Irritation in advertising: differences in effect between non-customers and loyal customers

Irritation in advertising: differences in effect

between non-customers and loyal customers

By

J.C. Tiebot

Irritation in advertising: differences in effect

between non-customers and loyal customers

Master thesis, Msc Marketing

University of Groningen

Faculty of Economics and Business

January, 2014

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Management summary

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Preface

My time at the University of Groningen and the accompanied student life has been a wonderful experience in my life, one that started in 2008 by applying to the bachelor Bedrijfskunde, and will now finish in 2014 with a master in Marketing. I started off at Bedrijfskunde because of its broad approach to business and its wide variety of specializations nearing the end. This turned out to be a great decision because had you asked me in 2008, or even 2010, if I would go in the marketing direction I would probably have answered with a definite ‘no’. Yet, here we are, nearing the end of the Marketing master program with lots of great memories of my time here. Applying to the master Marketing truly feels like the best choice I could have made, not only because I enjoyed the materials, teachers, and the way of working (hard) in the marketing program, but also because I got to know some wonderful fellow students that made my time here absolutely fantastic.

I would like to thank everyone that made my life as a student in Groningen so great, that means all the fellow students I’ve met during my study, but also my friends and roommates and of course my family. In particular I would like to thank my parents for always supporting and encouraging me throughout my entire study, even if this meant missing family events to finish my work in time for a deadline (and there were quite a few of those). And last, but not least, I would like to thank Debra Trampe for her guidance and helpful feedback while writing this thesis.

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Table of contents

1. Introduction... 6

2. Theoretical framework ... 9

2.1 Irritating ads ... 9

2.2 Attitude toward the brand (Ab) and Purchase intention (PI) ... 9

2.3 Ad type – Ab and PI relationship ... 10

2.4 The effect of customer type on the ad exposure – Ab and PI relationship ... 11

2.5 Conceptual model ... 13

3. Research design ... 14

3.1 Design ... 14

3.2 Participants ... 14

3.3 Ad type manipulation ... 15

3.4 Customer type and brand loyalty measurement ... 15

3.5 Attitude toward the brand (Ab) and purchase intention (PI) ... 16

3.6 Manipulation check ... 17 3.7 Procedure ... 17 4. Results ... 18 4.1 Demographics ... 18 4.2 Manipulation check ... 18 4.3 Scales ... 19 4.4 Customer type ... 20 4.5 Analysis of hypotheses ... 21

4.6 Discussion on analyses differences ... 26

5. Conclusion ... 28

5.1 Discussion ... 28

5.2 Limitations and further research ... 30

5.3 Managerial implications ... 31

References ... 32

Appendix A: invitation to questionnaire ... 36

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1. Introduction

Zalando, a German online fashion retailer that expanded to The Netherlands in 2010, quickly raised awareness in The Netherlands by means of irritating TV commercials. In their commercials people scream of excitement when receiving their Zalando package, a strategy that screams for attention indeed. For their irritating ads Zalando won the “Loden Leeuw” two years in a row (in 2011 and 2012), a Dutch “award” for most irritating TV commercial of the year.

Zalando claims their irritating campaigns work because they quickly raised their brand awareness. If we have to believe them, their brand awareness level was at an astonishing 95% in Germany just 2 years after their launch (Zalando, 2012).

Zalando is not alone in their claim that irritating ads work. GoCompare.com reported an increase in brand awareness of 450% as the direct result of their irritating campaign with opera singer “Gio Compario” (Wynne Evans), who repeats the brand name excessively in an operalike song in their advertisements (Burn-Callander, n.d.).

Consumers are exposed to irritating ads every day, yet little is known about their effects. To grab consumer attention in today’s advertising clutter, advertisers use more aggressive tactics to stand out, such as irritating factors in ads (Speck & Elliot, 1997). These factors are used as a means to get the ad (and thereby the brand) noticed. Practitioners report positive results from their irritating ad campaigns in terms of sales, (web) traffic and brand awareness (as seen in the previous examples). Aaker and Bruzzone (1985) studied causes of irritation in TV ads. They questioned 1000 American households about TV ads where respondents, among other things, indicated if a certain TV ad can be described as irritating. Based on these results the authors classified individual TV ads as either high in irritation or low in irritation and they found that 72.2% of the high irritation ads and 64.3% of the low irritation ads were remembered, so irritating ads are remembered a little better. However, when respondents were asked what brand was promoted by a particular ad, 75.6% identified the correct brand from high irritation ads and 76.3% from the low irritation ads. Such a small difference can be neglected and therefore, in terms of brand awareness, irritating ads and non-irritating ads perform about the same.

Research on irritating advertising effects is limited but several authors wrote something about the subject. Greyser (1973) suggests that irritation in advertising will increase the public dislike of advertising in general and thereby decrease the effectiveness of advertising altogether.

7 sticking to well-known brand names decreased in the U.S. In other words: brand loyalty decreased. However, Bartos does not mention the early 1980s recession for example, so there could have been other factors contributing to the decrease in brand loyalty aside from irritation in advertising. Study results show that in the U.K. the opposite of what happened in the U.S. occurred from 1966 to 1980, as the dislike towards advertising decreased (from 32% to 15%) and the liking increased (from 23% to 50%) the public opinion on the advertising industry and the confidence in brands increased (Bartos, 1981). Indicating that advertising in general is more effective when it doesn’t irritate as much.

What the previous studies have in common is that they emphasize the negative effect of irritating ads, however be it on an industry-wide scale. An explanation for these negative effects of irritating ads on the individual ad level can be found in the attitude toward the ad (Aad) framework (Spears & Singh, 2004). Irritation is a negative feeling that can be evoked by ads. This forms an Aad and this attitude affects the attitude towards the brand (Ab). Also the negative feeling of irritation directly affects the Ab formation. The last construct in the Aad framework is purchase intent (PI). This construct is often used to measure the effect of advertising campaigns (Spears & Singh, 2004), and will be used in this study as well.

