The sonic boom: effect of logo presentation style in television commercials on memory for the advertised brand

Abstract

This study examines the effect of a structural feature of commercials called sonic branding on recognition and cued recall. A sonic brand or sonic logo can be defined as a unique auditory identity for a brand, also called an audio logo. The design was a 2 (Logo Style: Sonic v/s Visual) x 3 (Television commercials) fractional repeated measures experiment. Logo style was the within-subjects factor with two levels, the sonic-style logo and the visual-only style logo viewed in the commercial. Television commercial was also a within-subjects factor, with three commercials shown at each level of logo-style. Participants were randomly assigned to one of 6 conditions. Brand recognition was tested using a signal detection analysis. Cued brand recall was analyzed through use of a paired sample t-test. The findings suggest that brand recognition is more sensitive for ads with a non-sonic style logo than for ads with a sonic style logo. Sonic branding also does not significantly affect cued brand recall.