Online Advertising Research in Advertising Journals: A Review

By

Louisa Ha, Ph.D.

Professor
Department of Telecommunications
Bowling Green State University
302 West Hall
Bowling Green, OH 43403
E-mail: louisah@bgnet.bgsu.edu

A review essay submitted for publication in

Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising

Louisa Ha (Ph.D. Michigan State University) is a professor of the Department of

Telecommunications at Bowling Green State University

A complete reference list of all the articles included in this review is available at
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tcom/faculty/ha/online.htm
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Online Advertising Research in Advertising Journals: A Review

Along with the rapid increase in the number of Internet users around the world,

the World Wide Web has become the fastest growing advertising medium in this decade.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (2007) reported US online advertising revenue’s

growth from 1998’s US$1.8 billion to $20 billion in 2007. The 10 fold increase not only

signifies the importance of online advertising to the advertising and media industry, the

rapid advancement of technology in online advertising delivery and display formats

requires researchers to help the media and advertisers to capitalize on the new medium

and the society in understanding the increasing impact of the medium.

This article is a substantive review of online advertising research published since

1996 in all major refereed advertising journals. The purpose of the review is three- fold:

1) to analyze the conceptual foundations, theoretical and practical contributions of online

advertising research, 2) to examine the state-of-the-art in the practice of online

advertising research, and 3) to propose a research agenda for future online advertising

research. Although the author read all the online advertising-related articles published in

the journals selected, only articles that are deemed significant are reviewed and reported

in this article. This review examines online advertising research articles published in six

English-language advertising journals: Journal of Advertising (JA), Journal of

Advertising Research (JAR), Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising

(JCIRA), International Journal of Advertising (IJA), Journal of Marketing

Communications (JMC), and Journal of Interactive Advertising (JIAD), the only online

journal in the field. The focus on advertising journals enables the author to trace the

development of online research in the mainstream advertising discipline.

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Scope of Online Advertising

In this review, the author proposes the definition of online advertising as

deliberate messages placed on third-party web sites including search engines and

directories available through Internet access. Deliberate messages mean that the

advertiser intends to place the message on the online medium. They are not unsolicited

listing on third-party sites. Whether the messages are paid or not depends on the

agreement between the advertiser and the medium. This definition excludes marketers’

own web sites for promotional or non-promotional purposes, e-mails and other forms of

marketing communications, and shopping sites such as Amazon.com. Although some

studies simply equate Web sites as online advertising (e.g., Hwang, McMillan & Lee,

2003; Marcia, 2003), this review will not include those studies that only examine

corporate or product web sites. It also will exclude e-commerce or other computer-

mediated and online experience studies. Nevertheless, some studies that are directly

related to advertising audience measurement such as web site traffic studies and ranking

of web sites will be included in the review as part of the discussion of advertising

audience measurement. Hence “online advertising” is different from “interactive

advertising,” which is “the paid and unpaid presentation and promotion of products,

services and ideas by an identified sponsor through mediated means involving mutual

action between consumers and producers.” (Leckenby and Li, 2000). Interactivity is not

a requirement of online advertising.

By limiting the definition of online advertising as above, we can focus on how

researchers so far have contributed to enhancing advertising theories and understanding

of the online advertising as a form of advertising medium or message. This definition

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will also enable research findings to collaborate with online ad spending research and

industry statistics because self-promotional web sites or e-mails are not counted in these

statistics. Furthermore, editorial content and advertising compete for consumers’

attention in offline media, and such competition should still be examined in online media.

Marketers or product web sites are destinations that have no editorial competition. In

addition, advertising is an important funding source for online editorial media and search

engines. Including other marketer-controlled sites will undermine the importance of

advertising to online editorial media. Although other computer-mediated communication

studies will benefit the development of online advertising research, including it will

broaden the topic too far and cannot examine specific contribution of the past research on

advertising theory and practice. Nevertheless, if a study compares online advertising

with other forms of Internet communication such as e-mails, it will be included in this

review.

Evolution of Online Advertising Research

Since the debut of banner ads placed on web sites such as those in Hot Wired in

1994 (DoubleClick, 2005), it took some time for academic and industry researchers to

study this new online advertising medium. It was until 1996 that the first research article

on online advertising was published a refereed scholarly advertising journal: Berthon,

Pitt & Watson’s (1996) article on evaluating the World Wide Web as an advertising

medium published in the Journal of Advertising Research. Their seminal article uses the

metaphor of an electronic trade show and a virtual flea market for a Web site and suggest

five advantages of online advertising: 1) Awareness efficiency, 2) locatability, 3) contact

efficiency, 4) conversion efficiency and 5) retention efficiency. Corresponding to these

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advantages, the researchers propose to use number of surfers, number of hits, number of

aware surfers, number of active visitors, purchases and repurchases as advertising success

metrics.

The increasing interest in online advertising in major advertising scholarly

journals can be shown in the Journal of Advertising’s 2002 special issue on advertising

and new media, and the two special issues on online advertising in Journal of Advertising

Research in July/August 2001 and again in June 2007. Indeed, as early as March/April

issue in 1997, Journal of Advertising Research published most of its articles in that issue

(9 out of 11) related to the Web. Due to the industry affiliation of Journal of Advertising

Research, we can see that industry practitioners are more alert than the academicians of

the impact of the Internet on advertising. Actually, in terms of the total number of

published online advertising articles from 1996 to present, JAR outpaced all other

advertising journals. Based on the definition of online advertising research articles of this

review, JAR (published bimonthly) has published 32 research articles in the course of the

past 10 years, while JA (published quarterly) published 14 articles, JCIRA (published

twice a year) published seven articles. Among the two UK-based advertising journals,

IJA (published quarterly) published eight articles while Journal of Marketing

Communications (published quarterly) only published six articles. Journal of Interactive

Advertising, the online journal (published quarterly), published 20 articles since its

inception in 2000 with its seemingly focus on online advertising and its use of the online

publication format.

The relative lack of published articles on online advertising in European-based

advertising journals warrants attention. In particular, Journal of Marketing

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Communications has not published any article on online advertising since 2004. This

phenomenon cannot be explained by the ad expenditure. According to Interactive

Advertising Bureau, US$5 billion was spent on online advertising in Europe in 2006

(Marketing Vox, 2006).

Table 1 is a summary of common topics that were found in published articles in

the period under review. The six common topics are attitudes on online advertising either

by consumers or by advertising practitioners, internet advertising media planning,

creative factors such as execution and interactive elements in online advertising, online

advertising processing and finally online advertising in college advertising curricula.

[Insert Table 1 Here]

Early research on online advertising focused on acceptance of the World Wide

Web as an ad medium. Ducoffe’s (1996) study of attitudes toward Web advertising

shows that entertainment and information in Web advertising is positively related to

perceived value of the ad and irritation is negatively related to perceive value of the ad.

Most consumers do not see high entertainment or information value of online ads.

