Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Does ad clutter always negatively affect consumers’ attitudes toward ads and media itself? When consumers enter a keyword in a portal, if the search engine displays lots of helpful information, including relevant advertisements, do consumers still respond negatively toward ad clutter? Recently, some reputable portals started “sponsored-links” services, which provide ads with content that is relevant to the search keyword. However, there is no empirical study to indicate the effects of smart advertisements. Therefore, we investigated whether or not the relevance of the ads moderates the negative effect of ad clutter on consumers’ attitudes toward ads and websites themselves. All subjects (N=13) were exposed to all four conditions of a factorial within-subjects experiment: ad clutter with relevant ads, ad clutter with irrelevant ads, non-cluttered advertising condition with relevant ads, and non-cluttered condition with irrelevant ads. The results showed significant main effects for both ad clutter and ad relevance as well as interactions of ad clutter and ad relevance on consumers’ attitudes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The primary goal of this study is to examine how relevant ad contents to the task moderate the relationship between ad types (pop-up ads and square ads) and consumers’ attitude toward ads and websites. Furthermore, this study provides a theoretical model that explains consumers’ negative responses to Internet ads aroused by ad types could be offset by relevant ads. Through a web experiment (N=104), the study tested a moderating effect of ad relevancy and a mediating effect of annoyance and banner blindness influencing upon consumers’ attitude toward the ads and websites. In the experiment, participants were instructed to imagine that they plan to travel to Alaska during summer vacation and assigned a task to find the best deal for a two-night stay at a local hotel at Alaska from the website that was created for the study. While browsing the website, participants were exposed to either pop-up ads or square ads which contain relevant information (e.g., a good offer for hotel) or irrelevant information (e.g., a good offer for a book sale). This study found a significant main effect for ad type and relevance, and an interaction effect between them. Interestingly, the results show that the level of annoyance was reduced when pop-up ads contained relevant contents to consumers’ tasks. In addition, the annoyance was proved to be mediating between relevancy and ad type, and attitude toward ads. Limitations and the implications for future study would be discussed.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Recently, each new election cycle has been marked by significant changes in the political communication environment and the means of campaign communication. This study uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative method to help illuminate the substance and volume of the flow of communication between campaign ads and news. Both campaign ads appearing on candidates' websites and those airing on paid TV will be included, with an eye toward identifying the factors that drove "free media" coverage of audiovisual political messages in the 2008 campaign. An attempt will be made to combine leading print sources such as the New York Times and Washington Post with internet and TV outlets. The study will also explore the flow of communication between web watchdogs like Factcheck.org and other sources of campaign journalism. A concluding section of the paper will reflect on the lessons that can be drawn from the 2008 campaign, and how they might inform an assessment of the health of democratic elections and governance in the early 21st century.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Aim of our study is to show how readers pay attention to ads embedded in national newspapers. A total of 26.556 respondents were surveyed about their reading behavior, their recognition of (the content of) ads published in yesterday’s newspaper, and their appreciation of these ads. Attention was measured with several measures indicating different levels of ad processing. The included 290 advertisements were then content analyzed and related to the reactions of the readers. Results showed that the influences of media position (i.e. prominent position in the newspaper), ad layout (bigger size) and ad content (more colors) were stronger in the first attention phases (where pre-attention and focal attention of the reader is drawn) than in subsequent phases. On the other hand, influences of reader characteristics (age, reading intensity, ad liking and involvement) were stronger in subsequent phases of attention where comprehension of the message and elaboration takes place.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This study explores ad repetition and variation effects for a new brand in a competitive ad context in which ads for the leading brand in the same category are present. In the presence of competitive interference, ad repetition significantly increases ad recognition. Ad repetition also encourages subjects to take product beliefs into account in making product judgments. In addition, brand attitudes, brand interest ratings and purchase intent are improved with two ad exposures over one ad exposure. The number of product attributes has also been shown to moderate ad repetition effects. Moreover, two ad variation strategies are distinguished, i.e., substantive/cosmetic variation and cosmetic variation. The relative effectiveness of the two variation strategies on ad recognition and ad campaign perception is examined.