Author(s): Sookyeong Hong, Jin-Ae Kang, Glenn T Hubbard
This experimental study compared story and non-story audio advertisements for a brand of an online start-up company, using three test groups of college students from a large university. Some participants reported more favourable responses to ads using stories than those hearing a control ad that was purely informational. There were also significant differences regarding participants’ desire to share information about the product by Word Of Mouth (WOM). Participants with high levels of involvement in the product were more responsive to the informational ad, whereas those with low involvement responded more favourably to a customer telling his story about using the product. Another finding showed that low-involvement participants responded more favourably to the purely informational ad regarding their desire to share information about the product by word of mouth. This exploratory study provides useful insights for future research pertaining to the use of storytelling in advertising and also in terms of involvement levels and central versus peripheral processing.