Among the subsequent studies that examine consumer attitudes toward online advertising

(Bracket & Carr, 2001; Edwards, Li and Lee, 2002, Prendergast & Huang, 2003; Sheehan

& Gleason, 2001; Wolin, Krogaonkar & Lund, 2002; Yang, 2004; Yoon and Kim, 2001),

most of them show that positive advertising attitudes toward Web advertising is

positively related to the effectiveness of online advertising. Prendergast and Huang’s

(2003) study of 240 Hong Kong consumers shows that gambling and chat-line services

are considered as most offensive products advertised on the Web. Consumers are less

tolerant of offensive products advertising on the Web than other media. Yang’s (2004)
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study shows the diversity of Internet users in Taiwan and their differing attitudes toward

online advertising. He identified three lifestyle clusters (traditionalists, experiencers and

self-indulgents). Traditionalists are more likely to view online advertising negatively,

while self-indulgents are more likely to view online advertising positively as providing

information to consumers. Experiencers view online advertising as interesting and

enjoyable. In their survey of Korean consumers, Yoon and Kim (2001) found that highly

involved as well as rationally oriented consumers are more likely to prefer Web

advertising and use the Web medium. Brackett and Carr’s (2001) study of US college

students find that although they find online advertising irritable, they predict a stronger

acceptance and favorable attitude to online advertising over time. Hence they show that

attitudes toward advertising in a medium can change.

Industry Practitioners’ Attitudes Toward Online Advertising

Studies on advertising industry attitudes toward online advertising reveal that they

are skeptical of the effectiveness of the new medium. Rodgers & Chen (2002) explain

the reason for the poor attitudes toward the internet after its adoption by agencies is that

the agencies lack experience and expertise with internet advertising. When compared to

advertising agencies, public relations, new-media, and marketing agencies held more

positive post-adoption attitudes toward the internet. Traditional advertising agencies lag

behind other agency types when it comes to internet advertising expertise, profitability,

staffing, ability to attract interactive clients, and overall understanding of the Internet's

value. Similar results are found in Singapore. In Tan and Piron’s (2003) study of

Singaporean advertising agencies and advertisers, Internet advertising is found to be the

least effective but is unique in itself compared to other traditional advertising media.
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Pashupati and Lee’s (2003) comparison of Korean and India online banners ads in

newspaper sites reveal the importance of Internet penetration in the use of advertising

online by advertisers. Korean is a much more developed Internet market and online

newspapers have more diverse advertisers than India. India online newspapers target

primarily at Indian expatriates who are more likely to use online newspapers than

domestic users.

Comparison between Print and Web advertising

There are lots of parallels between print and Web advertising because the text

and graphic display of the Web resembles print, and the self-paced, self-selective nature

of Web usage is also similar to print media. Many compare the effectiveness of print

advertising versus Web advertising (e.g, Sundar & Kim, 2001). They all show the

superiority of Web advertising over print advertising in achieving positive brand

evaluation. Dahlen, Murray and Nodenstorm’s (2004) study of Swedish business

students is an experiment with real online advertisements. It illustrates the importance of

differentiating between light and heavy Web users. Their study shows that Web

advertisements outperform the print advertisements for low involvement products in

understanding and recall of the ad, and for consumers with a negative disposition towards

the advertised brand and for light Web users. The Web’s vividness and interactivity

characteristics open up for differences in how advertisements are processed in the two

media. Compared to print, the Web offers more stimuli and could thus potentially keep

the user’s attention and interest longer. Web advertisements and print advertisements

performed equally well for high-involvement products, for consumers with a positive

disposition towards the advertised brand and for heavy Web users. They suggest that
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image advertising on the Web is better suited for low-involvement products and for

consumers with a negative disposition towards the brand.

Similar findings on the superiority of web ads over print advertising in generating

advertising effect such as purchase intention is shown in Kimefeld & Watt’s (2001)

study. Their study compares the response to promotional offers in print and Web

advertisements. They find Web advertisements are more effective in improving attitude

toward the ad and in purchase intention than print ads. They explain that the increase in

promotional offer acceptance behavior in Web transactional ads by the comparative ease

of accepting the offer on-line.

Importance of Online Advertising Formats

However, published studies comparing between print and web advertising did not

use the pop-up ad as an ad format. Those studies that used pop-up ads in the experiment

show negative attitudes and reactance from the consumers resulting in ad avoidance and

feeling of irritation (e.g., Cho and Cheon, 2004; Edwards, Li & Lee, 2002). The study by

Burns and Lutz (2006) helps clear up this controversy because they found consumers

have different attitudes to different online ad formats. Their study examines six distinct

online ad formats commonly used in the industry: banners, floating ads, large rectangles,

interstitials, skycrapers, and pop-ups. Banners are horizontal, rectangular shaped

graphical elements found on a web page. Pop up ads open another window over the

user’s browser. They can only be removed from the screen by closing or minimizing the

window. Skyscrapers are vertically located on the margins of a web page. Rectangle ads

placed within the copy of the web page. Floating ads combine Flash and Dynamic

Hypertext markup language to create a layer over the web page with animation.
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Interstitals are presented automatically to users when they move between two content

pages. Once the requested page loads, the interstitial disappears. Their experiment shows

that pop-up ads and floating ads scored highest on the annoyance factor, while interstitial

ads scored highest on the entertainment factor. Banner ads scored highest on the

information factor and received highest overall positive attitude from consumers. It is

note worthy that banner ads did best in all behavioral measures such as clickthrough

percentage, percent visit later and clickthrough frequency among the six online ad

formats they tested. Nevertheless, such results contradict to the experiment by Cho, Lee

and Tharp (2001) which shows that consumers do not have negative attitudes the ad with

highest forced exposure. The advertising effectiveness of self-report clickthrough from

forced exposure ads is higher than low and non-force exposure.

As shown in Table 2, among the variety of online advertising formats available,

banner ads are the most frequently studied. Other formats such as search ads, pop-up ads,

and other non-traditional online advertising formats such as online affiliates and online

auctions receive much less attention. Only one or two studies were published on these

other important online ad formats.

[Insert Table 2 here]

Online Advertising Media Planning and Reach and Frequency Models

Leckenby and Hong’s (1998) pioneering study of the applicability of traditional

advertising reach and frequency exposure estimation model in Web advertising shows

similar belief in the exposure of Web advertising as other offline media. They show that

five out of the six reach and frequency models can accurately predict the reach and

frequency of an online schedule or a mixed with online and offline media advertising.
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However, Huang and Lin (2006) disagree that the traditional reach and frequency models

can apply to the Internet. They discuss about the similarity between print insertion and

online ad placement. Because an Internet ad is not limited by a one-time on air display

such as electronic media, the reach and frequency estimation needs to be modified.

Their online advertising media planning model uses a schedule comprised of insertions in

multiple Taiwanese web sites based on a negative binomial distribution model which

allows time length variation and cost-benefit analysis based on the reach and frequency

estimation of different Internet ad campaigns. Their models were validated with

clickstream data verification from top 100 web sites. The limitation of the model is that

it can only apply to Internet ad campaigns, and not mix media campaigns.

Media Credibility and Content Compatibility with Products

Another issue related to online advertising media selection is product-web site

compatibility (context congruity) and web site credibility. It is another topic getting

increasing importance. For example, Shamdasani, Stanaland and Tan’s (2001)

experiment of Singaporean Web users show that the location of web ads are is as

important as in traditional media. Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Theory, the

authors argue that high involvement products will be relevance driven and hence it’s

important to put the ad in sites with relevant content to the product. But for low

involvement products, the reputation of the site becomes more important in building

credibility for the products. Choi and Rifon’s (2002) study of media credibility

demonstrates the importance of placing banner ads in credible sites to enhance ad

credibility and consumer responses.

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Industry Practitioner’s vs. Academic Perspectives

Although search advertising is the most important online advertising category,

constituting 40% of all online advertising expenditure (Doubleclick, 2005), there is only

one research article published specifically about this online advertising category – smart

banners, or keyword activated banner ads in search engines. Smart banners, or keyword

activated web banner ads, are pop-up ads that are generated commonly by search engines.

Dou, Linn & Yang’s (2001) study examines the online ad industry’s use of smart banners

by typing the 345 keywords for 115 product categories in 11 search engines. They found

many irrelevant banner ad matches. The best performing engine only yields 65% of

matching ads. When users’ search terms become specific, fewer exact matches result in a

search engine. They emphasize the need for identifying right keywords for advertisers so

that the search engines can produce matching smart banners for their users.

Another related study of search advertising is the study of Web search behavior

by Muylle, Moenaert, & Despontin (1999). They propose five types of search behavior:

exploratory surfing, window surfing, evolved surfing, bounded navigation and targeted

navigation. Based on the findings from observation and interviews of 5 students and 10

business people subjects who were confronted with recordings of their own behavior, the

authors propose a grounded theory of search behavior that classify search by the purpose

and specificity of search objectives with exploratory surfing the lowest in purpose and

specificity of search and targeted navigation the highest in purpose and specificity.

Further they propose that information to be gathered through search can be categorized as

core, peripheral and browser information. Core information is the information embraced

by the search boundaries. This is the information the user is looking for (e.g. a list of new
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websites in the case of exploratory surfing or company information in the case of

bounded navigation). Peripheral information relates to information that is displayed on

the screen, although it is not specifically sought by the user such as banners and non-

related hyperlinks. The core and peripheral information may be further defined by means

of their content, location, amount and format. Finally, browser information is the

information displayed by the browser software (e.g., the destination of the webpage to be

visited). Important antecedents determining the mode of information gathering concern

waiting and webpage familiarity. They also discovered that an ad banner, as peripheral

information in the search process, was only recalled if it was seen at least three times or

when it was directly related to the consumer’s search objectives. In a situation of

bounded navigation, banners were selected in case no core information was offered and

when it was directly related to the search objectives.

Interactivity vs. Ad Impression

Another big difference between the practitioners and academics is their view on

the importance of interactivity in online advertising. Academic researchers all try to

study the nature and perception of interactivity and how it affects advertising

effectiveness. Yet advertising researchers in the industry such as Briggs and Hollis

(1997), Hollis (2005), Huang and Lin (2006), all suggest that online advertising creates

brand image and ad impressions, similar to offline media advertising. Even if the online

ads do not generate clickthrough, consumers can still be affected by the online ads. The

Interactive Advertising Bureau endorses these findings and support ad impression as a

good measure of advertising effect for online ads. Gong and Maddox’s (2003) study

replicates the methodology of the 1997 IAB study in China to see whether the effects
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found in the United States hold true among Chinese Netizens and found similar results.

A few other academics such as Dahlen (2001) supports this view of ad impression and

maintains that traditional advertising theories be used in examining advertising effects.

Shen’s (2002) study of media directors’ online advertising practices show

contradictions in the industry. On the one hand, the overwhelming majority of them

(90%) use the traditional ad impression-based method of cost per thousand (CPM) in

paying for online ads. On the other hand, their measures of online advertising

effectiveness are only transaction-based such as clickthrough rates, inquiries, and

purchases. The increasing pressure for accountability leads advertising agencies to put

pressures on action-related measures rather than by impression. Yet as outlined in the

above, the ad impression camp receives strong support in the advertising industry. The

interactive camp is primarily in the academic industry.

Interactivity as a characteristic and advantage of the online medium, has been studied

quite a bit. The early study of Bezjian-Avery, Calder and Iacobucci (1998) on

interactivity in advertising defines interactivity as non-linear presentation of advertising

with choices of information for the consumers. Advertising copy characteristics and

consumer psychographic orientation moderate the effect of interactivity. Their

experiment comparing traditional linear presentation in online advertising versus non-

linear interactive advertising shows that interactivity performs better for verbal

consumers that think in words rather than visuals and for products that are rich in

information. But for visual consumers and visual products, the non-linear presentation

works better. They suggest that online advertising can be effective presented both

interactively and non-interactively.

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Sundar and Kim (2005) conceptualize interactivity by the number of

hierarchically hyperlinked layers embedded in the online ads. With a small sample size

of 48 students subjects in a 3 (interactivity) x 2 (animation) x 2 (ad shape) experiment,

they conclude that animation increases perception of interactivity, and that animation and

shape interact with interactivity level in promoting attitudes toward the brand.

Respondents exposed to highly interactive, static and banner ads have higher perceived

product knowledge than non-interactive, animated and square ads.

While many researchers are interested to examine how an online ad or a web site

can be more interactive, Ying and Shrum (2002) argue that interactivity is not for

everyone. Users with low desire for control and search for information on the Web do

not appreciate interactive features. They also try to explain the disparate results

regarding interactivity effects on advertising effectiveness by tracing directly to how the

construct is defined and operationalized.

Online Ad Privacy and Creativity

Sheehan and Gleason’s (2001) study combining surveys of Internet advertising

practitioners and content analysis of these practitioners’ web site reveals that while these

practitioners understand the privacy issues that their data collection on the Internet may

create, their practice fail to take appropriate actions to address those concerns. Using the

Federal Trade Commission’s four core principles of information privacy (notice, consent,

access and security) as the basis of evaluation, they found few sites followed at least three

of the four principles and many do not post privacy policies when they collect

information. Their study also shows discrepancies between advertising practitioners’ and

online consumers’ concerns about privacy and their information provision such as online
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consumers believe that they provide complete information, but advertising practitioners

think more consumers are unwilling to provide information. Such discrepancies call for

attention to whether and how the information collected is being used for decision making

by advertisers.

Fouquet-Courbet, Courbet and Vanhuele (2007)’s in-depth interviews with

French web banner designers, combined with retrospective protocols, reveal implicit

theories of the communication process that designers apply during their creation process.

