Student Researchers: Barbara Bailey, Frank Burns, Christine Martin, & Lesia Skrypoczka (BA Students). This paper was based on an undergraduate project as part of a research methods course.
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Shyam Sundar Sethuraman
Introduction
According to the primacy effect, items that are presented first are better remembered. This effect is important because it provides evidence for memory of organized sets of subsystems. One such subsystem, the newspaper, is an organized set where advertisements and article placement and memory for content are important elements. This study examines the effectiveness of ad placement by asking the following research question: For newspaper ads and articles, what is the relationship between placement and memory?
Hypotheses
Based on the primacy effect, the following hypotheses were made:
H1: Higher the page number, lower the ad memory.
H2: Higher the page number, lower the article memory.
Method
Thirty-four participants took part in the experiment. Participants were asked to read a local newspaper for 15 minutes, and pay attention to both advertisements and articles. After 15 minutes, they were asked to fill out a questionnaire measuring their memory for the newspaper's content.
Results
H1: Supported. Higher the page number, lower the memory for advertisements.
H1: Supported. Higher the page number, lower the memory for articles.
Conclusions
Overall, the results from this study suggest that readers' memory for articles and ads in the initial pages of the newspaper is higher than their memory for articles and ads placed in later pages. In general, articles were remembered better than ads. These findings are of interest to newspaper advertisers who are interested in gaining the most effective placement for their ads, as also editors who must decide where articles should be placed in order to be most effective.
Shyam Sundar Sethuraman
Associate Professor and Director
Media Effects Research Laboratory
College of Communications
Penn State University
University Park, PA 16802
Ph: (814) 865 2173
E-mail: sss12@psu.edu
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