CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Online advertising is one of the most effective ways for businesses of all sizes to expand their
reach, find new customers, and diversify their revenue streams.

With so many options available – from PPC and paid social to online display advertising and
inapp ads – online advertising can be intimidating to newcomers, but it doesn’t have to be.
WordStream makes online advertising easy, and we’ve helped thousands of businesses grow by
leveraging the power of paid search and paid social advertising.

Online Advertising: Paid Search

When you think of online advertising, the chances are pretty good that you’re thinking of paid
search advertising. Paid search – also known as pay-per-click advertising, or PPC – is one of the

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most common and effe

Paid search allows you to bid on relevant terms and phrases that may cause text-based ads to
be displayed to users when they enter specific search queries into Google or Bing. These terms
and phrases are known as keywords, and they form the basis of PPC advertising.

Advertisers bid on keywords as part of an ad auction. This ensures that all advertisers have a fair
chance of their ads being displayed to users, rather than those with the biggest advertising
budgets.

Keywords should be highly relevant to your business, organized and structured into logical ad
groups separated by campaign type, and aligned with the correct match type in order to be
displayed to the right visitors, at the right time, for the right campaign.

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Online Advertising: Paid Social
While paid search may have transformed Internet advertising, paid social is transforming the
web of tomorrow.

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Social networking remains the most popular online pastime for adults all over the world, and
advertisers have evolved their strategies to target consumers where they spend their time,
namely on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Paid social advertising functions similarly to paid search, with the notable exception that
advertisers, not users, take the initiative – advertisers must “search” for users, rather than the
other way around.

One of the greatest strengths of paid social advertising is the granularity with which advertisers
can target prospective customers, and this principle underpins many social advertising
platforms and products.

Advertisers can target users with hundreds of parameters, from demographic data (such as age,
gender, income, level of education, and marital status) to browsing preferences and social
behaviorAdvertisers can also target users based on the types of pages and profiles they follow,
the things they buy, and the news they read.These custom audiences can be created from
existing customer data (to create “lookalike” audiences of similar users) to email lists, which
Facebook and Twitter can pair with their data about these users to reveal greater insights about
their behavior.

Read this blog post to learn just how specific advertisers can be when it comes to custom
audiences – you may be surprised by how deep you can dig.

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The rise of so-called “identity marketing” has proven to be the latest – and arguably, the most
profound – shift in digital marketing of the past decade, offering advertisers unbelievable
opportunities to grow their business. To learn more about Facebook’s targeting options, read
this PPC University lesson by WordStream Founder and CTO, Larry Kim.

Just as paid search advertisers have to conduct in-depth keyword research before launching
their campaigns, paid social advertisers have to know their ideal customers inside and out to
ensure that they’re targeting the right audience segments with the right messaging.

This is where buyer personas come into play.Creating detailed buyer personas for your ideal
customers allows you to go beyond surface-level information about your most loyal customers
and delve into targeting options that allow you to target your prospective customers with a high
degree of granularity.

This not only allows you to maximize the effectiveness of your advertising spend, but also offers
more relevant, targeted ads to your audience – recent data shows that people actually
appreciate online advertising more when it’s highly targeted and relevant to their interests.

There is much more to online advertising than simply placing an ad on the

Internet and hoping for the best. The most effective advertising campaigns
combine numerous interconnected elements, all of which perform unique
functions to maximize the campaign’s potential.

Not every online advertising campaign will have every element, but the following
components of a digital marketing initiative will be common to many campaigns.

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Google AdWords and Bing Ads offer advertisers the choice of either text-based ads or more
visual advertisements, such as banners.

Text-based ads are often referred to simply as PPC ads, whereas banners and similar ad formats
are commonly referred to as display ads.

In addition, social media platforms such as Facebook offer highly visual advertising formats that
include some ad copy, which can be thought of as a combination of both. There are dozens of
advertising formats available to today’s advertisers, allowing you to choose the format and
advertising network that best suits the needs of your campaigns .

1.2 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

In general, the research objective is to study about the attitude of consumers towards the
online advertising. The overall researches consist of four independent variables which include
credibility, informative, hedonism/pleasure, and materialism.

Specifically, the objective is to use these four yardsticks to identify and examine the relationship
between consumers’ attitude towards online advertising.

To identify the relationship between the credibility of the online advertisement and consumers’
attitude towards online advertising.

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To identify the relationship between the in-formativeness and consumers’ attitude towards
online advertising.

To identify the relationship between the hedonism/pleasure and consumers’ attitude towards
online advertising.

To identify the relationship between the materialism and consumers’ attitude towards online
advertising.

To identify the impact of consumers’ attitude towards online advertising in informational

responses.

The reason this topic is chosen is to allow for better understanding of the consumer’s attitude
towards online advertising, so that marketers can effectively create their advertisements via
internet.

In order to create product awareness and positive impact over the consumers, online
advertising should contain detailed and relevant information in the message (Briggs and Hollis,
1997). This may help consumers easily obtain and retrieve the latest information about the
products available in marketplace (Ducoffe, 1996).

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Besides, it also allows consumers to make comparisons between products and choose the one
which is suitable for their needs and wants. Entertaining and pleasurable online advertising are
able to capture a consumer’s attention.

Marketers should ensure that their online advertising is attractive and enjoyable for the
consumers as it able to capture consumer’s attention immediately and stimulate the
consumer’s curiosity to click on the advertisement (Katterbach, 2002).

This also increases the possibility that consumers will recommend the advertisement to others.

As consumers live in materialistic society, they demand for material objects and this race for
possession acquisition plays an important part in our social structures (Goldschmidt, 1990),
making materialistic individuals motivated to maintain or gain status by buying material objects.
Certain degree of self-presentational concern is good by buying material objects to enhance
one’s self-image (Schlenker, 1980).

Therefore, online advertising that promotes a certain degree of materialism should be

encouraged because it can boost the economy and increase the standard of living when
individuals continue spending (Watson, 2007).

Besides, materialism can also help individuals who tend have low self-esteem because it can
close the gap between individual’s ideal and actual self-image (Dittmar, 2005) which in turn
makes them feel good and happy in life.

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Lastly, creating consumer’s awareness, interest, and desire as well as purchase intention on
company products or services is the objective of many marketers (Bijmolt, Claassen and Brus,
1998). For creating more favorable consumer informational responses, consumer’s attitude
towards online advertising plays an important role (James and Terrance, 1992). Thus, it is
important for the marketers to understand the factors that contribute in developing a fovarable
consumers’ attitude towards online advertising. Consumer who perceive online advertising
positively tend to pay more attention to online advertising as well as have higher purchase
intention towards the advertised products and services (Rawal, 2013).

It is introductory chapter which provides an overview of the study. The introduction of this
chapter states the aims and the organization of Chapter 1.

This chapter includes research background, problem statement, research objectives, research
questions, hypotheses of the study, and significance of the study. Lastly, the conclusion of this
chapter is drawn.

Credibility deals with sources such as individuals, organizations, and the media. Endorser
credibility is defined as an individual’s performance and deliverance of the advertising message
with true and honest information (Mackenzie and Lutz, 1989).