It’s not just the unknown or upcoming brands that use irritating ads to stand out. For the Loden Leeuw award at least one (usually well known) telecom provider is nominated every year (Radar, n.d.). Examples are KPN (and subsidiary Hi), Vodafone and TELE2, these are companies with large customer bases. One might wonder what an irritating ad (campaign) might do to their installed customer base, as one can imagine these customers might be deterred by the ad, and therefore the brand, for various reasons. Therefore this study will look at the difference in effects of irritating ads between existing customers and potential new customers.

This study revolves around TV commercials because they are so very important to marketers trying to get the highest possible returns on each advertising dollar spent. It is well known that TV advertising is most expensive of all media. In the U.S. advertisers spend approximately 225 USD on each TV viewer annually, whereas they spend “only” 144 USD on each online user annually, which is the second biggest medium (MarketingCharts, 2013). But that’s not without reason as MarketingCharts also reports that TV is the most influential advertising medium.

8 Therefore, the research questions of this study are as follows:

 What is the influence of irritating TV advertising on attitude toward the brand (Ab) and

purchase intention (PI)?

 Is this effect different for existing vs. potential new customers?

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2. Theoretical framework

2.1 Irritating ads

Definitions of irritation in advertising are scarce but a few authors gave a definition. Wells, Leavitt, and McConville (1971) take a broad definition and define irritation in advertising as “the degree to which the rater dislikes what he has seen”. More specifically Aaker and Bruzzone (1985) came with the following definition: “an irritating commercial is one that is provoking, causing displeasure and momentary impatience. Thus, it is more negative than dislike”, this definition is adopted from the definition the Webster dictionary and is the definition used in this thesis. Further, irritation and annoyance are synonyms and are used interchangeable throughout this thesis.

What makes ads annoying or irritating? A study by Aaker and Bruzzone (1985) offers insights in this. Important irritation increasing factors from their findings included, but are not limited to: (1) ads that involve sensitive products (e.g. feminine hygiene products), (2) ads that are overdramatized, unbelievable or contain a phony situation (e.g. kids in a toothpaste ad that were happy to go to the dentist), (3) ads that show an important personal relation to be threatened (e.g. the husband-wife relation), and (4) ads that show physical discomfort (e.g. illustration of indigestion).

The same authors also compiled a list of factors that make ads less irritating. Several factors that make ads less irritating are, amongst others: (1) ads with good casting and storyline, believable scenes and characters, (2) ads that create a positive mood by music and story line, and (3) ads that have an appropriate, credible spokesperson.

The main purpose of the Aaker and Bruzzone (1985) research was to identify those factors that make TV ads more or less irritating, as explained before that’s exactly what they did. But they do mention that a limitation of their research is that they did not measure message impact, effects on brand image, or effect on purchases. It is exactly these advertising effects that are important to advertisers in a real world setting. Therefore, this thesis will measure effects in attitude toward the bran (Ab) and purchase intention (PI) for neutral vs. irritating ads. The next section defines these constructs.

2.2 Attitude toward the brand (A

) and Purchase intention (PI)

10 an object, which is a brand in the case of Ab. Thirdly, this definition also adds that an attitude lasts at least some period of time. Finally, following research by Machleit, Allen and Madden (1993) the conventional view that an attitude is a unidimensional construct is used. This leads to the following definition of the Ab construct as used in this study, attitude toward the brand (Ab) is a relatively global and enduring, unidimensional evaluation of a brand.

Intentions are defined by Eagly and Chaiken (1993, p. 168) as “the person’s motivation in the sense of his or her conscious plan to exert effort to carry out a behavior”. Therefore the definition of purchase intentions used in this study is, adopted from Spears and Singh (2004, p. 56), purchase intentions (PI) are an individual’s conscious plan to make an effort to purchase a brand.

Concluding, Ab and PI are separate (but related) constructs and they have to be measured separately.

2.3 Ad type – A

and PI relationship

When following Keller’s brand resonance pyramid (Keller, 2013) we can understand that irritating ads can display positive results on certain measurements like brand awareness, but might not be very beneficial to the brand anyway. The first step, or the foundation, of the pyramid is called salience. By this Keller means that deep and broad brand awareness is the essential foundation in a brand building strategy. Irritating ads can work for that very well and that’s also what the examples from before demonstrated (high levels in brand awareness after irritating ad campaigns). However built on that foundation is the second step in the pyramid which is explained by Keller as the meaning of your brand, or the answer to the question “Who are you?”. Here problems arise when using irritating ads, as these irritating ads might create a negative brand image, therefore the judgments about or feelings towards the brand might be negative. This, of course, won’t help in building a strong brand. Research by Aaker (1997) on brand personality can also help us understand why irritating ads may have a negative effect. Aaker defines brand personality as "the set of human characteristics associated with a brand”. She explains that the personality of a brand in the minds of consumers is formed by any direct or indirect contact of the consumer with the brand, for example the company’s employees or the brand’s endorsers, but also brand elements, distribution channel, and of course advertising style contribute to the formation of brand personality. Aaker further explains that consumers prefer the brands that relate to the consumer’s personality. One can imagine that consumers might not be able to identify themselves with an irritating brand personality and therefore not develop a preference for brands with irritating ads.

11 (2004). Important in this model is that exposure to a communication message (an ad) evokes affective responses (called feelings or moods) in the recipient of the ad. These mood states are mild, general, pervasive and not directed to any particular object (or brand). Kamins, Marks, and Skinner (1991) define mood as “a feeling state that is transitory and subjectively perceived by individuals, and thus is less intense than emotions”. However, these feelings, that can be generally positive or negative, do affect the formation of Ab. An irritated feeling is explicitly classified as a negative feeling (among insulted and repulsed feelings) by Spears and Singh (2004), which is why an irritating ad should result in a less favorable evaluation of the advertised brand. Therefore the first hypotheses are:

H1a: Exposure to irritating (vs. neutral) ads has a negative effect on attitude toward the brand (Ab).

H1b: Exposure to irritating (vs. neutral) ads has a negative effect on purchase intent (PI).

