Integration for appreciation:
Effects of the integratedness of a commercial message into
web content on online consumer evaluations
Abstract
In the light of a new online advertising effectiveness research approach, a scale of integratedness of the commercial message into web content is proposed. In an online experiment (N = 279) the effects of the extent of integratedness is empirically tested on brand attitudes, purchase intentions and message irritation. Additionally, moderation effects of product involvement are explored. Results show that integratedness positively affects brand attitudes and purchase intentions while it negatively influences message irritation. Also, an interaction effect of product involvement was found so that high product involvement attenuates the negative effects of low integratedness. The findings imply that a more integrated commercial message is more appreciated under online consumers, but under highly involved consumers information is more important than the format in which it comes. The preliminary study of integratedness effects offers evidence for the proposed scale of integratedness and implications for further research are made.
Keywords: online advertising format; integratedness of commercial message; persuasion
knowledge; product involvement
Master Thesis
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Science
Communication Science: Persuasive Communication track Supervisor: dr. Ester de Waal
Introduction
Initially used to sell products on the market, online advertising has been employed and developed so much that it has become a whole market of its own. As consumers’ time spent on the Internet is still increasing, so is the use of these commercial messages that are placed on web sites by a brand with the goal to persuade people and promote the brand, values and products (Ha, 2008; Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; Cole & Greer, 2013; Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016).
A recent study by the International Advertising Bureau of The Netherlands (hereafter IAB; 2017) indicates an online advertising market growth of 11,3% in the past year. Based on this increase, the IAB expects online advertising to be holding a bigger market share than all other channels combined in 2017. Out of all Internet advertising, banner ads hold 41% of the market share. On top of that, as the result of a growth of 31%, content marketing has become a separate category in the IAB report (2017). With a total expenditure of 1.6 billion euros in the past year, online advertising is prospering.
Consumers’ evaluations of online advertising in general however, are less auspicious as ads are perceived to be so annoying that it keeps them from returning to the website (Cho & Cheon, 2004; McCoy, Everard, Polak, & Galletta, 2007; Ha, 2008; Goldstein, McAfee, & Suri, Ekstrand-Abueg, & Diaz, 2014). With ads being so prone to undesirable website visitor evaluations, and the large sum of money invested in them, the use of online advertising requires great attention and precision. To be able to employ online advertising in an effective fashion and make the most of the advertising euros, it is crucial to have a correct
understanding of how online ads work. This matter is further complicated by the fact that there are many types and formats of online ads, each with different characteristics and effects (Burns & Lutz, 2006).
Next to the extensive employment of banner ads by practitioners (IAB, 2017), this ad format has often been the focus in research too (Ha, 2008; Sigel, Braun, & Sena, 2008). However, in terms of its effectiveness, not all findings point in the same direction. That is, while some research distinguishes banner advantages such as being inexpensive and easy to modify (Flores et al., 2014), other studies report banner blindness (Cho & Cheon, 2004; Sigel et al., 2008; Flores et al., 2014), decreasing click-through rates (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Cho & Cheon, 2004; Sigel et al., 2008; Hallahan, 2014), and ad annoyance (Cho & Cheon, 2004; McCoy et al., 2007; Ha, 2008; Goldstein et al., 2014; Burns & Lutz, 2006).
Also, research on banner ads often looks at only one or two formats (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Calisir & Karaali, 2008; Sigel et al., 2008; Chen, Ross, Yen, & Akhapon, 2009; Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; Lawrence, Fournier & Brunel, 2013), while there is a variety of formats available (e.g. pop-ups or different shapes of display ads such as large rectangles; see Burns & Lutz (2006) for an overview). The findings that these studies produce, are rather limited in the sense that they apply only to those one or two specific formats that were compared. Moreover, ad effectiveness findings could offer much more information if they were interpreted relative to other format’s effects.
Aiming to gain more insight into the processing and effectiveness of online
advertising, firstly this study proposes and empirically tests a scale of integratedness of the commercial message into web content. The more integrated the commercial message is, the less easily it can be recognised as advertising. The integratedness scale includes three ad formats that each correspond with a different level of integratedness. Next to the frequently used banner, the study also includes the advertorial, a format that is great in capturing people’s attention and therefore being used more and more often (Attaran et al., 2015). The third format is the skyscraper, a scientifically overlooked format that requires more attention
As some of the main goals of online advertising are to promote the brand and the product (Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; Cole & Greer, 2013; Atkinson & Rosenthal, 2014; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016), the ads’ differential effectiveness is measured in terms of brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Not a goal but even more so a threat to the success of ads (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Cho, 2003; Cho & Cheon, 2004; Hallahan, 2008; Sigel et al., 2008; Flores et al., 2014), irritation caused by the message is also assessed. Based on the premises of persuasion knowledge (Friestand & Wright, 1994), integratedness effects are argued to influence the perceived persuasive intent. The way persuasive intent is postulated to affect brand attitude, purchase intention and irritation, offers theoretical support for the
establishment of ad evaluations and the effectiveness of each format in perspective to the other formats.
Secondly, to address the gap in the knowledge about online ad effectiveness it is important to not only look at which format works best, but also to focus on people’s involvement with the products promoted in the ad. Therefore, this study also looks at the moderating role of product involvement, as was also suggested for future research by Tutaj and Van Reijmersdal (2012), because involvement has been shown to influence ad
evaluations and behavioural outcomes (e.g. Cho, 2004; Chen et al., 2009; Flores et al., 2014).
The aims of this study translate into the following research question:
What are the effects of the integratedness of a commercial message into web content on brand attitude, purchase intention and message irritation, and to what extent are these differential effects moderated by product involvement?
Literature review
Formats
Online advertising is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of types and formats. Based on prevalence and advertising experts’ opinions, banners were acknowledged as one of the most used formats, alongside pop-ups, floating ads, skyscrapers, large rectangles, and
interstitials (Burns & Lutz, 2006). Banners are rectangular shaped advertising on a web page (Burns & Lutz, 2006; Chen et al., 2009) with a link to the advertiser’s (brand’s) website that cover about 10 to 15% of the web page (Flores et al., 2014). Banners are used with two goals; eliciting direct responses such as attitude or behaviour change and inducing brand recognition through exposure (Calisir & Karaali, 2008). Although banners still are the most commonly used format in online advertising (Flores et al., 2014; Cho, 2003; Sigel et al., 2008; IAB, 2017), not all research is in accordance with respect to how well banners are found to reach the aforementioned goals.