The person who brings the message plays an important role in the advertisement as that
individual represents and appears as brand marketers (Ducoffe, 1996).

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On the other hand, corporate credibility is defined as the degree to which consumers believe
that a corporation can provide products and services that can satisfy their needs and wants
(Goldsmith, Lafferty, and Newell, 2000).

Corporate credibility has an impact on online advertising where the advertisement is being
perceived as originating from a credible so

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

According to Fieshbein (1967), attitude is a learned predisposition to behave consistently in a

favorable or unfavorable way in respect to a given object.

Attitude is an individual’s personal evaluation, emotional feeling and action tendency toward
some objects or ideas (Kotler, 2000).

According to Hoyer and Macinnis (2010) attitude is a relatively global and enduring evaluation
of an object, issue, person or action.

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In other words, it can be defined as an overall evaluation that expresses the extent of favor or
disfavor of an individual towards an object, issue, person, or action and it tends to be an
enduring emotional feeling.

Attitudes are based on the cognitions or beliefs which mean attitudes can be formed based on
thoughts and beliefs we have about the information received (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2010).
Attitudes can also base on emotions.

This means that an individual can form either positive feelings toward the information, product
or action based on liking (Solomon, 1999). Thus, attitudes can affect the thoughts, feelings, and
behavior of an individual.

Consumer’s attitude toward online advertising is consumer’s view toward online

advertisements (Bauer and Greyser, 1968). Similarly, attitudes influence our behavior in
exposure to online advertisement, liking and purchase intention.

It is the direct human reflection toward the online advertising which involves the content and
format of the advertising (Bruner and Kumar, 2000; Schlosser et al., 199

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According to MacKenzie and Lutz (1989), consumer attitude towards online advertising can be
indicated through consumer’s favorable or unfavorable response towards a particular online
advertisement.

After consumer exposure to the online advertising, they will then form either positive or
negative attitudes towards the advertising (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2000).

According to Mehta (2000), consumer’s attitude towards online advertising is one of the
influential factors of effectiveness of online advertising as consumer’s cognitive ability towards
the online advertisement are reflected in their thoughts as well as feelings and subsequently
will influence their attitude towards online advertising (Mackenzie and Luts, 1989).

Feeling, perception and behavior are the components of attitude. Generally, feeling is an
emotional state or reaction or an impression or mood (Keller, 1993). According to Lutz (1985),
attitude toward online advertising is a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable
manner to advertising stimulus during exposure occasion.

Advertisement can generate favorable or positive, upbeat feelings such as delight, playfulness
and so on. In addition, it can also generate warm feelings of friendliness, caring and hope
(Solomon, 2009).

Other than that, the unfavorable or negative feelings such as offence, defiance and others can
also be generated through consumer’s cognitive capacities (Mehta, 2000).

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According to Aaker and Stayman (1990) and Brown and Stayman (1992), the positive emotional
response of consumers towards online advertising is the best indicator or criteria of effective
advertising.

This is because the objective to create advertising is to form a positive attitude in consumers
towards the advertisement as well as the promoted goods and services.

Perception refers to the awareness of something through the sense or the insight or intuition
gained by perceiving (Keller, 1993). Advertisement perception is the evaluation of the
traditional media of advertising which also found to be relevant when assessing the attitude of
consumer toward online advertising (Chen and Wells, 1999).

The consumer may create favorable perception in which they may perceive that online
advertising enables an individual to get more information easy by merely click on an advert,
the ability to react immediately towards an advert, believability of the advertising, interesting
advertisement and ability to choose and decide what and when to watch (Abd Aziz et al.,
2008).

Yet, consumer may also create unfavorable perception about the online advertising such as
unbelievable information and content in online advertisement.

According to Korgaonkar, Silverbatt and O’Leary (2001), those who are interested in online
advertising perceived that the advertisement provides useful information, can enhance their
social role and image, their hedonism and pleasure and perceive that the advert is not false or
unbelievable.

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The definition of behavior is the way in which a person behaves in response to a particular
situation or stimulus (Keller, 1993).

Behavior is the manner of behaving or conducting oneself. Consumer behavior is also a process
of decision-making and physical activity that involves acquiring, evaluating, using and disposing
of goods and services to satisfy one’s needs and desires (Solomon, Bamossy et al. 2006, p6).

It is not just the buying of goods and services but also includes much of the processes before
the goods have been acquired or bought.

Before the purchase of a product, most consumers may look into details of the product via
online advertisement or they will search for online advertisements and make comparisons of
the products they intended to purchase (Keller, 1993).

Credibility According to Alder and Rodman (2000), credibility is the believability of the
consumers towards an advertisement.

Credibility can be defined as the level of reliability of a message or content to provide accurate
and reliable information (Kelman and Hovland, 1953).

Credibility plays an important role in advertising because it may lead to a higher perception of
the promoted product and consumers may feel good and comfortable with the advertisement
(Kwek, Tan, and Lau, 2010).

The components of credibility are credible, trustworthiness, convincible, and believability.

Credibility deals with sources such as individuals, organizations, and the media. Endorser
credibility is defined as an individual’s performance and deliverance of the advertising message
with true and honest information (Mackenzie and Lutz, 1989).

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The person who brings the message plays an important role in the advertisement as that
individual represents and appears as brand marketers (Ducoffe, 1996). On the other hand,
corporate credibility is defined as the degree to which consumers believe that a corporation
can provide products and services that can satisfy their needs and wants (Goldsmith, Lafferty,
and Newell, 2000).

Corporate credibility has an impact on online advertising where the advertisement is being
perceived as originating from a credible source. Media credibility is different from message
content as it relies on the perception of the believability of the medium (Kiousis, 2001).

In the research study of Aaker and Brown (1972), they also stated that different media will
have different levels of credibility.

Besides, according to Marchall and Na (2003), they identified that internet media is less
credible than traditional media outlets.

In the mobile advertising context, a considerable amount of research has been conducted on a
general level (eg. Tsang, 2004; Jun & Lee, 2007), in other words by asking opinions concerning
mobile advertising if the respondents were to receive an advertisement. Some studies in
contrast have studied how consumers react to mobile advertisements which they have
received (Barwise & Strong, 2002; Rettie, 2005).

Because of contradicting results this study focused on examining attitudinal differences

between consumers who received an advertisement and those who did not.

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The results indicate that when an advertisement has been received, attitude toward mobile
advertising is positive. However, when an advertisement has not been received on average
attitude toward mobile advertisement is less positive.

The results support the claim of Vatanparast (2010) that little by little consumers are getting
used to mobile advertising. Because the mobile is a new channel in advertising there are
certain prejudices related to it.

However, when consumers continue to have positive experiences with the channel attitude
towards mobile advertising in general is bound to increase.

In order to ensure positive experiences in the future, mobile advertising campaigns should be
planned and executed according to carefully implemented plans and extra attention should be
guided toward segmentation and targeting.