2.4 The effect of customer type on the ad exposure – A

and PI relationship

This study distinguishes between customers and non-customers. Following Tennant (2001) a customer is someone who has dealt with the company before, within a timespan depending on the type of product or service. That is, this timespan will be longer for durable goods like electronics than nondurable goods like fast moving consumer goods. Furthermore, customers will be distinguished based on their loyalty levels (low vs. high loyal customer), so two groups of customers will emerge. Thus, the customer type variable contains three categories; “non-customers”, “customers with low brand loyalty”, and “customers with high brand loyalty”.

Therefore, an understanding of the brand loyalty concept is required. Brand loyalty can be defined as the affect-laden relationship between the consumer and the brand (Fournier, 1998). An important characteristic from this definition is the relational aspect of brand loyalty, something that can only exist for existing customers. As the current study differentiates between potential new customers that have no experience with a particular brand and existing customers, by definition no brand loyalty is assumed for the first group (potential new customers).

12 an individual holds toward the brand, resulting in an emotional attachment towards that brand” (Keller, 1993). These constructs relate to each other as repeated buying behavior (behavioral loyalty) is often caused by the favorable attitudes of the individual towards the brand (attitudinal loyalty) (Dick & Basu, 1994). Bandyopadhyay and Martell (2007) conclude that measuring both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty together offers more insights than measuring one of them or measure them independently. Therefore, this study will measure both dimensions of brand loyalty.

Now the brand loyalty concept is clear, the question arises how the degree of loyalty could affect the ad type – Ab and PI relationship. Research by Machleit, Allen, and Madden (1993) on ad-evoked affect by mature (vs. new) brands can possibly offer insight in this. In their paper they explain that consumers already had “dozens of usage experiences” and have been exposed to “hundreds of ads” of mature brands like Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Nike. Therefore a single ad exposure of these brands has virtually no affect. While the current study is not about the mature vs. new brand ad-evoked affect, the implications could be similar. The stronger the relation between the customer and the brand, the more usage experiences the customer should have had. By the logic of Machleit et al. (1993) the ad-evoked affect, or in this case the effect of irritating ad exposure on Ab and PI, should decrease as brand loyalty increases.

Research by Mela, Gupta and Lehmann (1997) might also offer insights in the effects of advertisements on loyal and non-loyal customers. Using panel data of 1500 households over a 8,25 year timespan they studied the long term effects of advertising and hypothesized that advertising effects for non-loyal customers are likely stronger than for loyal customers. They found this indeed to be true as advertising reduced consumers’ price sensitivity over time. Promotions on the other hand increased consumers’ price sensitivity and in both cases the effects were significantly larger for non-loyal customers than for non-loyal customers.

To recap, this study distinguishes three categories of customers, “non-customers”, “customers with low brand loyalty”, and “customers with high brand loyalty”. A linear negative effect for irritating (vs. neutral) ads is expected where it is strongest for non-customers, less strong for low loyal customers and the effect is expected to be weakest for high loyal customers. Therefore the following hypotheses emerge:

13 H2b: Exposure to irritating (vs. neutral) ads has a negative effect on purchase intention which is strongest for non-customers, less strong for low loyal customers, and weakest for high loyal customers.

2.5 Conceptual model

The constructs and the relations between them discussed in this chapter make up the conceptual model depicted below in figure 1.

FIGURE 1 Conceptual model

Ad type (irritating vs. neutral)

Attitude toward the brand (Ab)

Customer type

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3. Research design

The first hypothesis (H1) that is examined in this study is about the relationship between exposure to neutral vs. irritating ads and Ab and PI. The second hypothesis (H2) contains the moderating effect of customer type (non-customer vs. low loyal customer vs. high loyal customer) on the relationship between exposure to neutral vs. irritating ads and Ab and PI. Based on the theoretical framework assumptions can be made on the effects of these relationships. The relation of hypothesis 1 is expected to be negative, i.e. participants exposed to the irritating ad vs. the neutral ad are expected to evaluate the brand less favorably (Ab) and are also expected to have lower purchase intentions for that brand. For hypothesis 2 a linear negative effect for irritating (vs. neutral) ads is expected where it is strongest for non-customers, less strong for low loyal customers and the effect is expected to be weakest for high loyal customers.

3.1 Design

For this experimental study empirical data are collected via a questionnaire. In this study the ad that the subjects are exposed to is manipulated, one group is exposed to an irritating and the other to a neutral ad. Whether the subject is a customer of the brand or a non-customer is measured. Customers of the brand will receive additional questions to measure their brand loyalty level, non-customers won’t answer these questions. The design is a 2 (ad type: irritating ad vs. neutral ad) x 3 (customer type: non-customer vs. low loyal customer vs. high loyal customer) experiment. Therefore a total of 6 experimental conditions arise, the goal is to have at least 20 respondents for each condition. To be able to deal with respondents quitting the questionnaire, and a possible uneven distribution in non-customers and customers the goal is set to a minimum of 150 respondents. To achieve this goal the questionnaire is deliberately kept as short as possible and only a minimum in demographic data is asked of the respondents (only their gender and age).

3.2 Participants

Friends, family and students of the University of Groningen in the personal network of the researcher are approached via email and social media and are asked to fill a questionnaire, a method called convenience sampling (Malhotra, 2010). To attract people’s attention in the clutter of social media messages a poster was designed that was displayed with the text. Both the invitation text and the poster can be found in appendix A. In return for their participation, participants are entered in a raffle for a €20 H&M gift card.

15 personalized link so it is possible to track who forwarded the questionnaire. In return for forwarding it respondents are entered in a different raffle (for a €40 fashioncheque). To stimulate the sharing of the questionnaire the chances of winning increase as more people complete it.

