To annoy or not to annoy?

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To annoy or not to annoy?

To have an effective advertisement campaign, organizations should

annoy potential customers; the influence of annoyance on the

relationship between the mere exposure effect and advertising

effectiveness.

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Master thesis Marketing, specialization marketing management University of Groningen, faculty of economy and business administration

January 30, 2014 Tette van Gent BSc Student number: 1795163 Parklaan 28 9724AR Groningen tel: +31 (0)630313071 e-mail: t.p.van.gent@student.rug.nl First Supervisor Dr. Debra Trampe

Assistant Professor of Marketing Department of Marketing Faculty of Economics and Business

University of Groningen The Netherlands Second Supervisor

Dr. Lara Lobschat

Assistant Professor of Marketing Department of Marketing Faculty of Economics and Business

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Acknowledgement:

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MANAGEMENT SUMMARY

Repeating a message results in more positive attitudes towards that message. However, extreme repetition may cause annoyance. On the other hand, annoying advertisements probably catches consumers’ attention better than regular advertising. Does annoying advertisements have influence on the mere exposure effect? And does the influence have positive or negative overall effects for the brand?

In an experimental research, participants were exposed to either annoying or neutral advertisements at different repetition levels. The between-subjects design research showed that annoying advertisements have indeed multiple effects on advertisement effectiveness. The influence of annoying advertisements on the mere exposure effect was not found, but using an annoying advertisement showed to have a direct effect on advertisement

effectiveness. This direct effect was visible in two different ways. First, annoying

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INTRODUCTION

Worldwide, consumers are confronted with advertisements all the time. Compared to other media, for example radio and newspapers, consumers perceive television advertisements as most annoying (Larkin 1979). Annoyance is considered to be a negative emotion (Russell 1980). In his model, Russell places annoyance in the arousal/displeasure quadrant, which means that people are negatively excited when confronted with annoyance. Therefore a relation between annoying advertisements and negative thoughts by consumers can be expected. There is evidence that attitudes towards an advertisement can be a significant predictor of several important variables, such as advertisement exposure and involvement which are related to advertising effectiveness(Yuan 2006).

Yuan (2006) separates the different media into two categories, based on the way in which the advertisement is exposed to the consumer. The two different categories are called push and pull advertising. Push advertising forces consumers to pay attention to the message, while pull advertisements give the consumer more freedom in the extent of exposure. This difference can be seen when newspaper advertisements are being compared with television advertisements. When reading a newspaper the reader can switch to the next page and skip the advertisement, a newspaper is therefore considered as pull advertising. When watching

television the consumer is being forced to wait until the program continues. Television advertisements are therefore considered to be push advertisements. Yuan concludes that push advertisements are in general considered as to be more annoying compared to pull

advertising, due to the described lesser freedom in the extent of exposure. According to Schlosser and Shavitt (1999), media that use push advertisements are considered to be more annoying compared to media that are using pull advertising.

Push advertising allows the individual to have limited control over exposure to the advertisement and this causes annoyance by the consumer earlier then pull advertising (Schlosser and Schavitt 1999).

For example, television operators often interrupt movies and other broadcasts with a commercial break. Although the consumer can use this moment for other activities, the viewer has to wait before the program continues. That is, the consumer does not have much control over the exposure to television advertisements.

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extra annoying advertisements to win these kind of prices, but in some cases it seems that it was the purpose of a company to make such an annoying advertisement. What can be the reason for an organization to use annoying stimuli in their advertisements, annoying content and/or annoying presentation? Does annoying advertisements result in positive effects for a brand?

In existing literature, the relation between repetition of a stimulus and the increasing preference for that repeated stimulus is researched multiple times. This relation is called the mere exposure effect (Zajonc 1968). According to Zajonc repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to familiarity with that stimulus, which in turn leads to increasing preferences for the exposed stimuli. The concept of mere exposure implies that consumers are more likely to think positive about a stimulus when they are exposed to that same stimulus repeatedly (Campbell and Keller 2003). Campbell and Keller found that the greatest effect arises from the first couple of repetitions. Campbell and Keller applied their findings to the marketing domain and concluded that consumers learn about the brand and the product. Through

repetition of the message habituation takes place. This means that consumers will feel familiar with the brand and the product and learning is not needed anymore. During the first

repetitions, the consumer reduces potential negative responses. In the second phase the effectiveness of the repetition decreases due to boredom and the consumer has less

opportunity to learn. Reactance against the repeated message is now possible (Campbell and Keller 2003). The concept of mere exposure will be discussed more thoroughly in the following section.

When reactance against the repeated message is possible after being exposed to the message too often, the repetition of a message can probably be a source for annoyance.

According to Greyser (1973) consumer annoyance stems from a variety of reasons. One of the most important findings of Greyser is that consumers that already heard or saw the

advertisement too often are more annoyed compared to consumers who see the advertisement for the first time. This is why it is expected that repeated exposure can be a source of

annoyance. Other sources show that annoyance can also have a positive influence on advertisement effectiveness by catching consumers’ attention (Hodges 1974 and Kattner 2012). It is possible that annoyance acts as a moderator in the specified relationship between repeated exposure and advertisement effectiveness. An important issue for the relation is whether it is possible that annoying advertisements still can have a positive effect on

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The finding that repeated exposure to a stimulus enhances attitudes directed towards that stimulus is a well-established phenomenon (Hekkert, Thurgood and Whitfield 2013). Psychological research has shown effects of negative information on processing information (Baumeister et al. 2001). Baumeister et al. (2001) found that negative information is

processed more thoroughly compared to positive information.

