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10 1 1 318 8823
10 1 1 318 8823
Abstract
Virtual experience has begun to play a significant role in the marketing and promotion for the tourism industry. This article
demonstrates that the advertising effects of traditional brochures vs. virtual experience would be contingent on consumers’ cognitive
preferences. The traditional use of brochures in advertising would be more effective for verbalizers, whereas the virtual experience mode
would be more effective for visualizers. Under a hybrid of the two advertising modes, a recency effect was found indicating that the
subsequent or more recently experienced advertising mode would generate a greater impact. Moreover, the recency effect of traditional
brochures was more apparent for verbalizers, whereas the recency effect of virtual experience was more pronounced for visualizers. The
findings provide insights into the contingent use of traditional brochures, the use of virtual experience, and the use of hybrid advertising.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
0261-5177/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2007.03.016
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W.-B. Chiou et al. / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 146–150 147
experience actually gives consumers the chance to get a feel belief updating: primacy and recency (Haugtvedt &
of their travel destinations on the Internet. Therefore, the Wegener, 1994; Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992). Generally, an
preferred medium for advertising scenic spots has gradually order effect exists when an outcome, based on a fixed set of
turned from the traditional brochure to virtual experience phenomena, varies with the order in which the phenomena
(Fang & Lie, 2006). occur. Primacy is obtained when the relative weight
accorded to the first piece of the evidences is the greatest.
2. Review of literature and hypotheses Recency is obtained when the relative weight accorded to
the last piece of the evidences is the greatest.
2.1. Cognitive preference as a moderator Previous researchers (Haugtvedt & Wegener, 1994;
Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992) have stated that the presenta-
Previous studies on virtual experience have focused tion order of advertising information would affect con-
mostly on how virtual experience affects consumers (Li, sumers’ information processing. The primacy effect refers
Daugherty, & Biocca, 2001). However, consumer research- to previous information exhibiting greater effect than
ers have been increasingly interested in how cognitive subsequent information, whereas the recency effect refers
personality factors influence various aspects of consumer to subsequent information generating greater effect than
behavior. One cognitive personality factor in particular, earlier information (Curtis & Duane, 1994). Therefore,
cognitive preference (visualizers vs. verbalizers), has been when marketers in the tourism industry advertise products
useful in understanding selected aspects of consumer by adopting both virtual experience and brochures, they
behavior (Paivio, 1991). Cognitive preference refers to an should consider message order effects. Moreover, the order
individual’s style of or inclination in information proces- effect would be contingent on consumers’ cognitive
sing, which is closely related to personal preference but not preferences, under the hypothesis that depicts the interplay
to intellectuality (Riding & Douglas, 1993). In principle, of advertising mode and cognitive preference.
cognitive personality research classifies consumers into two The first study generally examined whether the differ-
groups: visualizers (consumers who prefer visual informa- ential advertising effects between virtual experience and
tion and products that stress the visual, such as member- traditional brochures would be contingent on consumers’
ship in a videotape club) or verbalizers (consumers who cognitive preferences. The second study, aimed to deter-
prefer written or verbal information and products, such as mine whether the cognitive preferences of consumers would
membership in book clubs or audiotape clubs). influence the order effects when virtual experience and
To compare the effects of visualizing and verbalizing traditional brochures were used consecutively in advertis-
styles on memory, previous studies have supported the idea ing scenic spots.
that people differ in their predisposition to remember
details from verbal or visual information (Riding & 3. Experiment 1
Ashmore, 1980; Riding, Burton, Rees, & Sharratt, 1995).
Some people use fewer images and rely mostly on verbal 3.1. Participants and design
material, whereas others remember better from visual
material (Riding & Douglas, 1993). Because of the In the recruitment of participants, Singh, Lessig, Kim,
differences in the consumers’ cognitive preferences, mar- Gupta, and Hocutt (2000) suggested that the effects of
keters should consider how cognitive preference moderates advertising on students and the common masses are
the effects of verbal and visual materials, so that they may similar. Hence, it was appropriate to use college students
know what mode of advertising to choose in order to as participants in this research. In Study 1, the Ping-Tung
achieve better advertising results. The findings about the Indigenous People Cultural Park in Taiwan was used as the
moderating effect of consumers’ cognitive preferences on advertising target. Respondents were 104 college students
advertising effects may provide further insights into the who participated in a 2 (cognitive preference: verbalizers
interplay of cognitive preference and advertising mode vs. visualizers) 2 (advertising mode: traditional brochure
(virtual experience vs. traditional brochure). More specifi- vs. virtual experience) between-subjects design.
cally, it was predicted that visualizers, when compared with
verbalizers, would be more influenced by virtual experience 3.2. Independent variables
than by traditional brochures. On the other hand,
verbalizers, when compared with visualizers, would be Cognitive preference was treated as a subject variable in
more affected by traditional brochures than by virtual this experimental study. The verbal and visual cognitive
experience. styles scales (CSS) developed by Kirby, Moore, and
Schofield (1988) were not employed in the present research,
2.2. The order effect and hybrid advertising using both because this self-report measure is relatively subjective.
brochures and virtual experience Participants’ cognitive preference was determined by a
free recall task that was designed to differentiate their
Researchers in marketing, psychology, and many other relative advantage in information processing between
disciplines have identified two types of order effects in visual items and verbal items. Participants’ recall rate
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148 W.-B. Chiou et al. / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 146–150
regarding the visual- and verbal-item task was used to seven-point scale (from totally disagree to totally agree).
