Can Brand Users Really Remember Advertising More Than Nonusers?: Testing an Empirical Generalization Across Six Advertising Awareness Measures

ABSTRACT Past research shows that advertising awareness is systematically higher among a brand9s users than nonusers. This past research has been confined, however, to measures where a brand name forms part of the cuing material. The current authors9 research across six different measures, which extends cues to execution and media prompts, shows the user bias in memory for advertising is not a measurement artifact. It is, in fact, a real phenomenon, occurring under a wide range of conditions. This has implications for creative design, branding, and pretesting, particularly with advertising that primarily aims to attract nonusers. It also has an impact on metrics for assessing global or cross-platform advertising.