Online Advertisment
1. Introduction to Internet Advertising (IA)
The Internet as a marketing medium offers many unique challenges to marketers. To assist marketers in their venture on-line, comparisons and contrasts to existing marketing theory have been used to build a conceptual understanding of the current state of the Internet and its implications for consumer transactions (cf., Hoffman and Novak, 1996a; Hoffman, Novak and Chatterjee, 1995; Schlosser and Kanfer, forthcoming). To further understand the commercial possibilities of the Internet, several internet usage surveys have been conducted to document consumers’ behavior online (the most notable being GVU, 1999 and the HERMES project by Gupta, 1995; see Hoffman, Kalsbeek, and Novak, 1996, for a review). Yet, in terms of assessing the commercial effectiveness of the Internet and the value of Internet advertising, most research has concentrated upon the company’s rather than consumers’ point of view (Berthon, Pitt, and Watson, 1996). As a result, many decisions regarding Internet advertising (IA) are being made with relatively little specific knowledge about consumers’ attitudes toward IA and how the structure of these IA attitudes compare to the structure of attitudes toward advertising in traditional media. The aim of the current research is to examine consumers’ perceptions and judgments of IA.
Consumers’ attitudes toward advertising have been considered important to track because they likely influence consumers’ exposure, attention, and reaction to individual ads (cf. Alwitt and Prabhakar, 1992) through a variety of cognitive and affective process (Lutz, 1985). One fundamental difference between Internet and traditional advertising is the degree to which the consumer versus the company has control over advertising exposure. With traditional advertising, consumers play a relatively inactive role in exposure. Advertisements interrupt or intercept consumers’ attention to other information (e.g, a television program, a radio
The Internet as a marketing medium offers many unique challenges to marketers. To assist marketers in their venture on-line, comparisons and contrasts to existing marketing theory have been used to build a conceptual understanding of the current state of the Internet and its implications for consumer transactions (cf., Hoffman and Novak, 1996a; Hoffman, Novak and Chatterjee, 1995; Schlosser and Kanfer, forthcoming). To further understand the commercial possibilities of the Internet, several internet usage surveys have been conducted to document consumers’ behavior online (the most notable being GVU, 1999 and the HERMES project by Gupta, 1995; see Hoffman, Kalsbeek, and Novak, 1996, for a review). Yet, in terms of assessing the commercial effectiveness of the Internet and the value of Internet advertising, most research has concentrated upon the company’s rather than consumers’ point of view (Berthon, Pitt, and Watson, 1996). As a result, many decisions regarding Internet advertising (IA) are being made with relatively little specific knowledge about consumers’ attitudes toward IA and how the structure of these IA attitudes compare to the structure of attitudes toward advertising in traditional media. The aim of the current research is to examine consumers’ perceptions and judgments of IA.
Consumers’ attitudes toward advertising have been considered important to track because they likely influence consumers’ exposure, attention, and reaction to individual ads (cf. Alwitt and Prabhakar, 1992) through a variety of cognitive and affective process (Lutz, 1985). One fundamental difference between Internet and traditional advertising is the degree to which the consumer versus the company has control over advertising exposure. With traditional advertising, consumers play a relatively inactive role in exposure. Advertisements interrupt or intercept consumers’ attention to other information (e.g, a television program, a radio