Automatic Effects of Brand Exposure on Motivated Behavior: How Apple Makes You 'Think Different'

This article first examines whether brand exposure elicits automatic behavioral effects as does exposure to social primes. Results support the translation of these effects: participants primed with Apple logos behave more creatively than IBM primed and controls; Disney-primed participants behave more honestly than E!primed participants and controls. Second, this article investigates the hypothesis that exposure to goal-relevant brands (i.e., those that represent a positively valenced characteristic) elicits behavior that is goal directed in nature. Three experiments demonstrate that theprimedbehaviorshowedtypicalgoal-directedqualities, including increased performance postdelay, decreased performancepostprogress, and moderation by motivation.