Where to place online advertisements? The commercialization congruence between online advertising and web site context

1. IntroductionThe Internet is a powerful marketing information medium [Kaiser & Bodendorf, 2012]. The number of Internet users worldwide is increasing dramatically every year [Hanafizadeh et al., 2012; Jansen & Schuster, 2011]. According to Yaakop and Hemsley-Brown [2013], the average rate of Internet users has increased globally by 445% over the past decade. Therefore, advertisers are increasingly relying on online advertising to promote their products and services to potential customers [Sanje & Senol, 2012]. Accordingly, identifying the influential factors of online advertising effectiveness has become a popular research field.In an online environment, it is difficult to avoid Internet advertising. Advertisements are ubiquitous on the Internet, and are more disorganized than traditional advertisements because of lower creation and insertion costs [Yaakop & Hemsley-Brown, 2013]. This factor encourages advertisers to insert advertisements into every possible online space. However, not every advertisement is suitable for placement on every Web site. To understand how to attain greater advertisement effectiveness, online or physical advertising-related research has addressed the influence of congruence between media context and advertising on the effectiveness of advertising [Campbell & Wright, 2008]. Most of these studies can be categorized into three types of congruence: (a) subject congruence, which is the match and mismatch between the product being advertised and the media context (e.g., vehicle advertisements placed on an automotiverelated Web site; Moore et al., 2005; Newman et al., 2004; Shamdasani et al., 2001); (b) sponsorship congruence, defined as the similarities between the sponsor and the sponsee (e.g., Nike sponsoring an NBA event; Kamins & Gupta, 1994; McDaniel, 1999; Rifon et al., 2004; Roy, 2010; Woisetschlager & Michaelis, 2012); and (c) attribute congruence, which represents the congruence of affect, emotion, and implications between advertising and media (e.g., TV comedy programs followed by humorous advertising, such as an insurance ad printed on a fragile eggshell; Dahlen, 2005; Goldberg & Gorn, 1987; Pelsmacker et al., 2002). These studies have shown that advertisements considering the congruence between advertising and media contexts are more effective than those that are incongruous.In addition to the three categories of congruence, we identified a fourth type. Advertisements and the media context can be separated into commercial and noncommercial categories. In practice, because of the low insertion costs in the online environment, advertisers commonly insert commercial advertisements into Web sites that are noncommercial in nature to exposure information as much as possible; for instance, the Taiwan Cyclist Federation (www.cyclist.org.tw) is a noncommercial association promoting cycling sports, but a number of commercial and noncommercial advertisements are embedded into their official Web site. Another example is WGBH (http://www.wgbh.org/), which is a noncommercial public medium that provides educational content for New England, the United States, and more generally for users worldwide. The mentioned commercial insurance advertisement can be found on their site. Finally, although Michiganradio (http://michiganradio.org/) is a platform for a noncommercial public radio station, numerous commercial banners are placed on this site. However, the purpose of browsing Web sites varies according to the different types of sites. Users who browse noncommercial Web sites do so typically for noncommercial information-searching purposes, rather than intending to purchase or consume. Conversely, for commercial Web sites, users may be motivated to browse for consumption. Thus, when commercial advertisements are placed on noncommercial Web sites or vice versa, it intuitively appears to be inappropriate. However, even commercialization between the media context and advertising is incongruous, and the other three congruence categories mentioned between advertising and the media context may still be congruent. …