The results of PLS path modeling demonstrate that there exists a strong positive correlation
between attitude toward mobile advertising in general and attitude toward specific mobile
advertisement. The finding is in inline with the research from the field of advertising
psychology (eg. James & Kover, 1992; Mehta, 1995). Thus, it can be concluded that when a
person has a positive attitude toward mobile advertising in general he or she is more likely to
have a positive attitude toward a specific mobile advertisement. Therefore, the concept of
attitude toward mobile advertising in general is an important determinant of mobile
advertising success. To aid the success of mobile advertising campaigns, efforts should be made
to raise public perceptions regarding mobile advertising on a general level.

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As was noted above, people who have received a mobile advertisement tend to like mobile
advertising more when compared to those who haven’t received an advert. Consequently, it
can be stated that even the mere use of the mobile channel as a part of advertising campaigns
has an impact in public perceptions of the channel.

Previous research in the field of advertising psychology has consolidated the influence of
attitude toward advertisement on brand attitude which in turn has been found to influence
purchase intentions (Shimp, 1981; MacKenzie; 1983; Brown & Stayman, 1996).

However, the results of this study question the role of the brand in the mobile advertising
context. The PLS model depicts a moderate correlation between attitude toward
advertisement and brand attitude. However, the relationship between brand attitude and
purchase intention exists only in the case of an existing customer relationship.

Moreover, when a customer relationship exists the direct influence of permission type on
brand attitude is negative in contrast to the external database.

The reason for this may be that if a person has given general consent for mobile marketing, he
or she may generally have a more positive attitude toward advertising and brands.

The result implies that in the case of an existing customer relationship an attitude toward the
brand has already been formed during the lifetime of the relationship.

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Thus when the person receives a mobile advertisement, it has little impact on the brand
attitude. However, when there is no customer relationship or no prior perceptions related to
the brand, the mobile advertisement may have a stronger influence on brand attitude.

Although the PLS model revealed no moderating effects of permission base on the relationship
between attitude toward mobile advertisement and brand attitude, the respondents answered
the questionnaire under the influence of a received advertisement

Therefore the effects of the advertisement may also be reflected in the negative correlation
between customer permission base, customer database and brand attitude. In conclusion, it
can be said that the direct impact of mobile advertisement on brand attitude is weaker than
expected.

Instead the extent to which a customer relationship exists seems to determine brand attitude
in the mobile advertising context.

A possible implication could be that when using personal information from an external
database, branded content may be more effective. However, when a customer relationship
exists messages focusing on customer relation communication will yield better results

As discussed above, brand attitude does not mediate purchase intentions in the same way as in the
context of traditional advertising. Instead, the PLS model confirmed a strong positive relationship
directly from attitude toward advertisement to purchase intention.

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This result implies that when it comes to mobile advertising, brand attitude may not have such a
central role in the formation of purchase intentions as suggested by previous research. Instead, the
advertisement itself influences purchase intentions.

The reason for the strong relationship between attitude toward advertisement and purchase intention
may be that the mobile phone encourages direct response.

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Therefore if the offer presented in the advertisement is interesting or relevant enough, the respondent
may react immediately regardless of the brand. .

The implications discussed above have given insight in to the nature of the attitudes Finnish consumers
have toward mobile marketing and how these attitudes influence purchase intentions.

However, in order to gain more profound information concerning the underlying characteristics
of consumer attitudes toward mobile advertising in Finland, consumer attitude profiles
were formed. Three profiles were found.

The positives accounted for 52 % of the sample where as the negatives represented only 16 %.
32 % of the sample were skeptics. These people felt uncertain about mobile advertising in
general but liked the message they received regardless. Therefore the skeptics can be
considered receptive to mobile advertising.

In specific, the advertisements were considered extremely informative as well as useful. These
perceptions are similar to those found in research concerning traditional advertising (Calfee &
Ringold, 1994; Coulter, 2001; Tsang 2004).

However, traditional advertising literature has confirmed significant concerns related to

mistrust in advertising.

This study on the other hand indicates that the majority of respondents found mobile
advertisements to be credible.

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The clustering of the respondents therefore implicates that mobile advertising attitudes in
Finland are more positive than expected.

Regardless of the possibilities that the mobile phone could offer for marketers, the uptake of the
channel has been slower than anticipated. Greenville (2005 cited in Jayawardhena et al, 2008) states
that the perceived lack of consumer trust is among the principal reasons for this prolonged progress.

In his study, Greenville found that companies are hesitant to try mobile advertising since they fear how
consumers will respond.

The results of this study indicate that there is no need for such hesitation. When care has been taken to
plan and target the campaigns accordingly consumer attitudes are mostly positive. In order to get the
most out of mobile advertising, marketers should concentrate on collecting customer data which can be
used as a basis for mobile advertising. When the customer relationship matures the company can learn
about the customer and provide better solutions to meet their needs.

In addition, obtaining explicit mobile marketing permission can influence mobile campaign success.
However, if the advertisement is related to products and services previously purchased by the
customer, no permission in necessary. Since research has shown that demographic variables may not
function well in segmenting for the mobile phone, the role of identifying actual consumer needs is
emphasized.

The modern consumer wants to buy solutions for their various problems and the marketer needs to
provide these solutions at the correct time.

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 \2.2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the theoretical foundation for this study will be established. Attitude theory has
its roots in social psychology and therefore the literature review will begin with research from
this area. Next the concept of consumer attitudes in advertising will be discussed from the
perspective of advertising psychology.

The literature review will then continue with the consumer view of mobile marketing
(Leppäniemi, 2006). In this context the acceptance and efficiency of mobile marketing will be
reflected on in addition to consumer perceptions, responsiveness and attitudes.

Moreover, permission and control in the mobile marketing context will be reviewed because
these concepts have been found to influence the effectiveness of mobile marketing. The
chapter will close with a presentation of the research framework and hypotheses of the study.

In today’s cluttered and fragmented advertising environment, it is increasingly difficult to stand

out from the crowd. In addition, consumers easily ignore advertising and consider it to have
little value (Wang, 2002).Also, as media costs are high advertisers are more and more

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concerned about the factors that contribute to effective advertising. Petty and Cacioppo (1983)
state that the goal of advertising is to influence consumer behavior.

This statement has important psychological implications since as Percy and Woodside (1983)
note there is a strong connection between advertising, consumer psychology and social
psychology.

In order to design advertisements that ultimately lead to intended behavior, it is first important
to understand how advertising works and the main psychological processes related to it.
Therefore this chapter will begin with the social psychology view of attitudes.

The psychological stream of advertising literature indicates that attitudes are key in predicting
consumer behavior and how consumers respond to advertising. Consequently, the role of
attitudes in advertising and the ways in which advertisements are processed will be discussed in
the final sections of this chapter.

consumer behavior as “the dynamic interaction of affect and cognition, behavior and the environment
by which human beings conduct the exchange aspects of their lives (Bennett, 1995, p. 59).

This definition implies that affect and cognition are important aspects in understanding consumer
behavior and namely advertising.