Web banner ad designers use interest generation and attention attraction as the framework

in their design. Their design will based on rules they believe are universal to audiences

and products such as animation will attract attention, etc. They place high importance of

advertiser’s evaluation of their design. They think the Internet has at least as much, if not

more, influence than traditional advertising media with communication taking place in an

intimate setting. Their study’s focus is on the entire message creation process. The

design paradigm, rather than individual executive elements, is examined.

Application of Classical Advertising Theories to Online Advertising

As Cho and Khang’s (2006) review of Internet communication research literature

indicates, there is no new theory in online communication research which includes online

advertising research. The online advertising information processing models examined in

the section below are mostly integration of old theories with some new elements specific

to online advertising. Yet the application of theories is what most published research has

achieved. Among the most commonly used theories are the product involvement theory,

information processing theories such as limited capacity theory and elaboration

likelihood, psychological theories such as motion effects, excitation transfer, vividness,

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vividness effects of media modality, and availability-valence, which refers to the

availability of information enhances response by stimulating cognitive elaboration of

message relevant information, are the theories used to explain the effects of interactive

and other execution elements in online advertising.

Consumer Responses to Advertising and Advertising effectiveness

Some have argued that traditional principles of mass media advertising do not

apply on the Web. The two studies by Gallagher, Foster and Parsons (2001a & b) suggest

that advertisers need not take full advantage of the enhanced capabilities of the medium

to produce effective web advertising. Given equal opportunity for exposure to the target

audience, the same advertisements were equally effective in print and on the web. Their

original study used students as subjects, the replication using general web users. Both

studies found that advertising was equally effective in the two media. While the original

study found that evaluation of an article containing advertising was lower when it

appeared on the web than when it appeared in print, this result was not replicated. Their

studies also have methodological implications. By comparing the results using students

and general Web users as samples for study, they propose that under conditions such as

when prediction is a research objective and experienced Web users are needed in the

sample, student samples are appropriate and even superior than general population.

Menon and Soman’s (2002) study on how to arouse curiosity of consumers to

facilitate clickthrough in online advertising emphasize the creation of knowledge gaps in

online advertising. The specific property of clickability of online advertising makes it

pertinent to understand why consumers will click on the ad. They propose that the

presence and awareness of a knowledge gap is essential in elaboration and further action
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and curiosity is a manifestation of the desire to seek knowledge. Curiosity is generated

only when the gap is moderate and manageable. Their two experiments comparing the

results with print ads and online magazine ads show that indeed when the knowledge gap

increases to a moderate level, it achieves the best results with highest degree of

information search (more time spent on browsing the ad), more elaboration of thoughts,

better product learning and evaluation. Their findings suggest that online advertising

campaigns should develop consumer curiosity by highlighting a knowledge gap. Then

the ad should provide a cue to resolve the question. Such provision of solution should

not be immediate and build in some wait time.

Several researchers propose their own conceptualizations of how consumers

respond to online advertising including the Netvertising Image Communication Model

(NICM) of Stern, Zinkhan & Holbrook (2002), Rodgers & Thorson’s Integrated Model

(2000), Cho’s (1999) Modified Elaboration Likelihood Model, and Rossiter and

Bellman’s (1999) exposure-web ad schema formation-attitude-behavior model. Stern,

Zinkhan and Holbrook’s conceptual model of online advertising involves the presentation

and formation of image in consumer’s mind by taking into consideration the various

message stimuli available on the Internet. Rodgers & Thorson’s (2000) integrated model

identified four motives of users as a determinant of ad exposure: research, shop, surf and

communicate. They propose how the advertiser controlled elements (ad types and

formats) affect consumer responses in the processing of online advertising. Rodgers

follow up the conceptual model with several empirical studies (Rodgers and Sheldon,

2002; Rodgers, 2002) to test the role of Web use motivations in maximize advertising

effectiveness. The premise of Web Motivation Inventory is the matching Web ads with
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Web use motives. Rodgers and her colleagues (2007) recruited subjects from three

English-speaking countries, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom to

replicate the 2002 study on Web Motivation Inventory and found the results applicable in

the three countries studied. They further differentiate the original four motives to 12

submotives such as download, game, transaction, and product trials.

Cho’s modified elaboration likelihood model separate voluntary from involuntary

ad exposure. In his modified elaboration likelihood model, he proposes that position of

the banner ad, and download time of the ad affect involuntary ad exposure and attitudes

toward the site and attitudes toward advertising, product-media content compatibility,

repeated exposure affect voluntary ad exposure. The central routes for high involvement

situation and the peripheral routes for low involvement situation in ELM still apply in

online advertising. The model received empirical support with an experiment of college

students using three real products. A later experiment by Karson and Korgaonkar (2001)

found no support for the elaboration likelihood model on Web advertising processing.

They show that involvement does not moderate the formation of attitude toward the ad or

purchase intentions. Peripheral cues do not affect low involvement subjects in their

processing of advertising. They suggest that information processing on the Internet

probably differs from traditional media. Quality information may be more important than

execution elements. However, their study did not differentiate voluntary and involuntary

ad exposure and the ads are stand-alone web pages about the products, thereby more

stimulating rational processing of the ad.

Rossiter and Bellman’s (1999) web advertising effectiveness model is a

conceptual model emphasizing the role of Web ad schema formation in processing of

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web advertising. Web ad schema is the mental representation of the Web ad in the

consumer’s mind and the initial schema of the product prior to the exposure will change

after processing to the ad. Web ad schema consists of linkages of web page content

about the product which may or may not be what the advertiser intended. Content and

structure of the ad affect the exposure of the advertising. The macro-structural elements

of Web advertising are unique based on the non-linear hypertext structure. They suggest

four factors that affect the formation of ad schema: web navigation ability, product

category need, expertise of the user, and situational factors such as time pressure. Their

model suggests a four stage process similar to the traditional hierarchy of effects model

of exposure (awareness), ad schema formation (interest), communication effects (desire)

and action.

From the practitioners’ perspective, the Advertising Research Foundation

researchers come up with three interrelated models of online advertising (Rappaport,

2007): On Demand, Engagement and Advertising as a service. Anecdotal examples

were used to explain the success use of the model. According to Rappaport, the old

model of interrupt and repeat advertising is vanishing from online advertising. On

demand model is based on consumers’ abilities to select and choose their content and

interactions with advertising. Search advertising is an example of such model. People

search for the ads or hyperlinks when they want to know more about the products. The

engagement model is an opt-in model that focuses on building relevance of the brand to

the consumers and an emotional connection between consumers and brands with online

activities such as contests and product web sites. Advertising as a services use online

presence to create messages and experience relevant to the services and information need
 21

by consumers and provide capabilities that facilitate transactions or enhance brand

engagement. The researchers at ARF believe the three models are interrelated: On

demand furnishes the basis for deeper engagement, engagement leads to strengthening of

brand-consumer relationship through services. These ARF models all assume the active

role of the consumer in exposing to advertising messages. The role of third-party media

becomes obsolete.

Execution Elements

Lombard and Synder-Duch’s (2001) conceptual paper on telepresence and

interactive advertising suggest that online ad creation should create spatial presence,

perceptual realism, social realism, engagement, social presence, shared space and make

the medium as a social actor using various features of the Internet.

Lohtia, Donthu and Hershberger (2003) distinguish the difference between

business to consumer and business-to-business banner ads and argue that both content

and design elements affect advertising effectiveness. Emotional message appeals and

incentives are content elements that are conductive to clickthrough responses, while

interactivity, color, and animation are design elements that facilitate positive responses.

By linking real banners with clickthrough data, they demonstrate that the presence of

incentive lower clickthrough rate, the presence of emotion and animation increased the

clickthrough rates for B2C banner advertisements and decreased the clickthrough rates

for B2B banner advertisements. Medium level of color was better than low or high levels

of color for B2B and B2C banner advertisements. B2B banner advertisements had higher

clickthrough rates than B2C banner advertisements.

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Variation of ad display time by advertiser is a characteristic of online advertising.

Animation speed is one factor that can be manipulated by advertisers to maximize

advertising effectiveness. Sundar and Kalyanaraman’s (2004) experiment on animation

speed shows that slow animation in advertising enhances the overall appeal of a web site,

while high speed animation can increase the attention to and arousal in the site.

Moreover, they found that the sequence of animation speed in advertising can create

special effects. When slow animated ads are preceded by fast animated ads, consumers

are most likely to have a positive impression of the ads.

New Online Advertising Formats

Online advertising affiliates and auctions are new forms of online advertising

unique to the online medium. The online affiliate system is the placement of ads or links

to substitute or complementary web sites. Papatla & Bhatnagar’s (2002) online survey of

consumers yielded four clusters of partners that can be used in selecting online affiliates.

The clusters are strict substitutes, episode (situational) substitute, strict complements and

episode (situational) complements. Rosenkran’s (2005) study of online auctions in an

online newspaper shows that online auctions can provide additional advertising revenue

for online newspapers and drive more web site traffic to the online newspapers.

With the increasing penetration of broadband Internet connection, rich media

online ads become more viable and are increasingly in use in the industry. The only

published article on this in advertising journals by Appiah (2006) which tests the impact of

multimedia ads on a commercial Web site. His study shows that the testimonial ads with

audio and video results in users’ better reception as more targeted to them, better rating of

the site and the advertised product than testimonial ads with text and graphics only.
 23

Product type is another variable that has been studied to explain different response to

banner ads. Dahlen and Bergendhal’s (2001) study comparing consumer responses to

banner ads of functional and expressive products shows that banner ads for functional

products are more conducive to clickthroughs, while banner ads for expressive products

are more conducive to generating ad impressions. Usage experience and prior positive

brand attitude with the brand is a facilitator for clickthrough of expressive products.

Griffith and Chen’s (2004) two experiments compare consumer response to the

presence of virtual direct experience of banner ads in movies and sunglasses with online

ads without the virtual direct experience and found ads with virtual direct experience are

more effective. In examining the effect of the degree of digitalization in the single

product category of apparel, they found that incorporating virtual direct experience with

higher degree of digitalization will improve the evaluation of the product, create higher

affect and conation of the ads. They also demonstrate that consumer product expertise

moderates the effect of digitalization on affect on the advertised product. Although their

study as the authors admitted is confounded by the lack of control in the amount of

information in the ads, their investigation of the benefits of integrating digitalizable

product experience into online advertising is particular relevant when broadband and rich

media become the dominant mode of Internet use.

With the plethora of studies on the effectiveness of online advertising, a research

paradigm that explains the processing of online advertising emerges with attitudes toward

advertising, media context, product involvement, product types, execution, brand

familiarity and Internet experience as one or more commonly studies variables to predict

advertising effectiveness using both offline media advertising effectiveness measures

 24

such as attitude toward the ad, behavioral intention, recall and recognition and Internet

related measures such as clickthrough rates and percent of repeated visits. Figure 1

illustrates such paradigm and the explanation of ad avoidance in online advertising.

[Insert Figure 1 Here]

Synergies between Online and Offline Media

The bulk of online advertising research views online advertising as an alternative

to offline media advertising. Synergies of online advertising with other new media and

traditional media determine the success of an integrated marketing communication

campaign (Schumann, Artis and Rivera, 2001). Only four empirical studies published in

advertising journals directly examine the synergies between online and offline media.

Two of the four studies examine the synergies between TV and Online. Ha (2003)

compares the online advertising strategies of web portal sites (online media) and web

sites of TV networks using content analysis and finds that web portal sites are much more

aggressive in developing online advertising as a source of revenue than TV networks.

She concludes that offline media have two approaches establishing their online presence:

brand integration and brand extension. As a brand’s extension, a TV web site is an

Internet brand of the parent TV brand. When TV web sites are only treated as supporting

the TV network, they employ a brand integration strategy and put little effort in

developing online advertising as an advertising revenue source for the network. Chang

and Thorson’s (2004) experiment demonstrates the effect of synergies in facilitating

information processing from a central route. Subjects who are exposed to advertising by

repetition without synergies process the ads from a peripheral route. TV and online
 25

advertising serve as different sources resulting in higher attention, increased message

credibility and a greater number of positive thoughts.

Kanso and Nelson (2004) examine the synergies of online and magazine

advertising. Their content analysis reveals that there is a lack of integration between

print ads and web sites and that print ads only listed the URLs in small letters and without

any specific reference to the specialized features of the website. Ilfeld and Winter (2002)

examines the performance of the persuasive hierarchy model, the low-involvement

hierarchy, and the no-involvement model in explaining web site traffic. They find that the

low involvement hierarchy best models the process through which advertising affects

awareness, site visitation, and brand equity on the internet. Specifically, offline

advertising appears to increase site visitation through its significant influence on

consumer awareness, while online advertising directly leads to increased website traffic.

The most significant factor in building awareness is the word-of-mouth generated from

lagged visits.

Methodological Development in Online Advertising

Most authors use the quantitative approach to conduct empirical studies in online

advertising. Quantitative studies facilitate statistical testing and generalization of the

results and are generally easier to get accepted for publication in scholarly journals. The

two exceptions are the use of self-narrative reports on Web site and ad usage by Coyle

and Gould (2002) and the observation and in-depth interviews of 10 business users and

five college students in their search behavior on the Web by Muylle, Moenaert &

Despontin (1999).
 26

To address the issue of decay effects in online advertising in affecting validity of

the results, Havlena and Graham’s (2004) study shows that the time between last

exposure and advertising effect response has almost no effect on advertising effect

measure. Their study is based on a stratified sample of 28,416 respondents from

campaigns in three industry verticals in the MarketNorms database. Such results increase

the confidence of the results obtained from immediate response, which is the usual

effectiveness measure in experiments.

As Cho & Khang (2006) note, advantages of data collection regarding online

research via online or offline media is an important issue. Morris, Woo and Cho’s (2003)

research shows that online survey as reliable and valid results as paper surveys on

advertising effects using the Self-Assessment Manikin emotional response to advertising

measure in all reliability and validity statistical measures. They establish that the Internet

is a good place for data collection and a good medium to measure advertising effects. The

interactive capability of the Internet and global accessibility of the Internet makes it more

convenient to use for cross-national studies.

Field data vs. controlled experiment

Experiment is the best method to examine the effects of online advertising and the

most common method employed in published research on online advertising. Yet the

effectiveness of execution elements results differ by the experiment setting. For example,

while incentives and animation are commonly believed to increase clickthrough rate of

banner ads and demonstrated in controlled experiments, a field experiment with real

banner ads used in a special setting of the gaming industry does not show the

effectiveness of incentives and animation (Robinson, Wysocka & Hand, 2007).

 27

Chandon, Chtourou & Fortin’s (2003) study examines the complete set of all

online advertising insertions of 77 customers of a large advertising agency over a one-

year period. They emphasize on the impulsive nature of clicking an ad and it is closely

tied with impulse buying. A resulting sample of 1,258 placements was used to study the

effect of banner formats and exposure levels on click-through rates using analysis of

variance. Results suggest that the strongest effect on click-through rates comes from the

call to action in the message, rather than other factors such as size of the advertisement,

animation. Ads with high clickthrough rates came from ads with call to action and online

only message. Hence message content such as call to action and exclusiveness, instead of

interactive features, can induce action of online users.

Web Audience Measurement

Despite the importance of audience measurement to the online medium which is

new to advertisers, only one original research has been published in advertising journals.

Lee and Leckenby’s (1999) study shows that length of audience measurement period

greatly affects the results especially in website traffic measurement. Changing from one-

day to seven-day can make a jump of 71% in audience size, and changing from one-week

to one-month can increase 55% in audience size. Their study indicates the importance of

cumulative audience ratings on the Internet. They also show that site rankings are not

affected by the length of the measurement period, but by the sorting criteria used by the

site ranker because some rank by visit frequency and some rank by unique visitors.

Other few articles on online audience research measurement that have been

published are just observations and reviews. Coffey, as the Executive Vice President of

Media Metrix, a major web audience research company, examines and compares the
 28

three common methods of web audience measurement: 1) metered user panels for

exposure, 2) survey of web users for recall, and 3) log file analysis. Problems and

logistics in defining the universe and recruiting samples are discussed. Bhat, Bevans and

Sengupta (2002) offer a review of web audience measurement. They classify web

audience measurements into five types: 1) metrics for evaluating exposure and

popularity such as page impressions, hits, clickthrough rates (9 measures), 2) metrics for

evaluating stickiness and quality of user relationships (7 measures), 3) metrics for

evaluating usefulness of content (12 measures), 4) metrics for evaluating co-marketing

success (2 measures), and 5)metrics for measuring targeting efficiency (3 measures).

Some of the metrics belong to several types such as page impressions are used to measure

both popularity and usefulness.

Research Agenda for Future Online Advertising Research

This review concludes with a suggested research agenda for advertising

researchers and advertising journal editors to consider. The proposed agenda not only

considers areas in online advertising that are significant to and underdeveloped in the

field of advertising, but also underscores a fundamental difference between academic

research and industry research. While the two types of research should be

complementary to each other, there clearly is a gap between the two (Nyilasy and Reid,

2007). Advancement of theory is the goal in academic research (Pitt et al., 2005).

Practical applications, specifically in generating more profit for advertisers or agencies,

are the goal in industry research. There are areas of research that pose criticisms to the

advertising industry which have to rest on the shoulders of academic researchers. In

areas of maximizing online advertising effectiveness, the interests of academic and

 29

industry research overlap each other. The first two agenda items present most promise

for academic contribution, while the other eight items can be contributed by both

academic and industry researchers.

1. Economic Impact of Online Advertising to Online Media

The research published in advertising journals so far show shows that online

advertising researchers do not pay much attention to the important role of advertising as

the primary source of income for online media except those that study reach and

frequency media planning models for online advertising and industry veterans such as

McDonald (1997). There is a need for academic researchers in particular, to examine the

economic impact of advertising on online media including its influence on media content.

This is a topic area that is more suitable for academic research because academic

researchers do not have the vested interest in online advertising as their income source or

competition as their industry counterparts. Studies can be conducted comparing the

editorial content quality and page link patterns of advertising-supported media sites

versus non-advertising supported sites to assess the effect of advertising on online media.

For example, the evolvement of YouTube from a non-advertising supported to an

advertising-supported model can be a good case study of the impact of advertising on

media content sites. The increasing dependency of online advertising by social

networking sites can also alter the nature of social networks from non-commercial

interest to social networks based on commercial interests.

2. Social Impact of Online Advertising

In addition to affecting media content, online advertising can shape the consumer

culture toward even more impulsive purchases with the sophisticated use of clickable ads
 30

that facilitates immediate purchase. The highly targeted display online ads and forced

exposure online ad formats with immediately redeemable incentives or free trials can

exploit unscrupulous consumers. Which consumer groups are most vulnerable to online

offers can have significant policy implications. Furthermore, the use of the Internet for

self-promotion is particular rampant in social networking sites and video-sharing sites.

The most popular videos and home pages of individuals and organizations present a

challenge of mass creation of public imagery by private individuals. They construct a

hyped and fantasized realities of themselves for users worldwide. Reciprocal links have

become important tools for non-profit organizations to obtain advertising presence in

third-party sites. They are also deliberate messages that consumers may not be aware of

the exchanges. The blurring between editorial content and advertising messages online

will erode the trust of consumers to media content. The lack of legal or policy-related

issues and social impact of online advertising in advertising journal articles may indicate

that researchers do not see advertising journals as the prime outlets for submissions of

these topics. Perhaps a special call for papers on this topic will encourage submissions

on the social and legal aspects of online advertising in advertising journals.

3. Online Advertising Formats and Comparison with Other New Media

This review of online advertising research shows that consumer responses vary

by ad formats because the format affects advertising receptiveness and processing of

messages. As more and more new formats of online advertising are developing with the

advancement of computer and online technology, researchers need to better understand

the variety of online advertising formats available and identifying which advertising

format is most effective for different types of users. Especially it is quite clear from past
 31

research that Internet motive and experience of the Internet are factors that affect the

advertising process. Such research will enable advertisers to choose the right format for

their products. The differences in online advertising formats also have significant

implications to advertising media planning especially on the line of reach and frequency

estimation research that so far have not differentiated online ad formats.

Certain ad formats may be given more attention than others either by their

importance in current advertising expenditure or potential for growth in the future. For

example, search advertising and affiliate advertising which emphasize text-based

messages and contextual complementarity of the web content are either important

currently or are areas of growth as an online advertising category. The study of paid

links and text advertising will require a paradigmatic shift in the assumption of

advertising as just purely for image building. Visual is of no importance to such text-

based advertising. The information and reference value of advertising becomes all the

more important in search advertising and online affiliates.

In addition to competition in formats within online advertising, there is also a

strong need for research to compare the online medium with other new media

competition such as mobile phones and interactive TV as advertising medium. There is

plenty of research comparing the online medium with established media especially the

print media. A new or emerging advertising medium that faces similar and different

problems to online advertising can learn the lessons from online advertising and poses as

a competitor to online advertising. Perhaps business models of emerging media such as

Ha and Ganahl’s (2007) access-content-revenue model can shed some lights on this type

of research.
 32

4. Online Advertising for Digitalizable and Non-Digitalizable Products and Services

Product differences such as product involvement, brand familiarity and

functional and expressive products have been shown in this review that affect processing

of ad messages. Yet a more unique aspect of product types for online consideration as

suggested by Griffith and Chen’s (2004) study is the differentiation of digitalizable

products and non-digitalizable products. Digitalization also has implications on services

advertising. While the number of products that can be digitalized are limited and

primarily they are cultural, information based or entertainment–based media products,

many services are highly digitalizable with online transactions such as ticketing and other

information/communication services. Researchers can provide more insights on

appropriate advertising strategies for digitalizable products that can include product trial

and immediate delivery and consumption and for digitalizable services.

5. The interplay between advertiser-control elements and user-control elements in

online advertising

The interactive capability of the Internet means that users can have more control

and input to the advertising process. How much the advertiser can influence the choice

of the consumers when provided with competitive choices such as a product comparison

page can be very challenging and illuminating. Hence it is imperative to first identify the

advertiser control elements and the user-control elements in the advertising process and

understand the interplay between advertiser-control elements and the user-control

elements in the online advertising process. Researchers have to provide the elements that

advertisers can exert their influence on users and elements that are beyond their control

but can be known beforehand. For example, in understanding the processing of online
 33

advertising clutter, Ha and McCann’s (in press) integrated model of advertising clutter in

online media identifies the advertiser control elements and ways to understand the user

control elements for making better advertising decisions.

6. Assessment of Online Advertising Effectiveness

In the augural issue of Journal of Interactive Advertising, Pavlov and Stewart

(2000) propose a research agenda for measuring interactive advertising effectiveness.

Although online advertising effectiveness measures are not the same as interactive

advertising effectiveness measures, it will be useful to examine how their proposed

agenda have been adopted by online advertising effectiveness researchers. They suggest

the application of structuration theory to interactive advertising that involve the

identification of the ways in which consumers shape the production, reproduction, and

transformation of the advertising message, future products and services and relationships

with marketers and other consumers. But no research in this review examines the

consumer’s role in production of advertising messages. The two researchers recommend

two set of measures. The former focuses on media choice, information search, attention

to and processing of information. The latter focuses on the effects of consumers' using

interactive media such as awareness, recall, attitude, and product choice. Both sets of

measures have been employed by online advertising researchers. Yet the new measures

that they suggest such as personalization, participation, and comprehension, which is the

degree to which a claim reduces uncertainty and the extent to which it may reduce

equivocality, have not been employed or addressed in any online advertising studies in

this review.
 34

Advertising effectiveness measures should match the advertising objectives,

whether they use online or offline media. Clickthrough is the right measure if the only

objective of the ad is to generate direct response to the ad. Participation rate of a contest

or loyalty program may be used as a measure if customer engagement is the goal. But if

the objective is just to create interest or awareness of the brand, then other traditional

advertising effect measures such as brand recall, recognition should be used in

advertising effects study. Hence future online advertising studies should state the

advertising objectives that the researchers are interested to study and use appropriate

measures to test the achievement of those objectives. Then results across studies can be

comparable and collaborate with one another.

7. The international advertising implication and global impact of online advertising

Despite the global reach of the online medium, only two studies examine the

global implication of online advertising empirically. As language is one big problem in

international advertising, Warden, Lai and Wu’s (2002) study of Chinese Internet users in

Taiwan tests the effect of language of origin on their evaluation of products can be of

high significance to multinational advertisers. Their use of three languages: Chinese

(local), English and an unknown language show that products with high levels of

differentiation and requires information details will benefit from a local language. But for

products with low differentiation, there is no advantage to use a local language. English

is a good compromise if translation into many individual languages is a hassle. To those

who do not understand English, English is the same as any unknown language. Ju-Pak’s

(1999) comparison of US, UK and Korean banner ads show service marketers are the

primary advertisers across three countries, but they use different information cues and
 35

creative strategies. She discusses the importance of understanding cultural differences in

using the Web as a global advertising medium. The underdevelopment of online

advertising in many countries may account for the lack of research of studying online

advertising internationally. But international advertising researchers must pay attention to

this truly globally accessible medium to examine standardization and localization issues.

This review reveals the contribution of many non-US researchers on online advertising in

markets such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, France, Australia, United

Kingdom, and Sweden. There is great potential to conduct research on online advertising

strategies of global brands with international collaboration.

8. Incidental and Deliberate Advertising Exposure

Although this review focuses on advertising in third-party media, the author

realizes the importance of marketer-controlled product and company web sites in the

overall marketing communication mix. Web sites are an important tool for marketers to

create their online presence and build relationship with their customers and prospects.

They are destination sites for brands to contact their customers and prospects. Yet how

much consumers would need a third party-site to be exposed to promotional messages is

to be seen as the Internet evolves and consumers become more proficient in Web search.

The affiliate system in the online retail world, web site traffic studies and synergies

studies all point to the need for third-party sites to drive traffic to a marketer’s own site.

Direct contact with the brand through product web sites is important for consumers who

are already customers of the product or highly involved consumers to seek out for

product information on a web site. Incidental exposure is necessary especially if

advertising’s role is to build brands and popularity. The majority of consumers will not
 36

seek out product sites directly. Online advertising, as a form of advertising, still inherit

the incidental/low involvement learning nature of advertising. Future research should

identify the occurrence of incidental and deliberate exposures to online advertising and

compare the effects of different online advertising messages and formats on consumers. It

will further facilitate theory building of the online advertising process. The synergies

between destination web sites and online advertising should continue to be a research

theme to assess individual IMC campaigns and web site promotion as competition

intensified on the Web.

9. Methodological Research: Sampling and Experiment Data Collection

Many methodological issues especially on data collection need to be addressed in

future online research. In this author’s view, sampling is one of the most important

problems that needs lots of work and probably requires collaboration with researchers in

statistics, computer science and demography. Because of the difficulty to define the

Internet universe as an ever growing globally accessible medium, how to obtain a

representative sample of web sites or online advertisements to conduct analysis is a

problem. Unless researchers only limit their studies on leading web sites, web

advertising placed in smaller web sites and niche sites will always be under-represented.

