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Effects of banner ad type, web content type and theme consistency on banner blindness: an eye movement study

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Abstract

During the epidemic, online advertising became more important, and several studies have suggested that internet users tend to avoid viewing online ads, such as banner ads. Previous studies have shown that product items that use animation lead to increased visual attention to all items on a webpage at the expense of attention to nonanimated items on the same webpage. However, few studies have compared the impact of the picture and text forms taken by static banners on the effectiveness of banner ads. At the same time, whether semantic factors (theme consistency) moderate the influence of structural factors (picture and text forms) on banner advertising remains unknown. The aim of this paper is to examine the influence of structural factors and semantic factors of ads on participants' visual attention to and memory of banner ads. The participants (twenty-seven males and forty females aged 18-26 years) were divided into two groups, one for consistent ad-web content themes and the other for inconsistent ad-web content themes. Then, the participants were asked to browse 16 complete pages (4 pages each of text-type web content and text-type banner ads, picture-type web content and picture-type banner ads, text-type web content and picture-type banner ads, and picture-type web content and text-type banner ads), and their eye movements were recorded to measure the participants' level of attention to the banner ads. A recognition task was used to measure the participants' memories of the banner ads. The results showed that the text-type banner ad had a lower blindness rate and exerted better attention and memory effects than the picture-type banner ad, and the text-type banner ad had a lower blindness rate and better attention and memory effects when positioned in the background of picture-type web content than when positioned in the background of text-type web content. A significant interaction effect among banner ad type, web content type and theme consistency showed that ad-web content theme consistency moderated the effect of web content type and banner ad type on ad effectiveness. Taken together, the results of these tasks demonstrate that theme consistency moderates the effect of web content type and banner ad type on ad effectiveness in a top-down manner. To reduce the negative effect of banner blindness, placing text-type banner ads in picture-type web content and setting a consistent theme between the banner ad and the web content is the more effective choice. The findings from this study can be used to assist advertising agencies in designing more effective and efficient banner ads from the perspective of basic psychology.

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... Notably, the combination of black text on a bright gray background was not explored. Ning, Luo, Wang, and Zhang [18] compared text-type and picture-type banner ads, observing better attention and memory effects with text-type banners. These banners also exhibited a lower rate of "banner blindness" and performed better when placed against picture-type web content rather than texttype content. ...
... One effect as a result of our adaptation to information overload is the phenomenon known as banner and ad blindness that has long attracted the attention of social scientists. From the end of the twentieth century to the present, many papers have been published on how to try to avoid this phenomenon (Benway 1998;Burke, et al. 2005;Owens et al. 2011;Pernice 2018;Ning, et al. 2023). Although a solution to this problem has been sought for more than 25 years, we still don't have a clear answer. ...
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This study is an attempt to examine factors that might impact banner recognition. These factors include banner location, banner content and navigation style. Via an experimental design conducted on a sample of 90 students, we manipulate these factors over several levels. Our key finding is that banner recognition is affected by the interaction of banner content and navigation style. In particular, as far as aimless browsing participants were concerned, they recognized the banner ad with a URL address significantly better than the one with some service information as well as the URL address. However, for goal-directed search participants, there was no significant difference among the three banner content types. The results also indicated that goal-directed search participants had higher recognition scores than aimless browsing subjects only when the banner ad with some service information and URL address was used. Managerial implications of these results are discussed and future research avenues are proposed.
Conference Paper
This paper provides a theoretical foundation to guide future work in online marketing research. Specifically, we target the phenomenon of banner blindness that prevents users from noticing online advertisements; thus, leading to a steady decline in revenues for online publishers and service providers. While habituation was identified as the main cause of banner blindness, there are competing behavioral models that predict different orienting response patterns as a function of repetition. This work bridges the theoretical gap between models in the marketing and ergonomics domains while illuminating an additional factor that has yet to be studied in this context -- search type. Finally, we outline future research steps to validate the user's response to online advertisements with an emphasis on a battery of physiological measurements.
Article
The effect of internet advertising has been a controversial issue, especially on the topic of how to effectively draw more attention from internet users. According to traditional attention theory, we know people pay lesser attention on other objects if the main browsing contents occupy more of the viewer’s mental resources. Therefore, we know different information types of webpage should have different influences on users’ attention. On the other hand, an effect called ‘banner blindness’ makes viewers naturally overlook the advertising based on their previous experience. It is therefore becoming more and more difficult to increase viewer’s attention on advertisement simply by adding salient features on the advertisements. In light of this new challenge in Internet advertising, verifying the different influences of the information types on advertising attention is the main goal of this study.Great amounts of previous studies relevant to internet advertising focused on the advertisement itself, like the form, color, size and location. However, this study put focus on how the information types and the webpage structure influence the viewer’s attention on banner advertising. This research tested the effect on user attention of four common information types on Internet webpages: (1) text-based webpage; (2) text–picture mixed webpage; (3) picture-based webpage; and (4) video-based webpage. This study hopes to provide valuable information for matching advertising with viewing tasks that will stimulate the most user attention.
Article
The effects of online Internet advertising techniques, such as banners, pop-ups, and pop-under, on the consumers or Internet users are discussed. Online consumers are goal-oriented and judge online advertisements even more harshly that those in other media, such as television. Some researchers have found that the online users find information helpful when presented in an enjoyable context, and some consumers develop such negative attitudes toward the ads and avoid them whenever possible. Experimental Web sites with different type of advertisements were developed that were accessed over the Internet in a controlled laboratory setting by 536 undergraduate students enrolled in two US universities. The researchers discovered that interruption from a task cause people to suffer in their recall performance and react negatively to the need to try and process the information provided in the interruption as well as the Web site.
Article
Print advertising frequently employs multiple images within a single advertisement, each of which is capable of generating an affective response. Little is known, however, about how these multiple ad components combine to impact overall emotional response to advertising. Evidence from three experiments suggests that when advertisement images are all positive or all negative, the most extreme image determines overall response. When an advertisement contains both positive and negative images, a compensatory mechanism seems to drive overall response. This implies that there may be little advantage to using multiple images of similar valence and intensity, but that a greater number of positive pictures will lead to a more positive response in mixed-valence advertisements.
Presented paper at 2005 annual conference of Chinese communication society annual conference
  • D L Tang
  • S J Jhuang
Tang DL, Jhuang SJ (2005) Presented paper at 2005 annual conference of Chinese communication society annual conference. Taiwan: Hsin Chu
The cognitive psychology of school learning
  • E D Gagne
  • ED Gagne
The effect of personality traits on persuading recommender system users
  • A Alslaity
  • T Tran
Alslaity A, Tran T (2020) The effect of personality traits on persuading recommender system users. In: Conference on recommender systems
The effect of endorsement and consistency on banner ads on sports websites
  • W Y Lee
  • Y Hur
  • D Y Kim
  • C Brigham
  • WY Lee
Lee WY, Hur Y, Kim DY, Brigham C (2017) The effect of endorsement and consistency on banner ads on sports websites. Int J Sports Mark Spons 18(3):263-280. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1016/j. chb. 2010. 11. 019
The effect of banner location on banner recognition in a Turkish Government Website: an eye tracking study. human-computer interaction, Part III
  • H Güner
  • Y İnal
Güner H, İnal Y (2015) The effect of banner location on banner recognition in a Turkish Government Website: an eye tracking study. human-computer interaction, Part III, HCII 2015. LNCS 9171:65-72