Eat Popcorn, Be Immune to Advertising

People who still go to the movies, especially those who arrive early to get seats in just the right row, put up with a lengthening barrage of commercials. These ads, for cell phones and TV shows, fast-food chains and the armed services, are loud and annoying and have surprisingly little effect on a large chunk of the audience—specifically, people eating popcorn. Popcorn, a study suggests, makes us immune to advertising.

The research, published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology and conducted by psychologists at the University of Cologne, involved sending people to a movie. Before the film started, the German test subjects were shown commercials for Tostitos, Pert Plus shampoo, Danish butter Lurpak, Korean body lotion Innisfree, and other beverages, foods, and medicines unfamiliar to them. Half the participants were given popcorn, the other half a sugar cube. One week later they were invited back to the lab and shown images of various products. The sugar-cube moviegoers had a clear preference for the products they’d seen advertised, while the popcorn eaters didn’t. In other words, the ads hadn’t stuck with them.