Affect and cognition are psychological responses that consumers have in different types of situations.
Affect refers to feelings, moods, emotions and remembered sensations (Arnould, 2004) where as

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cognition is concerned with thinking, in other words mental processes and responses (Peter & Olson,
2005 p. 42

Affect and cognition are produced by separate and partially independent affective and cognitive
systems which can, however, influence each other in a variety of ways (Zajonck, 1980). The affective
system is mostly reactive (Peter & Olson, 2005 p. 43). This means that the affective system usually
reacts automatically to different situations and therefore a person has very little direct control over
emotions and feelings. Mostly affective responses are learned through early socialization and classical
conditioning (Peter & Olson, 2005 p. 44).

Because of this, affective responses vary widely across cultures and social groups and therefore people
tend to respond in a different way to the same stimulus.

The cognitive system, on the other hand, is in charge of thinking, understanding, evaluating, planning
and deciding. Cognitive responses are more controlled when compared to affective responses since
they are influenced by the availability of resources for cognitive processing (Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999).
The cognitive system helps people to interpret and make sense of their personal experiences.

Although attitudes have been widely studied in both social and advertising psychology, researchers have
not been able to agree on a definition of the concept. In general, researchers seem to agree that
attitudes reflect a person’s response toward a given object.

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For example, Arnould (2002) states that an attitude is an overall, enduring evaluation of a concept or
object, such as a person, a brand or a service. Shiu (2009) adds to this by stating that attitudes are state-
9 of-mind constructs that are not directly observable.

However, the components that form an attitude have been widely disputed.

Thurstone (1928) was one of the first researchers to define attitudes. According to him attitudes are the
sum of a person’s feelings toward a given object. Later Allport (1935 cited in Peter & Olson, 2008)
provided a broader definition for the concept: “Attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness to
respond, organized through experience, and exerting a directive and/or dynamic influence on
behavior”.

The first definition suggests that attitudes are affective responses to various objects where as the latter
definition stresses the importance of the cognitive system.

The tripartite model of attitudes has been widely accepted in advertising psychology (Aaker 1987,
Arnould, 2002, Vakratsas & Ambler 1999).

For example, Ruiz and Sicilia (2004) argue that the affective and cognitive systems are connected but
may also work individually. Therefore a consumer’s response to a certain object is dependent on his or
her tendency to use these systems in processing information.

Muehling and McCann (1993) classify the conceptual definitions of attitude into two categories:
unidimensional and multidimensional. According to the unidimensional view, attitudes are the function
of one single determinant. In other words, attitudes are formed based on either the affective or
cognitive system.

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Thurnston (1928) and Allport’s (1935 cited in Peter & Olson, 2008) previously mentioned
definitions are an example of the unidimensional view of attitudes.

In his definition Thurnston highlighted the importance of affective responses whereas according
to Allport attitudes are formed through cognitive processes.

Research by Triandis (1971), on the other hand, represents the multidimensional view since
according to him the interplay between affection, cognition and conation is important in
attitude formation. Peter and Olson (2008) argue that generally in modern research attitude is
seen as a 10 unidimensional concept.

Further they note that cognition and conation are seen to be related to attitude but are not a
part of the concept itself. In this study, the unidimensional view of attitudes is assumed.

However, in accordance to Peter and Olson (2008) it is noted that cognition and conation are
tightly related to attitudes.

Attitude toward advertisement can be thought of as an indicator of advertising effectiveness. In effect,

studies concerning advertising effectiveness have demonstrated that advertisements influence brand
attitudes by modifying consumer beliefs regarding product attributes (Moore, 1983). For example
MacKenzie (1983) states that when people see an advertisement they develop an attitude toward it
(Aad) which influences the measures of advertising effectiveness such as brand attitude and purchase

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intentions. Fishbein’s multiattribute attitude model has been a popular tool for understanding the
formation of attitude toward advertisement.

According to Fishbein (1975, cited in Mitchell & Olson, 1981), an attitude is a function of a person’s
salient beliefs at a given point in time. Fishbein’s view on attitudes has a strong emphasis on cognition
since as Peter and Olson (2005 p. 51) state, beliefs are consumer’s subjective understandings of
information produced by interpretation processes. In other words, beliefs are formed by the cognitive
system. This interpretation suggests that in the advertising context product attribute beliefs are the only
variables affecting attitude formation and change. Since Fishbein’s attitude model has mainly been used
in marketing research studies the general concept of interest has been on consumer’s attitudes toward
brand attribute beliefs and their impact on purchase intentions (Mitchell, Olson 1981).

Further studies concerning attitudes and purchase intentions have showed that brand attributes
may not be the only variables influencing brand choice. In their study, Mitchell and Olson (1981)
aimed to validate Fishbein’s proposition regarding attitude formation. Indeed they found that
brand attribute beliefs act as a mediator to attitude formation. However, they discovered that,
in effect, attitude towards ad (Aad) seemed to explain brand attitude formation. Mitchell and
Olson’s (1981) preliminary findings on Aad suggest that it accurately reflects a subject’s overall
evaluations of an advertising stimulus. Further, they state that the Aad construct should be kept
conceptually distinct from brand attribute beliefs and brand attitude. Mitchell and Olson’s
preliminary findings on Aad and its relationship to brand attitude and purchase intentions is
depicted in Figure 1.

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28
29
Shimp (1981) estimates that more is known about the mechanisms behind consumer brand
choice than about the particular advertising methods that aid the consumer decision making
process.

In accordance with Mitchell and Olson’s (1981) work, he emphasizes that previous attitude
research has simply concentrated on attitude toward the brand (Ab). However, Shimp notes
that there is a major limitation to using the Ab as an indicator of consumer brand choice.

The use of Ab is constrained to those occasions when the advertised brand genuinely has
superior attributes when compared to others. According to Shimp (1981) the Aad construct
offers a viable option when the advertised brand does not differ substantially from competing
offerings.

The findings by Shimp as well as Mitchell and Olson (1981) suggest that brand attribute beliefs
are not the only determinants of brand attitude formation and purchase intentions more
specifically.

Defining the Aad construct is as manifold as defining the term attitude, mostly because
researchers have not been able to validate any of the competing paradigms. Following the path
of social psychology research discussed previously, attitude toward advertisement (Aad) is
divided into unidimensional and multidimensional streams.

This means that some researchers view Aad as purely an affective or cognitive construct where
as others think that both affection and cognition as well as conation are present. Therefore,
despite the large body of research regarding attitude toward advertisement the definition of

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the construct is controversial. Lutz (1985 cited in Muehling and McCann 1993) defines Aad as
“a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner to a particular advertising
stimulus during a particular exposure occasion

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

In the chapter of introduction, research purpose and research problem are denoted. With this
chapter, we wish to discuss in detail the research method that we applied.

The main objective of this chapter is to outline the structure and assumptions of our chosen
methodology (including research philosophy, approach, and strategy), in order to construct our
argumentations and direct readers towards better understanding, as well as appropriate
expectations.

The chapter is finally concluded with ethical considerations and quality criteria.