Advertising is an important way for organizations to communicate with potential customers. It is important to know if the use of annoying elements in advertisements is indeed effective. When the exact influence of annoyance on advertisement effectiveness is known, organizations can allocate their marketing budget in an effective and efficient way. Then, less money would be allocated to ineffective advertising, or worse, detrimental advertisements if it turns out that annoying advertisements have a negative effect. Therefore it is important to research the effect of annoying advertisements in relation to the mere exposure effect. There is no research available about the specific effects of repeated exposure to annoying

advertisements on the effectiveness of these annoying advertisements. The current research focusses on the influence of annoyance on the relation between mere exposure and

advertisement effectiveness. Annoyance is caused by annoying elements in the advertisement and/or caused by repeated exposure. This research focusses on type advertisement, annoying or neutral. The influence of repetition level on perceived annoyance by consumers is also investigated. This leads to the following research question:

To what extent does annoyance, caused by an advertisement, have influence on the relation between exposure frequency and advertisement effectiveness?

THEORY

In this section, literature for the different relations between the established variables is discussed. After that, the conceptual model and method used will be presented, followed by the presentation of the results and a discussion for managerial implications.

The emotion annoyance

Emotions are affective responses regulated by the limbic system of the human brain (Catani, Dell’Acqua and de Schotten 2013). The limbic system is a part of the human brain of

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Russell (1980) classifies different human emotions in a model according to two dimension. The first dimension Russell uses to classify human emotion is pleasantness – unpleasantness. The dimension pleasantness – unpleasantness makes a difference between emotions perceived as positive or negative. The second dimension Russell uses to classify human emotions is arousal – sleep. This dimension differentiate emotions according to the level of mental activation perceived by the person who experiences the emotion. The two dimension together form four quadrants in which different human emotions can be classified. Russell (1980) uses this two dimensions to classify human emotions including

annoyance. Russell classifies annoyance as a negative emotion which is high on mental activity, an unpleasant aroused emotion.

A neutral advertisement is a recommendation towards a normal product, the product is recommended by a factual presentation of details of the product, for example price and

functions. An advertisement recomments a product to a potential consumer, so an

advertisement will be positive in most of the times. For this article a neutral advertisement is defined as an advertisement which is neither extreme positive nor extreme negative. An annoying advertisement will also recommend a product but now an annoying way of presentation is used, for example extreme repetition, noisy music or dislike of the people in the advertisement (Greyser 1973). The advertisement itself is seen as annoying because customers perceive the message as annoying because of its content or the way of presentation. Some possible effects of using the emotion annoyance in advertisements, annoying content or annoying presentation, are visible in the research of Siemer and Reisenzein (1998). Siemer and Reisenzein found effects of emotions on recall. Judgments are based on recalled positive or negative features of the evaluated object. Consumers typically do not recall all relevant information from memory and therefore base their judgment on a subset of the available information in memory. This is where emotions play a role because Siemer and Reisenzein found that the retrieval of information from memory is biased in a

mood-congruent manner. This means that information what caused a positive or negative emotion is retrieved earlier compared to neutral information and thereby over-represented in the subset of information which is retrieved to make a judgment.

Annoyance will be treated and discussed as emotion in the upcoming article. In

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Repeated exposure to a message

The concept of mere exposure describes the effect that repetition of a stimulus results in multiple positive effects (Zajonc 1968). Repeated exposure to a stimulus is an important factor in creating more positive attitudes of consumers and greater recall (Sawyer 1981). In a meta-analysis of Bornstein (1989), an initial increase in liking to a stimulus was found when a certain stimulus was repeated, but the initial increase in liking decreased after a couple of repetitions. Bornstein found that consumers only need a small number of exposures to the repeated stimulus in order to reach a stage of decline. Bornstein calls this stage of decline the “ceiling”. When the ceiling is reached, the increase in liking to the repeated stimulus will level off. Bornstein also found that the duration of the exposure to the repeated stimulus does not need to be long, repetition of exposures shorter than one second already show strong effects on increase in liking.

Campbell and Keller (2003) have put the mere exposure effect into a marketing

context. They found a difference between familiar and unfamiliar brands. When a consumer is exposed to an advertisement of a familiar brand, the consumer has prior knowledge and associations to the brand, like price and quality perceptions. The consumer will have the opportunity to process advertisements of a familiar brand more extensively because the prior knowledge functions as a context for new information. For an unfamiliar brand the consumer does not have prior knowledge, so there is less context available in the memory of the

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Because the mere exposure effect arise in relation to the times a consumer is exposed to stimuli, it is expected that the fact that the advertisement is annoying will not hinder the mere exposure effect. There is no difference between exposure to an annoying advertisement and an neutral constructed advertisement, when only the repetition level is taken into account. The discussion about mere exposure leads to the following hypothesis:

H1a: More positive attitudes of consumers toward the brand and/or stimuli from the advertisement will emerge, relative to exposure frequency, for both exposure to annoying advertisements and for exposure to non-annoying advertisements.

The effect of repeated exposure to an advertisement seems positive so far (Bornstein 1989; Campbell and Keller 2003 and Zajonc 1968). However, there is a limit to the repetition effectiveness. The research of Campbell and Keller and Bornstein found a moment that the enduring repetition of a message results in a decreasing effectiveness. Kirmani (1997) found that advertising repetition is also seen as an indication of product quality. When a brand approaches the consumers with a lot of advertisements, consumers often think that the brand is strong and can effort the marketing expenditures (Kirmani 1997). However, Kirmani found that at very high levels of repetition, consumers may perceive the expenditures of an

organization on advertisements to be excessive and begin to doubt the manufacturer’s confidence in product quality. The findings of Kirmani are found at high levels of repetition, which is in accordance with the decreasing effectiveness found by Campbell and Keller (2003) and Bornstein (1989), high levels of exposure frequency were five exposures in this context. Therefore it is expected that repeated exposure is effective to a certain extent, but can even cause negative effects at higher levels of repetition. Annoyance seems a negative effect, but there are mixed opinions about the possible influence of annoyance on advertising

effectiveness, as will be discussed in the following section.

