Effectiveness of Advertising Type-Media Congruence in Social Media

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Jie Chen

Second-year Ph.D. student

Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations

Jie Chen, Matthew Pittman, Eric Haley

46^th Annual CCI Research Symposium

STUDENT RESEARCH STARS

Purpose

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• This study explores the relationship between ad-type-media congruence and its impact on social media platforms.

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• Aims to fill a gap in knowledge regarding how the type of advertisement, such as animation or static, can be effectively matched with different media platforms

Advertising Animation

• Advertising animation: The use of moving images, graphics, and visual effects in digital advertising to create a dynamic and engaging experience for the viewer.
• Traditional platform vs. online situation
• Effects:
• Higher emotional arousal
• Attention attraction
• Engagement increment
• Higher click-through rate

Ad-content Congruence

• The term “contexts” might refer to a range of forms or content qualities associated with specific advertising mediums (Jeong & King, 2010)
• Ad context congruence refers to the alignment or compatibility between the content of an advertisement and the context in which it is displayed (Kononova & Yuan, 2015)
• Performance:
• Ad evaluations
• Ad recall
• Brand attitude
• Engagement intention
• Purchase intention

The majority of studies on ad-context congruence focus on the relation to message content, as thematic (semantic) and emotional similarity, as well as message structure, as structural similarity. However, there has been little exploration into ad-type-media congruence.

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Schema Theory

• Schema theory is a concept in cognitive psychology that explains how individuals organize and interpret new information by using pre-existing mental frameworks or "schemas.”
• Mechanism:
• People use these mental frameworks to interpret and make sense of new information by matching it to pre-existing schemas
• It can help to understand context effects when ads are unexpected or incongruent with the immediate context

Perceived ad intrusiveness

• Perceived ad intrusiveness is defined as ‘the degree to which advertisements in a media vehicle interrupt the flow of an editorial unit” (Ha, 1996)
• It is closely related to feelings of irritation and can affect the cognitive processing of the ad.
• While prominent and salient ads are more memorable to consumers they also pose a risk of being perceived as intrusive and negatively impacting the user experience

Hypothesis

H1: A dynamic motion ad will generate higher (lower) ad attitudes when placed on a platform with congruent (incongruent) media content

H2: The interaction effects of ad type and congruence (H1) will be negatively mediated by ad intrusiveness

H3: The interaction effects of ad type and congruence (H1) will be positively mediated by ad novelty

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Method

Study 1

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Serves as a proof of concept that in the general condition, animation ads are shaped in complex ways to influence the persuasion process.

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2 (Ad type: static vs. dynamic) X 2 (ad-media context congruence: congruent vs. not congruent) between-subjects experimental design will be conducted in study 1.

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Study 2 (in the process)

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Tests the effect of different advertising types on different platforms.

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A 2 (advertising type: animation vs. static) X 2 (media platform: Pinterest vs. TikTok) between-subjects experimental design

Study 1 Stimuli

Results

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When the advertisement is dynamic, it will generate a better attitude when placed on a platform with congruent media content. Thus, H1 is supported.

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Results

Study 2 stimuli

TikTok animation

TikTok static

Pinterest static

Pinterest animation

Implications

• Media context effects matter.
• Dynamic ads did better in dynamic platforms (better attitude toward the ad), but did worse when presented through a static platform (incongruent).
• The theoretical mechanism for this finding was shown to be perceived ad intrusiveness.

Thank You!