3.3 Ad type manipulation

As the type of ad that respondents are exposed to is manipulated, two ads that differ in irritation evoking levels of the same brand are needed. Also, that brand needs to have a well-balanced amount of the three customer type groups, because customer type can’t be manipulated. First the brand Zalando was selected but a pre-test revealed that all their ads were considered very irritating, and therefore it was not possible to successfully manipulate the type of ad. That’s why two ads of the Bol.com brand were selected. An irritating Bol.com ad was found in a blog post listing irritating commercials from 2010 (Bastiaans, 2010), therefore this one is expected to be most irritation evoking among respondents. The non-irritating Bol.com commercial was selected from a list of “Gouden Loeki” nominees, where the selected ad ended in fourth place in 2011 (Ster, 2011). The Gouden Loeki is a Dutch prize for best TV commercial of the year. Both commercials are about the same product group (toys for kids) and have a comparable message (Bol.com has any toy you’re looking for in stock and delivers fast, while other stores don’t). Both ads finish with the Bol.com logo and tune. Assumptions on irritation levels will be tested with a pretest between subjects among a small sample of 10 respondents.

In the pretest the respondents are asked “Did the ad for Bol.com made you feel irritated?”, which they can answer on a 9 point Likert-scale from “not at all” (1) to “very much” (9). To disguise the topic of research the same question with different adjectives will be asked, all eight adjectives that were validated by Spears and Singh (2004) within the Aad framework will be listed. They appear in random order. The adjectives are good, cheerful, pleased, stimulated, soothed, insulted, irritated, and repulsed. An independent samples t-test was performed on the results of the pre-test to check whether or not the irritating ad was perceived as more irritating than the neutral ad by the respondent. The independent samples t-test was significant, t(9) = 3.02, p = .014, indicating that respondents that viewed the irritating ad were significantly more irritated (M = 6.17, SD = 1.84) than the ones who had seen the neutral ad (M = 3.20, SD = 1.30). Thus the manipulation was successful.

3.4 Customer type and brand loyalty measurement

16 this study. Therefore respondents will be asked “Have you purchased something from Bol.com in the past 6 months?”. Next, for the “customer of Bol.com” group brand loyalty will be measured to be able to distinguish between customers with low brand loyalty and customers with high brand loyalty. As mentioned earlier, brand loyalty is a bi-dimensional constructs and both behavioral and attitudinal loyalty will be measured.

Behavioral loyalty was measured by asking respondents “What do you think of Bol.com in general?”. Respondents then indicated to what degree they agreed with three statements, which they answered on a 7 point Likert-scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). The same items were used in research by Hohenstein, Sirgy, Herrmann, and Heithmann (2007):

1. I would choose Bol.com again on any occasion.

2. If I wanted to make purchase from a webshop again, I would consider Bol.com again. 3. I prefer Bol.com over other webshops.

For attitudinal loyalty respondents were asked again to what extent they agreed with three statements on a 7 point Likert-scale from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). This time they answered the question “What is your general evaluation of Bol.com?” using the statements below. These items are borrowed from research by Helgeson and Supphellen (2004).

1. I like the Bol.com webshop. 2. Bol.com a good webshop.

3. I have a favorable impression of Bol.com.

3.5 Attitude toward the brand (Ab) and purchase intention (PI)

For all conditions in the experiment the attitudes toward the brand were measured. This was done using a scale that was validated by Spears and Singh (2004). Respondents are asked “Please indicate to what degree you find the brand / webshop Bol.com…”, where the dotted line is filled with the seven items: unappealing/appealing, bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, unfavorable/favorable, unlikable/likable, unsatisfactory/satisfactory, disagreeable/agreeable. Respondents answer each item on a 1 to 5 semantic differential scale.

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3.6 Manipulation check

To check if the manipulation (of the irritating vs. neutral ad) was successful all respondents will be asked to indicate on a scale from “not at all” (1) to “very much” (7) how much irritation the ad they saw evoked. Just like in the pretest all eight Aad adjectives that were validated by Spears and Singh (2004) were asked. This was to disguise the meaning of the research on the one hand, and to check the equality in evoked feelings of the selected ads on the other hand.

3.7 Procedure

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4. Results

4.1 Demographics

Data from a total of 175 respondents were collected. Data from 15 respondents that stopped the survey somewhere before answering the purchase intention question were deleted. Some respondents did not answer any questions at all and others stopped after watching the ad, but because incomplete results are not useful without the attitude toward the brand and purchase intention answers, these data were deleted. In order to analyze whether the deleted respondents differed from the rest of the sample, an independent samples t-test was performed on their age. The independent samples t-test was not significant, t(160) = 1.517, p = .220, indicating that the deleted respondents (M = 32.67, SD = 9.65) were not significantly different from the rest of the sample (M = 32.11, SD = 11.88) in terms of their age. It must be noted that out of the 15 deleted respondents only 6 entered their demographic data, resulting in highly unequal group sizes. Because of this one might wonder whether a t-test is suitable. Research by De Winter (2013) provides the necessary insight as he shows that the t-test is very robust and that there is no objection to use it even when sample sizes are extremely small (defined as N ≤ 5) or unequal in size. Next, it is analyzed whether the deleted respondents differ from the rest of the sample concerning their gender. For this a cross table with Chi-square was performed. The Chi-square test was not significant, Chi-Square(1) = 0,94, p = .333. The deleted respondents do not differ significantly in terms of gender. Based on the limited amount of data the deleted respondents entered it can be concluded that their characteristics were not significantly different from the remaining sample and can therefore be safely deleted.

The data from the remaining 160 respondents were used in the analysis of the hypotheses. Respondents were aged from 16 to 66, with an average of 32 (M = 32.11, SD = 11.88), 110 were male (68.8%) and 50 were female (31.3%). No other demographic questions were asked of the respondents to ensure a short completion time and attract most respondents. However, through a technique called geolocation the residence of most respondents was determined. Out of the 160 respondents, 79 (49.4%) were determined to be from the Deventer area, 25 (15.6%) from the Groningen area and 57 (35.0%) were located in the rest of The Netherlands. Because of the use of convenience and snowball sampling most of the respondents are from around the Deventer and the Groningen area.

4.2 Manipulation check

t-19 test was significant, t(157) = 3.76, p = .000, indicating that respondents that viewed the irritating ad were significantly more irritated (M = 3.52, SD = 1.86) than the ones who had seen the neutral ad (M = 2.54, SD = 1.43), respondents rated irritation on a Likert-scale from 1 (not at all irritated) to 7 (very much irritated). Thus the manipulation was successful.