Two sides of the influence of annoyance

The effect of annoyance is often studied in the online context (Youjeong 2008 and Jeon et al. 2009). Youjeong showed that there is a significant relation between annoyance and attitudes towards a website, specifically annoyance caused by pop-ups. Consumers perceived pop-ups as annoying when the pop-ups were not relevant to the website. If the pop-ups were

experienced as annoying, this annoyance had a significant negative effect on attitude towards the website where the pop-ups appeared. Due to annoying pop-ups, a large part of the

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When this finding is applied to advertising on television or radio, annoying

advertisements are possibly ineffective. An annoying advertisement can lead to avoidance, when consumers try to avoid exposure to this negative information again (Jeon et al. 2009). Avoidance can hurt the effectiveness of an advertising campaign, because avoidance of television or radio commercials will probably lead to channel changing. This could cause that consumers will not receive the whole message of the advertisement, or cause consumers to misinterpret the message (Swaminathan and Kent 2013). In both ways, avoidance will result in a bad advertisement recall. The possibility of avoidance is the reason that organizations should be careful when considering the launch of an annoying advertising campaign. The influence of annoyance could be negative in certain cases. Therefore it is important to know the exact influence of annoyance on advertisement effectiveness. Hypothesis H1a expect that annoyance will not hinder the mere exposure effect. However, because it is possible that the influence of annoying advertisements is negative in certain cases, H1b takes the possible negative effects on attitudes toward the brand into account.

H1b: Repeated exposure to annoying advertisements result more often in negative attitudes towards a brand perceived by consumers compared to repeated exposure to neutral advertisements.

Too much repetition may cause a reactance against the message to which the subject is exposed (Campbell and Keller 2003; Greyser 1973). Cacioppo and Petty (1979) found that high levels of repetition prompt counter argumentation, negative thoughts towards the brand and product. In the current article the effect of annoyance is investigated on the mere

exposure effect. To have all possible linkages complete it is important to know if the annoyance is possibly caused by the fact that the consumer is repeatedly exposed to a message.

H2: High repetition levels of an advertisement cause annoyance experienced by consumers earlier compared to low repetition levels or no repetition of an advertisement.

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negative valence (e.g. losing money or a struggle with friends) will have a greater impact on the individual than positively valenced events of the same type (e.g. winning money or joy with friends). Baumeister et al. (2001) show that it is possible that negative events prevail over positive events, but when people are confronted with an equal amount of positive and negative events, the psychological effect of the negative events will outweigh the positive events. The negativity bias can be relevant in the context of annoying advertisements when it is connected to attention. When negative information is given more weight, is it possible that annoyance catches the attention of consumers because annoyance is a negative emotion. For a deeper understanding of the relation between attention and annoyance, the variable attention will be discussed in the following section.

Annoying advertisements will possibly catch attention

Annoyance can be a way to catch the attention of the consumer (Hodges 1974, Fiske 1980 and Huang and Wille 1979). Teixeira, Wedel and Pieters (2010) have shown that on-screen and on-page distractions, such as other brand names or an interesting picture, make it difficult to catch consumers’ attention. It can be difficult to catch the attention of consumers nowadays, finding a way to catch consumers’ attention is thus important.

Hodges (1974) found that stimuli that are negative are given more weight in the evaluation of the first impression after the confrontation with the stimuli. Giving negative stimuli more weight is called the influence of valence, the continuum between positive and negative emotions (Kron et al. 2013). The effect that negative information is given more weight was also seen in the negativity bias (Baumeister et al. 2001) which was discussed in the previous section of this article.

Consumer attention is an important variable for the effectiveness of an advertisement, as shown by Lynch and Srull (1982). Lynch and Srull emphasize the influence of attention on consumers’ choice behavior. When a consumer is confronted with a choice between brands, the consumer must retrieve information that is linked to the different brands in memory. Hodges (1974) found that information that receives attention by the consumer is more likely to be recalled by that consumer. That is because information that received attention is processed more extensively by a consumer.

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to the shown information during the advertisement, for example price or product quality perceptions (Eckert, Louviere and Islam 2012). Because extreme negative or extreme positive stimuli are probably inconsistent with the attitudes of the observer, those stimuli will be given more attention. This in turn could explain why more attention is paid to annoying

advertisements (Fiske 1980).

Huang and Wille (1979) researched the effect of attention on recall by presenting the participants a list of words. In each list there was an isolate; one word colored red while all other words were black. The participants had to recall the list of words by means of a free recall test. The isolated item from the list was recalled better compared to the other random words. The effect that the isolated item is recalled better compared to the other words from the list is known as the “Von Restorff” effect. The participants did not knew beforehand that they had to recall the list of words. The rehearsal of an item under attention, the list of words was shown multiple times and the word colored red caught the participants’ attention, resulting in an increased strength of memory trace. Also the number of associations and attributes attached to the item under attention increased. Another important finding of Huang and Wille (1979) was that the probability that the information was transferred from the short term memory to the long term memory increased. For organizations, advertisement effects are positive when brand information arrives in the long term memory of consumers. Then the probability that potential customers will buy the brand will be higher due to brand awareness (Hoyer and Brown 1990). Because annoying advertisements are more sensible compared to neutral advertisements it is expected that annoying advertisements will lead to a higher level of consumer attention, compared to a neutral advertisement according to the Von Restorff effect. In turn this will lead to higher brand awareness. The discussion of attention leads to the following hypothesis:

H3: Annoying advertisements grab attention of consumers earlier compared to neutral advertisements which will result in higher brand awareness for brands who exposed the consumer to an annoying advertisement.

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test, what resulted in different levels of attention of the participants towards the message. Awareness is an important factor in the decision making process of the consumer (Hoyer and Brown 1990) but it is not the only effect of advertising. Therefore advertising effectiveness will be discussed in the next section of this article.

The effectiveness of an advertisement

Because organizations sometimes invest in annoying advertisements it can be expected that annoying advertisements will have a positive overall effect on the organization that spends the marketing budget on these kind of advertisements. The marketing budget should be allocated wisely, because advertising is an important way for generating sales and the budget is mostly limited (Aravindakshan, Peters and Naik 2012).