Defining Internet users and usage contexts is another problem. Proficiency of Internet

use is a special audience qualification that does not exist in other established mass media.

Having Internet access does not mean they use the Internet at a level that meets the need

of the study and there is so much use of the Internet at work for business and personal use

that makes this medium so different from home-based media such as television and

newspapers.
 37

Future research may also need to resolve the difference and contradictions

between field data and lab experiment data. More support is needed from the online

industry to the academe to obtain access to replicate and verify results in lab experiments.

This is especially important in cases where traffic and usage data are crucial to the

research and are available from the site and advertiser. Unlike offline media where

neither the researcher nor the advertiser/media have access to complete usage data on a

regular basis, online researchers have the opportunity to verify with complete online log

data from the advertiser. Another way to approach this problem is to identify variables

that may confound the results in field data or lab data. The industry-academe

collaboration in data collection can improve the quality, reliability and validity of the

results of online advertising studies. For example, in advertising effectiveness studies,

lab experiments can be used as a trial basis to develop theory and test concepts, but

ultimately they should be subject to a test using real world data with confounding factors

identified.

10. Tracking and Longitudinal Studies to Examine Changes in Online Consumer

Behavior, Attitudes and Online Advertising Practices

Finally, researchers are strongly encouraged to conduct tracking and longitudinal

studies such as the changes in the proportion of unsolicited/incidental (e.g., banner ads)

vs. solicited/deliberate (e.g., search ads) ad exposure among online users over time,

changes in ad formats and use of rich media, changes in attitudes toward online

advertising by consumers and by practitioners. It is quite fundamental that advertisers

understand the dynamics of unsolicited and solicited advertising exposure to create

appropriate advertising strategies. The online world creates the opportunities of solicited
 38

advertising exposure and these exposures are available on demand of the consumers.

Because of the rapid growth in penetration of the online media and the quality of the

Internet connection greatly improves from dial up to broadband, users become more

experienced with the Web. Results from early studies that based on unsophisticated

online ads, low penetration, and narrowband connection will not be valid. Development

in online advertising technology can change the expectation of advertisers and consumers

on the information and entertainment value of advertising. As Internet usage continues to

grow worldwide, online advertising researchers are at the forefront of leading the way

and explaining the online advertising phenomena with many challenges lying ahead.
 39

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 46

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Table 1 Online Advertising Topic Areas Addressed in the Six Advertising Journals

Media Planning Advertising Effect

Attitudes Internet as an Interactivity in Online Ad Audience Online/offline Online
towards online ad medium online ad Processing/Execution Measurement advertising advertising
advertising synergies education
Consumers *Dreze & *Bezjian-Avery, *Cho (1999), *Lee & Leckenby *Maddox and Richards (2000),
*Ducoffe (1996), Zufryden (1998), Calder & Iacobucci Rogers & Thorson (1999), Darshan (1998), Daugherty & Reece
*Bracket & Carr *Leckenby & (1998), (2000), Coffey(2001), Schumann, Artis (2002)
(2001), Hong (1998), *Gallagher et al. Rossiter & Bellman Bhat, Bevans & and Rivera (2001),
*Yoon & Kim *Wood (1998), (2001a & b), (1999), Sengupta (2002), Ilfeld and Winer
(2001), *Shen (2002), *Liu & Shrum Pavlou & Stewart (2000) *Coyle & Gould (2002),
*Edwards, Li & *Papatla & (2002), *Cho, Lee and Tharp (2002), *Ha (2003),
Lee (2002), Bhatnagar (2002), *Chandon et al. (2001), *Morris et al. *Chang & Thorson
*Wolin et al. *Huang & Lin (2003), *Dahlen (2001), (2006) (2004),
(2002), (2006) *Griffith & Chen *Dou et a. (2001), *Kanso & Nelson
*Prendergast & (2004), Karson & Korgaonkar (2004)
Huang (2003), Sundar & Kim (2001),
*Cho & Cheon (2005), *Kimelfeld & Watt
(2004), (2001),
*Yang (2004) Lombard & Synder-Duch
(2001),
*Shamdasani et al.
Ad industry (2001),
*Fourquet-Coubert *Brown (2002),
et al. (2007) *Dahlen (2002),
*Rodgers & Chen *Menon & Soman
(2001), (2002),
*Sheehan & *Rodgers (2002),
Gleason (2001), *Rodgers & Sheldon
*Tan & Piron (2002),
(2002) *Sayta & Soman (2002),
Stern et al. (2002),
*Lohtia et al. (2003),
*Dahlen et al. (2004),
*Sundar &
 51

Kalyanaraman (2004),
*Xie et al. (2004),
*Yoo et al. (2004),
*Hollis (2005),
*Hupfer & Grey (2005),
*Moore et al. (2005),
*Appiah (2006),
*Burns & Lutz (2006),
*Rappaport (2007),
*Robinson et al. (2007),
*Rodgers et al. (2007)

* Empirical study
 52

Table 2 Online Ad Formats Studied

Banner Ads: Briggs & Hollis (1999), Cho (1999), Park (1999), Cho, Lee & Tharp (2001),
Dahlen (2001), Dahlen & Bergedahl (2001), Shamdasani, Stnaland & Tan (2001), Brown
(2002), Choi & Rifon (2002), Shen (2002), Rodgers (2002), Pashupati & Lee (2003),
Moore, Stammerjohn & Coutier (2005), Sundar & Kalyanaraman (2004), Xie et. al
(2004), Yoo, Kim & Stout (2004), Hupfer and Grey (2005), Fourquet-Courbet, Coubert
& Vanhuele (2007), Rodgers et al (2007), Robinson, Wysocka and Hand (2007),

Search Ads: Dou, Linn & Yang (2001), Muylle, Moenaert & Despontin (1999)

Pop-Up Ads: Edwards, Li & Lee (2002), Cho & Cheon (2004)

Rich Media Ads: Appiah (2006)

Other (e.g., online auctions, online affiliates): Papatla & Bhatnagar (2002), Rosenkrans
(2005)
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Figure 1

Online Advertising Research Paradigm

Attitudes toward advertising

Medium Credibility
Ad effectiveness
Product Involvement (clickthrough, recall,
recognition, purchase intent,
Product-Media Content Compatibility perceived risk, product evaluation,
arousal, attention)

Web Use Motives

Execution
- Interactivity
- Incentives
- Ad Size
- Message Appeals, Call to action, Exclusiveness
- Information
- Animation speed
- Message length
- Virtual direct experience

Brand Familiarity

Product Types
- Experience vs. Functional products

Audience Types
- Light vs. Heavy Web Users
- Consumers vs. Business People
- Visual vs. Verbal Thinkers

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Goal impediment Ad avoidance

Advertising clutter

Prior negative experience

54