Effectiveness of Online Advertisement Factors in Recalling a Product

ABSTRACT The emerging area of interactive advertising presents fresh challenges for advertisers who have hitherto adopted interruptive strategies. This paper explores various online advertisement factors that motivate consumers to recall online advertisements. A data-driven model and quantitative approach was applied to over 3,400 participants who provided responses to a questionnaire. The collected data was filtered and 858 (25 percent) respondents met the predefined categories. Several factors and their effectiveness were examined. The results revealed that embedded videos, price, product or services, along with credibility make online advertisements a very effective tool in motivating consumers in recalling online advertisements and eventually making business transactions. The research concluded that advertisers need to advertise their product or service based on what the consumers want in their advertisement. Banner plan text advertisement, floating advertisement, pop-up advertisement, and music advertisements are not as effective as embedded video which enhance online advertisement and motivate consumers. The result of this research study provides useful tools for both the consumer and the business owner. INTRODUCTION The emerging area of interactive advertising presents new challenges for advertisers who have hitherto adopted an interruptive strategy. In contrast to conventional forms of interruptive advertising, the viewer has actually chosen to see the commercial. This new mindset, not surprisingly, holds for the way in which the audience is willing to engage with ads. Online advertising reduces costs, increases efficiency, provides more flexibility and as a global medium, the Internet enables buyers and sellers to interact and manage business transactions. The promotion of online sales and advertising revenue in the US has grown from $8.23 billion in 2000 to $12.5 billion in 2005. According to a survey conducted by the American Advertising Federation, the percentage of media budgets allocated to online advertising represented 14.1% in 2005, a figure that is projected to hit 1 9. 1 % by 2006. Perhaps it is its immediate responds that make online advertising one of the fastest growing methods of targeting consumers (Homer, 2005). However, there have been growing concerns about invasion of privacy Aaker & Stayman, 2005) and access to advanced technology. From the buyer's perspective, the limitations include the inability to touch, smell and taste or try-on tangible goods before making an online purchase. A survey of 410 marketing executives indicated that insufficient ability to measure impact, a lack of internal capability, and difficulty convincing senior management as the top three barriers to entry for large companies looking to market online. However, as Advertisers increase and shift more of their budgets online, it is now overtaking radio in terms of market share (Clark, 2002). The objective of this research was to study the type advertising factors that motivate consumer recall of online advertisements. According to Internet World Stats, as of September 2007, the world's population is estimated to 6,574,666,417, where 1,244,449,601 are using the Internet. In fact, the United States of America had the greatest contribution with regards to the number of Internet users, since 212,080,135 or 70.2% of USA's population had been captured by the power of Internet. Such great population of Internet users had now undoubtly encouraged businesses and entrepreneurs to advertise online (Bruner, 2000; Ducoffe, 2004). BACKGROUND Online advertising requires effective strategies in reaching customers Zinkhan & Watson, 2004) These strategies may include personalization and integration of multimedia and real-time interactions. The largest revenue shares within Internet advertising are generated by display-based and search-based advertising. The latter utilizes the Internet user's search engine query to determine which advertisements are displayed. …