Shimp (1981) provides scientific proof that attitudes toward the advertisement have influence on brand choice when the consumer has to choose between brands. With this in mind you should expect that when annoyance is used in advertisements this will result in negative results for the brand. Shimp (1981) found that attitudes toward the advertisement, a positive feeling in the case of a funny advertisement or a negative one in the case of an annoying advertisement, has significant influence on brand choice. Also Spears (2004) emphasize the influence of positive or negative feelings. Positive or negative feelings, that result from the advertisement, have a direct influence on attitude towards the brand. And also an indirect effect on attitude towards the brand through attitude toward the advertisement (Spears 2004). Spears found that attitudes towards a brand have a significant influence on purchase intentions. Annoyance is a negative emotion (Russell 1980) and therefore you should expect that annoying advertisements will not always result in positive effects caused by extra attention. Indeed there are mixed opinions about the use of annoyance in

advertisements; annoyance can be about catching attention, hypothesis H3 (Huang and Wille 1979) or annoyance can possibly cause avoidance through negative attitudes, hypothesis H1b (Youjeong, 2008).

Van Heerde et al. (2013) found that the effect of advertising is especially noticeable as a long-term effect for the brand. The reason for a strong long-term effect is that

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effort, customers tend to buy a brand which they are familiar with. From the previous discussion about attention it can be concluded that annoyance will have a positive effect for advertising effectiveness when the annoyance leads to extra attention, which in turn will lead to more awareness (Fiske 1980 and Lynch and Srull 1982).

In the current article, the same measures of advertising effectiveness of Romaniuk and Wight (2009) are used. Romaniuk and Wight use different variables to measure advertising effectiveness, these variables are: top-of-mind, unaided brand awareness and aided brand awareness. To stay relevant for future marketing decisions, an organization must know if, and how much, the advertisement produced sales (Simon 1984). Simon used the brand choice probability in his research to assess the advertising effectiveness. According to Sheth (1974) brand choice probability is an important variable when it comes to advertising effectiveness. Brand choice is part of the persuasion mechanism that deals with the choice process of the consumer. Awareness and brand choice are both part of consumers attitudes. The hypothesis is that these attitudes are positively influenced through repeated exposure of an annoying advertisement. This is in line with the theory of the mere exposure effect where repeated exposure leads to positive attitudes to the exposed stimulus by participants (Campbell and Keller 2003).

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advertisement is expected to be caused by negative attitudes which in turn are caused by an annoying advertisement (Hypothesis H1b). The indirect influence of type advertisement on advertisement effectiveness through annoyance is expected because annoyance is expected to catch consumers’ attention which result in a higher brand awareness compared to exposure to a neutral advertisement (Hypothesis H3).

METHOD

Participants

The research was conducted with a total of 150 participants, 64 male and 86 female, with a mean age of M = 31 years old, recruited through spreading an experiment on internet using thesistools.com. The sample for this test was a convenience sample. All participants were asked to spread the experiment to their family and friends to make the experiment more representative for different ages and living situation. The participants were randomly assigned to two different groups, either the annoying advertisement group or the neutral advertisement group. Both groups were subsequently assigned to either one, two or three exposures towards a certain selected advertisement. The experiment had an average duration of six minutes.

Pre-test

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Type Advertisement Mean rating Standard Deviation

Annoying 1.5 1.1

Neutral 4.2 1.3

Table 3.1: Rating pre-test type advertisement

Another question in the conducted pre-test was whether the participants heard of

GoCompare.com before the test or not. All participants of the pre-test declared to have no foreknowledge about the brand.

Shown advertisements

The advertisements that were shown in the experiment consisted of short television advertisements of existing companies. The shown advertisements were collected from the internet and were already shown on television in the past. For the annoying advertisement group there was one advertisement selected which was constructed to be annoying. Because existing advertisements were shown in this experimental research, information was available about which advertisements were in general judged by consumers as being annoying. All advertisements shown to the participants were simple messages to recommend a certain product of a certain brand, both for the annoying advertisement and the neutral advertisement group. The GoCompare.com advertisement (aired in august 2009) was chosen as annoying. This advertisement was heavily discussed on the internet and the conducted pre-test proved this advertisement to be perceived as annoying. In this advertisement two men drink coffee at a bar when a vocalist enters the bar. The vocalist sings an annoying song, constantly repeating the brand name GoCompare in a high and loud way. The two men are surprised and look frustrated. The advertisement ends with the brand name centered large on screen during a fade out of the two frustrated man.

As reaction to the public discussion about the 2009 annoying advertisement, GoCompare.com launched a more neutral television advertisement in April 2013. This advertisement shows an office and the same vocalist of the previous advertisement enters the room. This time he does not sing a song, but he presents a new offer of an insurance company to the office members. This advertisement is factual and no annoying elements are present.

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participants had seen the advertisements during travel or on internet, the participants were asked in the last part of the test if they had heard of any of the tested brands before.

Procedure

The research had a 2 (type advertisement: annoying or neutral) x3 (exposure frequency: one, two or three) between-subjects factorial design. With a between-subjects design, the results of the different groups participants are compared to find relations among the conditions. The participants were asked to participate in the experiment and received an internet link to the experiment. The test started with an introduction about the topic of the research and the aim of the research. Both the annoying advertisement group and the neutral advertisement group was told that the research was about attention towards an advertisement and that the research was aimed at getting an insight on the influence of attention on memory. This was already told to the participants in order to let the participants pay extra attention during the test. It was not told to the participants that repeated exposure and/or annoyance could have a special role in the relation between attention and awareness. The respondents were not told either that they had to recall the brands after seeing them. When the participants were conscious about the relation between annoyance and attention, it was possible that the advertisement which was selected to be annoying should get extra attention on forehand.

The research was exactly the same for all groups participants except for the central advertisement, either annoying or neutral, and the level of repetition. To prevent any influence of other variables, the annoying advertisement and the neutral advertisement were both of the same brand. In this way it was possible to compare the results between the groups with only the type of advertisement differing. This construction was the same for the varying repetition levels. The levels of repetition were either one, two or three because Zajonc (2001) found that the mere exposure effect is already seen at low levels of repetition.

Before starting the experiment, the participants had to fill in demographic questions about age, gender and living situation. The participants were also asked about the use of media and their behavior during advertisements on television.

Independent variables

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were shortened to 20-30 seconds. It was plausible that the participants would skip the advertisements when the advertisements each had a duration of one minute.