Overall, there appear to be three notions on banner effectiveness. The first conception is optimistic: banners result in more product awareness, positive brand evaluations, click-through rates (CTR) and web site revisits (Burns & Lutz, 2006; Chen et al., 2009).
Secondly however, there is also a substantial amount of research papers that argue banners are not an effective ad format. These studies refer to significantly decreased CTR (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Cho, 2003; Cho & Cheon, 2004; Sigel et al., 2008; Hallahan, 2014) and banner-blindness, the phenomenon that people don’t look at or even see the banner (Cho, 2003; Cho & Cheon, 2004; Hallahan, 2014; Sigel et al., 2008; Flores et al., 2014).
making (Goodrich, 2007; Calisir & Karaali, 2008; Sigel et al., 2008; Boerman et al., 2012; Flores et al., 2014). Thus, despite low CTR, banners may still benefit advertising goals (Sigel et al, 2008).
However, mere exposure cannot contribute to positive ad or brand evaluations when people are banner-blind (i.e. avoiding exposure). So, although banner ads offer advertising value, they do come with ifs and buts. Due to consumers’ learning curve, marketers must keep coming up with new advertising techniques for brand messages to be able to remain
persuasive (Attaran et al., 2015). This could be an indication that banners lose their effectiveness simply because people are ‘done with them’. Therefore, other formats are explored.
Internet technologies are developing (Flores et al., 2014) and the arrival of Web 2.0 has brought new platforms along (Constantinides & Fountain, 2008). This has given rise to native advertising, “the trend initiated and facilitated by publishers to create content appearing within their editorial or entertainment product that is paid for by sponsors” (IAB, 2017;
Hallahan, 2014, p. 399). By featuring editorial content, boundaries between paid promotion and content are blurred, so that the content feels natural (Hanson, 2014; Hallahan, 2014).
Moreover, while consumers are sceptical and distrustful about advertising on business-owned platforms, user-generated content (UGC) on the other hand leads to more positive attitudes and purchase intentions (Boerman et al., 2012; Constantinides & Fountain, 2008; Hardesty et al., 2012; Aguirre et al., 2015; Matteo & Dal Zotto, 2015). Furthermore, even if consumers notice an ad in such UGC, their attitude remains positive simply because they are more tolerant of consumer-generated ads than of brand-generated ads (Lawrence et al., 2013). Hence, sponsoring the content on blogs allows brands to pass their message on to target markets, while being protected from sceptical or annoyed consumer responses (Boerman et al., 2012; Constantinides & Fountain, 2013; Matteo & Dal Zotto, 2015). Additionally, as
advertorials provide more information than more traditional online formats, they better capture users’ attention and increase brand awareness and the brand image (Attaran et al., 2015; Becker-Olsen, 2003).
Another ad format that requires more research, is the skyscraper (Burns & Lutz, 2006; Sigel et al., 2008; Flores et al., 2014). This format is similar to the banner format in terms of content, but is shaped tall and thin and situated vertically alongside a webpage (Burns & Lutz, 2006; Li, Huang, & Bente, 2016). The skyscraper was found to be the overall most favoured format out of the six reviewed (Burns & Lutz, 2006). Despite calls for further study, ten years later, research on skyscraper ad effectiveness is still in an early stage (Li et al., 2016). By including the skyscraper ad, the current study aims to gain more insights into skyscraper effectiveness.
As banners are used more commonly than skyscrapers, people are more used to
avoiding looking at banner ads while people haven’t learned to do this with the skyscraper yet (Li et al., 2016). Also, skyscraper ads receive more visual attention because they are situated more closely to the task area (where user activities like reading take place; Kuisma, Simola, Uusitalo and Öörni, 2010) than banner ads, which are positioned at the top of the webpage. However, as Li et al. (2016) have not been able to replicate these findings, the results may not be conclusive in determining skyscraper effectiveness and further research would be in place.
Ad processing: a Persuasion Knowledge approach
The differences in appearance of banners, skyscrapers and advertorials can influence how well the consumer recognizes the message as advertising (Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012). Consequently, the understanding that a message is advertising and thus is intending to
et al., 2015; Bambauer-Sachse & Mangold, 2013; Boerman et al., 20120; Tutaj & Van
Reijmersdal, 2012; Panic, Cauberghe, & De Pelsmacker, 2013; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). The main theoretical model to explain the relation between the awareness of persuasive intent and the processing of an ad is the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM; Friestad & Wright, 1994).
The PKM posits that increased awareness of a persuasive attempt triggers persuasion knowledge. Persuasion knowledge is a cognitive resource that consumers acquire throughout their lives from interactions with friends and family, from observing companies’ marketing activities or from learning about marketing techniques (Friestad &Wright, 1994). This resource helps the consumer to defend itself from the ad’s persuasive influences (Friestad & Wright, 1994). That is, when persuasion knowledge is activated, consumers are able to access cognitive and affective defence strategies. Through cognitive strategies, people can respond to persuasive attempts with counterarguing while affective responses make people experience anger, irritation or getting upset (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). Moreover, the more
comprehensive and activated a consumer’s persuasion knowledge is, the more suspicious the consumer becomes about marketing activities that are perceived as manipulative (Friestad & Wright, 1994; Campbell & Kirmani, 2000; Hardesty et al., 2007; Bambauer-Sachse & Mangold, 2013; Attaran et al., 2015).
The suspicious, resistant responses and development of negative attitudes toward the persuasive attempt can be explained by reactance theory (Brehm, cited by Tormala & Petty, 2004; Wei et al., 2008; Boerman et al., 2012; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). This theory postulates that people naturally value their freedom. If people feel like their freedom is being threatened or that they are being manipulated, they will respond to this by opposing the persuasive appeal. Hence, people tend to resist a persuasive attempt when they recognize it as such.
