(2,122)= 1.57 p = .211 Expected Lifetime F(2,122)= .83 p = .439 F(1,122)= .01 p = .934 F(2,122)= .19 p = .826 Conversion right if not satisfied F(2,122)= .17 p = .847 F(1,122)= .03 p = .872 F(2,122)= .00 p = .998 Price F(2,122)= .76 p = .471 F(1,122)= .13 p = .717 F(2,122)= 1.45 p = .238 Table 3 Two-way ANOVAS with each item of the DV as the DV
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possibility 4 of the 5 answer possibilities for height (1= 58cm, 2= 59cm, 3= 60cm, 4= 61cm, 5= 62cm, 6 = I cannot remember) and the second one was actually the right one, he was assigned a distance of 2 for height. For every respondent a total was computed. Therefore, the new dependent variable now ranged from 0 (every answer was right) to 18.
However, when performing the same two-way ANOVA (see Appendix 2, Table 3) as before, with changing the dependent variable to answerdirection, the results are still not statistically significant. There was no statistically significant effect of experimental condition on right answers F(2,122) = .50, p = .608. Additionally, the type of product (F(1,122) = .12, p= .733) and the interaction effect (F(2,122) = 1.46, p= .237) were not significant. Again, nine two-way ANOVAs were performed, in order to assess whether experimental condition and type of product had an influence on each of the items of the dependent variable seperately. For none of the nine items, the p-value was statistically significant (see Appendix 2, Table 4).
For the last analysis that was performed in order to find a relationship between environmental conditions on memory, a new variable was created: amount of “I cannot remember”-option. For this, it was counted how often a participant chose the option “I cannot remember” when asked about the product characteristics. It would be possible that people who saw the urban video were too depleted to even try to think and therefore might just chose that they cannot remember, whereas respondents of the nature condition might be more willing and mentally fit enough to try. However, a one-way ANOVA showed no statistically significant result of experimental condition on the amount of “I cannot remember”-option chosen: F(2,125) =.16,
p = .852 (see Appendix 2, Table 5).
Therefore, the main effect of the model and the second hypothesis that people who have been
exposed to videos featuring representations of natural scenery as opposed to urban scenery will better be able to remember product details cannot be confirmed. Moreover, the analysis
does not confirm that after exposure to videos featuring natural scenery, people will engage
in deeper processing and are therefore better able to remember product details of high- involvement products as opposed low-involvement product.
4.2.2 Effect of Environment on Restoration Scale
In order to test whether the difference in environmental conditions has an effect on restoration, a one-way ANOVA with experimental condition as the independent variable and
restoration as the dependent variable is conducted. As only the respondents who saw one of
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excluded from this ANOVA. The ANOVA shows a statistically significant effect of environmental condition on restoration, F(1,85) = 51.05, p = .000 (see Appendix 2, Table 6). When checking for descriptives, it can be concluded that the nature video is more restorative than the urban one, which coincides with recent literature. The nature video has a mean restoration value of 4.01 (SD = 0.69), while the urban one only has a mean of 2.79 (SD = 0.89). The mean differences of the nature versus urban video for every subscale of the restoration scale can be found in Table 4.
Subscale Mean Standard
deviation Being away Nature Video
Urban Video
4.94 2.23
1.09 1.05 Fascination Nature Video
Urban Video
4.37 2.43
0.96 1.06 Coherence Nature Video
Urban Video
2.25 4.00
1.15 1.35 Compatibility Nature Video
Urban Video
4.78 2.33
0.90 1.08
Table 4 Means of subscales of PRS on restoration
Concluding, being away, fascination and compatibility have a higher mean for the nature video, whereas the mean of coherence (which are negatively framed statements- e.g. “There is a great deal of distraction”) is higher for the urban video (mean = 4.00, SD = 1.35) than the nature video (mean = 2.25, SD = 1.15). Thus, the video in the urban setting was more distracting and annoying for respondents.
Therefore, the hypothesis that the video featuring representations of natural scenery will be
more restorative than the video featuring urban scenery can be confirmed.
4.2.3 Relation between Restoration and Product Memory
I also checked the final aspect of the model, namely the relation between restoration and product memory. When assessing whether there is a correlation between restoration and memory (right answers), Pearson’s Correlation implies no statistically significant correlation between the two variables (r = -.135, p = .213). When again altering the dependent variable to
answer direction, also no significant results are found (r = .063, p = .560). Therefore,
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However, when assessing the correlations between the subscales of the restoration scale and product memory, the following was found:
Subscale Pearson’s R Sig.
Being away r = -.019 p = .859
Fascination r = -.074 p = .498
Coherence r = -.292 p = .006
Compatibility r = -.037 p = .734
Table 5 Correlation of each subscale of PRS and product memory
It can be concluded, that coherence is negatively related to product memory, meaning that the higher participants rated the three statements of the subscale coherence3, (“There is too much going on”, “It is a confusing place”, “There is a great deal of distraction”), the worse they scored on product memory. As discussed in 4.2.2, respondents who saw the urban video, rated these three statements higher and therefore, indirectly, the urban video corresponds negatively
to product memory.
