Role of emotion in the recall and effectiveness of television commercials

Many disciplines, including psychology, contribute to the study of consumer behavior. Various researchers have examined the role of emotion with regard to memory. Specific to consumer research, the effect of emotion has been extended to evaluations of advertisements and particular brands of products. Included in this paper is a summary of the findings of several studies on mood and memory and mood and preferences, as well as the results of an experiment which examined the effect of happy and sad television programs on commercial recall and effectiveness. Based on the literature reviewed, it was expected that a main effect of mood would be found and that an effect of mood consistency also would be demonstrated.