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MANAGEMENT SUMMARY
This research is focused on the two constructs intrusiveness and effectiveness of online video advertisements as shown on websites in The Netherlands where users can search for videos. The main research question was as to how these two constructs are related. Expectations from past research directed toward a negative relation in that intrusiveness has a negative effect on advertising effectiveness. However, measuring the effectiveness of online video advertisements is not clear‐cut and therefore an exploration into different measures for this concept has been done to conceptualize the best way to measure effectiveness. Brand attitude appeared to suit this research best concerning the websites offering online video advertisements. This is allegedly influenced by attitude towards advertisements (Aad). From previous studies variables were formed and the stated
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PREFACE
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1.
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter the topic of the study is introduced. This is first done giving a short introduction into the topic in section 1.1, followed by the scientific relevance of the topic in section 1.2. Hereafter, the research question is proposed in section 1.3, followed by section 1.4 which provides the structure of the remainder of this study. 1.1 BackgroundA wide range of advertising methods is used these days. There is the traditional offline way of advertising using flyers, TV & radio ads and press advertising (“advertising printed on physical paper, placed and featured within the news, editorial, and entertainment content of a print vehicle” (Nyilasy et al., 2011)), but also the online forms are becoming more used (Steel, 2007). With advertising in magazines, newspapers, radio and TV shrinking, according to the U.S. Statistical Abstract (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012), the importance of reaching a consumer using online methods becomes more and more apparent. This is for example the case with internet banners, pop up screens and the company’s website which could state the flyer online as well as additional offerings. These offerings can for example only be used online. Also the advertising channels of paid search (Laffey, 2007; Yongmin & Chuan, 2011) or in‐game advertising (Cauberghe & De Pelsmacker, 2010) are becoming more and more important. Internet advertising has been found to be effective both in communicating corporate messages and in strengthening brand equity (Bergstrom, 2000) and is even more effective when it is consistent with a TV ad (Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2010). However, since web users have grown adept at ignoring banner ads and find pop up ads to be annoying or block these using software (Ying et al., 2009), marketing managers need to find new ways of grabbing web users’ attention.
Showing an advertisement right before playing a selected video is a new way in which companies try to reach consumers and has been defined recently in 2008 by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). These online video advertisements can generate some sort of interaction, such as playing the ad, expanding it or clicking on it (Maddox, 2007). This advertisement cannot be (completely) skipped by the user and is thus forced. The advertisements are split up by the IAB (2010) as can be seen in figure 1. For a full description of the different advertising formats mentioned in figure 1, the reader is referred to the IAB’s 2010 report ‘Guidelines to online video advertising’ (translated from Dutch: ‘Handboek online video’). Consumers’ perceptions of video ads tend to be favorable compared to other online formats (Goodman, 2009; IAB, 2010), however little is known about the actual effectiveness of these advertisements that are shown online.
s1537474 ↓ Within the video player ↓ ↓ Outside the video player ↓ A. Linear ‐ Pre‐roll ‐ Mid‐roll ‐ Post‐roll B. Non‐linear ‐ Tickertape ‐ In‐video ‐ Floor ad ‐ Expandable pre‐roll ‐ Videolightbox ‐ Branded player ‐ Companion ad Figure 1: Standard types of online advertising formats; adapted from IAB, 2010. 1.2 Scientific relevance
Numerous studies have focused their attention on the effectiveness of advertisements, but most have only described the effectiveness of a single medium (e.g. radio: Abernethy, 1991; TV: Stewart & Furse, 1986; and online: Wegert, 2002) or the effectiveness of print, TV & radio and online ads combined (e.g.: Briggs et al., 2005; Kitchen et al., 2008; Wakolbinger et al., 2009). Past research however paid little to no attention to the effectiveness of online video advertising. Since this is a rapidly growing segment of Internet advertising and advertising in general (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012), this research sets its aim to explore the field of effectiveness for online video advertisements and the websites offering them. To do so, we set out to investigate to what extent the methods for measuring effectiveness described in other studies hold for measuring online video advertisement effectiveness and for the websites that offer online videos.
This study further sets out to study the intrusiveness of online video advertisements. This is a perception or psychological consequence that occurs when an audience’s cognitive processes are interrupted (Li et al., 2002). Since intrusive advertisements can lead to irritation, annoyance and ad avoidance (Edwards et al., 2002), it is important for both researchers and managers to pay attention to and learn more about the construct concerning different advertising vehicles. Although several studies have already addressed ad intrusiveness in magazines (Ha, 1996) and television (Aaker & Bruzzone, 1985), few have addressed the online advertising vehicle (Gao et al., 2004; McCoy et al., 2008). This study thus aims to supplement past research by providing insights into the matter for Internet advertising.
1.3 Research question
From the above, the research at hand is mainly focused on the two constructs intrusiveness and effectiveness of online video advertisements as shown on websites in The Netherlands where users search for videos, such as YouTube or RTL XL. The problem statement for this study is: How can
marketing managers optimally apply online video advertising? The main research question focuses on
the relation between the two aforementioned constructs: What is the effect of perceived
intrusiveness on the effectiveness of online video advertisements? This relation will be the main theme
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2.
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
In this chapter a theoretical background is provided for the research question and will be the basis for the hypotheses formation in chapter 3. First a definition of advertising is given and the several media vehicles are discussed, followed by a discussion on why people go online. This is then followed by a discussion of the concept intrusiveness, which in turn is followed by different ways in which Internet advertising’s effectiveness is measured. The chapter concludes with several side concepts that have an influence on the main constructs intrusiveness and effectiveness of online video advertisements.