From the very beginning chapter, Creswell (2009) talks in his book about how and why it is
important to make an appropriate choice on research methodological plan. According to him,
research design is considered as plans and procedures applied in a research with decisions goes
from comprehensive problem background to narrowed data collection method and concrete
analysis (Creswell, 2009, p.22).

Those choices often involve founding steps, namely worldview assumption that researcher
carry on to the project, “procedure of inquiries (commonly known as research strategy),
explicit data collection method, analysis & reading (Creswell, 2009, p.23).

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A brief introduction to the field of research methodology can be found in picture below. The
figure, as well, marks the connection between different concepts in the Methodology
framework.

Figure below was extracted from Saunders et al book (2007, p.125) where it describes the
different layers covered in a big term, which we interchangeably referred to as “research
method or research methodology”.

Thus, the aim of this chapter would be to unfold these different layers in the light of this study
of marketing system in Vietnam.

One of the idea thought by many of new researcher(s), philosophical view tend to take such a
“mysterious” position as it often goes hidden within.

Among researchers, there are widely accepted terms and definition (e.g. philosophical
worldview, paradigm, epistemologies & ontologies, or broadly conceived research
methodology) for research philosophy (Creswell, 2009, p.27).

Stated in his book, Saunders et al. (2007) simplify the idea of research philosophy as a term
which in broad sense discusses the development of knowledge and the nature of that
knowledge. Lincoln and Guba (1990, p.17) further commented that the philosophy construct “a
basic set of beliefs that guide action” (Creswell, 2009, p.26).

In other words, the assumptions on how we, as researcher(s), view the world will underpin our
choice(s) for research design and strategy. Though many philosophies are illustrated to the
world, researchers may limit themselves to a few that applicable or have most significant
effects on their particular study.

32
Saunders et al. (2007, p.4) suggests three key methods inherent in the theoretical perspectives,
namely epistemology, ontology, and axiology. With this paper, we will discuss only the first
two.

Epistemology The concept of epistemology was mentioned in Crotty’s book of The foundation
of social research: meaning and perspective in the research (1998). It is said that epistemology
deals with “the nature of knowledge, its possibility, scope and general basis” (Crotty, 1998,
p.8). In epistemologies, there is quite a range though the two watertight compartments include
positivism and interpretivism. Saunder et al. (2007, p.126) makes a very illustrative explanation
of these stances of epistemology. A positivist, or one who own positivism stance, has his
philosophy very similar to a natural scientist, revealing through two main components. The first
one is that a positivist is very comfortable working “with an observable social reality” and the
final result of such research is considered to be akin to “law-like generalizations” - those
produced by physical and natural scientist (Saunder et al., 2007, p.126). In reality, researchers
like that will induce research strategy based on set of existing theories before developing any
further hypothesis. Later, these deductive hypotheses can be tested and confirmed, which
many times leading to further development of theory and as such the process going on
(Saunder et al., 2007, p.127).The second important component of positivism is that researchers
of such take in a study with “value-free method” (Saunders et al., 2007, p.127).

As we understand the position of a positivist researcher; we can move on to the second stance
of epistemology which is interpretivism. This concept advocates the fact that society and
culture can be studied through the scope of natural sciences or as a type of law-generalization
method (Saunders et al., 2007, p.129).

This profoundly meaning that researcher with interpretivism perspective requires

differentiating between humans and their role as social actor within a specific context (Bryman
& Bell 2007,

33
p.24). Certain scholars would argue that adopting interpretivism stance would be more
accurate in business and management field though it can be extremely challenging in the sense
of entering the social world and understand the world from each actor’s point of view
(Saunders et al.,

2007, p.128).

Ontology Crotty (1998, p.10) describe ontology as a study of being, concerning of “what is”
within nature of existence and reality. In comparison to epistemology, ontology raises an even
broader sense of question, asking about the way the world operates and the commitment held
to particular views (Saunders et al., 2007, p.132).

Similar to epistemology, ontology has with it two different aspects, including objectivism and
subjectivism (Saunders et al., 2007, p.132). The prior one suggests that social phenomena and
entities exist externally from social actors’ concerns (Bryman &Bell, 2007, p.23); while the
second postulate explain the existence of social entities based on social actors, who
considering as constant builder of society and its meaning (Saunders et al., 2007; Bryman &
Bell, 2007). The difference between objectivism and subjectivism has been widely discussed
among scholars (Saunders et al., 2007, p.133).

In business, an objectivist would likely to reckon an organizational culture is something that

already “has been there”; the subjectivist will be more comfortable to consider that culture is
something that the organization “is” as a result of a social enactment process (Saunders et al.,
2007, p.133).

Thus, objectivism hints researcher that organization can be learned and understood through
studies of social actors. Subjectivism, on the other hand, proposes a more challenging path if
adopted since it is hard to understand something that is constantly on revision and recreation
(Saunders et al., 2007, p.133).

34
Based on the definitions of epistemology and ontology, we come to understand the importance
of having an appropriate theoretical stance before proceeding with constructing a more
detailed research design. For our thesis, we choose to adopt positivism for epistemology and
objectivism for ontology postulate.

The reason for such choice is that our study conducts based on a set of existing theory and
hypotheses and that we are aiming to measure the consumer’s perception and attitudes
towards

the market system in Vietnam. Thus, the market/culture should be considered as “has
already been there”, which can be learned and understood through a study of the social
actors that living within. Moreover, to be able to make any measurement, ourselves are set to be
“value free” from the investigation process, meaning that any judgment are made independently
from the research subject.

Behind the research choices, there are commonly three known research strategies comprising
of quantitative, qualitative and mixed method (Creswell, 2007, p.35). With qualitative study,
inquirer seeks to investigate an issue which connected to particular individuals’ oppression or
to establish the meaning of a phenomenon from the views of social actors. The most common
method of extracting information or reaching these goals is through cultural-sharing group,
ethnography or narrative approach (Creswell, 2007, p.43).

Quantitative, on the other hand, aims to test theory by narrowing down a broad problem into
smaller hypotheses and construct a data collection method to support or refute hypotheses
(Creswell, 2007, p.43).

35
Mixed method, in compromising, base the inquiry on the assumption that the broader the data
set collected, the better the understanding on research problem will be. Usually the mixed
method flow goes as that a broad survey comes first and later a qualitative study following
(Creswell, 2007, p.44).

With the limitation of research scope, time, and geography, we could not make any qualitative
inspired study.

This avoids us from adopting both the purely qualitative & mixed method strategy, leading us
with the choice of quantitative approach. Figure below highlights some characteristics of
quantitative research method.

36
37
 CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING

Besides the costumer behavior influents to their satisfaction of one product, government interventions
also impact on buying decision of consumers. In brief, government has their strongest impact on the
movement of consumerism. In Kotler (1972, p.49), he has defined consumerism as "a social movement
designed to augment the rights and powers of buyers in relations to sellers". The consumer movement
has affected by many organization and government regulations for example establishing oversee
consumerrelated activities. Other, including Varadarajan et al. (1990, p.21) confirms that consumer
movement is considered as a prominent force within LDCs, which we believe to be the Vietnamese case
as well. However, government tends to face themselves in difficult situation whereas conflicts in
interests exist (Varadarajan et al., 1990, p.22). This comes from the two co-existing roles of government:
consumer protector and industry/business protector (Kaynak, 1995, p.19). If government restrict the
area of one product, the consumer will be tough to access this product. Similarly, government propose
some sanctions or laws in order to limit the ability buying of customers, for example, they forbid
consumer under 18 year old to buy cigarettes in many countries.