For the annoyance group one specific advertisement was selected as being annoying and all other advertisements that were shown were selected as being a neutral advertisement. For the other group, which was assigned to neutral advertising, all seven advertisements were selected as being neutral. Besides the either annoying or neutral selected advertisement of GoCompare.com, the participants were confronted with other neutral advertisements. These other neutral advertisements were from other random brands also shown on television in the past, and also from other regions as the study location. All groups were given the opportunity to pay full attention to the advertisements because the advertisements were centered on a separate page without distractions.

To simulate the mere exposure effect, the participants were exposed either one, two or three times to the same advertisement. The advertisement which was selected to be annoying was repeated for the annoyance group and one neutral advertisement of the same brand was selected to be repeated during the test for the neutral group. The repetitions were spread over the seven shown advertisements. For all amounts of repetition there were at least two other neutral advertisements between the repetition of the selected advertisement. At least two other advertisements were shown between the repetitions of the selected advertisement to prevent extraordinary attention paid by the participants to the selected advertisement.

Dependent variables

In the last part of the experiment, the participants had to fill in more specific questions compared to the first questions. The more specific questions aimed at making judgments about participants’ awareness and their attitudes toward the shown advertisement and brand. The questions asked for the unaided brand awareness, aided brand awareness, attitudes toward the brand and purchase intentions. Awareness was measured by questions for aided and unaided recall. The participant first had to name all brands they remembered from the shown advertisements. Afterwards a list of brands was shown and now the participants had to check the boxes of the brands they remembered from the shown advertisements. The list of brands contained all shown brands in a random order, supplemented by random brands that were not shown. Some of the random brands were from the same field of business as the brands that were shown in the advertisements.

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appealing. Because the questions to measure attitude towards the brand stem from theory (Spears and Singh 2004) and these questions measured the same underlying phenomenon it was expected that the questions could be combined into one variable, by using factor analysis. Purchase intentions were measured by five questions, on a seven point semantic scale varying from unlikely – likely, never – definitely, I would not consider using it – I would consider using it, low interest – high interest and maybe not – maybe. Both the questions of awareness and the questions of attitudes stem from the attitude toward the brand framework of Spears and Singh (2004). Both series of questions, attitude and purchase intentions, were measured on a 7-point semantic scale. The semantic scale is an often used scale for measuring attitudes due to its versatility. The numbering of the questions was turned randomly to be able to recognize participants who gave every question the same rating. Giving the different scales the same rating would be contradictory and a sign that the participant did not pay full

attention to the experiment. Participants who did not fill in the experiment with full attention are bad for the reliability and therefore a decision is made whether or not to delete those participants from the database.

In the last part of the experiment, the participants were asked about the perceived annoyance of the selected advertisement. This question functioned as manipulation check for the variable type advertisement. The advertisements were selected based on a pre-test, the questions used in the pre-test and manipulation check stem from the 12 point affect model of Yik, Russell and Steiger (2011). The questions consisted of three contradictions: annoying – enjoyable, upset – elated and unhappy – pleased. All three contradictions were measured on a seven point semantic scale.

RESULTS

Descriptive statistics participants

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results. There was a group of 150 participants left after deleting the incomplete responses. More discussion about the quitting during the exposure to the advertisements will follow under discussion.

The experiment consisted out of six conditions, two advertisement types and three repetition levels. To keep the experiment reliable and generalizable, the goal was to have at least 25 useable respondents per condition in the dataset. Because 29 participants were deleted from the dataset, the experiment was further spread until each condition had 25 respondents, resulting in a total of 150 respondents.

A 2 x 3 Anova was performed to see if there were significant differences among the different groups of participants. It is important that the groups participants did not differ significantly, because demographic differences could influence the results. The 2 x 3 Anova did not show any significant differences for type advertisement on age (F (1,144) = 0.321, p = .572), gender (F(1,144) = 0.106, p = .745 ) or most used medium (F (1.144) = 0.039, p = .845). The 2 x 3 Anova did not found significant differences either for repetition level on age (F (2,144) = 0.865, p = .423), gender (F (2,144) = 0.662, p = .517) or most used medium (F (2,144) = 0.139, p = .871).The groups were sufficient equal for further analyses.

The participants, of which 43 percent was male and 57 percent was female, had a mean age of M = 31.31 years old. Most respondents lived on their own (57%) followed by married or living together (26%), living together with children (12%) or alone with children (3%). Internet and television were the most used media in the group participants, respectively 89 percent and 63 percent. Followed by radio (30%) and newspapers (20%), magazines was the least chosen medium (8%).

Most of the respondents mentioned that, during commercial breaks, they do something else, like talking or reading while keeping the television active (52%). 50 percent of the respondents said to avoid the advertisement by switching channel and 30 percent of the respondents use the break to get another drink or go to the toilet. The least chosen option was “I watch with interest to the advertisements” (5%).

Finalizing the database

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value of 0.778 what means that correlations between pairs of attitudes could be expained by other variables of attitudes.Barlett’s test of sphericity, which measures the correlation between the variables, gave a significance of p = .000. Cronbach’s alpha for the internal consistency of the attitude scale was 0.905 and this number only decreased in the case of deleting items. This meant that the internal consistency was not a problem for this scale.

The same as for the four attitude toward the brand questions applied to the five

questions to measure purchase intentions. For this questions the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy gave a value of 0.902 and Barlett’s test of sphericity gave a

significance of p = .000. Because these five questions measured the same underlying phenomenon they were combined as one variable. This was possible because a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.956 had shown internal consistency and the option Cronbach’s Alpha if items deleted gave no change for the internal consistency. The combination of the different variables into one scale will give less multicollinearity in the subsequent analysis. Both the different attitudes questions and the purchase intentions questions were reliable to use as one scale.

