The development and testing of a child-inspired advertising disclosure to alert children to digital and embedded advertising

Via three studies, this article aims to develop and test an advertising disclosure which is understandable for children (ages six to 12 years old) and which can alert them to different types of advertising in multiple media formats. First, cocreation workshops with 24 children (ages eight to 11 years old) were held to determine a selection of disclosure designs based on insights from the target group. Second, two eye-tracking studies among 32 children (ages six to 12 years old) were conducted to test which of these disclosure designs attracted the most attention when the disclosures were integrated into a media context. These studies led to the selection of the final advertising disclosure: a black rectangular graphic with the word Reclame! (i.e., Dutch for "Advertising!") in yellow letters. Finally, a two-by-two, between-subjects experimental study (disclosure design: existing versus child-inspired advertising disclosure; advertising format: brand placement versus online banner advertising) with 157 children (ages 10 and 11 years old) was performed to test the effectiveness of the child-inspired disclosure by comparing it with existing ones. This study not only showed that children recognized, understood, and liked the child-inspired disclosure better than the existing ones, but they were also better able to recognize advertising after exposure to this child-inspired advertising disclosure

YouTube advertising: Exploring its effectiveness

Advertising on YouTube is becoming increasingly popular due to its large potential in engaging existing and new target audiences via highly interactive video advertisements. However, YouTube is criticised for providing mostly lower value user-generated content. This leads to major concerns among marketers regarding how resources can be allocated most efficiently across channels and how effective YouTube is as an advertising channel. The purpose of this study is to evaluate existing literature exploring the effectiveness of YouTube advertising. This research contributes to academic literature by compiling a set of measures to assess advertising effectiveness and identifying factors affecting it in the context of online video advertising. In order to identify relevant criteria and frameworks for evaluating advertising effectiveness in the context of YouTube video advertising, the characteristics of social media and online video advertising were analysed and the theoretical foundations of online advertising were established

A comparison of three interactive television AD formats

This study explores the effects of interacting with three current interactive television (iTV) ad formats, using an Australian audience panel. Interaction with iTV ads has positive effects on awareness and net positive thoughts, which increase purchase intentions compared with the influence of regular ads. The telescopic format represents the best format, likely because it makes the most of the entertaining possibilities of iTV by offering additional long-form video; its superior performance cannot be explained readily by self-selection effects. The results suggest that the effectiveness of iTV ads should be measured by their interaction rate rather than the much smaller response rate, and iTV advertisers should consider ways to maximize interaction and response rates

Interactive searching and browsing of video archives: using text and using image matching

Over the last number of decades much research work has been done in the general area of video and audio analysis. Initially the applications driving this included capturing video in digital form and then being able to store, transmit and render it, which involved a large effort to develop compression and encoding standards. The technology needed to do all this is now easily available and cheap, with applications of digital video processing now commonplace, ranging from CCTV (Closed Circuit TV) for security, to home capture of broadcast TV on home DVRs for personal viewing. One consequence of the development in technology for creating, storing and distributing digital video is that there has been a huge increase in the volume of digital video, and this in turn has created a need for techniques to allow effective management of this video, and by that we mean content management. In the BBC, for example, the archives department receives approximately 500,000 queries per year and has over 350,000 hours of content in its library. Having huge archives of video information is hardly any benefit if we have no effective means of being able to locate video clips which are of relevance to whatever our information needs may be. In this chapter we report our work on developing two specific retrieval and browsing tools for digital video information. Both of these are based on an analysis of the captured video for the purpose of automatically structuring into shots or higher level semantic units like TV news stories. Some also include analysis of the video for the automatic detection of features such as the presence or absence of faces. Both include some elements of searching, where a user specifies a query or information need, and browsing, where a user is allowed to browse through sets of retrieved video shots. We support the presentation of these tools with illustrations of actual video retrieval systems developed and working on hundreds of hours of video content

Children's advertising literacy : empowering children to cope with advertising. A multiperspective inquiry into children's abilities to critically process contemporary advertising

