Modeling and evaluating the effectiveness of AR advertising and the moderating role of personality traits

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of AR ads vs. traditional ones, differentiating the effects of two types of AR advertisements (ARH and QRH), and the moderating effects of three personality traits on consumer evaluation of ARA. A sample of 173 individuals was exposed to either traditional or AR advertising (ARH or QRH). Results showed the superiority of AR ads over traditional ones in terms of ad reception, brand attitude and purchase intention. Regarding the moderating role of personality traits, it was observed that each one moderated a different aspect of ad reception: extraversion to entertainment perception, neuroticism to informativeness evaluation, and openness to experience to general ad attitude. Finally, some differences were detected between ARH and QRH: the former was superior, but only via entertainment, ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intention. Results are discussed in terms of their conceptual and practical implications.

Keywords:

• Advertising
• Augmented reality
• Personality
• Effectiveness
• Dual Mediation Model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 From Android 8 ‘Oreo’ (released on March 2017) and iOS 11 (released on September 2017), mobile devices include a native camera app to scan QR codes directly from the mobile device.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rodrigo Uribe

Rodrigo Uribe (Ph.D., Sheffield University) is an associate professor in the Dept. of Business at the Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Chile. He has published several research papers on topics related to marketing communications and consumer behavior in journals such as Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Business Research, Harvard Business review (Latam Edition), Health Communication, Journal of Food Marketing Products, Appetite, Academia, European Journal of Communication, and International Marketing Review. Along with his academic activities, he has been market researcher at the private sector and Director of Studies and advisor at the Chilean Presidency.

Rafael Labra (MSc, University of Chile) is a researcher at the Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Chile. His main interests are virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and machine learning. At the beginning of his career, he worked for a foundation devoted to providing business support to small creative companies, and now he is forming a startup focused on the development of different uses of immersive technologies.

Enrique Manzur (Ph.D., Georgia University) is an associate professor in the Dept. of Business at the Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Chile. His main research interests are related to consumer behavior and market research. His articles have been published in the Journal of Business Research, International Journal of Advertising, Academia, and International Marketing Review. He has been Vice Chancellor of Economic Management and Administration of the University of Chile and, currently, is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Economics & Business of the same University.