Sex Really Does Sell: The Recall of Sexual and Non-sexual Television Advertisements in Sexual and Non-sexual Programmes

The present study examined memory for advertisements as a function of both advertisement content and the contextual programme content. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: in one condition, they watched a sexual programme and in the other a non-sexual programme. Embedded within each programme were the same highly sexual and non-sexual advertisements that had been matched in pairs for five products. Memory for the advertisements and involvement in the programmes was measured. It was found that on three indices (free recall, brand recognition and prompted recall), memory for the sexual advertisements was superior to that for non-sexual advertisements. There was no effect of the programme content on advertisement recall and no relationship between programme involvement and advertisement recall. The results are discussed with reference to extant literature on memory for advertisements. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.