The effectiveness of various video ad-choice formats

ABSTRACT

Audiences are hostile to advertising on the Internet, so ad-supported video streaming services have experimented with new interactive formats to make viewers more receptive to advertising. This lab study investigated explanations for the effectiveness of one of these new formats, advertisement choice, and potential variations of this format. The results confirm that advertisement choice increases arousal, consistent with the greater attention and involvement explanations offered by prior studies. However, after controlling for individual differences, we found no significant positive effects of advertisement choice on measures of advertising effectiveness. We also tested a range of current and potential advertisement-choice formats but found none that were better than a choice between two ads for the same brand. A harder choice between three ads had a negative effect, compared with no-choice ads. Choices between different brands had positive effects on ad liking, but competitive interference effects on recognition and recall. These results suggest that advertising choice at least does no harm, and offers viewers the benefits of choice, and advertisers the ability to reach streaming video viewers.

KEYWORDS:

• Advertising
• video
• interactive
• online
• choice
• competitive interference

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Ryan Reid, Shiree Treleaven-Hassard and Brendon Smith for their assistance collecting the data for this study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare the following: this research was funded by a consortium of companies that included television networks and their competitors (e.g., Facebook and Google). This balance of interests means that this research was not influenced by any single company or industry group.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded (as Study 38) by the sponsors of the Beyond :30 project (www.beyond30.org).

Notes on contributors

Steven Bellman

Steven Bellman (PhD, University of New South Wales) is a research professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, University of South Australia. His research on media and advertising has appeared in the Journal of Marketing, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and Management Science. He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, and Journal of Interactive Marketing.

Robert F. Potter

Robert F. Potter (PhD, Indiana University, Bloomington) is a professor and director of the Institute for Communication Science at Indiana University in Bloomington, USA. Potter’s research focuses on the impact of auditory elements on information processing of media, psychophysiological measures as indicators of cognitive and emotional responses to media, and the concept of advertising clutter and its influence on information processing. His work has been published in Media Psychology, Communication Research, Communication Monographs, and Journal of Advertising, among others. Potter’s first book Psychophysiological Measurement and Meaning: Cognitive and Emotional Responses to Media (with Paul Bolls) was published in 2012 by Routledge.

Jennifer A. Robinson

Jennifer A. Robinson (PhD, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa) is a senior lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Her work focuses on audience engagement, youth participation, risk/science communication, and technology-based communities, especially as created/used by young people and organisations. She has published in the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Public Relations, and the Journal of Interactive Marketing.

Duane Varan

Duane Varan (PhD, University of Texas, Austin) is the chief executive officer, MediaScience, Austin, Texas. He also oversees Beyond:30, a collaborative industry project exploring the changing media landscape. He has been awarded the Australian Prime Minister’s University Teacher of the Year, among other accolades, and is published in the Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Communication, and Journal of Economic Psychology.