4.3 Scales

The scales used in this study were tested and found to be reliable. The attitude toward the brand (Ab) construct consisted of seven items, these seven variables were combined to a single Ab scale (α = .90) for use in further analyses. The Ab alpha does not increase if an item is deleted. Brand loyalty was measured with three questions for behavioral and three questions for attitudinal loyalty. The six brand loyalty questions were combined to form a single scale that measured brand loyalty (α = .86), the alpha does not increase if an item is deleted. The scales are presented in table 1.

TABLE 1 Scales

Concept Scale Cronbach’s Alpha

Attitude toward the brand Spears and Singh (2004) α = .90

Brand loyalty Hohenstein et al. (2007), Helgeson and Supphellen (2004)

α = .86

Because brand loyalty is a two-dimensional construct that was measured with a total of six questions, a factor analysis was performed to check whether the questions load on these dimensions as expected. The KMO value was .787 indicating that there is enough correlation and that a factor analysis is appropriate. The analysis yielded two factors explaining a total variance of 77.97%. Factor 1 was labeled behavioral loyalty because the majority of questions are from the behavioral construct. Factor 2 was labeled attitudinal loyalty because most questions are from the attitudinal construct. All loadings can be found in table 2, the bolded loadings indicate to what factor that question is assigned. Question 2 was expected to load onto behavioral but loaded on attitudinal instead, and question 4 was expected to load on attitudinal but loaded on behavioral, so it appears those questions swapped from behavioral to attitudinal and vice versa. A possible explanation can be found in the discussion.

20 As Cronbach’s alpha is good (α = .86) and does not increase when one of the six brand loyalty items is deleted all six questions are used in the brand loyalty scale.

TABLE 2

Factor analysis brand loyalty

Loadings

Attitudinal Behavioral Communality 1. I would choose Bol.com again on any occasion. .31 .80 .74 2. If I wanted to make purchase from a webshop

again, I would consider Bol.com again.

.80 .25 .71

3. I prefer Bol.com over other webshops. .22 .87 .80

4. I like the Bol.com webshop. .19 .81 .69

5. Bol.com a good webshop. .91 .22 .88

6. I have a favorable impression of Bol.com. .89 .28 .87

Eigenvalue % of total variance 3.59 59.75% 1.10 18.22%

4.4 Customer type

As different effects are expected for different customer types (or different loyalty levels), the data need to be transformed to make analyses possible. This is because there is no measurement of brand loyalty for non-customers (which is not possible by the definition of brand loyalty, as explained in paragraph 2.4). Therefore, there are two options to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.

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Median split

The median split was performed as follows, first the median of the brand loyalty scale was calculated, next all customers with a median score (Mdn = 5.50), or lower were assigned to the “low in loyalty” group and those with a higher than median score were assigned to the “high in loyalty” group. Table 3 shows the amount of respondents per experimental condition, along with the demographics per experimental condition. Another possibility would be to split the customer group in three groups instead of two and then drop the middle group to create some separation between the two groups that will remain. However because of the limited sample size that would result in too few respondents per condition (n < 20).

TABLE 3

Demographics per condition Non-customer, irritating ad Non-customer, neutral ad Low loyal customer, irritating ad Low loyal customer, neutral ad High loyal customer, irritating ad High loyal customer, neutral ad Total Age (M) 32.88 34.13 31.30 31.21 32.40 29.68 32.11 Male Female 23 11 21 13 15 5 21 8 14 7 16 6 110 50 N 34 34 20 29 21 22 160

What becomes clear from table 3 is that there are fewer respondents for the irritating then the neutral ad conditions. It is likely that this occurred because more people stopped the questionnaire after viewing the irritating ad and therefore fewer usable responses from those conditions remained. An ANOVA reveals that there are no significant differences between the groups in terms of age, F(5, 154) = .30, p = .913, and a Chi-square test shows that there are no significant differences in terms of gender, Chi-Square(5) = 1.54, p = .908. Respondents were also asked for their internet skills in an explorative question, they could indicate their skill level on three levels. A Chi-square test reveals that the groups are not significantly different on that variable either. Chi-Square(5) = 1.31, p = .264. Therefore random assignment of respondents to various groups appears to be successful and thus the groups can be used in further analysis.

4.5 Analysis of hypotheses

22 loyalty and lastly, the interaction is calculated by multiplying the ad type variable with the brand loyalty variable.

Two-way ANOVA with Ab as dependent variable (H1a, H2a)

In order to analyze the influence of ad type and customer type on attitude toward the brand, a 2 (ad type: neutral vs. irritating) x 3 (customer type: non-customers, customers low in loyalty and customers high in loyalty) ANOVA was performed on attitude toward the brand.

The main effect for ad type was not significant, an irritating ad does not lead to a significantly lower attitude toward the brand score (M = 3.76, SD = .69) than a neutral ad (M = 3.85, SD = .57) on a scale from 1 (low Ab) to 5 (high Ab), F(1, 154) = 1.25, p = .265.

The main effect for customer type on attitude toward the ad was significant F(2, 154) = 6.70, p = .002. A planned contrast revealed that the difference was only significant for non-customers (M = 3.77, SD = .59) vs. high loyal customers (M = 4.06, SD = .55) with p = .013 and low loyal customers (M = 3.65, SD = .70) vs. high loyal customers with p = .000. There was no significant difference between non-customers and low loyal customers with p = .156. The effect of customer type on attitude toward the brand is visually depicted in figure 2.

FIGURE 2

Effect of customer type on Ab

The interaction effect was significant, F(2, 154) = 3.58, p = .030. The effects are plotted in figure 3. To find out which effects caused the interaction to be significant, several planned contrast analyses were performed. To keep the text readable all means and standard deviations can be found in table 4. The first planned contrast analyzed the differences for the neutral vs. irritating ad at each specific

3,4 3,5 3,6 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1

non-customer low loyal customer high loyal customer

Ab

23 customer type group. The analysis revealed no significant difference for non-customers (p = .666), a significant difference for low loyal customers (p = .008) and no significant difference for high loyal customers (p = .272), this indicates that only low loyal customers were significantly affected by the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad.

