TY  - JOUR
TI  - Silent Persuasion. Incidental Use of Promotional Merchandise Benefits Unfamiliar Brands
AB  - Many brands distribute promotional merchandise like branded pens, flash drives or mugs in the hopes that it will improve consumers’ reactions to the
brand. Yet, consumers often use them purely incidentally, i.e. they casually use them and pay no attention to the brand, such as when borrowing a
pen from a colleague. We query whether even such incidental use of promotional merchandise affects consumer response. Drawing on the specifics
of merchandise use and a combination of prior insights on persuasion, we suggest that incidental use of promotional merchandise affects in particular
unfamiliar brands. In two controlled lab experiments, we find that consumers react more positively to an unfamiliar brand after incidentally using its
merchandise. The effect emerges even though consumers do not consciously notice the brand’s logo but does not extend to a familiar brand.
Equivalent incidental visual exposure to advertising stimuli, i.e., posters, was less effective than the haptic incidental use of promotional merchandise.
Durable promotional merchandise may be a worthwhile investment, in particular for unfamiliar brands.
DO  - https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2020.1855823
SP  - 1135
EP  - 1159
PY  - 2021-01-01
JO  - International Journal of Advertising
AU  - Kamleitner, Bernadette 
AU  - Marckhgott, Eva 
ER -