The Occurrence and Effects of Verbal and Visual Anchoring of Tropes on the Perceived Comprehensibility and Liking of TV Commercials

For print advertising, it has been shown that rhetorical figures, tropes in particular, are used abundantly and that the effect on ad appreciation depends on the ad being perceived as comprehensible. To help the audience arrive at the intended interpretation, sometimes anchoring information is provided. The question is to what extent the same holds for TV commercials. A content analysis of 200 TV commercials revealed that the vast majority contained tropes and (verbal and visual) anchoring information that either hinted at the intended interpretation or spelled it out completely; this anchoring information could be presented before/during the trope or after. For each commercial, aggregated consumer response data were analyzed. Verbally and visually spelling out the intended interpretation increased the perceived comprehensibility. For the visual anchoring information, this led to higher appreciation scores; for verbal anchoring information, increased comprehensibility canceled out the negative effect on appreciation caused by providing this information. Verbal anchoring information presented after the trope improved appreciation compared to it being presented before or during. Advertisers appear to take into account that solving the riddle posed by a trope may be difficult if the processing pace is set by the medium and provide additional help.