Recently, many countries have made a lot of attempt on making the companies more responsibilities for
the complaints of consumers as well as making consumers well-educated and high awareness about their
rights. Because the fact that manufactures try to maximize the profits while the consumers want to
maximize utility, and these will make less revenue for the producers (Kaynak, 1985, p.17).

This, nevertheless, refer mainly to the case of developed countries rather in developing or LDCS.
Perception of consumers on government intervention is much less skeptical in LDCs or transitional
countries in comparison to developed one (Darley and Johnson, 1993, p.53).

In fact, the study of Darley and Johnson (1993) shows that in the developed countries, the role of
government intervention in protecting consumer rights has no power to control the consumer
movement. In addition to the other matters such as political orientation, level of inflation, standard of

38
living, the strength of consumer movement and attitude toward business may affect on the government
regulation of business.
list below demonstrated main targets of EU community about the consumer strategy in the period of
2007-2013

The data collection for the empirical part of this study took place during the fall of 2009 as part of a study
made for SN4Mobile, a Finnish company providing mobile solutions and mobile marketing services.

During the data collection period, the customers of SN4Mobile could participate in the research by
integrating the study into their mobile marketing campaigns. The data were collected through a
questionnaire which could be accessed online or on a mobile device. In order to construct a full picture of
attitudes toward mobile advertising, two samples were collected. The primary sample consisted of
consumers who received a mobile advertisement whereas the secondary sample acted as a control group
and consisted of consumers who did not receive advertising.

The purpose was to compare the attitudes of consumers who had received a mobile advertisement to
those who had not. The questions for both samples were similar to each other in order to allow
consistency and ease of comparison.

To reduce sampling error, random sampling was used. The target group of each participating campaign
acted as the sampling frame for the primary sample.

A sample was selected from each campaign target group by simple random sampling. This method
ensured that a comprehensive sample was collected from each campaign.

39
The latent constructs were operationalized by adapting items from previous studies in the same field.
Some of the adopted items were, however, modified so that they would better suit the needs of this
study. Normally adopting items used in previous research is used in order to ensure the validity and
reliability of the research.

Therefore, validated items from previous research were utilized in order to ensure high quality of this
empirical research.

For the purpose of reducing order bias, in other words the possibility that prior questions influence how
latter questions are answered (Aaker, 2004 p. 325), the items were not presented in the order proposed
by the research framework. In addition, to ensure that respondents paid attention to the questions they
were answering some items were reverse coded (DeCoster, 2004).

40
41
 4
2
Attitude toward an ad is defined as ‘a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently
favorable or unfavorable manner toward advertising in general’ (Mackenzie and Lutz, 1989, p.
54). In this context, it is important to note that attitude toward e-mail advertising pertains to
consumers’ attitude toward this advertising type in general and not to the exposure to one
particular ad. In general, attitudes are ‘mental states used by individuals to structure the way
they
perceive their environment and guide the way they respond to it’ (Aaker, Kumar and Day,
1995;

A significant correlation between favorable attitudes toward advertising and respondents’

rating
of specific ads as being annoying, likeable, enjoyable and so on has been observed (Bauer and
Greyser, 1968). Consequently, our research interest focuses on the antecedents of consumer
attitudes toward e-mail advertising. In this paper, the attitude toward e-mail advertising is
measured along various dimensions.

In contrast to attitudinal findings toward e-mail advertising (Mehta and Sivadas, 1995), the
interviewed executives found Web advertising to be useful, valuable and important. Although
these previous findings on attitudes toward e-mail and Web advertising shed light upon the
Internet population's attitudes toward specific types of Internet advertising, a larger and more
representative sample as well as an examination of Internet advertising in general would be
useful. Indeed, both Ducoffe (1996) and Mehta and Sivadas (1995) call for broader sampling
frames. Understanding the factors that underlie Internet advertising attitudes would also be
important for both theory development and applied goals. Ducoffe showed that
entertainment,
informativeness and irritation influenced attitudes toward Web advertising.

The idea that affective (entertainment and irritation) and cognitive (informativeness)
experiences
with Web advertising contribute to people's judgments on Web advertising is consistent with
other attitudinal models such as the tripartite theory of attitudes. Yet, the tripartite theory
proposes
third factor, behavioral experiences, which may contribute to people's attitudes (Katz and
Scotland, 1959; Rosenberg and Hovland, 1960; see Eagly and Chaiken, 1993, for a theoretical
and historical overview of this model). Hence, the utility of Internet advertising for making
decisions (a behavioral experience) may also drive people's attitudes toward Internet
advertising.

43
Some have assumed that the underlying structure of Internet advertising attitudes reflects the
structure of attitudes toward advertising in general (Ducoffe, 1995; Eighmey, 1997).

Yet, it is also plausible that the unique characteristics of the Internet might cause the
underlying structure of attitudes toward Internet advertising and general advertising to differ.
For instance, because it is used primarily as an information-providing medium (Schlosser and
Kanfer, 1999), Internet advertising might elicit attitudes that are mostly comprised of
cognitive factors – especially in comparison with attitudes toward advertising in general.

Such variance has implications for how practitioners alter Internet ads (as opposed to
traditional advertising) in order to improve Internet advertising attitudes.

Thus, one goal of the present research is to determine which dimensions underlie (and to
what degree they explain variance in) attitudes toward Internet advertising.

The following subsections present the components of the model as can be seen in

4
4
 Figure 1 beginning with the dependent variable ‘attitude toward e-mail advertising’.

An intensive literature review was used to establish content validity, that is, whether the
items represent all situations we sought to measure.

Advertising value is a measure for advertising effectiveness and ‘may serve as an index of
customer satisfaction with the communication products of organizations’. It is defined as ‘a
subjective evaluation of the relative worth or utility of advertising to consumers’ (Ducoffe,
1995, p. 1). A value can be described as an enduring belief that a specific conduct or state is
personally/psychologically or socially/culturally preferable to a converse mode of conduct or
an opposite end-state of existence (Levi, 1990). Value potentially derives from the
expectations about an offering itself, from experiences accompanying the exchange, and from
the residual of having engaged in behaviors necessary to achieve the exchange. Hence, value
can reflect the worth of the element itself as well as the experience associated with the
transaction (Houston and Gassenheimer, 1987). Values are the basis of actions, attitudes and
judgments in advertising as well as in other aspects of social life (Beatty et al, 1985).
Advertising value of web advertising has shown to have a significant influence on attitude
toward web advertising (Ducoffe, 1996).

We thus conclude that a highly perceived value of advertising via e-mails also reflects
positively on the consumers’ attitude toward advertising via e-mails.