Integratedness of the commercial message
How easily a persuasive attempt is recognized, depends on the extent to which the
commercial message is integrated into the web content (Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012) and this varies for different formats. For instance, with native advertising, the commercial
message is embedded into non-commercial content, leaving the visible differences between the ad and the editorial content to a minimum (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010; Boerman et al., 2012; Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; Cole & Greer, 2013; Panic et al, 2013; Hallahan, 2014; Attaran et al., 2015; Matteo & Dal Zotto, 2015). Following the PKM, this implies that for advertorials, the high level of integratedness of the commercial message into the web content raises low to no awareness of the persuasive attempt. Consequently, as little to no persuasion knowledge will be activated, no resistance strategies are evoked, making it highly likely that the persuasive influences of the well-integrated message will be accepted (Boerman et al., 2012; Attaran et al., 2015; Panic et al., 2013; Aguirre et al., 2015).
The banner format however, is prominent rather than embedded in the web content, as it’s designed specifically to stand out visually (McCoy et al., 2007; Becker-Olsen, 2003; Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012). This makes the persuasive intent clear, leading to the activation of persuasion knowledge and subsequent resistance of the persuasive attempt. Furthermore, the banner’s attention-drawing makes the format intrusive which in turn leads to feelings of irritation with the user (McCoy et al., 2007; Goldstein et al., 2014; Cho & Cheon, 2004). This is even greater for banners that require a task (such as pressing ‘close’) (McCoy et al., 2007). Due to the prominence of the commercial message of the banner ad as well as its intrusive character, the integratedness of a banner in a webpage is low.
entertaining and informative than horizontal ads (Burns & Lutz, 2003), it attracts a greater CTR than banner ads (Sigel et al., 2008), and it may be perceived as more attractive than banner ads because of the novelty of its format (Flores et al., 2014). On top of that,
skyscrapers are closer to the task area than banners (Li et al., 2016). Furthermore, skyscrapers do not interfere with the readability of a web page. That is, as opposed to banners, skyscrapers don’t blow up, cover the text of the webpage and don’t require the user to perform any tasks (like muting or closing the ad). Therefore, a skyscraper’s commercial message is less
prominent than that of a banner but as the brand and logo are mentioned, the persuasive intent is recognizable. Thus, it is proposed that the skyscraper falls somewhere between the
advertorial and banner on the integratedness continuum.
Regarding the effects of integratedness, more integrated ad formats have been shown to positively affect (brand) attitudes (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Tutaj et al., 2012; Boerman et al., 2012; Li et al., 2016) and purchase intentions (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Cole & Greer, 2013; Attaran et al., 2015) and negatively influence irritation towards the advertising (Burns & Lutz, 2006; Tutaj et al., 2012) as compared to less integrated formats. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1: Higher integratedness of the commercial message into the web page leads to more positive brand attitudes, higher purchase intentions and less message irritation, than lower integratedness.
Product involvement
Further, a motivational factor known to influence the processing of commercial messages, is product involvement (Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman, 1981; Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983; Lord & Petrevu, 1998; Cho, 2003; Chen et al., 2009; Cole & Greer, 2013; Flores et al.,
2014). According to the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty et al., 1983), people that are highly involved with a product are more psychologically engaged with the product so that it is more important for them to hold valid opinions about the product (Chen et al., 2009; Flores et al., 2014). Thus, highly involved people want to process advertisements thoroughly with the goal to make the right evaluation about the product (Petty et al., 1983; Lord & Petrevu, 1998). Conversely, people with lower product involvement are not as motivated to make the right decision (e.g. buying a product) and to devote themselves to advertisement-related thinking, but rather base their evaluations on peripheral cues (Cho, 1999, 2003; Chen et al., 2009; Lord & Petrevu, 1998; Petty et al., 1981; Petty et al., 1983). Highly involved people have more positive attitudes towards ads (Cole & Greer, 2013; Chen et al., 2009; Flores et al., 2014) and higher purchase intentions (Park & Lee, 2008; Cole & Greer, 2013; Flores et al., 2014) than less involved people. Moreover, people who actively seek for information to make good product choices, are unlikely to be irritated by such information. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H2: People highly involved with the product develop more positive brand attitudes, higher purchase intentions and less message irritation, than low involved people. Next to that, as suggested by Tutaj and Van Reijmersdal (2012) this study also explores a possible moderating role of product involvement. Moreover, if a person’s main goal is to develop valid product evaluations, the actual information that an ad offers is likely to be of greater importance than how well it is integrated in a web page. Therefore, it is also expected that:
H3: Higher integratedness of the commercial message into the web page leads to more positive brand attitudes, higher purchase intentions and less message irritation, than
lower integratedness, and these differential effects will be weaker for highly involved people than for low involved people.
To answer the research question, these hypotheses, as conceptualized in Figure 1, will be tested empirically in an online experiment.
Figure 1: A conceptual model of the proposed hypotheses.
Method
Design
To test the hypotheses an online experiment with a 3 (Integratedness of the commercial message in web content: low vs. medium vs. high) x 2 (Product involvement: low vs. high) between-subjects factorial design was conducted. See Table 1 for an outline of the design.
Table 1: Outline of the experimental design with Integratedness and Product involvement as
the independent between-subjects variables.
Integratedness of commercial message
Product involvement Low Medium High
High Banner x Car n = 47 Skyscraper x Car n = 47 Advertorial x Car n = 47 Low Banner x Dish soap n = 45 Skyscraper x Dish soap n = 43 Advertorial x Dish soap n = 48 Sample
A link to the online experiment was distributed in the researcher’s personal network via the social medium Facebook, in a post that requested people to take part in a small master thesis experiment of about seven minutes. The data collection took place from April 28th to May 7th of 2017. The study was conducted in English, guaranteed participants’ privacy and
participants gave their consent to participate. A total of 285 people participated in the study. People that did not fully complete the study (n = 5) as well as cases with missing values (n = 2) were removed from the sample.
The final sample consisted of 278 participants, of which 98 male (35,3%) and 180 female (64,7%). The participants ranged in age from 18 to 80 (M = 28.52; SD = 10.53), but the majority (64,3%) of the participants was aged between 20 and 25 years old. Further, most
of the participants (85,9%) were highly educated (29,1% HBO degree; 53,6% WO degree; 3,2% Doctorate degree).
