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Telling the brand story: including news articles in online promotional
strategies
Abstract. Given the growing
popularity of the Internet as a
promotional medium, it is crucial
for brand managers to examine
the effects of combining the
different brand communication
sources online. According to
social comprehension theory and
knowledge from neuroscience,
people exposed to a message
spontaneously construct a mental
simulation. People who are
exposed to images or visuals are
unlikely to assign verbal labels to
their observations, whereas
people who read a story may
spontaneously form mental
pictures of the narrative content.
Mental processing of stories
requires more extensive
elaboration than processing of
visuals. In a first study, survey
results indicate online news
articles about a brand are more
likely to be acted upon by users
than are advertisements. A
second study considers
integrating news articles and
advertising when promoting new
brands on the Internet in order to
benefit from a synergistic effect.
Previous studies examining a
synergistic effect in marketing
communications have looked at
the increased effectiveness of
combining multiple media or
different tactics when promoting
a brand. Experiment results from
the second study indicate that
when exposure to advertising
combines with exposure to
objective news about a new
brand, effectiveness increases in
terms of both ad and brand
attitudes.
Keyword: elaboration, Internet
advertising, news, synergy.
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2008.10.17-18