Next, the customer types that viewed the neutral ad were contrasted. None of these differences were significant, for non-customers vs. low loyal customers with p = .797, for low loyal customers vs. high loyal customers with p = .468 and for non-customers vs. high loyal customers with p = .324. Lastly, the customer types that viewed the irritating ad were contrasted. All of these differences were significant, for non-customers vs. low loyal customers with p = .033, for low loyal customers vs. high loyal customers with p = .000 and for non-customers vs. high loyal customers with p = .011.

FIGURE 3 Plot of effects on Ab 3,2 3,3 3,4 3,5 3,6 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1 4,2

24 TABLE 4

Mean Ab scores for all treatments

Non-customer Low loyal customer High loyal customer Total Neutral ad M = 3.80 SD = 0.60 M = 3.84 SD = 0.60 M = 3.96 SD = 0.51 M = 3.85 SD = 0.57 Irritating ad M = 3.74 SD = 0.58 M = 3.37 SD = 0.75 M = 4.16 SD = 0.58 M = 3.76 SD = 0.69 Total M = 3.77 SD = 0.59 M = 3.65 SD = 0.70 M = 4.06 SD = 0.55 M = 3.81 SD = 0.63

The ANOVA shows no support for hypothesis H1a, because the effect of ad type was not significant, meaning that there is no significant negative effect on attitude toward the brand for irritating vs. neutral TV ads. While the interaction effect was significant, H2a can only be partially supported. The contrast analyses reveal that the difference in attitude toward the brand was only significant for low loyal customers that had seen the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad. The effect was not significant for high loyal customers that had seen the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad, which is also in line with H2a. But the effect was also not significant for non-customers that had seen the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad, and this is not in line with H2a, which can therefore be only partially supported.

Two-way ANOVA with PI as dependent variable (H1b, H2b)

Next, in order to analyze the influence of ad type and customer type on purchase intention, a 2 (ad type: neutral vs. irritating) x 3 (customer type: non-customers, customers low in loyalty and customers high in loyalty) ANOVA was performed on purchase intention.

The main effect for ad type was not significant, an irritating ad does not lead to a significantly lower purchase intention (M = 5.56, SD = 1.40) than a neutral ad (M = 5.40, SD = 1.42) on a scale from 1 (definitely do not intent to buy) to 7 (definitely intend to buy), F(1, 154) = .77, p = .381.

The main effect for customer type on purchase intention was significant F(2, 154) = 17.83, p = .000. A planned contrast revealed that the difference was significant for all customer types. For non-customers (M = 4.88, SD = 1.41) vs. high loyal non-customers (M = 6.37, SD = .98) with p = .000, and low loyal customers (M = 5.51, SD = 1.31) vs. high loyal customers with p = .002, and lastly for non-customers vs. low loyal non-customers with p = .008. The effect of customer type on purchase intention is visually depicted in figure 4.

25 Hypothesis H1b was not supported by the ANOVA analysis because the effect of ad type was not significant, meaning that there is no significant negative effect on purchase intentions for irritating vs. neutral TV ads. Because the interaction effect was not significant either hypothesis H2b has to be rejected. Meaning that there is no significant difference in purchase intention for non-customers that have seen the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad, for low loyal customers that have seen the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad, and for high loyal customers that have seen the irritating (vs. the neutral) ad.

FIGURE 4

Effect of customer type on PI

Multiple regression with Ab as dependent variable (H1a, H2a)

In order to analyze whether exposure to an irritating (vs. a neutral) ad influences attitude toward the brand, and whether this effect is different for different levels of brand loyalty, a regression analysis was performed. The regression included ad type, brand loyalty and the interaction of ad type and brand loyalty as predictors for attitude toward the brand. The regression analysis was not significant, R2 = .020, F(3, 156) = 1.06, p = .368.

There is no significant effect of ad type (B = -.118, t = -.79, p = .432), brand loyalty (B = .023, t = .90, p = .432) and the interaction of ad type and brand loyalty (B = .007, t = .20, p = .839) on attitude toward the brand.

The regression shows no support for hypothesis H1a, because the effect of ad type was not significant, meaning that there is no significant negative effect on attitude toward the brand for irritating vs. neutral TV ads. H2a isn’t supported by the regression either as the interaction effect was not significant. 4 4,5 5 5,5 6 6,5 7

non-customer low loyal customer high loyal customer

PI

26

Multiple regression with PI as dependent variable (H1b, H2b)

In order to analyze whether exposure to an irritating (vs. a neutral) ad influences purchase intention, and whether this effect is different for different levels of brand loyalty, a regression analysis was performed. The regression included ad type, brand loyalty and the interaction of ad type and brand loyalty as predictors for purchase intention. The regression analysis was significant, R2 = .183, F(3, 156) = 11.61, p = .000.

There is a positive relationship between brand loyalty and purchase intention (B = .214, t = 4.15, p = .000). However, for ad type (B = .171, t = .56, p = .577) and the interaction of ad type and brand loyalty (B = -.002, t = -.03, p = .979) there is no significant effect on purchase intention.

The regression shows no support for hypothesis H1b, because the effect of ad type was not significant, meaning that there is no significant negative effect on purchase intention for irritating vs. neutral TV ads. H2b isn’t supported by the regression either as the interaction effect was not significant.

4.6 Discussion on analyses differences

Because different analyses were used to test the same hypotheses a discussion on the differences in results from these analyses is added here.

The ANOVA’s found a significant effect of customer type on both attitude toward the brand and purchase intention, while the regressions only found a significant effect of brand loyalty on purchase intention (and not on attitude toward the brand). From the ANOVA results it becomes clear that the effect is stronger for customer type on purchase intention than it is on attitude toward the brand. The reason why the regression can’t find the effect is because the data used in the regression is distorted and skewed as a large proportion of the brand loyalty variable was modified (all the non-customers were assigned 0 brand loyalty). Therefore it becomes harder to find significant effects with the regressions, but because the effect of customer type was stronger for purchase intention than for attitude toward the brand the regression was still able to find it for purchase intention despite the distortion in the data.

