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Lecture 2 - Congruent and Incongruent Media

Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a business class.

Professor: Last time we talked about the design and production of advertisements.

Today we’ll be discussing how advertisers decide where to display their ads. This is critical to a successful marketing campaign because it builds up the consumer’s brand awareness, their knowledge of a product made by a particular manufacturer.

And studies show that the more you are aware of a product, there’s a greater chance you’ll buy it.

Now, most ads we see in the media, like in newspapers, television, or magazines, are placed where the product is matched with a medium of a similar theme.

Let’s take…uh…the medium of magazines as an example. If you were to flip through, say, an automotive magazine, what kind of ads would you expect to find?

Jack?

Student: Ads for cars, car parts, tires, stuff like that.

Professor: Good. When you have an ad for a certain product in media with a similar theme, we call that congruent media. Congruent simply means it fits. It’s what you would expect. Congruent media placement is the most logical choice for marketing a product.

First, it’s obvious that people reading a car magazine are interested in cars. So if you place a car ad there, you know you are reaching the right audience. Also, research shows that when people read an ad in a congruent medium, afterwards, they have pretty good recall of what was advertised.

Now, there’s another approach, that’s placing ads in incongruent media.

Incongruent media are the magazines, newspapers, TV spots, where the theme doesn’t match the theme of the product. Even though it seems counterintuitive, research shows that this also is an effective marketing strategy. One study tested this by placing car advertisements in a magazine that had an incongruent theme and it found that this contributed to consumers’ positive attitudes toward the ad and the car being advertised.

Student: What kind of magazine was it?

Professor: A cooking magazine.

Student: Wow! That worked? I’d have imagined it would be a distraction to see something like that, you know, out of place.

Professor: Well, keep in mind that potential car buyers don’t read only car magazines. Most have other interests. Many of them probably subscribe to other magazines, a news weekly, a financial publication, something related to a special interest or hobby. So what marketers have to do then is carefully research potential customers and look for overlapping interests, which magazine overlaps most with the interests of the car buyer. Then when they do choose to place ads in incongruent media, they know they’ll be effective.

Student: Okay.

Professor: Now this study suggests that because the people reading a cooking magazine didn’t expect to see a car ad, they actually paid more attention. And so for example, when people who like reading about cars see a car ad in a car magazine, they might pass over it quickly, while here…

Student: They actually took more time to read the ad.

Professor: Right! People paid more attention. They processed the information more carefully when it appears in a medium with a different theme. This ultimately results in stronger brand awareness, which leads to a more favorable impression of that product overall. Jenny?

Student: So according to the study, basically when I see an ad in an unexpected place, it’ll make me want to buy the product?

Professor: Well, yes and no. The research shows you’ll probably remember that ad and you are more likely to feel positive about that product. Now, whether you’ll go out to buy it is a different story.

Of course, there are other factors at work here. You remember those criteria we discussed last week? Anyway, this explains why most marketers today rely on a mix of congruent and incongruent media.

But there are limits to how incongruent the media should be. You don’t want a totally mismatch. So in a magazine aimed at new parents, you often see car advertisements since parents buy and drive cars. But there are different types of cars, right? For example, placing an ad here for a big roomie van, which is popular with big families would make sense, but a snappy sports car with only two seats?

Well, that would clearly be too much of a mismatch.