2.1 Advertising
One can simply not discuss the effects of psychological processes on effectiveness of advertisements without first taking a closer look to advertising itself. Hence, this is done here: a definition of the concept advertising is provided, followed by a background discussion of the four main types of advertising used today. These are in respective order print, radio, television and Internet advertising. The advertising concept is concluded with a description of online video advertising, since this will be the main type of advertising this study is focused on.
2.1.1 Definition
‘Advertising’ is defined by the Oxford Online Dictionary as ‘the activity or profession of producing advertisements for commercial products or services’ and ‘advertisements’ as ‘a notice or announcement in a public medium promoting a product, service, or event or publicizing a job vacancy’. Advertising is thus an indirect way of turning people’s attention towards a certain message, i.e. a product or service, by providing information that is designed to effect a favorable impression (Percy & Elliott, 2009), which is paid for by the originator (Leeflang, 2003). According to Percy & Elliott (2009) every form of advertising has two main effects in mind when it is developed: brand awareness and brand attitude. Various other reasons can exist for placing an advertisement: e.g. category need or brand purchase intention (to get the consumer to buy the brand). These will all be discussed in section 2.4 when discussing advertising effectiveness.
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Mobile is becoming more and more apparent in the lifestyles of everyone nowadays. Thus this is becoming a separate advertising vehicle, because this market has seen an immense growth. For example between 2010 and 2011 an average growth of 45.6 percent in Europe occurred, according to the IAB Europe AdEx Benchmark (AdEx Benchmark, 2012). At the same time, overall Internet advertising spending went up with 14.4 percent in 2011 compared to 2010.
Figure 2 gives a summary of the different media vehicles through which advertising is broadcasted and their change in revenues earned. It can be noted from the figure, that revenues for print (flyers, newspapers, magazines, and posters and billboards advertising combined), radio and television advertising have all declined, while revenues for Internet advertising have risen (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). A further explanation of the different types for which both revenue and ad revenue change are known, will be provided hereafter. They are also all in some way connected to Internet advertising as will become clear next. Advertising medium Revenue change in %* Ad revenue change in %** Flyers *** *** Newspapers ‐23.6 ‐32.0 Magazines ‐15.1 ‐27.0 Posters and billboards *** *** Radio ‐16.0 ‐22.4 Television (including cinema, infomercials and product placement) ‐12.7 ‐18.9 Event sponsoring *** *** Internet +19.7 +173.6 Mobile +3.0 *** Figure 2: Types of advertising; figures adapted from U.S. Statistical Abstract 2012. *Change in percent between 2007 and 2009 **Change in percent between 2005 and 2009 ***No data available 2.1.2 Print
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according to Nyilasy et al. (2011) and Lane et al. (2011). This is due to the fact that newspapers are perceived as one of the most believable and trustworthy source of information and this probably overflows to the advertisements (Nyilasy et al., 2011). However, the Internet provides a more up‐to‐ date version of the newspaper (websites such as www.ad.nl or www.nu.nl) and these thus pose a threat to this media vehicle. Also, websites offering radio broadcasting, such as nl.fm, provide easy ways for listeners to change the radio station as soon as a commercial break starts. 2.1.3 Radio Radio found its roots in early 1920s and since then expanded from a few broadcasting stations to a widely accepted form of broadcasting and advertising (James, 1937; Leeflang, 2003). Advertising on the radio is mostly done using separate blocks consisting of solely advertisements: commercial breaks (e.g. Van Reijmersdal, 2011). The revenues and advertising revenues for radio advertising have declined considerably (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012), which is probably mostly due to the fact that radio is not able to get the advertising to be recognized by the listener (Karol, 1936; Percy & Elliott, 2009). This might be caused by the stream of thought that people when listening to the radio might leave the room whenever a commercial break starts (Abernathy, 1991). This thus results in the listeners not being reached by the advertisements broadcasted during this break. Therefore, the advertisements broadcasted over the radio can only in essence focus on one of the two main effects of advertising: brand recall (Percy & Elliott, 2009).
2.1.4 Television
Not only print and radio advertising revenues have declined the past few years, but also television advertising has seen a decline in these years (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). However, like print advertising, TV advertising is believed to remain important in the future, since certain patterns remained in place for the past 40 years, according to Sharp et al. (2009). Since the first broadcast using this medium in 1951, much has changed including new technological modifications like cable and satellite receivers which made it possible to receive more channels on the TV (Beniger, 1986; Kitchen & Yorke, 1986). Also, advertising found its way to the television medium constituting certain breaks in the programming where several ads are clustered. With the digital revolution and the introduction of VCRs and digital video recorders for example, viewers are able to watch their programs at later moments and therefore skip all advertising during that program, resulting in greater challenges for TV advertisers (Olney et al., 1991; Brasel & Gips, 2008; Du Plessis, 2009).
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Ehrenberg, 1984; Sharp et al., 2009). A possible solution to this problem might be product placement within TV programs (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2007). With this, branded products are placed within view of the camera so that viewers will notice them, even when they do not watch the commercials. Using product placement in recognizable contexts, the advertisers are able to add favorable associations to their brands (Karrh, 1998; Russell, 2002). TV programs can nowadays also be viewed online using episode viewers on certain websites (such as the ABC video player as studied by Loughney et al., 2008).
