A Meta-Analysis into Multiscreening and Advertising Effectiveness: Direct Effects, Moderators, and Underlying Mechanisms

Abstract

Using another media screen while watching television has become a part of people’s daily routines. The topic of multiscreening has thus received increased attention from advertising scholars in recent years. To gain a better theoretical understanding of the circumstances under which multiscreening effects occur and to offer practical guidelines to advertisers, the current study synthesizes the results of past studies on multiscreening and advertising and examines the direct effects of multiscreening on both cognitive and affective advertising outcomes, the possible moderators of those effects, and the underlying mechanisms of multiscreening with regard to advertising outcomes. The results indicate a negative direct effect of multiscreening on cognitive outcomes. The effect is weakened, however, by factors related to research, advertising, and media. In addition, the results show no direct or total effect of multiscreening on affective advertising outcomes, but this again depends on various media-, advertising-, and research-related factors. Finally, the results show that attention, enjoyment, and resistance constitute the underlying mechanisms that explain the effect of multiscreening on memory and persuasion.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Stefano Giani (Librarian, University of Amsterdam) and Amy Riegelman and K.L. Clarke (Social Sciences Librarians, University of Minnesota) with their help in the literature search.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

Two supplemental online appendices to this article are available on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2019.1604009.

Notes

1 Six papers (providing seven data sets) were from the same research group. Therefore, we checked whether the effect sizes from the data sets collected by this research group differed in comparison to all other effect sizes. No significant differences were found (p = .376), indicating that no bias existed due to a research group that provided a larger set of data to this meta-analysis. In addition, we compared studies conducted in the United States with studies conducted in other countries. We found no differences for either cognitive (p = .378) or affective outcomes (p = .168).

2 The meta-meta-analysis by Eisend and Tarrahi (2016) includes three meta-analyses that were published in the Journal of Advertising. These meta-analyses include 27 studies (Capella, Taylor, and Webster 2008), 31 studies (Schmidt and Eisend 2015), and 22 studies (Shen, Sheer, and Li 2015).

3 The ratio of the number of effect sizes to off-diagonal cells in the meta-analytic correlation matrix is similar to the ratio in the few advertising meta-analyses that have applied meta-analytic structural equation models (e.g., Eisend 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire M. Segijn

Claire M. Segijn (PhD, University of Amsterdam) is an assistant professor of advertising, Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Martin Eisend

Martin Eisend (PhD, Free University Berlin) is a professor of marketing, European University Viadrina.