Brand recognition and recall as a manifestation of their communicative influence: one or two cognitive processes?
https://doi.org/10.21453/2311-3065-2025-13-4-166-181
Abstract
The article is dedicated to the relation between two key indicators of communicative influence of brands – recognition and recall. These indicators are widely utilized in mass communication and advertising research; however, their cognitive nature remains a subject of debate. There are arguments supporting both the existence of two separate processes and their belonging to a unified cognitive mechanism (information retrieval) with different levels of intensity.
The article examines neuropsychological and communicative (proposed within the framework of advertising research) models of brand memory, including the «dual-process hypothesis», which suggests that recognition is associated with signal detection procedures, while recall is linked to the search for associative connections; and the «threshold model», which interprets both indicators as degrees of a single function of stimulus familiarity.
For empirical selection between the two types of models, a secondary analysis of unique data was conducted: representative surveys by VTsIOM on awareness of public opinion researchers’ brands from 2005 to 2018 were compared with content analysis of central Russian press regarding the frequency of mentioning the same brands. The correlation between brand recall, recognition, and frequency of mentions in media was examined.
The results demonstrated a strong relationship among all three parameters; however, partial correlation revealed significant differences: recall maintains a significant dependency on both recognition and frequency of appearance in media, whereas recognition virtually loses its connection with frequency after excluding the influence of recall. These data indicate the preference for a multidimensional model: recognition and recall in the context of social communication appear to be two distinct, yet interconnected, cognitive processes.
The findings of the study have practical implications for mass communication research, brand management, and advertising campaign planning: measuring brand awareness (and other similar objects) is advisable under the assumption of its multidimensionality.
About the Author
N. S. Babich
Institute of Sociology of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
candidate of sociological sciences, senior research
5, bldg. 24/35, Krzhizhanovskogo str., Moscow, 117218
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Review
For citations:
Babich N.S. Brand recognition and recall as a manifestation of their communicative influence: one or two cognitive processes? Communicology. 2025;13(4):166-181. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.21453/2311-3065-2025-13-4-166-181
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