The present dissertation has germinated from AdLit (short for Advertising Literacy), which is a nearly completed four-year interdisciplinary research project (2014- 2018) funded by VLAIO (Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship). This project is based on a collaboration between 19 researchers at four Flemish Universities (UGent, KUL, UA & VUB) and various stakeholders in the realm of policy, society, education and marketing. The main goal of AdLit is to examine how minors can be empowered to cope with contemporary advertising, and hence become critical consumers that independently make conscious and well-informed choices. To date, this has been achieved by investigating the current levels of advertising literacy in Flanders and how these can be increased, and by examining how regulation and policy can protect minors. In this process, numerous research reports and scientific publications have been delivered, and socially valorized (e.g. by spreading brochures, videos, games and educational material to parents, teachers, educators, advertisers and the minors themselves). The current thesis bundles the theoretical essays and empirical studies conducted by the PhD candidate at the Center for Persuasive Communication (CEPEC) within the Department of Communication Sciences (Ghent University), who specifically focuses on investigating and improving the advertising literacy of children for the advertising formats they are currently targeted with. As made clear in each of the following chapters in more detail, this particular focus is motivated by the observation that children today are not only exposed to advertising more frequently than ever, but also to many ‘new’ forms of advertising. Most characteristic is that these integrate advertising in highly entertaining and engaging media formats, such as movies, videogames and YouTube vlogs. It is generally indicated that, as children are still developing, they will more consciously engage with this explicit, immersive content, rather than with the implicit, commercial content. Thereby they are unlikely to muster the necessary motivation and cognitive resources to cope critically with the embedded advertising, and to develop the relevant advertising literacy needed to deal with future exposure to advertisements using similar tactics. Ultimately, this implies that children are most vulnerable to preconscious and possibly unwanted persuasion. These concerns have sparked a lively debate, which seems to be dominated by two major assumptions. In particular, it is thought that 1) children are unable to adequately cope with contemporary advertising, though 2) can they can be enabled to deal with advertising, but only through ‘affective defense mechanisms’ – that is, by encouraging resistance through having them evoke negative attitudes when confronted with advertising. As these assumptions may have far-reaching consequences for the societal and political approach of this topic – for instance, adherence to protection or restriction versus empowerment – the present dissertation scrutinizes their validity using a variety of academic perspectives and methods. More specifically, it is examined 1) whether 8- to 12-year-old children have the potential to cope with these ad formats, and 2) whether they can be enabled to do so in a conscious, well-advised, cognitively elaborate and critical manner (on the moment of exposure), rather than through affective defenses only. To meet these goals, the first three chapters aim to deepen and expand insights on children’s abilities to cope with the current, mostly embedded advertising formats directed at them. In particular, the first chapter provides a theoretically grounded conceptual framework on which to build subsequent research, reckoning with children’s developmental skills. Here it is argued that investigating their advertising coping abilities may require the consideration of multiple, mutually interacting types and dimensions of advertising literacy. Thereby it is proposed for researchers to adopt the concept of moral advertising literacy, or at least to acknowledge the importance of evaluating advertising practices – which are of an increasingly covert nature – in a moral manner. The second chapter builds on this conceptualization to deliver a critical overview of methods and instruments used in extant literature to measure children’s advertising literacy, as methodological issues may have been partially responsible for the inconsistent findings with regard to children’s coping abilities. On this basis, suitable ways are recommended to assess this concept according to age-related psychological development, for instance by using illustrated questionnaires or qualitative interviews for children in late childhood. The third chapter uses the latter method, and more specifically draws on 12 focus groups (using child-friendly eliciting and probing techniques) including 60 children of ages 9-11 years, to further explore the newly proposed concept of moral advertising literacy. This study demonstrates that when children are made aware of implicit advertising tactics and their effectiveness, they have the potential to critically reflect on these, and more specifically to evaluate the appropriateness of these advertising practices with possible consequences for others in mind. Having established children’s potential for critical thinking about advertising in the current context, the following three chapters of this dissertation aim to explore how certain interventions or strategies may enable them to acquire the relevant advertising literacy, and use it at the moment of exposure. As it is desirable for such interventions to ascertain which social actors can be involved to most efficiently impart advertising literacy on children, the fourth chapter first explores the role of parents, peers (here: classmates) and teachers in transferring and exchanging advertising-related knowledge, skills and beliefs. Using the appropriate multilevel analysis techniques on data from 9- to 12-year-old children (n = 392), their peer group (children aggregated per class; n = 22), their parents (n = 191), and their teachers (n = 22), it is found that children’s cognitive and attitudinal advertising literacy is strongly influenced by their classmates – suggesting they could be attributed an empowering role in children’s development of the respective advertising literacy dimensions. Moral advertising literacy proves to be more influenced by children’s teacher, albeit in a remarkable manner – ultimately suggesting to focus first on updating teachers’ (and parents’) advertising literacy, especially for the newer formats. Finally, the fifth and sixth chapter use previous insights to develop and test various strategies and interventions designed to help children cope more effectively with embedded, entertaining and engaging advertising formats when the need arises. Chapter 5 focuses on sponsorship disclosure by testing whether the effectiveness of an advertising warning cue depends on specific characteristics, and more specifically its perceptual modality (S1, n = 98) and its timing (S2, n = 142). Here it is demonstrated that a visual forewarning cue (rather than an auditory or concurrently shown cue) most adequately triggers 8- to 10-year-old children’s advertising literacy for brand placement in TV programs and movies. In chapter 6, it is shown that for advertising embedded in a highly engaging media format, namely a sponsored YouTube vlog, a more implicit strategy based on priming (preceded by education) is more effective in activating 5th- and 6th-grade primary school children’s (n = 240) advertising literacy. Moreover, in both chapters it is demonstrated that the advertising literacy as triggered by these interventions does succeed in altering outcomes desired by the advertiser, but in a manner that depends on children’s evaluation of the advertising tactics. Concluding that children can also be empowered to critically process contemporary, embedded advertising when confronted with it, the seventh and last chapter discusses the implications this conclusion may have for the current political and societal approach of children and advertising – thereby identifying opportunities for developing interventions that may help them grow toward independent, critical consumers that make well-informed judgments and (purchase) decisions