The modification of brand loyalty may have affected the interaction as well, as the brand loyalty scores are multiplied with the ad type variable to compute the interaction. Because the ad type variable is 0 for all respondents who have seen the neutral ad and the brand loyalty score is 0 for all non-customers a large proportion of interactions was 0 as well.

28

5. Conclusion

5.1 Discussion

This study started with the suggestion that irritating TV ads (vs. neutral TV ads) could have a negative effect on attitude toward the brand and purchase intentions for that brand. This was formulated in hypotheses H1a and H1b. Based on the results it can be concluded that no such negative effect was found, as the results showed no significant main effect for ad type, possible reasons for this are explained later in this chapter.

The second hypothesis (formulated in H2a and H2b) of this study proposed a linear negative effect for irritating (vs. neutral) TV ads, which is supposedly strongest for non-customers, less strong for low loyal customers and the effect is expected to be weakest for high loyal customers. For purchase intention, no such interaction effect was found, but for attitude toward the brand the interaction was significant. However, contrast analyses revealed that hypothesis H2a can only be partially supported. The effect was significant for low loyal customers, and not significant for high loyal customers, both as expected by the hypothesis. However, the effect was not significant for the non-customers either and for that group the negative effect was expected to be biggest of all groups. Therefore hypothesis H2a is partially supported. These effects are plotted in figure 3.

In conclusion, this study showed no significant influence of irritating vs. neutral TV ads in on attitude toward the brand and purchase intention. There was a significant difference in attitude toward the brand for low loyal customers that had seen the irritating (vs. neutral) ad, but there was no effect for purchase intention. Further, there were no differences in attitude toward the brand and purchase intention for the other customer types (non-customers and high loyal customers).

29 A possible explanation for the insignificant effects of irritating vs. neutral ads might be in ad repetition. Research in this topic dates back to the 1960s when Zajonc termed the mere exposure effect, a concept which can be simply explained as the increased liking of a stimulus after more frequent exposures to it (Zajonc, 1968). Since then, McCullough and Ostrom (1974) showed that this effect is also true in print advertising (i.e. increased frequency of exposures to a print ad leads to an increased liking of that ad). Those studies merely looked at the liking of the stimulus however, and not at change in attitude, which is eventually what ads are set out to do. To test if mere exposure has a similar relation with attitude change, Cacioppo and Petty (1979) did a study where they measured respondents’ agreement to an ad message after various frequencies of exposure. They found that as exposures increased, agreement also increased and thus ad repetition caused an increase in attitude change. Note that after an initial increase, after a certain amount of exposures a decrease is observed, an effect that also has been found by several authors while testing the mere exposure effect (e.g. Saegert & Jellison, 1970; Smith & Dorfman, 1975). This reasoning of increased effects after several ad exposures could explain why the results of the current study were insignificant. As the effect after a single ad exposure could be too small to detect, while after several ad exposures the effect in attitude change could be big enough to yield significant results. In particular difference in attitude effects between irritating vs. neutral ads could get bigger and yield significant results. A study by Machleit, Allen, and Madden (1993) could provide another explanation. It could be that the test brand used in this study falls in the mature brand category. According to the authors of that study the ad-evoked affect from ads is virtually nonexistent for mature brands, even when people aren’t customers of the brand. This occurs because consumers have already seen a lot of ads from the brand, or because they have (indirect) experiences with the brand. Following this reasoning, it could be that the effects proposed in this study are significant for less mature brands.

30 The results from the brand loyalty factor analysis showed that two questions didn’t load on the expected factors. They were essentially swapped from attitudinal to behavioral loyalty and vice versa. A possible explanation for this lies in the translation of the statement “I like the Bol.com webshop”. The Dutch meaning of “houden van” (as used in the questionnaire) may weigh heavier in the mind of the consumer than the meaning of the English word “like” from which it was translated. This could have resulted in a difference in answering pattern among respondents causing that specific attitudinal loyalty question to correlate more with behavioral loyalty questions. Reactions of the respondents provide support for this explanation. There were two respondents that mentioned in the open-ended questions where they could share their thoughts on the questionnaire that they perceived the question as “weird”. The open-ended question was the very last question while the brand loyalty questions were in the beginning of the questionnaire, yet the respondents remembered it and reported their thoughts about it. Again, this unusual finding in the data did not hamper the study as the brand loyalty concept as a whole was of importance. The internal consistency of all six brand loyalty questions was good and did not improve by deleting any of the items from the scale, so the brand loyalty scale as a whole was used.

5.2 Limitations and further research

The fact that only one brand was tested in this experiment is clearly a limitation and therefore results should be generalized with care. However, the test brand did represent a wide range of product categories so the experiment was not limited to a single product or product class. Because of limited funds for this study, existing TV ads from the test brand were used in the experiment, as producing professional grade TV ads would be very costly. While the ads aired a long time ago (the irritating ad around 3.5 years ago, and the neutral ad over 2 years ago), it is possible some respondents had seen the ad already and remembered it which may have caused a bias in the results.

31

5.3 Managerial implications

While most results from this study were insignificant, marketers and advertising practitioners can take away something from it nonetheless. First of all, the results showed no significant negative effects for irritating (vs. neutral) ads for high loyal customers, now it must be noted that this study showed no significant effect for the non-customer group either, but for high loyal customers this can also be backed up by the available literature (e.g. Mela, Gupta & Lehmann, 1997; Machleit, Allen, & Madden, 1993). This means that if practitioners believe utilizing irritating ads can yield them a particular favorable result or help them achieve some kind of goal important to them, like increasing (short-term) sales or increasing brand awareness, they might do so without much fear of harming business from their high loyal customers. However, the results also imply that there is a significant negative effect from irritating ads on attitude toward the brand for low loyal customers. No such negative effect is found for purchase intentions. Therefore managers must be extra careful when utilizing irritating ads, because the negative effects might not be visible in the sales numbers right away. Attitude toward the brand from low loyal customers will decrease however and it’s possible that the negative effects in terms of sales might only be visible in the long term. By then it will probably take a lot more resources to recover these low loyal customers and make them truly loyal to your brand.

