Heath, Brown and LIP

There is one thing that Robert Heath deserves credit for. And that is reminding the industry that consumers pay very little attention to advertising. It is something that probably most people know, but in the day to day business, it is easy to forget that the ad we have devoted so much time and love to will receive little attention from the general public.
But did Heath say anything new?
In "Low Involvement Processing does the Link Test Measure It?" Robert Heath addresses a critical article by Hollis and DuPlessis, in which they say that the LIP argument is 'not that new'. 'It has little in it that has not been part of the Millward Brown approach to advertising since the 1970s"
Heath was not happy with this suggestion that he was not being original. "Gordon [Brown] talked a lot about high levels of ad awareness and recall being necessary to make ads effective, but he didn't say anything about low-involvement processing," he replied.
This is Heath at his most brilliant. It's true; Brown never referred to LIP. Hollis and du Plessis never suggested he did. Brown was probably not even aware of the phrase. But he had a good empirical understanding of how people attended to advertising.
Let's explore this; because Heath, in an article called "Low Involvement Processing," (Admap 2000) examines the LIP theory, and provides a useful summary. His key conclusions about the LIP theory are copied below. Following each one, I've provided some Brown quotes, from the papers I have to hand, so you can draw your own conclusions.

HEATH:
Consumers do not regard learning about brands as being very important. As a result, most advertising is processed at very low attention levels, using low-involvement processing.

BROWN
"Now, if there is one situation when consumers are not disposed to reconsider their shopping habits, it is while they are watching TV!" How Advertising Affects the Sales of Packaged Goods Brands 1991
"All the evidence is that consumers are very reluctant to ‘engage brain' while watching TV" ‘The Awareness Problem - Attention And Memory Effects From TV And Magazine Advertising’ Admap 1994
"The unmotivated viewing conditions of real life" Lessons from Advertising Tracking Studies 1987
"on air, it seems people won’t work at commercials at all" Lessons from Advertising Tracking Studies 1987
"People watch TV to get away from decisions and be passively entertained. Nor is there any time for thought, for there are no gaps between the ads." Big Stable Brands and Ad Effects Admap 1991

HEATH:
Low-involvement processing is a cognitive process; it is not subconscious or unconscious. It uses very little working memory, which means it is very poor at interpreting messages or drawing conclusions from ads. Instead it simply stores everything as it is recorded, as an association with the brand.
BROWN
I think the value of a brand is not in its meaning, but in all the mental associations in the brain it hooks into. Advertising Effectiveness - The Client, the agency and the Researcher 1994


HEATH:
The way our long-term memory works means that the more often something is processed, the stronger its links to the brand. Thus it is these simple associations, repeatedly stored via low-involvement processing, that tend to define brands in our minds.
BROWN:
"We now have a role for repetition. For long term memories are built by repetition!"

HEATH:
Brand associations can exert a powerful influence on brand decisions, especially if these are made intuitively.
BROWN:
"The process whereby the random, experimental switching that will take place anyway is powerfully channelled by involving advertising memories." How Advertising Affects the Sales of Packaged Goods Brands 1991

"We think that good creative advertising generally affects people's feelings and opinions at some time after viewing the ad, and in ways that are largely subconscious." Plumbing and Shirts 1994

In part two of the article, Heath writes:
My contention is that truly great advertising does something far more important than deliver a rational message, and far more important than entertain: what it does is to establish associations.
BROWN:
What matters is building an association so strong that whenever you think about the brand, images and associations from the advertising come readily to mind Copy Testing ads for Brand Building 1990


I think Heath's error was to confuse terminology with substance. While he may have been the first to apply the term LIP (and later, LAP) to advertising, the idea that advertising was processed with little attention, and the associated implications of this, preceded him by many years.