4.2.4. The Role of Nature Relatedness
In the following, it is tested whether Nature Relatedness acts as a moderator between the environmental condition and memory. Moderation is tested by employing the SPSS macro
PROCESS (Model 1) developed by Hayes (2013). For that, experimental condition is the
independent variable, right answers the dependent one and the average Nature Relatedness score per participant acts as the potential moderating variable.
The model exhibits the following betas and significance levels:
Variable Beta Std. error beta T Sig.
Constant 6.82 .174 39.18 p = .000
Nature Relatedness .66 .3747 1.75 p = .0828
Experimental Condition -.08 .20 -.41 p = .6845
Interaction NR*Exp. .08 .41 .20 p = .8388 Table 6 Moderation of Nature Relatedness on main effect
Although the analysis shows no statistically significant effect for the experimental condition on product memory and the interaction effect of Nature Relatedness and experimental
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condition on product memory, the direct effect of Nature Relatedness on product memory is marginally significant (p < 0.1). Therefore, it might be worthwhile to assess whether there is a correlation between Nature Relatedness and product memory.
The output suggests a positive correlation (r = .165, p = .063) of Nature Relatedness and product memory (Appendix 2, Table 7). Although, this finding is only significant on the 1% level, it still suggests that the more nature related an individual is, the better he scores on remembering product details.
Thus, the hypothesis the higher the Nature Relatedness of an individual, the more positive
will be the relationship between videos featuring representations of natural scenery and the performance of memory has to be rejected. Although Nature Relatedness was not found to be
a moderator of the main effect, it can be concluded that the higher the Nature Relatedness of
an individual, the better he scores on performance of product memory.
4.2.5. Effect of Access to Nature on Product Memory
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Figure 8 Correlation of Access to Nature on Product Memory (Right answers)
The horizontal access displays the access to nature from 0 (very difficult) to 6 (very easy) and the vertical axis depicts the number of right answers (from 0 to 9). When distinguishing between a low and high involvement of product, the following is detected: Access to nature positively correlates with product memory for the high involvement product (television), but not for the low-involvement product (detergent) (Table 6).
Variable Pearson’s correlation Sig. High involvement (television) .404 p = .001 Low involvement (detergent) .101 p = .436
Table 6 Correlation for access to nature on product memory for low and high involvement
Thus, the analysis reveals a new finding: better access to nature positively correlates with
product memory, when the product is a high involvement product. This supports the
hypotheses that people who often experience nature, have the ability and opportunity to thoughtfully consider the message and may be better able to remember claims about the “difficult” high involvement product.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Product Memory Access to Nature
Correlation
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5. Discussion
This section discusses and evaluates the findings and results of Chapter 4 and links them to recent theory. Furthermore, theoretical and managerial implications of this study are presented, leaving limitations and future research as the last section of this paper.
5.1 Conclusion of findings
Most research on the benefits of nature investigated the difference between natural and urban environments and their psychological and cognitive effects on individuals (Ulrich, 1981; Berman et al, 2008; Mayer et al, 2009; White et al, 2013; Holden & Mercer, 2014). However, looking at these effects from a marketer’s perspective and combining natural landscapes with products and advertisements received relatively little attention. The main objective of this exploratory study was to examine whether nature positively influences a person’s memory of product details as opposed to urban scenery. The main mechanism underlying this hypothesis is restoration: It has been hypothesized that nature is less distracting and takes up less attention than urban stimuli, thereby restoring cognitive capacity.
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considerably longer to answer the survey than others. Average time to complete the survey was 12.6 minutes and there were 14 respondents who needed between 20 and 50 minutes. This additionally might have distorted the results, as respondents might have done something else parallel to the survey or might have looked up vocabulary in order to understand everything, which might have led to remembering less. Moreover, it might be possible that the distraction task was too difficult or annoying for participants, thereby dampening the effect of the natural video on product memory.
Moreover, I tested whether the variable product involvement would interact with product memory by showing participants a picture of a high-involvement product (television) or a low-involvement product (detergent) and nine product characteristic respectively. It was assumed that due to restoration of nature, participants’ ability and motivation to process an advertisement (or in this case, a picture of a product with some facts about it) are high and thus they are more motivated to think about and reflect difficult advertisements. Although no recent research combined product involvement with environmental condition, it was worth exploring whether there might be a link between them. Results of this thesis did not support the hypothesis. A possible explanation might be that the product characteristics of the television and the detergent were too similar. Although it was chosen for a high and a low-involvement product according to theory (Laurent & Kapferer, 1985), the characteristics were similar in order to rule out confounds and make the results comparable. However, when looking at the underlying theoretical explanation that after restoration people are able to concentrate more on difficult tasks, it cannot be concluded that the television characteristics were really more difficult.
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showed that indeed there is a weak positive correlation of the two variables, which suggests that people with a higher Nature Relatedness (higher affinity to nature and living things, concern for environment etc.) are better able to remember product details.
