Rodero Antón, EmmaPotter, Robert F.2022-05-172022-05-172021Rodero E, Potter RF. Do not sound like an announcer: the emphasis strategy in commercials. Psychol Mark. 2021;38(9):1417-25. DOI: 10.1002/mar.215250742-6046http://hdl.handle.net/10230/53102Most consumers do not like the speech style that announcers use in marketing messages. The main reason is an exaggerated way of speaking with a strong emphasis. Indeed, announcers tend to stress too many words in commercials, producing an overly emphatic speech style, which sounds choppy and stuttering. This study analyzes how different strategies of emphasizing words in commercials affect the listeners' cognitive processing. Four different strategies (no emphasis, moderate-low, moderate-high, and over-emphasis) were applied to 16 commercials. Participants (N = 52) had their physiological response (heart rate and skin conductance) measured during ad presentation. Afterward they assessed the commercials' effectiveness and adequacy and performed an immediate recall and a recognition test. The results indicated that the commercials presenting a moderate emphasis (low and high) improved the listeners' cognitive processing compared to messages with no emphasis strategy and the standard industry practice of using over-emphasis.application/pdfengThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution‐NonCommercial‐NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in anymedium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non‐commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. © 2021 The Authors.Psychology & MarketingPublished by Wiley Periodicals LLCinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21525advertisingcognitive processingmemorypsychophysiologyinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess