The effect of variations in banner ad, type of product, website context, and language of advertising on Internet users’ attitudes

Highlights

• A high-involvement product was more appealing when advertised using a banner ad with a photograph.

• A low-involvement product was slightly more appealing when advertised using a text-only ad.

• Products were more appealing with native-language (Spanish) ads relative to English ads.

• Products were more appealing when appearing on congruent websites with similar themes as ads.

Abstract

Bilingual college students in Ecuador were presented with a Spanish-language website (either a video website or an online newspaper website). Each website contained a banner ad. The ad was for either a high-involvement product (a smartphone) or a low-involvement product (a news magazine). The type of ad (display ad with photograph vs. text-only, Google-style search ad), shape of ad (horizontal vs. vertical ad), and language of the ad (English vs. Spanish) varied for each type of website. The high-involvement product was seen as significantly more appealing than the low-involvement product, regardless of the type of ad. An interaction suggested that the high-involvement product was seen as somewhat more appealing if advertised with display ads rather than text-only ads; the low-involvement product was slightly more appealing if advertised with text-only ads. Both products – but especially the high-involvement product – attracted higher ratings if advertised with Spanish-language ads rather than English ads. Finally, products were somewhat more appealing if advertised on ‘highly congruent’ websites, where the advertised product was similar to the theme of the website (e.g., a smartphone that plays videos advertised on a video website; a news magazine advertised on a newspaper website).

Introduction

As Internet technologies develop, e-commerce has grown, presenting consumers with varied forms of advertising (for a general review, see Ha, 2008). Among the most common of these is the banner ad (Cho, Lee, & Tharp, 2001). A banner ad is defined as an “on-line advertising space that typically consists of a combination of graphic and textual content and contains an internal link to target ad pages (the advertiser’s information on the host site) or an external link to the advertiser’s Web site via a click through URL” (Chatterjee, 2005, p. 51). Although size and shape vary, banner ads are usually rectangular (either horizontal or vertical) and frequently occupy 10–15% of the Web page. Banner ads offer several advantages for advertisers: (1) they are often less expensive than traditional forms of advertising, (2) when a consumer clicks on the ad, the consumer’s web browser goes directly to the advertiser’s webpages where a variety of products and services may be presented (Li & Bukovac, 1999), and (3) it is easy to modify ads – for example, photos may be incorporated into the ads in an attempt to increase their appeal.

Although few consumers actually click on the ads and some consumers claim that they do not even see banner ads (Benway & Lane, 1998), research suggests that banner ads do create brand awareness and certain ads may foster favorable attitudes toward the advertised products (Briggs and Hollis, 1997, Luo et al., 2011). For example Drèze and Hussherr (2003) report that while click-through rates (the percentage of times an ad was clicked upon divided by the percentage of times the ad was shown) are low and consumers often avoid looking directly at banner ads, ads still have effects on brand awareness and brand recognition. Briggs and Hollis (1997) show that exposure to banner ads for clothing increases the appeal of the clothing brand as well as its perceived value. Consumers also report that they are more likely to look for the brand when they next shop for type of product. These studies suggest that banner ads may affect consumer attitudes.

Millions of US dollars are spent on Internet advertising; much of it is based on guesses as to what features will make banner ads effective, rather than empirical research (Sigel, Braun, & Sena, 2008). Therefore, research may provide guidance as to which features of banner ads promote favorable attitudes toward consumer products.