Cognitive and Affective Consequences of Two Types of Incongruent Advertising

In this study, Heckler & Childers' (1992) two-dimensional conceptualization of incongruity is employed and related to the different schemas that consumers use in ad processing. Consumers can relate advertising to expectations about ads for the product concerned from the ad schema or to brand-related expectations from the brand schema. If an ad is incongruent with the brand schema, consumer responses to incongruity do not only reflect expectancy of the ad, but also involve determining relevancy to the brand, consistent with the two-dimensional conceptualization of incongruity. However, if an ad is incongruent with the ad schema consumers will only react to the expectancy dimension of incongruity. Therefore, these two types of incongruity have different consequences in terms of consumer evaluation, processing and categorization. We find that incongruity with the ad schema mainly has affective consequences. Ads that are incongruent with the ad schema lead to more arousal and consequently more favorable ad evaluations than ads that are congruent with the ad schema. Incongruity with the brand schema has predominantly cognitive consequences. Ads that are incongruent with the brand schema lead to more extensive processing than ads that are congruent with the brand schema. Brand beliefs and categorization change as a result of incongruent advertising information.