Heather Andrew at mediatel newsline:
A significantly higher level of activity was seen in most brain regions when looking at the advertising campaigns within the Heat [brand] context, compared to multimedia campaigns across mixed media brands. What our research uncovered was the beneficial effect of consistent branding in creating a 'brainstate' that was uniform across platforms, and this effect was driven by the overwhelming strength of the magazine brand. […]
If a piece of advertising is a good fit with the context in which it is being seen, its impact is all the greater. So a fashion ad in a fashion magazine is likely to attract more attention than the same fashion ad in, say, a national newspaper, even when it's seen by the same person. […]
Part of the brain called the Orbital Frontal Cortex protects us from being over-susceptible to what we see and hear, and this tends to put up a metaphorical 'shutter' in response to a hard sell. This can effectively block over-intrusive advertising, however, it is likely to benefit magazines which are (generally) not perceived as a 'shouty' medium.