Stimulus materials and manipulations
- Product involvement
The first factor, Product involvement, was manipulated by assigning different products to the high and low conditions. Products around lower price points or fast-moving consumer goods are typically low involvement products whereas relatively costly products for long-term use are high involvement products. To determine which specific products could best be used to manipulate the high and low product involvement conditions, a pre-test was carried out with 34 participants using the online tool Qualtrics. The pre-test included a smartphone (high involvement product cf. Flores et al., 2014), a car (high involvement product cf.
Zaichkowsky, 1986), dishwashing soap (low involvement product cf. Suh & Yi, 2006), a carton of milk (low involvement product cf. Zaichkowsy, 1986) and a cinema movie.
Zaichkowsky’s (1994) Revised Personal Involvement Inventory Scale, which consists of the ten semantic 7-point scales important-unimportant; boring-interesting; relevant-irrelevant; exciting-unexciting; means nothing-means a lot to me; appealing-unappealing; fascinating-mundane; worthless-valuable; involving-uninvolving and not needed-needed, was used to measure product involvement. All scales were reliable (minimum Cronbach’s α = .73; see Table 2). Results of the pre-test indicated that the highest involvement was with a car (M = 5.18, SD = 0.97; see Table 2) and the lowest involvement was with dishwashing soap hence these two products were selected as the manipulations for Product involvement in the main study.
Table 2: Reliability of the scales, mean scores and standard deviations for involvement
evaluations of five products (n=34).
α M SD Smartphone .81 5.00 0.95 Dishwashing soap .73 2.99 0.89 Cinema movie .80 4.92 0.71 Milk .79 3.13 0.99 Car .97 5.18 0.97
- Integratedness of the commercial message into web content
The second factor in the present study is Integratedness of the commercial message into web content. For low integratedness, banner formats were used, for medium integratedness skyscraper formats were used and for high integratedness advertorials were used. Firstly, for the less integrated conditions, a web page1 was selected that initially featured both a banner ad
as well as a skyscraper ad. With a web content lay-out that originally allowed for these ad formats, the integratedness manipulations would look natural. On top of that, as previous experimental studies show that professional ads are better than faux ads at eliciting more natural and ecologically valid responses from participants (Cho, 2003), this study also used existing ads for its manipulations. For the high product involvement condition, a banner ad by car brand Fiat 500 was selected. With the use of Adobe Photoshop CC 2017, the banner was also edited into a skyscraper format in accordance with the banner’s lay-out. For the low
involvement condition, a dishwashing soap ad by detergent brand Method was adapted into a banner and into a skyscraper in accordance with Method’s corporate identity.
Also with the use of Photoshop, screenshots of the webpage were edited. In the low integratedness conditions, the manipulated banner (Fiat 500 or Method) was placed in lieu of the original banner on the website, and the original skyscraper was removed. Vice versa, in the medium integratedness conditions, the manipulated skyscraper was placed into the
website while the original banner was erased. The text was blurred slightly so that the banners were subtly emphasized while the text remained readable still.
Secondly, for the advertorials, articles were selected that featured the car brand and the detergent brand respectively. An article about the Fiat 500 brand was selected from the online platform LLYMLRS2 and edited minimally for clarity reasons. An article about the Method brand was adapted from Daprayer3 and was also edited to relieve emphasis off the originally second featured brand. An overview of the stimulus materials can be found in Appendix A.
Procedure
The online experiment was conducted with survey tool Qualtrics. The first page informed the participants of their anonymity and asked participants to confirm their consent to participate. Next, the participants were randomly assigned to one of the six conditions. Thereafter, to make sure that participants’ levels of involvement depended only on the product and not on their budget or provision, they were briefly instructed to imagine they were looking to buy a new car or new dishwashing soap (dependent on the condition they were in). Further, they were requested to answer some questions based on the webpage they were about to view.
2 http://www.llymlrs.com/2014/12/mint-green-fiat-500_19.html
After the instruction came the manipulation checks and thereafter the webpage, measures, control variables and demographics. At the end of the experiment, participants were thanked for their participation and requested to make sure to submit the response.
Measures
Brand attitude
Attitudes toward the brand were measured with a combination of respected scales. “X” stands for Fiat 500 or Method, dependent on the condition. The first statement “I think the brand X is” was measured on a seven-point semantic differential scale with the items
appealing/unappealing, bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, favourable/unfavourable,
positive/negative, low in quality/high in quality (Spears & Singh, 2004; Boerman et al., 2012; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). Secondly the question “How much do you like the brand X?” was measured with a seven-point Likert scale ranging from Like a great deal to Dislike a
great deal (Aaker & Williams, 1998; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). The scales showed great
reliability in measuring brand attitude (Cronbach’s α = .96).
Purchase intention
The willingness to purchase the product in the presented information was measured with a seven-point Likert scale ranging from Strongly disagree to Strongly agree, with the
statements I would buy this; After reading this, I would buy this product; I would actively seek
out this product and What I just read, will influence my choice about buying the product
Message irritation
Based on Burns & Lutz (2006), irritation caused by how the brand was presented in the message, was measured on a seven-point semantic differential scale with the items very
annoying/not annoying at all; not intrusive at all/very intrusive and very irritating/not irritating at all (Cronbach’s α = .91).
Control variables
To be able to ascribe any results to the manipulations, possible side effects caused by characteristics that the participants may differ in, must be ruled out. Therefore, the study inquired participants’ frequency of internet use, frequency of the specific brand use,
frequency of the general product use, prior knowledge of the brand and hobby-related interest in the product.
Manipulation checks
To ensure that participants did in fact perceive the different versions as relatively differing in integratedness, a slider bar was installed in the online experiment. To answer the question “On the webpage that you just viewed, how much was the information about the X brand integrated with the rest of the web content?”, participants could drag the slider to a value between very integrated (i.e. more combined) and not integrated at all (i.e. more separate).
The success of the manipulation of product involvement was assessed post-hoc with the statements ‘When I need to buy X, I pay attention to the buying process; I concentrate on
making the right purchase; I don’t have to think about all of the options; I make an effort to not make the wrong decision and I don’t care if I end up regretting my purchase later’ on a
seven-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree (Andrews & Durvasula, 1991). The reliability of the scale was high (Cronbach’s α = .95).