Manipulation checks

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Manipulated type advertisement

Number of respondents

Mean rating on 7-point scale Standard deviation

Annoying 75 2.5 1.268

Neutral 75 4.1 1.270

Table 4.1: manipulation check for type advertisement

The other manipulation in this experiment was the use of unknown brands to prevent that brand awareness and/or brand attitudes were influenced by prior knowledge. This manipulation was checked by asking the participants at the end of the test if they already knew the tested brands. Only one participant knew GoCompare.com already, this participant is therefore deleted from the dataset.

Testing the hypotheses

To test the conceptual model, each dependent variable is tested separately. The analysis started with the influence of type advertisement and repetition level on attitudes toward the brand GoCompare.com. Afterwards, the influence on awareness was tested and the influence of repetition level on perceived annoyance.

Attitudes proved to be influenced directly by type advertisement.

Table 4.2: descriptive statistics brand attitude

Type advertisement Level of repetition

Mean score on attitude toward brand

Standard deviation

Neutral One repetition 4.14 0.848

Two repetitions 3.92 1.187

Three repetitions 4.02 1.222

Annoying One repetitions 2.75 1.085

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Figure 4.1: influence of repetition level and type advertisement on attitude toward brand

A two-way, between-subjects Anova was conducted to measure the influence of type advertisement on the relation between exposure frequency and brand attitudes. The 2x3 between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) had shown a significant main effect of type advertisement (F(1, 144) = 50.062, p = .000).

The ANOVA failed to reveal a main effect of advertisement repetition (F(2, 144) = 0.140, p = .891).

The same analysis was conducted for the influence of repeated exposure and type advertisement on purchase intentions instead of brand attitudes.

Type advertisement Level of repetition

Mean score on purchase intentions

Standard deviation

Neutral One repetition 4.0 1.210

Annoying One repetitions 2.6 1.377

Two repetitions 3 1.407

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Figure 4.2: influence of repetition level and type advertisement on purchase intentions

The 2x3 between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) has shown a main effect of type advertisement ( F(1, 144) = 20.556, p = .000).

The ANOVA failed to reveal a main effect of exposure frequency (F(2, 144) = 0.112, p = .894).

Repetition level did not show a main effect on brand attitudes, nor on purchase intentions. However, type advertisement did show a main effect on both brand attitudes and on purchase intentions. Both brand attitudes and purchase intentions decreased when participants were exposed to an annoying advertisement compared to participants who were exposed to a neutral advertisement.

The ANOVA failed to reveal an interaction effect of repetition level and type advertisement on brand attitudes (F(2, 144) = 0.299, p = .742). The ANOVA also failedto reveal an interaction effect of advertisement repetition and type advertisement on purchase intentions (F(2, 144) = 1.633, p = .199). This means that type advertisement had a direct effect on brand attitudes and purchase intentions without influence of repetition level.

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annoying advertisements and for exposure to non-annoying advertisements.

Hypothesis H1a replicated the mere exposure effect which is based on theory (Campbell and Keller 2003). Hypothesis H1a assumed that the fact that an advertisement is judged by consumers as annoying will not influence the mere exposure effect. In other words, repeating exposure will result in an emerging preference for the advertised brand regardless of the type of advertisement, either a neutral advertisement or an annoying advertisement. This main effect was not found in the 2 x 3 Anova.

According to hypothesis H1b the direct influence of type advertisement on advertisement effectiveness is expected to be negative in the case of an annoying advertisement. In the 2 x 3 Anova a main effect was found for type advertisement on both brand attitudes and purchase intensions. The main effect was negative as can be seen in figure 4.1 and figure 4.2. This finding confirmed hypothesis H1b.

Awareness is the second variable of advertisement effectiveness which was tested. Type advertisement Level of

repetition

Percentage respondents who

recalled GoCompare.com (unaided)

Standard deviation

Neutral One repetition 8% 0.277

Two repetitions 28% 0.458

Three repetitions

32% 0.476

Annoying One repetitions 40% 0.500

Two repetitions 68% 0.476

Three repetitions

68% 0.476

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Figure 4.3: influence of repetition level and type advertisement on unaided recall

To test the influence of type advertisement on the relation between exposure frequency and awareness, a two-way between-subjects Anova was performed. To measure awareness, unaided recall was measured. To make this data usable for analysis, the open question of unaided recall was transformed toward either yes = 1 or no = 0. This was done for all used brands. Also the data on aided recall is transformed to either yes = 1 or no = 0.

The 2x3 between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) has shown a main effect of type advertisement (F(1, 144) = 23.967, p = .000).

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Figure 4.4: influence of repetition level and type advertisement on aided recall

The same variables, exposure frequency and type advertisement, were tested in the same model, but now aided recall instead of unaided recall was used. This revealed the same result as with unaided recall.

A main effect of type advertisement was found (F(1, 144) = 7.893, p = .006). Also a main effect of advertisement repetition was found (F(2, 144) =3.181, p = .044). Because

advertisement repetition was separated in three groups, contrast analysis was performed to see if there were differences between the repetition levels. The contrast analysis has shown that a single exposure to the advertisment had a significant lower influence on aided recall

compared to two or three exposures to the advertisement (p = .019). The group of three exposures was marginally significant different of the other two groups (p = .053), and the group of two exposures was not significant different from the other exposure frequencies (p = .578).

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to all other cases. A 2x3 between-subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to test influence of exposure frequency and type advertisement on top-of-mind. The two-way ANOVA revealed a main effect of both exposure frequency (F(2, 144) = 8.424, p = .000) and type advertisement (F(1, 144) = 8.278, p = .005).

Figure 4.5: influence of repetition level and type advertisement on percentage top-of-mind

Both exposure frequency and type advertisement showed a main effect on aided recall, unaided recall and top-of-mind. As can be seen in figure 4.3, 4.4 and 4.5 this main effect was positive. In the case of exposure to an annoying advertisement, the different measures of awareness had a higher percentage. The percentage awareness was also higher when

participants were exposed to an annoying advertisement compared to a neutral advertisement. The 2 x 3 Anova failed to reveal interaction effects of exposure frequency and type

advertisement on unaided recall (F(2, 144) = 0.099, p = .906), aided recall (F(2, 144) = 0.282, p = .755) or top-of-mind (F(2, 144) = 1.371, p = .257). This means that both exposure frequency and type advertisement have their own effects on recall and awareness. A higher exposure frequency will cause for example higher brand awareness regardless of type

advertisement. And an annoying advertisement will cause for example higher recall regardless of exposure frequency.

