THE MALLEABILITY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR - EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES OF PRESENTATION FORMATS ON CONSUMER CHOICE AND PERCEPTION

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Effects of Animation on Attentional Resources of Online Consumers

Websites commonly use animation to capture the attentional resources of online consumers. While prior research has focused on the effects of animation on animated banner ads, limited research has examined the effects of animation on other items on the same webpage. Drawing from psychological theories that the amount of an individual’s attentional resources may vary under different conditions, this study focuses on the effects of animation on how individuals allocate attentional resources to both the animated item and the remaining non-animated items. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment to follow online consumers’ visual attention while they performed two types of online shopping tasks: browsing and searching tasks. The results showed that a product item that used animation led to increased visual attention to all items on a webpage, which suggests that the amount of attentional resources increases when a webpage includes animation. Meanwhile, animation influenced how individuals allocate their attentional resources such that it increased visual attention on the animated item at the expense of attention on nonanimated items on the same webpage. In addition, the type of shopping task moderated animation’s effect on how individuals allocate their attentional resources. Specifically, animation’s effect on attracting attentional resources to the animated item was stronger when online consumers browsed than when they searched for a specific target item. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings

WEB ADVERTISING: WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT ITS ACCEPTANCE AND IMPACTS? - A META-ANALYSIS OF THE LITERATURE

Internet advertising market has grown rapidly over the past decade. Its annual revenue has reached around 21.1 billion in 2007, and more than half of Internet advertising is related to Web advertising. Web advertising affects the majority if not all web viewers who would encounter some Web ads at one time or the other when they are using the Web. With such a magnitude on investment and in influence, however, our understanding of Web ads is limited and fragmented. This study aims to provide a comprehensive picture of the state of research on Web advertising, especially its interaction with individual viewers. In this meta-analysis of more than sixty empirical research articles published from 1996 to 2007, we develop a framework of Web advertising research that can be used to demonstrate the research foci so far. Both dependent and independent variables can be classified with the framework. Our findings indicate that (1) empirical studies on Web advertising have considered features of four components and their interactions: viewer, Web Ad, ad host, and product/service being advertised. The impacts of Web ads have been found to be on viewers and viewers\u27 interactions with ads, hosts, and products/services. (2) The number of empirical research of Web advertising has increased gradually in different academic disciplines; however, the number is very insignificant compared to the growing Web advertising market and the broad influence of Web ads. (3) The study efforts are scattered and the findings are inconsistent and inconclusive. We conclude the existing studies and point out future research directions in this area

The Impact of Animated Banner Ads on Online Consumers: A Feature-Level Analysis Using Eye Tracking

Despite the popular use of animated banner ads on websites, extant research on the effects of web animation has generated mixed results. We argue that it is critical to identify feature-level animation characteristics and examine their individual and combined effects on capturing online consumers’ attention across different task conditions. We identify three key animation features (i.e., motion, lagging, and looming) based on three attention theories and investigate their effects on online consumers’ attention and recall across browsing and searching tasks in three laboratory experiments using an eye tracking machine. Experiment 1 found that both motion and looming (animation features) are effective in attracting online consumers’ attention to animated ads when they are performing a browsing task. However, combining a salient feature (e.g., motion) with another salient feature (e.g., looming) does not improve the original attention attraction effect, suggesting a “banner saturation” effect. Further, we found that online consumers’ attention positively affects their recall performance. In Experiment 2, none of the animation features or their interactions had a significant effect when the subjects were performing a searching task, indicating that task is an important boundary condition when applying attention theories. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 1 in a more realistic context and produced similar results. We conclude the paper by discussing theoretical and practical implications as well as avenues for future research

Online Banner Advertising: A study of Consumer Responses to Various Factors

This study explores the role of the celebrity endorsement in consumer attitude formation and behavioral intention on the Web. The purpose of this paper is to identify how the various factors and interactivity influence attitude toward the target ads and click-through intention. The findings indicate that the celebrity factor of the online advertising possibly play not only the role of leverage as causal effect when consumers form their attitude toward the banner advertising, but also that theses factors indirectly influence click-through intention. Key words: online banner, attitude, celebrity, animatio

Impacts Of Location And Animation On Internet Banner’s Clickthrough Rates

Internet banners have been under examinations in order to learn which design features could lead to high rates of clickthrough. Previous research has reported effects of banner animation and banner location; however, results are still inconclusive. This study thus attempts to compare clickthrough rates (1) between those on animating vs. stay-still banners and (2) between those on banners placed on top vs. in the middle of a screen. Data from a quasi experiment confirm (1) the difference between the clickthrough rates on animating banners and those on stay-still banners is not significant, but (2) the difference between the rates on banners positioned on the top and those positioned in the middle of the screen is statistically significant at a 0.05 level. In addition to extending insight into design issues of Internet banners practicing in Thailand, practitioners could adjust their online advertising campaigns based on the study’s findings

Can Online Wait Be Managed? The Effect of Filler Interfaces and Presentation Modes on Perceived Waiting Time Online

This is the published version. Copyright 2012 MIS Quarterly.Long waits online undermine users’ evaluations of Web sites and their providers, triggering abandonment behaviors. Yet e-business researchers and practitioners have not perfected mechanisms to respond to online wait issues. A filler interface that runs during the wait for search results may influence online users’ perceived waiting time (PWT); however, no scientific investigation has attempted to design effective filler interfaces for managing online waits. By adopting resource allocation theory, cognitive absorption theory, and human computer interaction (HCI) theories (competition for attention, visual search, and motion effect), we design diverse filler interfaces and investigate their effects on antecedents of PWT. The proposed research model considers cognitive absorption factors such as temporal dissociation, focused immersion, and heightened enjoyment as antecedents of PWT, which in turn triggers three outcomes: affective appraisals, cognitive appraisals, and Web site use intention. A multistage, multimethod approach is used to test the research hypotheses. In the first stage, we compare a filler interface condition with a no-filler interface condition, and find the superiority of a filler interface with respect to inducing focused immersion and temporal dissociation. In the second stage, we conduct two controlled experiments to examine whether filler interfaces with various designs (varying the presence and relevance of image, text, and image motion) distinctly influence antecedents of PWT and confirm their distinctive effects on focused immersion, temporal dissociation, and heightened enjoyment. In addition, by conducting a structural equation modeling analysis, we find that our research model explains 51 percent, 51 percent, 44 percent, and 45 percent of the variance in PWT, affective appraisals, cognitive appraisals, and Web site use intention respectively. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are provided

The influence of animated spokes-character actions and vocalizations on preschoolers\u27 product knowledge and preferences

This research examined the influence that an animated advertising spokescharacter has on preschool children’s product knowledge and preferences. The research tested the influence of spokes-character actions and vocalizations in a modified hierarchy of effects model by interviewing 158 two- to five-year-olds about televised experimental advertisements. Results of this research show that in general, preschool aged children retain more information when exposed to commercials with spokes-character action, but few spokes-character voices. Preschoolers did not appear to follow a hierarchical pattern from product/character recognition to product choice. In addition, an advertising spokes-character was found to have high recognition and liking, but little influence on product preference or product choice. The most interesting findings of this research pertain to differential responses by subgroups of preschoolers. Young boys were found to respond most favorably to commercials depicting the spokes-character acting on the product (e.g., eating the product). Young girls however, either showed no differences in response given the character’s action, or responded most favorably to random character action (e.g. jumping up and down). In addition, two-year-old children were found to retain more message content after viewing a commercial with directed character action. These findings demonstrate that more understanding is needed of the influence that spokescharacters have on young children’s consumer behavior