Probing implicit and explicit correlates of COVID-19-themed advertising: evidence from behavioral and EEG data

A great deal of attention was recently paid to neuroscientific methods which offer more objective measures of consumer implicit processes and overcome explicit measures limitations. However, there is still a long way to understand how distinct implicit processes interplay in consumer decision. The present study sought to look at implicit behavioral and neurovascular responses to emotionally arousing brand advertising, which employed COVID-19 contents. Participants were to observe, in two distinct sessions and two distinct orders of administration, COVID-19 related or unrelated brand commercials while hemodynamic variations were recorded from the prefrontal cortex (PFC), considered a neurophysiological marker for emotional processing. Then, the IAT was administered to investigate the implicit attitude toward the brand. Increased activity within the PFC suggests that pandemic content may be effective in generating emotional engagement and increasing attention when initially presented, which is consistent with higher IAT scores, indicating more favourable implicit attitudes. However, as opposite results are revealed when the COVID-19 content follows neutral advertisements, the effectiveness of COVID-19 related messages may be constrained by the advertisement order of administration.