2.1.5 Internet
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video advertising, namely that the advertisement is under the influence of personal involvement and that it is about a continuing relationship. The latter is manifested in the fact that website owners are interested more in return visitors in contrast to one‐timers. Also, according to eMarketer, by aligning online video and TV campaigns more and more, marketers are able to reach consumers on more screens (eMarketer, 2012). Online video advertising is generally seen as a direct complement to TV. However, as noted by Briggs and Hollis (1997), while TV has the advantage of being more intrusive, it is a passive medium whereas the Internet is an active medium. Online the viewer has to perform a certain action to continue the engaging of the content, which is clearly not the case with TV, where the content keeps on being displayed whether the viewer is actually watching or not. We will take a closer look at why people go online next. 2.2 Why people go online Before we can go any deeper into what the effects of intrusive advertisements are, we first need to take a look at the reasons why people go online. Following this, people can only be exposed to advertisements from the moment they venture online and will be exposed to more ads during longer visits on the Internet. 2.2.1 Goal directedness The choice for people to use mass media has been studied for a long time. For example, the uses and gratification theory is considered a psychological communication perspective in which individual use and choice of different mass media are studied with the premise that different people can use the same mass medium for different reasons (Katz et al., 1974). The theory has the objective to find explanations for the needs that shape people’s use of a mass medium and for the gratification of those needs through use of the medium (Lin, 1999). The theory assumes that media users are active users and goal‐directed in their behavior (Katz et al., 1974). The Internet, a medium which requires a higher interactivity from the user than with other mass media, is studied using several dimensions on why people make use of the medium (Hanjun et al., 2005). Rodgers and Thorson (2000) for example viewed the Internet comprising of both a functional and structural perspective.
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because of some goal or drive. This may be defined as a need to shop, to gather information or for entertainment, e.g. to watch a certain video (Korgaonkar & Wolin, 1999). The advertisement shown during the user’s Internet visit may then direct or stimulate the decisions made by the user. However, as noted by Li et al. (2002), this ad may also interrupt the user’s cognitive processes and could be considered intrusive, which will be discussed later on.
Second, the structural approach is based on the form in which the information on the Internet is provided to the user and in which way he or she may be able to adjust this content (Rodgers & Thorson, 2000). This furthers the idea that people go online, since the Internet is a source of an immense amount of information and other possibilities (Miller, 1996). The Internet is seen as an omnipotent and omniscience construct in which users are, among other functions, able to read a newspaper, listen to the radio, read a magazine or watch videos. Advertisers can use this to optimally reach the Internet user (McMillan et al., 2003). However, according to Sicilia et al. (2005), online advertising is only effective when the ad is interactive. With newer technological advances more is also possible with Internet advertising concerning for example interactivity. Social media have aided this and advertisers make great use of this by letting users follow them or like their “fan page” on the online social network to try to grasp the user (Lee & Cho, 2011). Companies are able to interact more with their customers using the new online social media (Burton & Soboleva, 2011; Choi, 2010).
Summing up, people venture online for its functional (informative or entertaining) and its structural (interactivity and adaptability) uses. During this venture, the Internet user is exposed to many advertisements, which is discussed next in light of the research topic.
2.2.2 Exposure to ads
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advertising that may be seen but not explicitly processed, such as billboards, brand logo placements and Internet banner ads (Matthes et al., 2007). However, as noted by several studies (e.g. Duff and Faber, 2011; Rodgers & Thorson, 2000), online users are mostly driven by a certain goal or task and thus could become distracted from this by the ad shown on the website. This may then result in active avoidance, which is more viable for some advertising options than for others (Matthes et al., 2007).
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2.3 Intrusiveness
Following the origin and different types of advertising used nowadays, the intrusiveness of these ads, mostly concerning online video advertising, is discussed in this section. A short definition of intrusiveness is given first, followed by the reactance theory by Brehm (1966). Next, the effects and effectiveness of intrusive ads are discussed.
2.3.1 Definition
‘Intrusive’ is defined by the Oxford Online Dictionary as ‘causing disruption or annoyance through being unwelcome or uninvited’, and by Ha (1996) as ‘the degree to which advertisements in a media vehicle interrupt the flow of an editorial unit’. Intrusiveness is thus a perception or psychological consequence that occurs when an audience’s cognitive processes are interrupted (Li et al., 2002), which is the goal of online advertisements (McCoy et al., 2008). McCoy et al. (2008) further state that intrusiveness of online advertisements is mostly determined by two generic features: whether the ads block the user’s view of the content being read or viewed, and whether the user has the ability to remove the ad from view. The former would lead to discomfort, since the Internet user is unable to proceed with their online activities. The latter could lead to discomfort, since when the advertisement is shown without the option to remove the ad right away, the user is forced to watch the advertisement (for some time), resulting in annoyance. In psychology literature the two features opted by McCoy et al. (2008) are gathered around the reactance theory as to when a person’s freedom is intruded due to some action (Brehm, 1966), which will be discussed next.
2.3.2 Reactance theory 1
s1537474 Actual attempts to restore freedom; or Increased perceived attractiveness of the lost or threatened freedom. Although the reactance theory is mostly used in medical research (e.g. Andre et al., 2008; Miller et al., 2007), it is also relevant for advertising. With the increased importance of people being online all the time, taking that opportunity away by imposing an advertisement, the person being kept away from his / her ‘Internet freedom’, will respond to this. Also, the implication principle, which stems from the psychological reactance theory, is important in advertising. This principle is similar to the stimulus‐response principles (for example: Pavlov’s conditioned reflex theory), but is based on logical or psychological understanding (Brehm, 1989). The principle assumes that a threat to a particular freedom can have an impact on several other freedoms, which can lead to different types of implication. The first type of implied threat applies to the same freedom on future occasions. This could for example be the case that when a video advertisement is shown before the selected online video is played; this might lead to the belief with the user that this ad might show every time a (different) video is selected in the future. This is not desirable for both the user and the advertiser, since people might feel over stimulated when viewing a single ad too frequently (Bauer & Greyser, 1968). The second type of implied threat constitutes of other freedoms of the same or lesser nature may be threatened (Brehm, 1989). This is for example the case when an online video advertisement is shown, but during this time the user might also browse a different website or do something completely different. The action will thus not impede the selected video, but does cause a limitation in the user’s freedom prior to watching the selected video. Both types of implied threats are characterized as to that they are embedded in a complex relationship with the party perpetrating the threat, which must also be enduring, since otherwise future freedoms cannot be threatened.
