Ads pairing familiar elements oddly work by evoking meaning affirmation, not just recall.

Evidence

Marketing researchers have demonstrated that advertisements featuring images with familiar elements arranged in an unfamiliar manner facilitate liking for whiskey (Kahle & Homer, 1986) and wine coolers (Arias-Bolzmann, Chakraborty, & Mowen, 2000). These findings are interpreted in terms of the presence of absurd juxtapositions in print advertisements enhancing memory for the images and indirectly boosting attraction to the product. We suggest that these findings could also be interpreted as people affirming something with which they are familiar (i.e., the advertised product) following the uncanny imagery (i.e., familiar elements arranged in an unfamiliar manner). — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 14

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Reinterpreting a commercial-marketing effect through the meaning-affirmation lens parallels how the ‘immodesty moral panics’ article reads class/identity signaling beneath surface complaints.
• XREF: connects to: Compensation for meaning threat operates through affirmation of alternative meaning frameworks. — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 39; Meaning threats trigger affirmation of whatever meaning frameworks are handy — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 3; Self-affirmation weakly aids acceptance of corrective facts, but graphics outperform narratives — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 329

Broader Connections

• Meaning threats trigger affirmation of whatever meaning frameworks are handy #expands (0.85) — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 3
• Compensation for meaning threat operates through affirmation of alternative meaning frameworks. #corroborates (0.82) — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 39
• Self-affirmation weakly aids acceptance of corrective facts, but graphics outperform narratives #qualifies (0.73) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 329