H3: Annoying advertisements grab attention of consumers earlier compared to neutral advertisements which will result in higher brand awareness for brands who exposed the consumer to an annoying advertisement.

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Annoyance is discussed as dependent variable in the case of hypothesis H2. Exposure frequency is expected to have influence on the perceived annoyance by participants. For this test the results of the 2 x 3 Anova of repetition level and type advertisement on perceived annoyance could be used. This test was conducted and discussed previously for the manipulation check of type advertisement. No main effect of exposure frequency on perceived annoyance was found (F (2,144) = 0.561, p = .707).

H2: High repetition levels of an advertisement cause annoyance experienced by consumers earlier compared to low repetition levels or no repetition of an advertisement.

Hypothesis H2 could not be confirmed because a main effect of exposure frequency on perceived annoyance was not found.

DISCUSSION

The hypotheses will be discussed separately in this section. Before the discussion starts, the conceptual model is provided in figure 5.1 to provide an overview of the results.

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This hypothesis reflects the main effect of the model. The effect of repeated exposure of an advertisement is expected to have a positive effect on brand attitudes. This main effect is known from the discussed literature as the mere exposure effect (Campbell and Keller 2003, Zajonc 2001).

When the data of the different groups of participants is used, no significant relation is found between level of repetition and attitudes toward the shown brand. It is possible that annoyance plays a role here, because data from all respondents is used for the test of the main effect between repetition level and attitudes. This counts for both groups respondents that were exposed to the annoying advertisement and for respondents that were exposed to the neutral advertisement. Because a part of the respondents was exposed to an advertisement judged as annoying, the annoyance could cause the attitudes to level off. To see the possible influence of annoyance on the mere exposure effect, a 2 x 3 Anova was performed to see possible differences in attitude formation between the different groups participants caused by type advertisement. This revealed no relation between repeated exposure and attitudes toward the brand. An interaction effect was not found either, so type advertisement cannot be seen as the cause of the lack of mere exposure effect. Campbell and Keller (2003) found that the mere exposure effect is already found with low levels of repetition. A possible explanation that attitudes did not increase in this experiment relative to exposure frequency could be that the advertised product was low on relevance, for example GoCompare.com is not active in the Netherlands but in another country. Petty, Cacioppo and Schumann (1983) found that attitudes are in the case of low relevance temporary and not predictive of behavior.

The direct influence of annoying advertisments on advertising effectiveness is now taken into account. Outcomes revealed that type advertisement, either annoying or neutral, had a

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The direct effect of exposure frequency on attitude toward the brand, the mere exposure effect, is not found by the 2 x 3 Anova. This is in line with the conclusion under hypothesis H1a. When the influence of type advertisement is taken into account, there is still no significant relation between repetition level and attitude toward the brand visible. This means that type advertisment has no influence on the mere exposure effect but a direct influence on advertisement effectiveness. Another indication that type advertisement and exposure frequency have both their own influence on advertisement effectiveness is the fact that no interaction effect is visible of type advertisement and exposure frequency on attitudes toward the brand. Attitudes toward the brand are not significantly influenced by repetition level and type advertisement together.

The same findings arise when purchase intentions are used instead of attitudes toward the brand. The main effect of type advertisement on purchase intentions is significant, but exposure frequency does not have a significant role in this model. Neither as main effect nor as interaction effect together with type advertisement.

Type advertisement thus has a direct influence on attitudes towards the brand. Both attitudes and purchase intentions decrease when a brand uses an annoying advertisement. Decreased purchase intention is the opposite of what a brand tries to reach when launching an advertisement campaign.

The risk of using annoying advertisements is visible in another way in the dataset. In the results section of this article it was discussed that some of the respondents stopped the experiment during the exposure of the advertisements. Most of the people in this group were assigned to the annoying advertisement with repetition level three (21 of the 29 uncompleted responses). Because this is just about some cases it should not be used for conclusions. But it is an important sign that annoyance can result in avoidance and for example in changing channel during commercial breaks on television.

H2: High repetition levels of an advertisement cause annoyance experienced by consumers earlier compared to low levels or no repetition of an advertisement. Type advertisement does not have influence on the relation between exposure frequency and advertisement effectiveness, but possibly exposure frequency is partially causing the

perceived annoyance of consumers. It is possible that the relation between annoyance and the mere exposure effect is sided. Repeated exposure causes annoyance and annoyance

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significant relation was found between annoyance and exposure frequency in the current experiment. Cason (1930) found that repetition of the source of annoyance will cause the intensity of the perceived annoyance to decrease. Probably the increased annoyance due to repeated exposure is cancelled out by the decreasing intensity which was found by Cason (1930). This will explain why no significant relation is found between exposure frequency and the perceived annoyance of participants. In the research of Greyser (1973) the findings are based on extreme mere exposure. So probably there is no significant relation between perceived annoyance and exposure frequency because the maximum repetition tested in the current experiment was only three times. It is possible that repeated exposure will cause annoyance only, or more on a higher level of repetition.

H3: Annoying advertisements grab attention of consumers earlier compared to

neutral advertisements which will result in higher brand awareness for brands who exposed the consumer to an annoying advertisement.

So far, annoyance seems to have a negative effect for brands. This negative effect was seen in the direct influence of type advertisement on attitude toward the brand. However, by catching consumers’ attention, annoying advertisements could have an indirect effect on advertisement effectiveness. Does an advertisement actually catch attention when the advertisement is perceived as annoying? The question if annoying advertisements catch consumers’ attention was tested by measuring awareness after the experiment.

A full model was used with exposure frequency and type advertisement as predictors of brand awareness. This revealed a significant influence of both type advertisement and exposure frequency on aided and unaided recall.