The quality of information placed on a company's web site shows a direct influence on the
customers’ perceptions of the company and the company's products. Accordingly,
information delivered to them via e-mails also needs to show qualitative features, such as
accuracy, timeliness and usefulness for the consumer (Siau and Shen, 2003). Apart from

45
this, the user needs quick access to the information(s) he is looking for his/her current
content of use. There is even the possibility that information may be delivered
automatically to the consumer (Kaasinen, 2003). Hypothesis 3a: :
High informativeness of an advertising message is positively correlated with a ‘positive’ attitude
toward advertising via e-mails.
Hypothesis 3b: :

High informativeness of an advertising message is positively correlated with a high advertising value.

Irritation
Indignity people feel when being addressed by ads has a very great influence on people's attitude toward
advertising (Shavitt et al, 1998). ‘When advertising employs techniques that annoy, offend, insult or are overly
manipulative, consumers are likely to perceive it as unwanted and irritating influence’ (Ducoffe, 1996, p. 23). E-
mail advertising may provide an array of information that confuses the recipient and can be distracting and
overwhelming the consumer with information (Stewart and Pavlou, 2002). Consumers may feel confused
about them and react negatively. Another point of possible annoyance is unwanted messages, commonly
known as spam. Spam intrudes into consumers’ privacy and stifle consumer acceptance. Therefore, we
conclude that irritation caused by an incomprehensive or unwanted e-mail advertising message may reflect
negatively on the perceived advertising value of e-mail marketing.
Hypothesis 4a: :

4
6
 Irritation of an advertising message is negatively correlated with a ‘positive’ attitude
toward advertising via e-mails.
Hypothesis 4b: :
Irritation of an advertising message is negatively correlated with a high advertising value.

Credibility

Advertising credibility turned out to be significantly relevant to advertising value of web

advertising (Brackett and Carr, 2001). Mackenzie and Lutz (1989, p. 51) define advertising
credibility as ‘consumers’ perception of the truthfulness and believability of advertising in
general’, whereas Pavlou and Stewart (2000) refer to it as ‘predictability and fulfillment of
implicit and explicit requirements of an agreement’ (online document). Credibility of an ad is
influenced by different factors, especially by the company's credibility and the bearer of the
message (Goldsmith et al, 2000; Lafferty et al, 2002). But, it is also influenced by the advertising
medium. It has been found out that a message on the Internet achieves less credibility than a
printed message unless the message is communicated by strong brand. There is no empirical
evidence on the overall credibility of messages transferred to e-mails and their influencing
factors. Considering the findings cited above, we conclude that the credibility of an
e-mailadvertising message has a positive influence on consumers’ attitude toward advertising via
emails and on the perceived advertising value of the consumer.

The number of advertising messages received via e-mails is an important factor that influences
the
advertising value for the consumer (Haghirian and Dickinger, 2005). Ducoffe states that
informativeness and entertainment of advertising information should decline with repetition
because the information will be learned by the audience and thereby lessening its value

47
(Ducoffe,
1995).

As the quantity of promotional message rises, the attitude of the individual toward the
promotional
vehicle also worsens and leads to tedium from consumers’ point of view (Ha, 1996); (Tellis,
1997).
In our model, the impact of informativeness is already analyzed on behalf of the Hypothesis 2;
therefore we investigate the relationship between the frequency of exposure and the dependent
variables.
Hypothesis 6a: :
Frequency of exposure of an advertising message isnegatively correlated with a
‘positive’ attitude toward advertising via e-mails.
Hypothesis 6b: :
Frequency of exposure of an advertising message is negatively correlated with a high
advertising value.

Privacy refers to the degree to which personal information is not known by others (Rust et al,
2002). Customer privacy has always been a critical issue in marketing, but has assumed a
greater significance in recent years with the rise of Internet-based commercial transactions

4
8
(Rust et al, 2002).

Moreover, advertising via electronic communications media, such as telephone, fax or e-mail
is prohibited by law in several Western European countries unless the consumer agrees
explicitly to receive the message.

Privacy issues are therefore very important when using electronic devices in addressing the
consumers.
This calls for application of permission marketing (Krishnamurthy, 2000; Tezinde et al, 2002; Kent and
Brandal, 2003). Before receiving advertising messages via e-mail, consumers need to empower a
marketer
to send promotional messages in certain interest categories to them. Typically, this is done by asking
the
consumer to fallout a survey indicating his or her interest when registering for a service. After that, the
marketer can match advertising messages with the interests of the consumer (Krishnamurthy, 2001).
These processes allow a new kind of about customers (Stewart and Pavlou, 2002).
Hypothesis 7a: :

Relevance of privacy is negatively correlated with

a ‘positive’ attitude toward advertising via
emails.
Hypothesis 7b: :

Relevance of privacy is negatively correlated with

a high advertising value
.

With marketing and advertising gaining more space on the internet, big data analytics are playing
a prominent role in following the trends on the market and providing users with key
statistics.

49
Data analysis and statistics traditionally play an important role in analyzing the success of
companies and brands in the market.

The growth of internet marketing has introduced new trends. Marketing and advertising remain
hotspots of big data analytics.

Stats and data analysis are used by companies to keep progress of their performance in the
market and keep an eye on the ongoing trends, as well as indicators of growth and important
changes in the market.

The article will provide a statistical overview of marketing and advertising statistics and data
analysis.

Digital Advertising Data and Insights

Worldwide revenue in digital advertising in 2016 has reached 198,438.9 million USD. The largest
segment of the Digital Advertising market is Search Advertising, with the volume of 90,740.3
million USD in 2016.

5
0
 Stats & Trends

Compared to 2015, when the revenue was 168,422 million USD, all segments have recorded
steady growth, and the trend is expected to continue in 2017.

After Search Advertising, largest segments remain Banner Advertising, with 43,467 million USD in
2016, and Social Media Advertising with 27, 065 million USD in 2016.

Mobile generated revenue has grown from 56,940 million USD in 2015 to 81,069 USD in 2016,
which is 7.1 percent.

Display advertising stats by industry in 2016 show that 13.9 percent revenue is generated in retail
industry, which amounts to 8,920 million USD.

This is followed by Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCD) with 13.4 and Services with 13.44
percent.

United States remain a country which generated the most revenue, 80,177 million USD, followed
by China with 43,902, United Kingdom (14,251) and Japan (8,671).

Banner Advertising Trends for 2016

Banner Advertising is by far the largest segment of digital advertising. Banner Advertising
revenue in 2016 amounted to 43,467 million USD.

Stats & Trends

Strong growth is predicted in the following years. Estimates are that Banner Advertising will
reach a market volume of 69,777 million in 2021.

A dramatic increase in mobile generated revenue in 2016 is a strong indicator that mobile
devices are taking the lead in digital advertising. It is expected that mobile generated revenue
will overtake desktop generated revenue already in 2018.

Average revenue per internet user is USD 14.78 in 2016, an increase from 13.55 in 2015.

Again, most revenue is generated in the US, with the market volume of 19,554 million USD.

51
Other Marketing Data

Growth is expected in email marketing, with indicators showing that the importance of direct
communication with customers is valued by an increasing number of marketers.