2.3.3 Effects of intrusiveness
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and momentary impatience’ (Aaker & Bruzzone, 1985). In the study by Greyser and Reece (1971), businessmen were asked about advertisements these days and although the study is outdated, the study did show that TV advertisements were the most annoying and offensive of all media back then. Since advertisements today are mostly the same (or slightly adapted) on the Internet as on TV, this might be the same for online video advertisements. However, as noted by Li et al. (2002), online consumers are goal oriented and advertising can stand in the way of these goals, which leads to an increased perceived intrusiveness of the advertisements. Thus, it can be noted that the more important or urgent the task, the more intrusive the interruption is likely to be perceived (McCoy et al., 2007). Li et al. (2002) further state that the increased perceived intrusiveness leads to negative attitudes toward the advertisements, which may lead the consumers to develop intentions to not return to the Website.
Ad avoidance
Advertising avoidance has been defined as ‘all the actions that media users employ to reduce the exposure to ad content’ (Speck & Elliott, 1997). Ad avoidance has become a major problem for the advertising industry (Grover and Fine, 2006) and is caused by negative attitudes towards ads, affecting brand perceptions and getting users to start avoiding the ads (Abernethy, 1991). This indicates a loss in money, since this advertising money is spent without achieving or even getting close to the desired result: e.g. awareness and brand recall (Percy & Elliott, 2008). This is not only the case with television advertising, where consumers would leave the room, zap or divert their attention while the ad is running, e.g. home chores or conversing with another (Mittal, 1994), but also the case with online advertisements. The latter occurs with zapping, clicking or scrolling the advertisements (Teixeira et al., 2012).
2.3.4 Effectiveness of intrusive ads
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& Hussherr, 2003) and have found ways to avoid them by having them blocked using software or restrictive web browser settings.
2.4 Advertising effectiveness
Following section 2.3, it can be noted here that the perceived intrusiveness of an Internet advertisement in principle could have a major impact on the effect of that advertisement. A closer look at the concept effectiveness of Internet advertising is thus important and this is done in this section. First a general definition of the concept is given, which is followed by a closer look into the different metrics used for assessing the effectiveness of Internet advertising. This section concludes by providing the measure used in this study. 2.4.1 Definition The Oxford Online Dictionary describes ‘effectiveness’ as follows: ‘the degree to which something is successful in producing a desired result’. Following this definition something is effective which is dependent on the goals set and on the evaluator. How to measure the effectiveness is not clear: taking back on the example of the advertisements for loaning money (see 2.3.4), the question could arise whether these ads can be considered effective. For example, does the awareness of them outweigh the annoyance they create? It should be noted here that effectiveness is thus closely related to the goals set for the advertisement. Following Chandon et al. (2003), two possible directions in assessing the effectiveness of Internet advertising exist. They are: the Internet is a direct‐marketing tool in which effectiveness is measured through the actual redemption rate (e.g. click‐through rate); and the advertisement is contributing to enhance the company’s communication strategy (e.g. brand awareness and brand purchase intention).
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easy to observe. Also, CTR indicates a direct interest in the advertised (Briggs & Hollis, 1997). However, as noted by Briggs (2001) it leaves out certain additional effects of online advertising, such as branding. Also, according to Drèze and Hussherr (2003), CTR will not capture the full extent of the effectiveness of an ad since pre‐attentive processing does not lead to immediate action. The click thus does not imply a purchase intrinsically (Chatterjee et al., 2003).
Several factors have an impact on the click‐through of an advertisement. For example, successful targeting of the Internet ads could improve the CTR (Sherman & Deighton, 2001; Chandon et al., 2003). Also, involvement into the product may impact CTR (Chang‐Hoan, 2003). A factor that could reduce the willingness to click through with an Internet user has been found to be repetition (Chatterjee et al., 2003). However, Broussard (2000) mentions repetition to be a key factor in achieving branding objectives on the Internet. Although repetition is good for building brands, it thus has a negative impact on the CTR for the ad. This is because users do not want to watch a certain advertisement several times and are very unlikely to click on them all these times.
Following the decline in use of banner ads and also their effectiveness (Ying et al., 2009), the CTR could still be a good measure for advertising types like paid search (Rutz et al., 2012) and sidebar ads (Taylor et al., 2008). However, CTR may have had its best time since other measures are outperforming the CTR for paid search as well, according to Rutz et al. (2012). Besides, the click through cannot be considered the only measure for effectiveness of Internet advertisements (Fulgoni & Mörn, 2009). According to Fulgoni & Mörn (2009), even with very low CTR, which they found to be around 0.1 percent, website visitation, brand search and both online and offline sales, are affected by the ads.
As CTR is not useful in measuring effectiveness of online video advertisements, this measure will not be used. Having discussed one of Chandon et al.’s (2003) split in which online advertising effectiveness is measured, a closer look at the communication strategy will be provided next. This strategy consists of four objectives that the advertiser could have in mind when creating (and publishing) an advertisement. These are: category need, brand awareness, brand attitude and brand purchase intention (Percy & Elliott, 2009), and will be discussed in short in the next sections.
2.4.3 Category need
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2009). The former is usually the case when the potential consumer has forgotten the brand’s products or services and needs reminding as to remember it in the future. The latter occurs when a category need has not yet been established in the minds of the consumers, which is mostly the case with promotional activity for new products or services, but also when new and different users are targeted.