Results
Randomisation checks
To ascribe any found effects to the manipulations, the experimental groups must not differ in terms of demographics or user experiences. To ascertain whether these participant
characteristics were randomly distributed across the experimental conditions, group
consistencies were compared (the complete statistical testing can be found in Appendix B). An equal distribution of Age, Gender, Internet use and Hobby was established. However, Level of education, Brand use (Fiat 500/Method), Product use (car/dish soap) and Prior knowledge of the brand were not equally represented across the experimental groups. Additional analyses (as can be found in Appendix C) indicated that one of these variables, Brand use, significantly influenced the dependent variable Purchase intention. No further effects were found. Nonetheless, to ensure that all found effects are caused only by the manipulations, all four control variables were included in further analyses as covariates.
Manipulation checks
The aim of the manipulations was that participants experienced more product involvement with Fiat 500 than with Method and higher, moderate and lower integratedness with a banner,
successful, a one-way ANOVA with the between-subjects factor Conditions and the dependent variables Integratedness and Product involvement was conducted. Indeed, significant differences were found between the Fiat 500 groups and the Method groups in their involvement with the product (F (5, 273) = 97.35, p < .01, η2 = .64). Product
involvement was significantly higher with participants in the Fiat 500 groups (M= 6.19, SD = .92) than with the participants in the Method groups (M= 2.95, SD = 1.51).
Significant differences were also found for the three advertising formats in terms of their respective integratedness (F (5, 273) = 10.53, p < .01, η2 = .16). Banners’ commercial
messages were integrated in the web content the least (M = 324.90, SD = 32.29) whereas the commercial message of advertorials was integrated in the web content the most (M= 67.03,
SD = 29.93). The commercial message of skyscrapers was perceived to be more integrated
than with banners but less integrated than with advertorials (M = 48.06, SD = 29.93). These results suggest that the manipulations of Product involvement as well as Integratedness were successful.
Main analyses
The hypotheses that have been proposed in this study are a main effect of Integratedness on Brand attitude, Purchase intention and Message irritation (H1), a main effect of Product involvement on Brand attitude, Purchase intention and Message irritation (H2) and an interaction effect of Integratedness and Product involvement on Brand attitude, Purchase intention and Message irritation (H3). To test these hypotheses, a one-way MANOVA was conducted with between-subjects factors Integratedness (low vs. medium vs. high) and Product involvement (low vs. high). Further, the dependent variables were Brand attitude, Purchase intention and Message irritation. Lastly, Level of education, General product use,
Brand use and Prior brand knowledge were included as covariates to control for the unequal distribution of these characteristics across the experimental groups.
First, the MANOVA showed a significant multivariate effect of Integratedness (F (6, 534) = 14.43, p < .01, η2 = .14). Furthermore, the univariate analyses indicate a significant main effect of Integratedness on Brand Attitude (F (2, 269) = 44.94, p < .01, η2 = .25), Purchase intention (F (2, 269) = 23.48, p < .01, η2 = .15), and on Message irritation (F (2, 269) = 28.98, p < .01, η2 = .18). As expected in H1, the more integrated the commercial message was into the web content, the more positive were attitudes towards the brand and purchase intention, and the less participants were irritated with the message (See Table 3).
Table 3: Mean scores and standard deviations in parentheses for Brand attitude, Purchase
intention and Irritation from the message for differential levels of Integratedness.
Integratedness
Low – Banner Medium – Skyscraper High – Advertorial
Brand attitude 3.88 (1.51) 4.40 (1.08) 5.60 (1.25) Purchase intention 3.15 (1.41) 3.59 (1.18) 4.72 (1.73) Message irritation 4.45 (1.58) 4.01 (1.20) 2.93 (1.70)
Second, the MANOVA of Integratedness and Product involvement showed a marginally significant effect of Product involvement intention (F (3, 267) = 2.30, p = .08, η2 = .03).
Although the produced values (see Table 4) are in line with H2, the differences are not strong enough to offer full support for H2.
Table 4: Mean scores and standard deviations in parentheses for Brand attitude, Purchase
intention and irritation from the message for differential levels of Product involvement (p = .08).
Product involvement
Low – Method High – Fiat 500
Brand attitude 4.35 (1.64) 4.86 (1.27) Purchase intention 3.74 (1.65) 3.87 (1.60) Message irritation 3.87 (1.77) 3.75 (1.50)
Third, a significant interaction effect of Integratedness and Product involvement was found (F (6, 534) = 3.94, p < .01, η2 = .04). The univariate analyses indicate an interaction effect of Integratedness and Product involvement on Brand attitude (F (2, 269) = 5.25, p = .01, η2 = .04) and Purchase intention (F (2, 269) = 5.61, p = .01, η2 = .04; see Table 5). No significant interaction effect of Integratedness and Product involvement was however found on Message irritation (F (2, 269) = .35, p = .71, η2 = .01).
Table 5: Mean scores and standard deviations in parentheses for the interaction effect of
Integratedness and Product involvement on Brand attitude and Purchase intention.
Brand attitude Purchase intention
Integratedness Product involvement
High Low High Low
High 5.51 (1.25) 5.67 (1.25) 4.46 (1.95) 4.99 (1.60) Medium 4.75 (.93) 4.01 (1.10) 3.95 (1.17) 3.20 (1.08) Low 4.33 (1.30) 3.42 (1.57) 3.24 (1.38) 3.06 (1.45)
As visualised in Figure 2, the findings show that higher levels of integratedness lead to higher brand attitudes and purchase intentions, and this effect is stronger for low involved people than for highly involved people. Specifically, the positive influence of more integratedness leads to a bigger increase in positive evaluations with low involved people than with highly involved people. Moreover, at the highest level of integratedness, low involved people’s appreciations even highly involved people’s evaluations. As these findings do not apply to Message irritation, H3 is partially supported.
Figure 2: Integratedness effects on Brand attitude and Purchase intention under high and low
Product involvement (PI).
Discussion
The aim of this study was to gain a better understanding of the effects of ad formats on the evaluations of advertising messages. To explore ad effectiveness from a new point of view, the research approach of integratedness was proposed. From low to high integratedness, this included a banner, skyscraper and advertorial respectively. Next to investigating whether a relation exists between the extent of integratedness and customer evaluations, this study also focused on a possible influence of product involvement on such a relation.
