廣告音樂在不同涉入型態下之效果與影響機制

The Mechanism of Music on Advertising Effects under Different Involvement Conditions

當今廣告搭配音樂的情形十分普遍。過去研究指出廣告音樂可引發心理反應，達成廣告效果，但對於其中過程則缺乏深入探討。另外，文獻亦指出音樂效果可能隨消費者涉入而異。因此，本研究目的在探討廣告音樂與訊息的一致性以及音樂評價兩種音樂特性在認知涉入和情感涉入時的廣告效果和影響途徑。實驗結果顯示，音樂訊息一致性引發同理心，音樂評價直接影響的心理反應是情緒，而且情緒對同理心有正向影響。在認知涉入情境下，廣告音樂的影響途徑循「部分影響模型」，音樂訊息一致性單獨發揮作用；在情感涉入時，音樂的影響途徑循「混合影響模型」，音樂訊息一致性和音樂評價均對廣告態度有直接和間接效果。

Music is widely used in advertisements today. This study aims to investigate how the characteristics of music influence the effectiveness of advertising. The two music characteristics under investigation are music-message congruence (i.e., the extent the music matches with the advertising message) and music valence (i.e., consumer’s evaluation of the music). Previous research has indicated that music in advertising can induce psychological responses and facilitate advertising effectiveness, but the underlying mechanism was less examined. This study focuses two music-evoked psychological responses, emotion and empathy, and investigates how these psychological responses lead to favorable attitudes toward the advertisement and the brand. Previous studies also showed that the effects of music may vary with consumer involvement. Therefore, the moderating effects of the type of involvement are also examined. After reviewing relevant literature, the authors propose that the mechanism of music on advertising effects varies with the type of consumer involvement. Under affective involvement condition, the process may follow the “mixed influence model” (see Figure 1), which predicts that both music-message congruence and music valence can evoke psychological responses and attitudes. Under cognitive involvement condition, the influencing process of music may follow the “partial influence model” (see Figure 2), which predicts that music-message congruence is the major drive of music effects. This study employs a 2x2 between-subject experiment design to test the hypotheses. The two independent variables are music-message congruence (high versus low) and music valence (positive vs. neutral). Four pieces of music were selected through two pilot studies and then edited into the same TV commercial for a fictitious brand (i.e., Denmark) of beer to make four different versions of ads. Three hundred and seventy-one college students were randomly assigned to view one of these four ads. Subjects were then classified into cognitive involvement (n=155), affective involvement(n=153), or low involvement (n=63) group based on their responses to the cognitive-affective involvement scale (Celuch and Slama, 1998; Park and Young, 1986). Separate structural equation analyses were conducted for subjects with cognitive and affective involvement with the advertisement. The results show that all of our hypotheses are supported. The “partial influence model” is the best fit model for cognitively-involved consumers and the “mixed influence model” is for affectively-involved consumers. Music-message congruence has a direct impact on empathy and ad attitude under all circumstances. Music valence, on the other hand, influences emotion and ad attitude under affective involvement condition only. Emotion leads to empathy, and empathy leads to ad attitude under both types of involvement. Emotion also has direct effects on ad attitude under cognitive involvement condition. Empathy can lead to brand attitude under cognitive, but not affective involvement condition. This study also compares the effect sizes of music-message congruence and music valence. It is found that both music characteristics lead to favorable ad and brand attitudes for affective involvement group, but music-message congruence has greater effect than music valence. For cognitive involvement group, only music-message congruence would work. Therefore, music-message congruence is a relatively important factor to consider when choosing advertising music. Regarding the mediating effects of empathy and emotion, this study found that emotion is more likely to be influenced by consumers’ evaluation of music, while empathy is more likely to be evoked by music consistent with ad message. In addition, positive emotion leads to greater empathy. In other words, emotion seems to be a direct response to music, and empathy is a higher-level response. The temporal relationship of emotion and empathy is similar to the arguments of Stout and Leckenby (1986) and is worthy of future investigations.