Conceptual design model of interactive television advertising: towards influencing impulse purchase tendency

Previous research indicates the importance of content creation development in interactive television (iTV) advertising, which could bring the opportunities for advertisers to increase the effectiveness and interactivity of the iTV advertising. Impulse purchase is one of the important factors that influence consumers to purchase product. Previous studies revealed that impulse purchase behavior has been studied in different medium such as website, traditional television, and retail store. However, those studies are not dedicated to design models to increase impulse purchase tendency on iTV advertising. Hence, this study focuses on the development of a Conceptual Design Model of Interactive Television Advertising that could influence impulse purchase tendency. The model is shortnamed as iTVAdIP. Four (4) specific objectives were formulated: (i) to identify relevant impulse purchase components for iTV advertising, (ii) to develop a conceptual design model and a conformity tool of the iTVAdIP that embed impulse purchase tendency elements, (iii) to validate the proposed conceptual design model, and (iv) to measure the perceived influence of the conceptual design model elements on impulse purchase tendency. This study followed design science research methodology. The conceptual design model was validated through expert review. Then, an instrument was developed to measure the perceived influence of the conceptual design model. Eight dimensions were elicited from various relevant studies to form the instrument which are perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, clarity, flexibility, visibility, applicability, satisfaction and motivation. A total of 37 potential advertising designers participated in this study. The results show that all dimensions are significantly correlated to the overall perceived influence, and the mean score of the overall perceived influence is high. Therefore, it is concluded that the iTVAdIP conceptual design model with its proposed elements is perceived as able to influence impulse purchase tendency. The iTVAdIP conceptual design model together with the conformity tool are the main contributions of this study. Both can be adopted as impulse purchase design guidelines for the advertising designers particularly the novice ones

Screen real estate ownership based mechanism for negotiating advertisement display

As popularity of online video grows, a number of models of advertising are emerging. It is typically the brokers – usually the operators of websites – who maintain the balance between content and advertising. Existing approaches focus primarily on personalizing advertisements for viewer segments, with minimal decision-making capacity for individual viewers. We take a resource ownership view on this problem. We view consumers’ attention space, which can be abstracted as a display screen for an engaged viewer, as precious resource owned by the viewer. Viewers pay for the content they wish to view in dollars, as well as in terms of their attention. Specifically, advertisers may make partial payment for a viewer’s content, in return for receiving the viewer’s attention to their advertising. Our approach, named “FlexAdSense”, is based on CyberOrgs model, which encapsulates distributed owned resources for multi-agent computations. We build a market of viewers’ attention space in which advertisers can trade, just as viewers can trade in a market of content. We have developed key mechanisms to give viewers flexible control over the display of advertisements in real time. Specific policies needed for automated negotiations can be plugged-in. This approach relaxes the exclusivity of the relationship between advertisers and brokers, and empowers viewers, enhancing their viewing experience. This thesis presents the rationale, design, implementation, and evaluation of FlexAdSense. Feature comparison with existing advertising mechanisms shows how FlexAdSense enables viewers to control with fine-grained flexibility. Experimental results demonstrate the scalability of the approach, as the number of viewers increases. A preliminary analysis of user overhead illustrates minimal attention overhead for viewers as they customize their policies