Measuring whether an advertisement focused on category need has been effective, is until today rarely done and little scientific attention is given to this communication objective of an ad (Shij & Piron, 2002). However, we believe measuring category need can be done by asking people about the ad and whether they will consider the advertised brand when making future purchases. This way it is made clear very quickly whether the category need is now apparent with the users and whether they remember the brand’s products or services in the future. 2.4.4 Brand awareness The second part of a communication strategy to which an advertisement can be addressed is brand awareness. To be aware of a brand consists of two aspects: brand recall and brand recognition (Percy & Elliott, 2009). The former is when a need occurs and you must remember brands that will satisfy that need. The latter is when the awareness of the brand reminds you of the need. The need mentioned before is a feeling that a particular product or service is required to satisfy a specific need. Brand recall thus is occurring prior to the purchase and with brand recognition memory is retrieved at the point of purchase. Both recall and recognition are closely related to memory (Du Plessis, 1994). Both brand recall and recognition will be discussed next with regard to online video advertisements’ effectiveness.
Brand recall
Recall is based on memory, as can be seen from the definition given by Percy and Elliott (2009) and according to Du Plessis (1994) brand recall refers to the accessing of the trace of the commercial via the brand link. It is thus strongly dependent on a person’s ability to access that trace.
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stimuli. However, the ‘wearout’ in which the effects of the advertisement decline (Blair, 1988; 2000), is greater for persuasive ads over time than for recall over time. Commercial liking (or attitude towards the ad) relates positively to advertising recall (Du Plessis, 1994), which thus has a direct effect on attitudes towards advertising (see section 2.5.2). Chung and Zhao (2003) also confirm this and add that a humorous advertisement has a positive effect on the brand recall of the ad and also on the attitude for the ad. It should however be noted here that brand recall refers to the recalling of the brand and not the advertisement.
Measuring brand recall is mostly done in two ways: unaided and aided recall (e.g. Danaher & Mullarkey, 2003). Unaided recall is when a person is asked whether he or she recalls the brand advertised without any hints or supplementary information. With aided recall the person is provided some information in the question. This could then thus be that with the former the person is asked: “Do you recall the brand of the video ad you just saw?” whilst with the latter the person could be asked: “Do you recall the brand of the video ad for alcoholic beverages you just saw?”. Both questions are about the same advertisement, but for unaided recall the person has to have processed the advertisement in more depth to answer the question correctly. Brand recognition
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(affective function), and affect our behavior (connative function). Attitudes are either based on cognitions or on emotions. The former is when attitudes come from external sources (such as peers or advertising) whilst with the latter an attitude is from internal sources (gut feeling: “because it feels good”). Attitudes can further be formed following two routes: central‐route processing in which thinking about a message requires some effort and peripheral‐route processing in which limited effort (or low elaboration) is required (MacInnis & Jaworski, 1990; Petty et al., 1983; Keller, 2008). Putting this graphically comes down to figure 3 as can be seen below. Figure 3: Four ways to attitudes; adapted from Hoyer & MacInnis (2010; p.124). Brand attitudes can thus be formed and influenced by multiple sources: both cognitive and affective; and both for low‐ and high‐involvement situations. It should be noted here however that a brand attitude is to be viewed in a relative manner, since a person hardly ever is completely satisfied with a brand due to the fact that the brand cannot offer exactly what every individual buyer is searching for (Percy & Elliott, 2009). Therefore advertisements with the brand attitude communication objective are then thus influencing the attitude towards the brand in a relative way: stimulating relatively more positive feelings about the brand. Measuring brand attitudes should then look primarily toward this relative change in attitude toward the brand. The role of attitude toward the advertisement has been found first by Mitchell and Olson (1981). In their study they found that attitude toward the ad has a mediating role between the exposure to the ad and brand attitude. Also advertising toward the ad has been found to be a mediator in a person’s brand choice (Shimp, 1981), which in turn could have a major impact on brand purchase intention. Attitude toward the advertisement will be discussed in section 2.5.2.
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The fourth of the communication objectives for advertisements is brand purchase intention, which refers to the target audience’s decision to buy the brand or make use of the service. It is however the intention to engage in such a behavior and is thus not the buying itself. Frequently an advertisement is not aimed towards the family member making the actual purchase and therefore several purchasing decision roles in families have been discussed in research (e.g. Hempel, 1974). These roles are five‐fold and are the following: (1) the initiator, (2) the information seeker, (3) the influencer, (4) the decider, and (5) the buyer. It should be noted here that this definition holds for both families and businesses. However, since this paper is aimed at private consumers, only families will be discussed further. Following this, the aforementioned roles can be one person of the household, but most likely are separated over several members within the household (with larger households). Also, for different types of decisions, the roles could vary between the members of the household (Hempel, 1974). For example, the decision whether to purchase oranges or apples this week could impose all roles completely with the person doing groceries on a regular basis, whilst the purchase of a new car could separate the roles between several members of the household.
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2.5 Side concepts
Having discussed the main concepts of this study, i.e. intrusiveness and advertising effectiveness, this chapter continues by providing some theoretical background into the side concepts as mentioned in the introduction. They are goal directedness, involvement and attitude toward the advertisement. Since goal directedness is covered in section 2.2.1, this section will only discuss the remaining two concepts starting with involvement.