Exposure frequency and type advertisement did not show an interaction effect on aided and unaided recall. This means that both exposure frequency and type advertisement have their own direct effect on awareness independently of each another. A higher repetition level results in a higher brand awareness, and an annoying advertisement results in a higher brand awareness compared to a neutral advertisement independent of the exposure frequency. Brand awareness is an important result of an advertisement campaign. Before an

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higher brand awareness should be interesting for brands.

Also the influence of exposure frequency and annoyance on top-of-mind has shown a significant relation. GoCompare.com was more often the first brand that was recalled when the exposure frequency was higher and/or the showed advertisement was annoying compared to the neutral advertisement. Exposure frequency and type advertisement both had their own effect independently of each other. Being top-of-mind is important for a brand because this increases the chances that the brand will be purchased (Clow and Baack 2005).

The finding that annoying advertisements result in higher brand awareness in combination with the findings of Kattner (2012) leads to the following relation. Kattner (2012) revealed attention to be a crucial factor in creating awareness. Attention was not measured in my experiment, but assumed that the findings of Kattner (2012) are correct this means that annoying advertisements catch consumers’ attention which in turn results in higher brand awareness compared to neutral advertisements.

Annoyance acting as third variable

Because no interaction effects were found, annoyance cannot be seen as a moderator in the relation between repeated exposure and brand attitudes. However, the experiment revealed annoyance to have a direct effect. It is possible that annoyance is not a moderator but a mediator. This could not be found in this dataset because the direct effect of repeated exposure on brand attitude is not visible (Baron and Kenny 1986). In the case of exposure frequency and brand awareness, there is a direct effect. Therefore it is possible that annoyance has a role as mediator in the relation between repeated exposure and awareness. This will result in the following model.

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Although it seemed possible because the main effect of exposure frequency on awareness was found (c), perceived annoyance cannot be a mediator because outcomes revealed that

exposure frequency was not a source for the perceived annoyance (a). Although the influence of perceived annoyance on awareness was found (b), all relations between the variables have to be significant and substantially different from zero to prove a mediator effect (Baron and Kenny 1986).

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

The use of annoyance in advertisements has two opposing effects. On the one hand, using annoyance in advertisements can result in negative effects when consumers try to avoid the brand of the annoying advertisement in the future by switching channel and missing the message of the advertisement. Or worse; consumers have shown decreased brand attitudes due to exposure to an annoying advertisement. Using an annoying advertisement can thus affect brand image. On the other hand, when annoyance is used in an advertisement, attention will be caught by consumers and consumers will have higher brand awareness after the

advertisement campaign. Building brand awareness is a sensible choice as advertising strategy to increase brand choice probabilities (Hoyer and Brown 1990). When awareness is used a lot in your product category as choice heuristic, often for common repeat-purchase products, it could be profitable to use annoyance. However, advertisers should always be aware of the chance of avoidance, and the link with brand attitudes. It is recommended not to use extreme mere exposure of an annoying advertisement. This research showed that the effect of

repetition was neither visible as source of annoyance nor as influence on attitude formation. There is however a direct effect of annoyance found on attitude formation. Therefore it is imaginable that the chance of avoidance will be higher when a consumer, who perceived the advertisement as annoying, is exposed more frequently to that annoying advertisement.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH

This experiment was done with respondents at a random single moment of the day. This resulted in the discussed findings of the influence of annoying advertisements on brand awareness and brand attitudes. However, it is possible that the effects of annoying

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Appendix

Appendix 1: Performed experiment Geachte meneer/mevrouw,

bedrijven schreeuwen steeds harder om uw aandacht te trekken, wat leidt tot veel

verscheidenheid aan reclames. Om mijn studie marketing af te ronden ben ik momenteel bezig met een onderzoek naar advertenties in relatie tot aandacht. U kunt me daarbij helpen door deze vragenlijst in te vullen. Bij voorbaat dank!

We beginnen het onderzoek met enkele vragen over uw achtergrond. Wat is uw leeftijd?

Geslacht

Wat is uw woonsituatie? Alleenstaand/gehuwd of samenwonend/gehuwd of samenwonend met kinderen/éénouder gezin

Welk medium gebruikt u het meeste? Krant/televisie/radio/internet/tijdschrift Als er reclame op televisie is...

- Kijk ik met interesse naar de advertentie. - Ga ik een hapje of drankje halen. - Zap ik naar een ander programma.

- Laat de tv aan staan maar doe wat anders (lezen, praten bijvoorbeeld) op de plek waar ik zit.

U krijgt nu enkele korte reclames te zien. Wanneer u de reclame helemaal gezien heeft kunt u naar het volgende fragment.

∞

Random exposure to seven advertisements varying in type advertisement and repetition level; GoCompare.com, Korean air, BudLight, Iinet and Sundrop.

∞

Welke merken warden er tijdens deze test laten zien? Noem zoveel mogelijk merken op die u zich nog weet te herinneren.

U wordt nu een handje geholpen. Welke merken heeft u tijdens deze test gezien? Pepsi/American Express/Transavia/KPN/Iinet/Heineken/GoCompare.com/Nikon/Korean

air/Walmart/Budlight/Sundrop.

Gebruikt u een vergelijkings site wanneer u een aankoop doet? Zelden – Vaak

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Slecht – Goed, Lage kwaliteit – Hoge kwaliteit, Vervelend – Prettig, Onaantrekkelijk – Aantrekkelijk.

Zou u GoCompare.com gebruiken als vergelijkings website wanneer u in de toekomst bijvoorbeeld een verzekering af wilt sluiten? Neem aan dat dit bedrijf ook in Nederland

werkt.

Onwaarschijnlijk – Waarschijnlijk, Nooit – Zeker, Ik zou het niet overwegen – Ik zou het overwegen, Lage interesse – Hoge interesse, Misschien niet – Misschien wel.

Tot slot nog enkele vragen over uw mening over de gebruikte reclames. Wat was uw gevoel bij de reclame van GoCompare.com in het algemeen?

Irritant – Prettig, Ontdaan – Opgetogen, Vervelend – Verheugd.

Had u voor deze test al van de gebruikte merken gehoord? Vink het merk aan als u het al kende.

To annoy or not to annoy?