ABSTRACT
We look at advertising involvement as an example. Krugman (1972) was one of the first advertising researchers to talk about involvement. He defined it as interest and attention to messages. The study of involvement developed during the 1980s and it became clear that there are many types of involvement, for example, emotional vs. intellectual, the involvement of needing to buy some product (like a car or a new kind of athletic shoe). There is also involvement in product category, involvement with the brand, and involvement in the advertising message itself. Overall, there is clear evidence that the more involvement (or “engagement”) there is in advertising, the greater the impact of the ad on memory, message believability, attitude toward the ad, and intention to purchase. Muehling, Laczniak and Andrews (1993) provide a relatively early but thorough review of what advertising involvement can mean, how to measure it, and its effects on persuasion. Depending on which kind of involvement is being studied, this variable is generally defined by the relationships between messages and receivers. Depending on the nature of the question, channels and devices might also be included. What we are positing is that everything that has to do with advertising messages can be classified in terms of combinations of the components shown in Figure 1.1. This would include the ways in which professionals go about designing advertising campaigns and the academic literature of advertising.
