Neuromarketing in Entertainment Media: To what extent does brand placement in the form of product placement and auditory support in film significantly influence brand affiliation?

The emergence of digital streaming services has facilitated the ubiquity of film as an entertainment medium. This development pushes brands to consider more innovative subliminal branding and marketing strategies to target consumers on subconsciously. Past studies have investigated different types of brand placement as subliminal advertising techniques used to target consumers in a non-commercial setting. This type of neuromarketing has been researched with respect to brand resonance, measuring brand or product memory. This paper, however, means to investigate the affective cognitive connections developed towards a brand following brand placement exposure. The current study looks at two types of brand placement as subliminal advertising techniques and its influence on brand affiliation. The formulated research question “to what extent does brand placement in the form of product placement and auditory support in film significantly influence brand affiliation?” was investigated using a two-by-three factorial between-subjects design. More specifically, product placement and auditory support were measured on two and three levels, respectively. A total of six experimental manipulations were developed, and respondents were exposed to one of the six conditions at random. Findings showed that the subtle product placement in combination with neutral auditory support influenced brand affiliation more strongly than the other conditions. However, when critically assessing the data, there showed to be slight nuances which implicated the study in drawing definitive conclusions based on the field research. Theoretical background provides support for the significance of product placement and auditory support as predictors of brand resonance as opposed to brand affiliation. The current study was able to conclude that subtle product placement in combination with neutral auditory support is significant in predicting brand affiliation. Despite this, theoretical implications surrounding the reliability of the current study are addressed and mitigated in the discussion. Due to the complexity of measuring the affective state brand affiliation, future research is recommended to implement a longitudinal design and make use of a control group.