2.5.1 Involvement
Following the statement that people are exposed to a large amount of advertisements on a daily basis, people tend to take a closer look at certain ads that are of more value to them than others. We call this involvement. As can be seen in figure 3, four possible ways of forming attitudes exist and this comes down to the degree of involvement with the advertised product or service. A viewer that is involved with a media vehicle will likely process more of the information within the vehicle provided they are motivated, able and have the opportunity to do so (MacInnis et al., 1991). Specifically, it is hypothesized that program environments that are higher in involvement will cause commercials embedded in these environments to be less effective than commercials embedded in program environments lower in involvement (Soldow & Principe, 1981). This is undoubtedly due to the way in which these advertisements interrupt the viewer and also holds for interesting programs (Steiner, 1966). Although previous made statements come from outdated research, they still hold true for today’s advertising. A higher involvement still influences effectiveness of the advertisement with for example online video ads. This is as the advertisement interrupts the viewer’s goal (Rodgers & Thorson, 2000) and can be considered intrusive when the cognitive processes are interrupted (Li et al., 2002). While the differentiation between low and high involvement is not new (e.g. the elaboration likelihood model by Petty and Cacioppo, 1981), there has been some notion that for a high involvement context such as websites, there could be a tradeoff between low and high involvement processing (SanJosé‐Cabezudo et al., 2009).
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then have an effect on the brand attitudes and on the viewing time of the advertisement (Olney et al., 1991), which in turn influences which of the two routes to persuasion is taken by the viewer: either central or peripheral. Involvement in this study boils down to how involved a user is with the video and the advertisement as shown on the website providing online video broadcasts.
2.5.2 Attitude toward the advertisement
Attitude toward the advertisement (Aad) is not a new concept (e.g. Mitchell & Olson, 1981) and can
be defined as follows: ‘a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner to a particular advertising stimulus during a particular exposure occasion’ (Lutz, 1985). A crucial difference between brand attitude (as discussed briefly in section 2.4.5) and Aad is the duration of the
attitude, and the mediating role Aad has on brand attitude (MacKenzie et al., 1986; Brown &
Stayman, 1992). Also, Aad is both in high and low effort processing (see figure 3). For explaining Aad in this study, use is made of the model pictured in figure 4, which has been adapted from MacKenzie and Lutz (1989). The model was first tested by Lutz et al. (1983) and is further refined by Lutz (1985) and later by MacKenzie & Lutz (1989) to also include the effect of Aad on attitude towards the brand (primarily also on the effect of Aad on brand perceptions, but in their study, MacKenzie & Lutz (1989) did not find any significant correlation between these constructs). For a lengthy explanation of the different aspects of the model in figure 4, reference is made to MacKenzie & Lutz (1989). As said above, Aad represents a situational attitude construct and thus does not imply an attitudinal change in the viewer’s attitude to advertising in general or to the brand (MacKenzie & Lutz, 1989). It has further been studied using various variables such as viewing time (Olney et al., 1991), brand attitude (MacKenzie et al., 1986), experience and emotional sequencing (Labroo & Ramanathan, 2007), the attitude toward the site (Chen & Wells, 1999; 2002), and Aad’s relation to post‐exposure
brand attitude (Derbaix, 1995). According to prior research Aad could be a mediating variable toward
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on brand attitudes (Brown & Stayman, 1992). Furthermore, for the dual mediation hypothesis, several additions have been made including the peripheral route to persuasion (Miniard et al., 1990), and the intent of the consumer to return to the website (Karson & Fisher, 2005). From the dual mediation hypothesis, this study will mainly focus on the connection between Aad and Ab for online
video advertisements, with regard to intrusiveness of those ads. For this study, the attitude toward the advertisements refers to the pre‐rolls and attitude toward the brand refers to the website that offers the online videos that are preceded by the pre‐rolls. Figure 4: Antecedents of Aad; adapted from MacKenzie and Lutz (1989).
For the online video advertisements, they should be very entertaining, according to Lee and Lee (2011). This since in that way consumers’ attitudes toward watching these ads are enhanced the most and their intention to watch the ads also increases. However, as also stated by Lee and Lee (2011), not only the entertaining aspect of the online video ad should be addressed, but also to the information provided, which needs to be useful and relevant. This has also been addressed by Chen and Wells (1999) who provided a three‐fold way in which advertisements on the Internet should be formed: entertaining, informative and organized. The ‘interactiveness’ of the ad is another aspect that is used more and more these days with Internet advertising (Sicilia et al., 2005). These four aspects can be gathered around the Cad in the dual mediation hypothesis (see figure 5). The dual
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Figure 5: Four alternative structural specifications of the mediating role of Aad; adapted from MacKenzie et al. (1986) Cad = Ad cognitions; Cb = Brand cognitions
Aad = Attitude toward ad; Ab = Attitude toward brand
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3.
HYPOTHESES FORMATION
Having discussed the theoretical background for the main concepts in this study, this chapter continues with the interrelationships that we believe to exist between these constructs. The hypotheses formed in this chapter will be pictured graphically at the end of the chapter and will be used for the remainder of the study.
3.1 Hypotheses formation
To provide an answer to the research question of this study: What is the effect of perceived
intrusiveness on the effectiveness of online video advertisements?; hypotheses are formed here. This is done mostly on assumptions provided by and deducted from the theoretical background in chapter 2. The relations that are mentioned in the hypotheses are shown graphically in section 3.2. 3.1.1 Goal directedness As discussed in previous sections, Internet users go online because of some goal, which is mostly for entertainment, information or relaxation purposes. This thus relates directly to the involvement of the user with the advertisement and also the video, since the more urgent the need for information for example, the higher the involvement with the search. This also has an influence on the intrusiveness of Internet advertisements, since they may interrupt the goal directly leading most likely to frustration. Thus, a higher level of goal directedness has a positive influence on both the level of involvement and the level of perceived intrusiveness of online video advertisements. Therefore, the first two hypotheses are as follows:
H1. The level of goal directedness has a positive effect on the level of involvement with the advertisement and the video.
H2. The level of goal directedness has a positive effect on the level of perceived intrusiveness of online video advertisements during Internet visiting.