Blogging and Social Media Stats & Trends

Data indicates that B2B marketers who use blogs receive more leads than marketers who don’t.

The importance of business blogging is increasing, as marketers who have made it their priority
are 13 times more likely to have positive ROI.

The trend is also evident with companies.

5
2
Companies which use blogging are receiving 97 percent more links to their websites.

▪ 1.65 billion social mobile accounts were inactive in 2016. Over 1 million new active users
on social media every day.

▪ Visual content is 40 times more likely to get shared on social networks compared to
another type of content.

▪ Almost 95 percent of the brand tweet, 82 percent of them tweet 1 to 6 times per day. 48
percent of brands replied to at least one brand tweet every day.
▪ 4.4 million videos were uploaded on Facebook in February 2016. The videos posted on
Facebook have generated 199 billion views.

▪ 40 million active small business pages on Facebook, 2 million of them pay for advertising. Email
Marketing

▪iPhone is the top email client, with 33 percent email opens followed by Gmail and iPad.

▪75 percent of 900 million accounts on Gmail were accessed from mobile devices.

▪Email is the most used source of data analytics for marketers.

▪89 percent of marketers say use email as their primary channel for lead generation.

Online Reviews and Digital Marketing

The increased importance of online reviews in online business and their influence in digital
marketing becomes evident when we look at the following statistics.

▪90 percent of consumers read online reviews before they decide to visit a business.

▪Online reviews have the same value for customers as personal recommendations.

▪Customers will likely tend to spend more on a business with good reviews.

▪Up to 72 percent of consumers will take action after reading a positive review.

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4
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6
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 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTION

This study has looked into the consumer view of mobile marketing. Specifically, the focus of the
research has been on consumer attitudes and their impact on purchase intention.

The contribution of this research for the field of mobile advertising lies in the fact that it is
among the first studies to focus on different types of permission. The findings provide unique
information as to how the use of existing customer data influences attitude toward mobile
advertising when compared to consumer data provided by a third party.

The results of the study highlight the importance of customer data in the design of mobile
advertising campaigns.

A large number of the campaigns participating in this study were designed to address a relevant
consumer need by analyzing and refining consumer data.

The results of this study indicate that when the mobile advertiser has the possibility to target
actual needs of customers based on existing customer data, attitudes toward mobile
advertisements are likely to be high.

This implies that mobile advertising should be based on service rather than selling.

61
The theoretical part of the study began by discussing attitudes in the context of social psychology and
advertising psychology. Based on literature from both research streams attitude toward advertisement
was defined as an affective construct.

Next attitude toward advertising in general was discussed since it is seen to influence they way consumers
perceive advertisements. When considering consumer perceptions of advertising, previous research
suggests that at the same time the same consumers may hold both positive and negative attitudes toward
advertising. In specific, consumers tend to think advertising in informative and entertaining.

However, they also consider it to be misleading and untruthful. Next, theories related to the consumer
view of mobile advertising were discussed. It was established that in the changing advertising
environment the mobile is the only advertising channel which simultaneously offers location specificity
and interactivity. .

This unique combination offers an entirely new consumer experience. When implementing mobile
advertising campaigns issues such as permission and privacy need to be considered. According to
legislation in the European Union in the case of an existing customer relationship no prior permission for
mobile advertising is needed.

However, research has confirmed that allowing control over personal information has an impact on
purchase intentions.

Based on the literature review a research framework was constructed to represent the
research problem at hand. The research framework represents the constructs central to the
study and their expected relationships. The purpose of the research framework was to guide

62
statistical analysis and to answer the following research question: What are the underlying
factors which characterize the attitudes of Finnish consumers towards mobile advertising and
what is the impact of attitudes on purchase intentions? The research question was approached
through a series of sub questions. Next the results of the study will be presented in light of
these questions. In addition the results will be reflected on in the light of research results from
previous research. How do demographic variables influence attitude toward mobile
advertising? The demographic variables for the sample were obtained by using ACORN Star
classifications. The classifications include the average age, level of income and education as
well as lifestyle preferences of people living in certain geographical areas. The results of this
study indicate that these factors have no influence on

Show side panel

attitude toward mobile advertising in general or attitude toward mobile advertisement.

However, gender seems to influence specifically attitude toward mobile advertisement. While
men and women have a neutral attitude toward mobile advertising in general women seem to
respond more favorable to the advertisements they receive. This result is in line with
Leppäniemi’s (2008) findings that women are more responsive to mobile advertising. In
addition Leppäniemi’s results indicated that income level had no influence on attitude which
was also implied by the results of this study.

63
Research by Tsang (2004) indicates that in general consumers have a negative attitude toward
mobile advertisements unless prior permission has been obtained. In Finland mobile advertising
is regulated by legislation and thus mobile advertising in almost all circumstances requires
permission. However, if a customer relationship exists and the advertisement concerns
products or services purchased by the customer no explicit permission is needed.

This research studied how consumer attitudes differ when a customer relationship exists and
explicit permission has been obtained in contrast to a situation where mobile advertising is based
on the above mentioned exception.

The findings of this study conflict with those of Tsang’s (2004). In effect, it was found that
attitudes toward the advertisement were the most positive when a customer relationship existed
and prior permission had been obtained. However, when mobile advertising was based on an
existing customer relationship and previously purchased products or services attitude was nearly
as positive. However, if data for mobile campaign implementation has been obtained from a
third party, attitude was slightly negative.

Because campaigns which utilized data from the customer base but required no prior permit
generated positive attitudes, it can be said that it is not necessarily the permission that
influences attitude but the relevancy and usefulness of the message itself. In the case of permits
obtained from a third party, the advertiser may not have the relevant customer information to
target the advertising accurately.

64
The messages in this case may not be relevant to the receiver because he or she may not have
any prior knowledge of the company.

In addition, he or she may not be interested in the offering presented. When existing customer
data and purchase history can be used as the basis for campaign planning the effectiveness of the
campaign escalates.

5.3 Limitation

There are several limitations in this research that constrain the researcher to obtain the complete
and important information.

Time and budget constrain are the major limitation that restricted researchers from conducting
the survey to a larger sample size and geographical coverage. Due to fact that, the high travelling
cost restricted researchers to conduct survey in other areas other than Klang Valley and the
researchers only distributed 200 survey questionnaires for this study which may not be sufficient
or large enough to represent the total population of Malaysia. This may subject to inefficiency of
conducting survey and thus cause the demographic backgrounds of the respondents are similar.

Second, there are limited sources of information or journal database for the topic covered for
researchers to refer. Furthermore, limited journals are being published on Asian context of
consumers’ attitude toward online advertising. Thus, researchers are faced difficulties to search
for useful information to support the study especially in literature review.

65
In addition, due to the history of online advertising is not considering long as compare to
traditional advertising, consumers’ perception, beliefs and attitudes towards online advertising
may still evolving and changing over time (Karson et al., 2006.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books

1. Alwit L.F “ Journal of advertising research’’, Edition-2nd , 2001

: Publisher : The advertising research foundation

. