A Field Study of Mobile Display Advertising Effects on Consumer Attitudes and Intentions

Abstract:     
Mobile advertising is one of the fastest-growing advertising formats. In 2013, global spending on mobile advertising will reach $13.6 billion and it is expected to exceed $36.9 billion by 2016. Interestingly, despite the rapid penetration of sophisticated handsets such as smartphones, a growing proportion of mobile advertising spending consists of display advertising, which has very limited capacity for the transfer of information. This paper examines which product characteristics are likely to make mobile display advertising effective in increasing consumers’ favorable attitudes towards products and their purchase intentions. We report findings from a large-scale mobile display advertising field test covering 54 U.S. mobile display-advertising campaigns that ran between 2007 and 2010 and involved 39,946 consumers. Mobile display advertising campaigns are effective at increasing favorable attitudes and purchase intentions for higher (versus lower) involvement products, and for products that are seen as more utilitarian (versus more hedonic). Further, consistent with the hierarchy-of-effects model, higher product awareness prior to advertising exposure strengthens these effects, and effects on intentions are mediated by attitudes.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 49

Keywords: mobile advertising, marketing, advertising, mobile, mobile display advertising, elm, persuasion, consumer behavior

working papers series