Reconstruction Theory: Towards an Understanding of How Media Scheduling Influences Memory For Advertising

It is well established in the advertising literature that memory for advertising is dependent on media scheduling. Two consistent themes have been present in that literature: first, repetition of advertising enhances memory, and second, distributing advertisements over time increases their longer-term retention. The verbal learning literature refers to such memory enhancement as the “spacing effect”. Two theories have recently received support in the marketing literature to account for these prevalent findings: study phase retrieval and reconstruction. The purpose of this investigation is to determine, through two experiments, the theory that best explains the spacing effect in a marketing setting. Our results support a two-factor theory of spacing effects and this finding has both theoretical and practical implications for marketers.

Citation:

Hayden Noel and Kathy LaTour (2011) ,"Reconstruction Theory: Towards an Understanding of How Media Scheduling Influences Memory For Advertising", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Alan Bradshaw, Chris Hackley, and Pauline Maclaran, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 541.