吃爆米花讓人抵擋廣告誘惑

Eating popcorn in the cinema may be irritating not just for fellow movie goers, but for advertisers: a group of researchers from Cologne University has concluded that chewing makes us immune to filmadvertising.

The reason why adverts manage to imprint brand names on our brains is that our lips and the tongue automatically simulate the pronunciation of a new name when we first hear it. Every time we re-encounter the name, our mouth subconsciously practises its pronunciation.

However, according to the study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, this "inner speech" can be disturbed by chewing, rendering the repetition effect redundant.

For their experiment, the researchers invited a group of 96 people to a cinema to watch a movie preceded by a series of adverts. Half of the participants were given free popcorn throughout the session, the other half only received a small sugar cube which immediately dissolved in their mouths.

A test at the end of the screening showed that the adverts had left no effect on those viewers who had chewed their way through popcorn throughout, while the other participants showed positive psychological responses to the products they had encountered in the ads.

"The mundane activity of eating popcorn made participants immune to the pervasive effects of advertising," said Sascha Topolinski, one of the researchers.

He goes as far as implying that his research may spell the end of the traditional popcorn machine in cinema foyers. "This finding suggests that selling candy in cinemas actually undermines advertising effects, which contradicts present marketing strategies. In the future, when promoting a novel brand, advertising clients might consider trying to prevent candy being sold before the main movie."在影院吃爆米花不僅會惹惱部分觀影者，也讓廣告商不大樂意。科隆大學的一個研究小組得出結論，咀嚼讓人對電影廣告免疫。

廣告之所以可以讓我們記住品牌名稱，是因爲當我們第一次聽到新名字時，會自動念出這個名字。我們再遇到這個品牌名字的話，潛意識中嘴巴就會練習這個發音。

但是，根據《消費心理月刊》發表的一份研究，咀嚼會打斷這種“內心獨白”，讓重複的效果變得多餘。

在實驗中，研究人員邀請96名實驗對象去影院觀看一部在開頭播放一組廣告的電影，從頭到尾提供給其中一半人免費爆米花，而另一半人只得到一小塊入口即化的方糖。

放映結束後進行的測試顯示，那些嚼爆米花的觀衆對這組廣告完全沒印象，而其他那些觀衆卻對廣告中的產品產生了積極的心理反應。

研究人員Sascha Topolinski說：“吃爆米花這樣一個普通的行爲讓我們的實驗對象抵擋了廣告的滲透作用。”

他還暗示，他的實驗宣告了影院大廳傳統爆米花機的末日。“這項發現表明，在影院賣糖果實際上破壞了廣告的效果，這與現行的市場策略相悖。未來，在宣傳新品牌時，廣告客戶可能會考慮停止在重要電影開始前銷售糖果。”