Sponsorship information reception and processing: Explicit and implicit memory of in-game advertising

Researchers have attempted to identify the impact of sponsors’ advertising on spectators at sports events, but it is necessary to understand the dynamic mechanisms of the effect of advertising on signboards at these events. Thus, our primary purpose was to investigate the effects of emotion on spectators’ implicit/explicit memory of sponsors’ advertising. Further, we examined how visual attention can mediate the effects of emotion on explicit/implicit memory. We asked 81 undergraduates to watch an edited soccer match while wearing an eye tracker in order to examine their visual attention. The results showed that their visual attention to sponsor signage significantly varied as a function of both their pleasure and arousal, and visual attention significantly influenced their explicit memory, but not their implicit memory. We also found a full mediating effect of visual attention between pleasure and explicit memory, and a partial mediating effect of visual attention between arousal and explicit memory. Results are discussed, along with the limitations and scope for future research.