Marketing Theory

The unconscious processing of information is explored by drawing on contributions from psychoanalysis, clinical and cognitive psychology, and neuroscience. A theory is constructed to explain why a hidden negative image embedded in a print advertisement can increase brand-name recall. An experimental design using actual advertisements in a mock magazine with and without the embedded images is used to test the theory. The results show that unaided brand-name recall is significantly higher for the print advertisements with hidden negative images embedded in them. Keywords Brand-name recall, sexual embeds, unconscious, unconscious information processing A special issue ofMarketing Theory devoted to marketing and psychoanalysis should focus on the unconscious processing of information. Freud believed that the discovery of the unconscious was his most important contribution. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud (1900/1953) used the dream as evidence of the existence of the unconscious, ‘‘The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind’ ’ (Freud, 1900/1953: 608; emphasis in original). Freud also believed that the unconscious was the greater part of what we know as a person: We can go further and argue, in support of there being an unconscious psychical state, that at any given moment consciousness includes only a small content, so that the greater part of what we call conscious knowledge must in any case be for very considerable periods of time in a state of latency, that is to say, of being psychically unconscious. (Freud, 1915a/1957: 167) The title of this article represents the unconscious as a part of the person, and part of the personality, like the ego and superego (but not the id), in a sense, as a sense organ, and I will adopt Corresponding author