A Study on Moderating Roles of Involvement on Consumer Attitude Formation for Differing Numbers of Message Repetition

Suh, Young-Chang(Major in Business Administration Graduate School of Administrative Science Gyongsang National University Chinju, Korea)

Supervised by Professor Kim, Sae Bum.

With the help of other researches up to the present, the objective of the research is to investigate the roles of involvement in the process of consumer attitude change which a persuasive communication brings about for the understanding of roles of involvement of the effectiveness of advertisement. The specific research issue is to investigate how consumer involvement level influences in information process for differing numbers of message repetition.

To serve the research objective, related literature on advertisement, involvement and consumer attitude formation was reviewed and 9 hypothesis were established. To test the hypothesis, we made 3 video cassette tapes. We embedded a commercial message for Goryo computer professionaly one two three times respectively in a movie titled "the mysteries of undewater". An experiment was carried out using a factorial design 2(high vs. three time exposure). Among 250 subjects who participated in the experiment, 233 were proved to be good for the analysis. With the help of SPSS PC⁺package statistical analysis on the data from those good subjects was performed. For hypothesis testing analysis of variance and Person's correlation analysis were performed.

The results of hypothesis test are summarized as follows:

1. Attitude for an advertisement has a positive influence on attitude for a brand for any repetitions of message regradless of consumer involvement level.

2. For high involvement group, increased number of message repetition failed to show a significant effect on the effectiveness of advertisement.

3. Attitude for a brand attitude for an advertisement and purchase intention were more favorable for any repetition of message in case of high involvement than in case of low involvement.

4. We failed, however, to show significant effect of message repetition and advertisement wear out effect in case of low involvement, which are not the case with some of the precedented researches.

The marketing implications of the research are:

1. Regardless of involvement level, attitude for an advertisement has a positive influence on attitude for a brand. A favorable attitude for on advertisement leads to a favorable attitude for a brand, which lead to a favorable purchase intention in turn. We can understand the importance of a favorable advertisement in consumer purchase behavior.

2. For high involvement group, the increased message repetition failed to be effective. Therefore, we understand not the increased repetition of message but informative message for the evaluation of a product is more important for the effectiveness of a advertisement in case of high involvement.

3. Attitude for a brand, attitude for an advertisement and purchase intention were more favorable for any repetition of message in case of high involvement than in case of low involvement. Hence, we can see that we need to exert more marketing efforts to move involvement level from low to high.