Table 7 summarizes the hypotheses of this thesis and our findings.
Hypothesis Finding
H1: The video featuring representations of natural scenery will be more restorative than the video featuring urban scenery.
Confirmed
H2: Due to less stimuli and distraction in nature, people who have been exposed to videos featuring representations of natural scenery as opposed to urban scenery will better be able to remember product details.
Not confirmed
H3: After exposure to videos featuring natural scenery, people will engage in deeper processing and are therefore better able to remember product details of high- involvement products as opposed low-involvement product.
Not confirmed
H4: The higher the Nature Relatedness of an individual, the more positive will be the relationship between videos featuring representations of natural scenery and the performance of memory.
Not confirmed as a moderator, but as a
direct effect
Table 7 Findings of Hypotheses
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she said that “access to nature and green environments yields better cognitive functioning, more self-discipline and impulse control, and greater mental health overall”, which may be an explanations for the findings in this research.
When distinguishing between high and low involvement products, it was detected, that this positive relationship only applies to high involvement products. This supports the hypothesis based on Fennis and Stroebe (2010) that people who have the ability and opportunity to process an advertisement, which they have after they experienced nature are more motivated to thoughtfully consider the message. Therefore, the easy access to nature might provide them with more concentration and attention and they can therefore more easily remember claims about “difficult” (high involvement) products and are more willing to engage in deep processing.
To sum it all up, this research did not reveal that the nature video led to an improved memory of product descriptions. Therefore, the research question- To what extent do videos featuring
natural scenery as opposed to urban scenery lead to an improved memory of product descriptions consumers are exposed to- cannot be answered clearly. As the results for the
main effect were not significant, there is no extent that can be indicated. However, as the nature video was seen as more restorative than the urban video, this can also be a help for marketers. Thus, nature has the ability to help marketers in advertising their products better, but not with the proposition that the author claimed.
5.2 Managerial Implications
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effect was not proven in this study, literature gives evidence about the positive cognitive effects of restoration.
Another idea is for marketers to study television programs systematically and place their advertisement in breaks of or after movies featuring natural scenery. In Germany, the popular series Rosamunde Pilcher is known for its beautiful and scenic British and Scottish landscape, especially coastal regions4 (YouTube, 2015). The settings in such a series may restore people and enable them to perform better on cognitive tasks like remembering contents of advertisements.
The findings on access to nature may be interesting for newspaper or radio advertisers: As these advertisements are usually customized and different from city to city or region to region, it may be possible to include more information in the ads in natural regions than appropriate for people living in a major city. As it was found that they are better able to remember product characteristics, marketers can act on that by incorporating more arguments and details into the ads, especially when the advertised products are high involvement products, like cars or kitchens.
5.3 Limitations and Future Research
This research has several shortcomings. First of all, the demographics of the sample are not in line with the general population. The proportion of male and female (30% and 70%) do not correspond with the published figures of the German Federal Agency for Statistics (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2015). Additionally, the sample shows problems in the distribution of age, as there are a high number of people in their twenties. The problem with this is that it excludes older people who are also important targets of marketers, when developing their advertisements. It would be interesting to test the same hypotheses with a bigger and more representative sample.
In this study memory was measured. However, memory is affected by many other factors, such as distractions around oneself. It may be possible that some people did other tasks parallel to the survey or did not read all the product characteristics carefully, let alone tried to remember them well. This could have led the results in the wrong direction. This could be solved by conducting the research in the lab, as respondents will give the researcher their undivided attention, which is essential when measuring memory.
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As restoration and Nature Relatedness was measured by using a self-report questionnaire, it could have led, especially for the NR scale, to response bias such as impression management and social desirability, which refer to claiming socially desirable traits while denying socially undesirable ones (Furnham, 1986). People like to see themselves as caring for the environment and therefore may answer certain statements (e.g. “I always think about how my actions affect the environment”) more positively than they actually are or behave. Future research could overcome this by developing more objective and validated measures to assess the concept of Nature Relatedness.
Attention Restoration Theory assumes that nature can restore the fatigued mind. Although, in this research participants were not depleted with a specific task at the beginning of the questionnaire, it was assumed that they can take advantage from nature nevertheless. Future research can attempt to reveal differences in participants who were mentally fatigued before the videos and can assess whether there are differences in memory levels for these two groups of people.
Another limitation is that the videos were shot by the author herself and not professionally. It might be possible that respondents did not like the videos and therefore did not pay attention. Moreover, participants saw the video relatively small on their computer screen, which might be a possible explanation for no differences in the dependent variable. Moreover, the videos had a length of one minute. It may be possible that this time was too short to yield differences in memory scores and future research could try out longer videos. Additionally, the two products were chosen by the author to be a suitable representation of a high- and a low- involvement product. Future research could expand this study by taking into account more and different products.
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measure than the one discussed above. It might be an idea to replicate this study in the context of television advertising (videos).