32

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36

Appendix A: invitation to questionnaire

Voor het onderzoek van mijn afstudeerscriptie ben ik op zoek naar mensen die even een online vragenlijst in willen vullen. Zou je me daarbij willen helpen?

Onder de deelnemers verloot ik een H&M giftcard t.w.v. €20,- en onder de mensen die de vragenlijst doorsturen verloot ik ook nog een fashioncheque t.w.v. €40,-.

De vragenlijst is niet zo heel lang en invullen neemt ongeveer 5 minuutjes in beslag. Invullen kan hier:

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_42zi3rqRYhrRxKl

37

Appendix B:

q

uestionnaire

< The first page contained a welcome message and research explanation >

38

< The second page contained the demographics >

Wat is je leeftijd (in jaren)? ………

Wat is je geslacht?  Man

 Vrouw

Vul hieronder je e-mail adres in als je kans wilt maken op de H&M giftcard t.w.v. €20,-.

Let op! Alleen volledig en eerlijk ingevulde enquêtes maken kans om te winnen. Jouw email adres wordt uitsluitend gebruikt voor het uitreiken van de prijs en wordt direct nadat de winnaars bekend zijn verwijderd. De resultaten worden dus volledig anoniem verwerkt. De prijswinnaars krijgen in de tweede week van december persoonlijk bericht.

………

Heb je de afgelopen 6 maanden iets bij Bol.com gekocht?  Ja

39

< This page contains brand loyalty questions. This page was only displayed to respondents that indicated they were a Bol.com customer. >

Omdat je onlangs wat bij Bol.com gekocht het volgen hieronder enkele vragen over Bol.com. Geef van de onderstaande stellingen aan in welke mate je het ermee eens bent op een schaal van “helemaal mee oneens” (1) tot “helemaal mee eens” (7).

40 Geef van de onderstaande stellingen aan in welke mate je het ermee eens bent op een schaal van “helemaal mee oneens” (1) tot “helemaal mee eens” (7).

41

< This page contained the ad respondents had to view (the ad was displayed inline). Either the irritating or the neutral ad was randomly displayed here >

Kijk de onderstaande advertentie aandachtig (denk eraan je geluid aan te zetten): Neutral ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf61uFFeUZE

Irritating ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvxGYrhjGMA

42

< This page contained the attitude toward the brand and the purchase intention questions. >

Deze vraag gaat over jouw houding richting de webshop / “het merk” Bol.com.

Geef hieronder aan wat je van “het merk” / de webshop Bol.com vindt.

1 2 3 4 5 Onaantrekkelijk:Aantrekkelijk      Slecht:Goed      Onplezierig:Plezierig      Ongunstig:Gunstig      Onsympathiek:Sympathiek      Onbevredigend:Bevredigend      Onaangenaam:Aangenaam     

Geef hieronder aan in welke mate je het eens bent met de stelling waarbij 1 staat voor “zeker niet van plan te kopen” en 7 staat voor “zeker van plan te kopen”.

Ik ben van plan in de toekomst producten bij Bol.com te kopen.

43

< This page contained the manipulation check questions. >

De stellingen hieronder gaan alleen over de advertentie die je zojuist gezien hebt.

Geef aan in welke mate je het eens bent met de stellingen op een schaal van "volledig mee oneens" (1) tot "volledig mee eens" (7).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

De advertentie wekte een goed

gevoel op.        De advertentie wekte een vrolijk gevoel op.        De advertentie zorgde voor een

irriterend gevoel.

      

De advertentie zorgde voor een

tevreden gevoel.

      

Beledigend       

De advertentie zorgde voor een

stimulerend gevoel.

      

Soothed       

De advertentie voelde voor mij aanstootgevend.

44

< This page contained the explorative questions. >

Als je verder dan 6 maanden terug kijkt, hoe vaak koop je dan gemiddeld per jaar wat bij Bol.com?  Nooit

 1 keer per jaar (of minder)  2-3 keer per jaar

 4-5 keer per jaar  6 + keer per jaar

< This question was only displayed to respondents that indicated some degree of irritation with the ad they viewed. >

Op de stelling de “Bol.com reclame zorgde voor een irriterend gevoel” antwoordde je met <answer>

op een schaal van “helemaal mee oneens” (1) t/m “helemaal mee eens” (7).

Kun je hier kort uitleggen wat je irritant vond aan de getoonde advertentie? ………

Dan volgen er tot slot nog enkele algemene vragen.

Hoe zou je je vaardigheid beschrijven op het internet?  Beginner: ik leer net het internet te gebruiken.

45 Geef van de productcategorieën hieronder aan of je deze bij voorkeur online of in een fysieke koopt of dat de categorie voor jou niet van toepassing is. Geef daarnaast aan of je Bol.com zou overwegen bij een aankoop in deze categorie.

Voorkeur aankooplocatie Overweeg Bol.com?

Online Winkel N.v.t

Vink aan voor welke categorieën je Bol.com zou overwegen. Boeken     Film, TV en muziek (CD/DVD)     Games     Speelgoed     Baby     Beauty, verzorging, cosmetica    

Sport & vrije tijd    

Computer & elektronica     Wonen (meubilair, accessoires en huishoudelijk)    

Tuin & gereedschap    

Dier    

46

< Lastly a thank you page was displayed >

Hartelijk bedankt voor het voltooien van de enquête!

Zou je mij willen helpen door deze enquête door te sturen naar vrienden en familie? Niet help je mij er alleen mee, je maakt dan ook nog eens kans op een fashioncheque t.w.v. €40! Des te meer

mensen de enquête volledig invullen via jou, des te groter je kans om te winnen.

Stuur de onderstaande link door (bijv. via Facebook of e-mail) als je kans wilt maken op de fashioncheque t.w.v. €40,-:

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_42zi3rqRYhrRxKl&ref=EMAIL

Als je geen interesse hebt in de fashioncheque (of OmbouwBoer tegoed) maar je wilt de enquête wel voor mij doorsturen kun je de volgende link gebruiken:

https://qtrial.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_42zi3rqRYhrRxKl