represent their relative advantage in processing visual or The purchase intent that consisted of three items was
verbal information. measured on a seven-point scale (from totally disagree to
For the classification of consumers’ cognitive prefer- totally agree). After viewing the ad, participants were asked
ences, participants whose recall rate in the visual-item task to rate the advertising effect on the three scales. High
was higher than that in the verbal-item task by at least half scores represent greater advertising attitude, brand atti-
of the standard deviation of rate differences were placed in tude, and purchase intent.
the ‘‘visualizers’’ group, whereas participants who per-
formed better in the verbal-item task were placed in the
3.4. Results
‘‘verbalizers’’ group. Those participants who did not show
a significant rate difference between the two kinds of recall
To test our hypotheses, participants’ responses were
tasks were excluded from the subject pool. Among the
submitted to a 2 (cognitive preference: verbalizers vs.
participants, there were 52 verbalizers and 52 visualizers.
visualizers) 2 (advertising mode: brochure vs. virtual
The contrasted-group method was used to test whether the
experience) between-subjects MANOVA (Table 1).
recall task was valid to discriminate between participants’
The main effect of the advertising mode was obtained,
cognitive preferences. The visualizers (M ¼ 3.46, SD ¼
F(3, 98) ¼ 4.18, po0.01. The advertising effect under the
0.92) scored higher on the visual subscale of the CCS with a
virtual experience mode was significantly greater than that
five-point scale than did the verbalizers (M ¼ 2.44,
under the traditional brochure mode. More importantly,
SD ¼ 0.80), with t(102) ¼ 6.03, po0.001. In contrast, the
MANOVA revealed a significant interaction of cognitive
verbalizers (M ¼ 3.63, SD ¼ 0.82) scored higher on the
preference and advertising mode, F(3, 98) ¼ 22.66, po
verbal subscale of the CCS than did the visualizers
0.001. For the participants who were visualizers, the
(M ¼ 2.56, SD ¼ 0.85), with t(102) ¼ 6.59, po0.01. Re-
advertising effect of virtual experience was more prominent
sults showed that the recall task employed in the present
than that of traditional brochure, F(3, 48) ¼ 9.17,
research was satisfactory for measuring participants’
po0.001. On the other hand, the advertising effect of
cognitive preferences.
traditional brochures was more pronounced than that of
The advertising mode was manipulated between subjects.
virtual experience for those who were verbalizers,
Both verbalizers and visualizers were randomly assigned to
F(3, 48) ¼ 19.93, po0.001.
either the traditional brochure condition or the virtual
experience condition. Half of the participants received the
virtual experience advertising, whereas the other half 4. Experiment 2
received the traditional brochure advertising.
4.1. Methodology
3.3. Dependent measures
In the second study, respondents were 136 college
The dependent measure was the advertising effect as students who participated in this study for course credit.
determined by the advertising attitude scale developed by They were assigned to a 2 (cognitive preference: visualizers
Gardner (1985), the brand attitude scale developed by vs. verbalizers) 2 (presentation order: virtual experience
Lafferty and Goldsmith (1999), and the purchase intent followed by traditional brochure vs. traditional brochure
scale developed by McKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986). followed by virtual experience) between-subjects design.
Both the advertising attitude scale and the brand attitude Among the participants were 52 verbalizers and 84
scale that consisted of four items each were rated on a visualizers.
Table 1
Advertising effect of cognitive preference by advertising mode
M SD M SD M SD
Verbalizers (n ¼ 52)
Traditional brochure 5.13 0.83 4.89 1.02 5.04 1.08
Virtual experience 3.86 0.95 4.19 0.81 4.41 1.15
Visualizers (n ¼ 52)
Traditional brochure 3.81 0.70 3.84 0.68 4.00 0.96
Virtual experience 4.95 0.84 5.22 0.78 5.64 0.93
Note: Each experimental condition consisted of 26 participants. Advertising attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intent were all rated on a seven-point
scale.
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W.-B. Chiou et al. / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 146–150 149
the hypotheses in this research. Future research may utilize Kirby, J. R., Moore, P. J., & Schofield, N. J. (1988). Verbal and visual
different types of scenic spots and examine whether the learning styles. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 13, 169–184.
Klein, L. (1998). Evaluating the potential of interactive media through a
advertising effects of traditional brochures vs. virtual
new lens: Search vs. experience goods. Journal of Business Research,
experience would be contingent upon the types of scenic 41(3), 195–203.
spots involved. Lafferty, B. A., & Goldsmith, R. E. (1999). Corporate credibility’s role in
In sum, this article enhances our understanding of the consumers’ attitude and purchase intentions when a high versus a low
usage of virtual experience in advertising products in the credibility endorser is used in the ad. Journal of Business Research,
tourism industry. Consumers’ cognitive preferences might 44(2), 109–116.
Li, H., Daugherty, T., & Biocca, F. (2001). Characteristics of virtual
interact with the advertising modes to determine the experience in electronic commerce: A protocol analysis. Journal of
advertising effects. Marketers may benefit from the Interactive Marketing, 15(3), 13–30.
applications of the findings observed in the present Lombard, M., Snyder, J., Campanella, C., Kaynak, M. S., Pemrick, J.,
research, particularly when deciding on the appropriate Linder et al. (1997). The cluttering of television. In Paper presented at
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international communication association, Montreal, Canada.
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