ABSTRACT The article proposes a critical analysis of classical conditioning as a mode of individual influence of the marketing communication. One initially studies it in a cognitive social psychology framework in order to explain how the social psychologists adapted the initial animal model to theorize the advertising influence on the consumers. Classical conditioning is then analyzed within the new paradigm of implicit social cognition. Results concerning broadcast sponsorship experiment are then explained. By clarifying the interactions between explicit attitude and implicit attitude, we trace new research perspectives for the model of classical conditioning and explain its utility for the practitioners of the marketing communication.