Integratedness effects of the commercial message into the web content
First, in H1, it was expected that more integrated commercial messages would lead to more favourable ad evaluations – more positive brand attitudes and higher purchase intentions, and
2 3 4 5 6
Banner Skyscraper Advertorial
Br an d at tit ud e
low PI high PI
2 3 4 5 6
Banner Skyscraper Advertorial
Pu rc ha se In te nt io n
less irritation from the message. Indeed, results show that more integratedness induces higher brand attitudes and purchase intentions while bringing down the irritation with the message. Conversely, lower levels of integratedness lead to less positive brand attitudes and purchase intentions but more message irritation.
Next to supporting H1, these findings are also consistent with previous studies posing that subtle ads (i.e. more integrated) are more positively evaluated than prominent ones (Aguirre et al., 2015; Attaran et al., 2015; Becker-Olsen, 2003; Flores et. Al, 2014; Hallahan, 2014; Hanson, 2014; Hardesty et al., 2007; Lawrence et al., 2013; Li et al., 2016; Panic et al., 2013; Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; Van Reijmersdal, Neijens, & Smit, 2010; Van
Reijmersdal et al., 2016). The results are also in accordance with prior findings that more integrated formats such as advertorials lead to higher purchase intentions than less integrated formats do (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Attaran et al., 2015). Next to that, the findings that less integrated formats lead to more irritation and negative attitudes, have also been demonstrated by Cho and Cheon (2004).
Furthermore, even though persuasion knowledge was not measured in the actual experiment, it does explain the findings theoretically. That is, less integrated commercial messages are clearer in their persuasive intent, leading to negative evaluations of the message or resistance of the message (Attaran et al., 2015; Bambauer-Sachse & Mangold, 2013; Boerman et al., 2012; Campbell & Kirmani, 2000; Friestad & Wright, 1994; Hardesty et al., 2007; Panic et al., 2013; Tormala & Petty, 2004; Tutaj & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016; Wei et al., 2008).
Product involvement effects
H2 – that higher product involvement would lead to more positive ad evaluations than lower product involvement – was not supported. As mean differences were too small to be
significant (p = .08), this study failed to replicate previous findings of product involvement effects on ad evaluations (Cole & Greer, 2013; Chen et al., 2009; Cho, 1999, 2003; Cho et al, 2001; Flores et al., 2014; Petty et al., 1981; Petty et al., 1983) and purchase intentions (Petty et al., 1983; Cole & Greer, 2013; Flores et al., 2014).
Perhaps the experiment’s introduction (Imagine that you’re looking to buy new
[product]…; meant to prevent side effects of budget or insufficient parking space)
anticipatorily raised high task involvement so that any effects of the low product involvement manipulation paled into insignificance. In fact, although
the manipulation of Product involvement was quite successful (PIcar: M= 6.19, SD = .92;
PIsoap: M= 2.95, SD = 1.51), the low involvement means for brand attitudes and purchase
intentions lie above the midpoint (3.50) of the scale. So, even though they are relatively lower than the high involvement means, they are not particularly low.
Moderation effects
Lastly, H3, which proposed that the main effect of integratedness would be less pronounced under high rather than low product involvement, received partial support. Specifically, product involvement moderated integratedness effects for brand attitudes and purchase intentions but not for message irritation.
This moderation means that in general less integrated commercial messages are appreciated less (translating into lower brand attitudes and purchase intentions) than highly
integrated commercial messages, but if a person is highly involved with the advertised product, he is not equally as negatively affected by lower integratedness as a low involved person is. Integratedness differences weigh more heavily for low involved people than for highly involved people, in terms of brand attitudes and purchase intentions. This interaction effect suggests some sort of forgiveness effect; if someone really needs information to make a valid decision, the extent of integratedness and thus ‘consumption comfort’ of that
information seem to become less important.
Considerable support for the emerged interaction effect is found in the ELM, which postulates that highly involved people experience the need to hold valid attitudes towards the topic they are making a decision about (Petty et al., 1981; Petty et al., 1983). This desire motivates people to thoroughly process information to make an accurate judgment (Lord & Putrevu, 1998; Cho, 2003; Chen et al., 2009; Flores et al., 2014). Moreover, these findings suggest that high product involvement provides consumers with sufficient cognitive capacities to endure the vexation of low integrated persuasion attempts. Conversely, as low involved people aren’t provided as many cognitive resources, they are bothered by a less integrated ad more easily and thus reject it.
Contrary to initial expectations, the interaction had no significant effects on message irritation. Specifically, people’s irritation caused by mal-integrated commercial messages wasn’t higher among low involved people than under highly involved people. Since brand attitudes and purchase intentions actually were moderated by product involvement, it is possible that a lack of product involvement causes irritation subconsciously. Consequently, this irritation may have led to unfavourable brand attitudes and purchase intentions while respondents’ lack of awareness thereof withheld them from reporting their irritation.
Limitations and future research
Sample
As many respondents were (Communication Science) students, their PK is presumably higher than the average consumer’s PK. Thus, online consumers possibly experience less resistance and thereby evaluate online ads more positively than this study’s participants.
Stimulus materials
First, the Fiat 500 brand was significantly more familiar to the participants than the Method brand. This deviation was however controlled for in the analyses. Second, the Fiat 500 car featured in the advertorial was blue while it was yellow in the banner and skyscraper. As ecological validity was a priority in this study, real ads with different colours were chosen over fictive ads with corresponding colours. This may however have led to side effects of colour preference.
Third, the web content of the banner and skyscraper was slightly blurred to prevent participants overlooking them. This potentially could have led to spill over effects of annoyance, leading to more negative evaluations.
Fourth, in accordance with current advertising legislations, the advertorials featured sponsorship disclosures. If people missed these, the persuasive intent could have gone unnoticed. However, if these are overlooked in the study, they probably will be in real ads too, so that external validity is not compromised.
Measures
This study measured brand attitudes only format-relatedly, while more insight could be
gained into each format’s own effectiveness when compared to a default, as with pre-tests or a control group.