3.1.2 Involvement
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highly involved with the shown video could be very annoyed with the shown advertisement. This results in the following hypotheses: H3. The level of involvement with the advertisement and the video has a positive effect on the attitude toward the online video advertisement (Aad). H4. The level of involvement with the advertisement and the video has a positive effect on the level of perceived intrusiveness of online video advertisements. 3.1.3 Attitude toward the advertisement As the attitude is hypothesized to be influenced by the level of involvement, it also has an effect on the level of perceived intrusiveness. This effect would be negative, since when the attitude toward the ad is positive, one would most likely feel less annoyed or irritated with the advert. The other way around, when a person is not pleased with the ad, he / she would feel more annoyed with the advertisement. Also, as also studied numerous times (e.g. MacKenzie et al., 1986) it is believed that a higher level of attitude toward the advertisement has a positive effect on brand attitude (effectiveness of online video advertisement). It is suggested that the Aad could rub off to the brand
attitude and thus change brand attitudes by a single advertising exposure. This results in the following hypotheses:
H5. The attitude toward the advertisement (Aad) has a negative effect on the level of
perceived intrusiveness of the online video advertisement.
H6. The attitude toward the advertisement (Aad) has a positive effect on the attitude
toward the website.
3.1.4 Perceived intrusiveness of online video ads
Perceived intrusiveness could lead to for example irritation and ad avoidance and has thus a direct relationship toward the attitude toward the ad (Aad). This has thus a dual directionally relationship
with Aad with a negative effect from Aad to level of perceived intrusiveness and also a negative effect
from the level of perceived intrusiveness on Aad. Furthermore, the level of perceived intrusiveness
has, following the previous sections, a negative effect on brand attitude, since annoyed viewers are most likely to alter their attitude toward the brand (video player) in a negative way. Therefore, the hypotheses are as follows:
H7. The level of perceived intrusiveness has a negative effect on the attitude toward the advertisement (Aad).
H8. The level of perceived intrusiveness has a negative effect on attitude toward the brand.
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The general attitude of someone toward online advertising influences the attitude of the same person to a specific advertisement. For example, when someone is very negatively aimed toward advertising in general and dislikes any form of online advertising, this person will undoubtedly have a negative attitude toward a specific advertisement. The other way around will also be the case for positive attitudes toward online advertising in general. Therefore, the final hypothesis is stated as follows:
H9. The attitude toward online advertising in general has a positive effect on the attitude toward the advertisement (Aad).
3.2 Conceptual model
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4.
METHODOLOGY
This chapter will continue with the research question at hand and will provide the methodology in which the research has been conducted. First the research method is chosen and described. This is followed by the research design in which in short is described how the research is presented and to what purpose. Then the sample and sampling technique are described. Fourth the variables and the way of measuring these are discussed. The chapter concludes with the methods of analysis which form the foundation of the research. 4.1 Research method This research will be conducted as an Internet interview as described by Malhotra (2007). This way, the causality between the variables as depicted in figure 6 can be measured and explained using the data collected. The choice for Internet interviewing was made since the users of online videos are mostly found online and therefore can best be surveyed at that point. Also, data collection using this method is high in speed, which was an important requirement for this research.
Following this method, four procedures need to be addressed in order to come to the research design. These are: the test units and how these are distributed into homogeneous subsamples, the independent variables, the dependent variables, and how the extraneous variables (e.g. selection bias) are to be controlled (Malhotra, 2007). These procedures will be discussed in the remainder of this chapter.
4.2 Research design
The research at hand consists of surveying a large amount of test units in which each test unit was presented two fragments of Dutch TV shows online. These shows were provided by a Dutch television broadcast network. The survey was conducted in the Netherlands and the language was also in Dutch. The survey is shown (translated to English) in Appendix A to this study.
s1537474 Group 1 Pre‐roll Group 2 Non‐pre‐roll Show 1 Show 1 + pre‐roll 1 Show 1 + pre‐roll 2 Show 1 + pre‐roll 3 Show 1 + pre‐roll 4 Show 1 + pre‐roll 5 Show 1, no pre‐roll Show 2 Show 2 + pre‐roll 1 Show 2 + pre‐roll 2 Show 2 + pre‐roll 3 Show 2 + pre‐roll 4 Show 2 + pre‐roll 5 Show 2, no pre‐roll Figure 7: Research design in two groups The survey is facilitated by ThesisTools and consists of four major parts. The first is introduction to the topic and about the general attitude toward pre‐rolls. The second part consists of the two videos in which the respondent was asked to go to a separate website to watch the video. This website is maintained and controlled by the researcher to randomize the videos, but also the different groups. After watching the videos, the respondent is asked to return to the questionnaire and complete questions about the video and the pre‐roll (only for the pre‐roll group). The third part consists of questions about the brand, which in this case was the website of the Dutch television broadcast network, on which people can watch shows, episodes and broadcasts online. The final part consists of respondent‐specific questions concerning age, gender and level of education. The questionnaire concludes by an option to the respondent as to whether he / she would like to participate in a raffle of a small prize, which was offered for this research. As this was only a small prize, the researchers believe this has no effect on choosing to participate in this research for the sole reason of winning this prize and thus no selection bias should occur on this premise (Keller, 2005). 4.3 Sample and sampling technique
Test units were asked to participate to this research by an invitation through social media (Facebook), direct mailing, forums, and through the social (offline) network of the researcher and acquaintances. Initially, also an invitation was presented on the website of the aforementioned Dutch television broadcast network for a limited time, but this resulted in no response. The test units were randomly assigned by the researchers to either one of research groups: pre‐roll or non‐ pre‐roll group. Self‐selection bias might have occurred when the respondents chose to participate, but not to the degree as to in which group the test unit was eventually placed. However Cooper and Schindler (2006) also state that this is never completely avoidable since people will always decide whether to invest time in a study or not.
