These results are not necessarily intuitive. The authors considered that efforts to make branding more salient or prominent “may annoy consumers who may then engage in counterarguments or ad avoidance ….. which could in turn make advertising ineffective” (p. 1).
The product categories used were yogurt, chocolate, shampoo, razors, shower gel, and detergent.
The study also found that explicit functional cues (“removes lime scale residue effectively”), explicit product related cues (“every yoghurt contains 4 billion Bifidus”) and explicit experiential cues (“Feels nice on your skin”) also had a positive association with ad-sales response.