As touched upon earlier, PK effects have only been theorized but not included in the experiment measures. To gain more insight in the relationship between integratedness and (brand) evaluations, it would be interesting to research a possible mediating or moderating role of PK.
Last, the involvement manipulation check may have been too general as it referred to products rather than the specific brands. Since people can be differentially involved with various brands of the same product, a manipulation check specified to the actual study’s stimulus material would be more fit (e.g.: ‘When I was reading the content, I actively tried to look for product characteristics’).
Conclusions & Implications
In this study, online advertising effects were investigated with the focus on two elements: the extent of integratedness of the commercial message into the web content, and product
involvement. Two important conclusions can be drawn: (1) integratedness positively influences brand attitudes and purchase intentions but negatively influences message
irritation, (2) high product involvement attenuates the negative effects of low integratedness on brand attitudes and purchase intentions.
In reply to the research question, the present study demonstrates that brand integration is more complex than the commonly used dichotomous concept of prominent vs. subtle. Specifically, the findings imply that brand integration is to be seen as a scale on which integratedness can differ in extent. Theory as well as research should acknowledge that brand integration can be exercised in various levels and that these levels each correspond to
Additionally, this study indicates that integratedness effects can be influenced by product involvement. Namely, although lower levels of integratedness generally lead to lower brand attitudes and purchase intentions, this decrease is less when product involvement is high. This implies that even though the persuasive intent of a message is obvious, this does not always necessarily have to lead to undesirable outcomes (i.e. when product involvement is high).
Turning to future research, these findings point to four directions. First, research should investigate factors that determine integratedness. That is, to gain a deeper
understanding of integratedness, it is important to gain more insight as to how a certain level in integratedness comes about, what contributes to integratedness and what may lower it. A possible start could be made by investigating effects of colour, lay-out, distance to the main text or writing style/tone of voice. Second, future research should focus on where other advertiser-initiated messages fall on the scale. Next to the remaining four formats as distinguished by Burns & Lutz (2006), moving and audible formats would be interesting to include. Third, the PKM should be included in the empirical study to back up the theorized effects of perceived persuasive intent. Last, the relative importance of the dependent variables brand attitude, purchase intention and message irritation should be assessed to have a better understanding of each variable’s role. Does irritation mediate brand attitudes? Or, do brand attitudes perhaps mediate purchase intentions?
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Acknowledgement note
The author would like to thank dr. Ester de Waal for her guidance, exciting discussions and encouraging feedback.
Appendix A: Stimulus materials
1) High involvement 2) High involvement
Low integratedness Medium integratedness
3) High involvement High integratedness Advertorial Fiat 500
F R I D A Y , D E C E M B E R 1 9 , 2 0 1 6
My Fiat 500
Last month I finally got my car of dreams - a Mint Green Fiat 500. It's been a car that I've wanted forever and I've even mentioned it as one of my dream purchases in a video a few months ago.
I've ummed and ahhed about getting a car for about a year now. But finally decided on a firm yes to buying something I really really wanted. While shoes, bags and clothes are all nice they aren’t here for the long term. I wanted to invest some of the little nest egg I'd been sitting on and this felt like the
perfect time to do so.
So this is the first ever car I've bought without my parents telling me what to do. I used to have a little Fiat Punto when I lived at home which I adored and totally got me from A-B with ease. I loved that car to pieces but a few weeks after I moved to London my Mum scrapped it (she says it broke, I still don’t believe her!) To be honest I don't really have a huge amount to say about it apart from it's one of the nicest cars I've ever had the pleasure of driving. It's really easy to drive and get around in, Fuel
efficient, nippy and just a great all around car. I am very very happy with it and would totally recommend it! I guess this was a post to just say HEY GUYS LOOK AT MY CAR. But I am genuinely
100% besotted by the thing and I’m so so so pleased with it.
Like me On Facebook - Follow me on Twitter - Follow on Bloglovin' sponsored post
4) Low involvement 5) Low involvement
Low integratedness Medium integratedness
Banner Method Skyscraper Method
6) Low involvement High integratedness Advertorial Method B r a n d F e a t u r e, D i s c o u n t C o d e s, G i v e a w a y, H o m e & L i v i n g, P r o d u c t R e v i e w
Kitchen Clean-up With Method
Since Spring has sprung and it's the moment that everyone gets really into
cleaning, I decided to share my kitchen cleaning routine. It’s nothing revolutionary, I’m just sharing some of the products I use to make the cleaning process more enjoyable and some gentle reminders on areas we tend to miss out during our cleaning.
Last Saturday, I offered to make breakfast and we had a very simple brunch with bread, jam and butter, all freshly churned out from the kitchen. I’m quite embarrassed to say but when I’m the one prepping food in the kitchen, it looks like a tornado just past through. And I still haven’t gotten around to practicing cleaning-as-I-cook. So after the (simple) meal, there is still a lot of things to clean up.
Here’s a look at the cleaning process! 1. Rearrange the dirty dishes in the sink
If you have a huge/ double sink in your kitchen, I envy you. My kitchen sink isn’t massive so my first step to tackling an
“overflowing” kitchen sink is to rearrange the dirty dishes so that I have more space to work with.
But before that, make sure you scrape/ wipe away all the food debris so that they do not end up clogging the sink.
2. Use a good dish soap and suitable cleaning tools
I’ve been using Method Dish Soap for years. I love it because it cuts grease and cleans well, smells amazing, looks beautiful sitting on my counter-top and most importantly, because I hate wearing gloves when I clean. I feel comfortable cleaning with my bare hands when I use Method products because all their functional ingredients are non-toxic and naturally derived. They are not harmful to the environment and they are not harmful to my skin.
Having the right tool for the job can also help to preserve some elbow grease and keep the dishes in pristine condition.
I use the Suds Up sponge for the dishes. The soap dispensing function helps to conserve the quantity of soap used to wash each dish and reduce the likelihood of the first dish getting too heavy a dose of dish soap while the last dish in line gets close to none.
The handle allows me to reach into bottles and all containers easily. I also like that it is able to stand upright, keeping the sponge off the counter-top when drying.
I also find it particularly useful for cleaning wire gauze which includes the one in the Airfryer!