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From the acquisition process and after data cleaning of some weird looking data (e.g. only low scores), 165 complete cases remained. Initially a far greater number (almost twice as much as the final amount) of people started filling out the questionnaire, but only up to a certain point: the moment when the videos had to be watched. It was made clear quickly to the researchers that this was due to the respondents starting the questionnaire on their mobile phones on which they were not able to load the videos in order to continue with the questionnaire. Of the final remaining cases, 74 were enrolled in the pre‐roll group and 91 in the non‐pre‐roll group. 4.4 Variables and measurement The independent and dependent variables as well as the extraneous variables will be discussed next and will be operationalized to provide a way as to measure them. These were included in the questionnaire accompanying this research, which is shown in Appendix A to this research paper.
4.4.1 Variables
The independent variable of intrusiveness is based on theory and consists of two levels: irritation and ad avoidance (Edwards et al., 2002). As can be seen from figure 6 and the main question of this study, this variable will be manipulated in this research. The second independent variable is involvement, which can be manipulated by providing the test units (as described above in section 4.2) with different programs and advertisements which might be viewed with different levels of involvement. This variable is further based on research by Petty and Cacioppo (1981). The third independent variable in this study is goal directedness. Although most of the respondents will fill out the questionnaire based on the sole purpose of assisting the research, there might be other goals directing the respondents to the answers provided (Korgaonkar & Wolin, 1999).
The dependent variable is effectiveness of online video advertisements which consists of several levels. First attitude toward the advertisement is measured in this study, which is based on research by MacKenzie et al. (1986) and Ducoffe (1986). Second brand attitude, as described in length by Keller (2008), is measured following that attitude toward the advertisement is part of the overall brand attitude (Loughney et al., 2008).
The extraneous variables are discussed next. Following Malhotra (2007) there are several extraneous variables that might influence the response of the test units other than the independent variables depicted and manipulated by the researchers. For this research the main testing effect, the interactive testing effect and selection bias are controlled.
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Main testing effect
The main testing effect has been controlled by making sure the advertisement shown to the test units in the group that were shown a pre‐roll circulated between five different advertisements.
Interactive testing effect
This extraneous variable has been controlled by randomizing the advertisements shown to the test units as well as not asking too many questions about a certain brand. In this way, the respondents would not become too much familiarized to the brands shown in the advertisements and would probably not respond differently in any way.
Selection bias
This extraneous variable has been controlled in this research by randomly assigning test units to different groups, as is described in section 4.2. In this way, the separate groups should remain homogenous within and no selection bias should occur.
4.4.2 Measurement
Using the variables as stated above, factor analyses were performed in order to come to analyses of the main concepts in this study. For each factor analysis, Bartlett’s test of sphericity in order to examine that the items are uncorrelated in the population, and the Kaiser‐Meyer‐Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy in order to examine the appropriateness of the factor analysis have been used. For Bartlett’s test of sphericity the level of α = 0.05 is used and for KMO a level of acceptance between 0.5 and 1.0 is accepted. Rotated factoring using the varimax procedure is used, which minimizes the number of variables with high loadings on a factor and thus enhances the interpretability of the factors. Factors are being separated when they have an eigenvalue of at least 1. Whether an item is included into a single factor or not is tested on a minimum level of factor loading of 0.3 per item (Malhotra, 2007). Figure 8 gives the remaining variables as the result of the factor analyses (also see Appendix B, section 1). These variables are all satisfying the requirements for factor analyses in terms of KMO scores and the significance of Bartlett’s test of sphericity. Figure 8 further shows how the variables are measured in this research from previous research. Also the Cronbach’s alpha or CA is provided.
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Variable Construct Scale Source KMO &
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descriptive variables ‘reasons for visiting’, ‘involvement’ and ‘goal directedness’. Involvement will only be used descriptively since this was mostly predetermined by the choice of shows to be shown to the test units in this research. The same goes for goal directedness due to research limitations. The shows (see figure 7) were predominantly entertaining in nature and thus will pay less attention to the informative side.
As can be seen in figure 8, for some items, recoding had to be performed to make measurement make sense. For example for the variable ‘intrusiveness’, the items ‘pleasing’ and ‘enjoyable’ had to be recoded in order to be in line with the other items comprising this variable. Also, for items that are comparable in their factor loadings on several factors have been assigned to the factor to which the loading was highest. The minimum level of reliability is reached for all but one variable. The variable ‘general advertising prominence’ is dropped from further testing due to a low Cronbach’s alpha. In total, four items were dropped for further research. Three of these were in the ‘general advertising prominence’ variable. The other is ‘insulting to people’s intelligence’ (from the variable ‘value of online advertisement’) and is dropped to get the Cronbach’s alpha to an acceptable level. Some of the other variables are at the high end of the scale, which is very good (Peterson, 1994), but can also be due to the large amount of items included in computing the Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951).
Following the discussion above the model used in this research is shown in figure 9, which differs from the initial conceptual model to this research, as presented in figure 6. Due to some research limitations, involvement and goal directedness are only used descriptively in this research. This results in some hypotheses stated in chapter 3 being dropped for this study.
The hypotheses that remain are as follows:
H1. General attitude toward online advertising has a positive effect on attitude toward a specific online advertisement.
H2. General attitude toward online advertising is different for pre‐roll and non‐pre‐roll group.
H3. The attitude toward a specific online advertisement has a positive effect on the attitude toward the website.
H4. The attitude toward a specific advertisement has a negative effect on the level of perceived intrusiveness of the online video advertisement.
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H6. The level of perceived intrusiveness has a negative effect on the attitude toward the website.
H7. Brand attitude is different for pre‐roll and non‐pre‐roll group.