For burnt/ heavily stained pots and pans, there’s no need to fret over them or
contemplate throwing them away, just give them the baking soda + vinegar treatment!
3. Wipe Surfaces
I’ll give the kitchen counter-top, followed by the stove and the dining table a good spray with the Method All Purpose Cleaner, let it sit for a short while, and return to attack the grease and grime with the cellullose cloths.
For stubborn stains, especially around the stove, I’ll use microfiber scrub cloth to give it a good scrub.
Check out how sparkling clean the stove looks after a good wipe-down!
Sometimes, when I find that the dining table is losing its natural lustre, I will use the Method Wood For Good Spray to clean and buff our dining table to give it a healthy glean.
4. Clean the Sink
I know some people don’t really clean the sink because they think that all the soap and water flowing from the dishes will be sufficient to keep the sink clean. No matter how “clean” I think the sink is, I will still give the sink a good scrub and rinse after all the cleaning.
One area which I used to miss out from the cleaning routine is the kitchen stopper. Remember to flip it over and give it a good rinse to prevent scums from accumulating there!
I’ll also wipe and buff the kitchen sink fittings just to make the job look complete. *Feel good factor!*
Oh, and if you’re shopping for your kitchen sink, please get one with a rounded edge. I used to have one with straight edges and it was such a pain to keep the corners clean! We usually leave all the cooking to the weekends so on normal weekdays, when there is no cooking, I’ll just give the counter-top a very quick wipe down to remove the dust and any water mark. Our post-cooking cleaning up process during the weekend, as described above, acts as a weekly deep-cleaning for the kitchen.
Also, until June you can use the discount code Spring2017 in their webshop. Happy cleaning!
Appendix B: Randomisation checks
In order to be able to ascribe any found effects to the manipulations, the experimental groups must be randomised and should not differ in terms of demographics or user experiences. To this end, experimental group consistencies are compared. Randomisation has been successful if participants are equally distributed across the experimental conditions.
A one-way ANOVA with the between-subjects factor Conditions and dependent variables Age, Gender and Level of education was conducted. For Age and Gender, no significant differences across the six conditions were found (Age: F(5, 273) = .58, p = .72, η2 = .01; Gender: F(5, 273) = 1.17, p = .32, η2 = .02). The Level of education however was found to differ significantly across the conditions (F(5, 273) = 2.80, p = .02, η2 = .05). More
specifically, participants that were exposed to the Method banner were significantly higher educated (M = 3.71, SD = .62) than participants in the Fiat 500 skyscraper condition (M = 3.09, SD = 1.10). No further statistical differences were found for Level of education.
A one-way ANOVA was also conducted with the between-subjects factor Conditions and dependent variables Internet use, Brand use, Product use, Brand knowledge and Hobby. Participants did not differ across the six conditions in terms of their Internet use (F (5, 273) = .68, p = .64, η2 = .01) and in terms of using the product as a hobby (F (5, 273) = 1.85, p = .10, η2 = .03).
Brand use was significantly different across four of six conditions (F (5, 273) = 2.91, p < .01, η2 = .05). The participants in the Method skyscraper condition used the Method brand
significantly more often (M = 1.44, SD = .80) than the participants in all of the Fiat 500 conditions used the Fiat 500 brand (M = 1.11, SD = .41).
Product use was also found to be significantly different across the six conditions (F (5, 273) = 8.53, p < .01, η2 = .14). The results indicate that dishwashing soap (M = 2.44, SD = .73) is more frequently used than a car (M = 1.88, SD = .75), irrespective of the extent of integratedness. Within the Method condition, the three integratedness conditions were successfully randomised, so that there were no significant differences among these three groups. Also, within the Fiat 500 condition, all three integratedness groups were successfully randomised and no significant differences were found between these three groups.
Significant differences were also found across the experimental groups in whether or not they knew the brand prior to this study (F (5, 273) = 59.63, p < .01, η2 = .52). Participants in all Fiat 500 conditions (M = 1.08, SD = .27) were more familiar with the brand Fiat 500 than all the participants in the Method conditions each were with the Method brand (M= 1.79,
SD = .41). This means that overall, the Fiat 500 brand was more known than the Method
brand. Within each brand group however, there were no significant differences in knowledge of the brand across the three integratedness groups.
As Level of education, Brand use, Product use and Prior knowledge of the brand were not equally distributed across conditions, these variables are included in the statistical
Appendix C: Additional analyses of unequally distributed participant characteristics
As participants’ levels of education, brand use, product use and product knowledge were not distributed across the experimental groups equally, it is possible that one or more of these factors influence the dependent variables. To gain more insight into possible effects of these four control variables, a two-way MANOVA was conducted with between-subjects factors Level of education, Brand use, Product use and Brand knowledge. The dependent variables were Brand attitude, Purchase intention and Message irritation.
First, the MANOVA showed a significant effect of Brand use (F (6, 464) = 3.16, p = .01, η2 = .04). Moreover, the univariate analyses indicate a significant effect of Brand use on Purchase intention (F (2, 234) = 4.14, p = .02, η2 = .03), while no significant effects of Brand Use were found on Brand attitude (F (2, 234) = .10, p < .90, η2 < .01) or Message irritation (F (2, 234) = .10, p < .91, η2 < .01). It appears that the more often people use brand X, the more
they intend to buy the product. As this study does not focus on the effects of how frequently a brand is used, the variable Brand use is included as a covariate in further analyses so that Integratedness and Product involvement effects can be explored.
Table 6: Mean scores and standard deviations in parentheses for Purchase intention at
differential frequencies of Brand use.
Brand use
Monthly Weekly Daily
Purchase intention 3.69 (1.56) 4.49 (1.88) 4.75 (1.78)
Second, the MANOVA did not produce significant effects of Level of education (F (12, 614) = 1.06, p = .39, η2 = .02), Product use (F (6, 464) = 1.10, p = .36, η2 = .01) or Brand
knowledge (F (3, 232) = 1.76, p = .16, η2 = .02). This means that, even though the
experimental groups significantly differed in terms of their level of education, product use and prior knowledge of the brand, these differences did not influence the dependent variables. Nonetheless, they are included as covariates in the main analyses of this study to rule out any small, cumulative or interaction effects.
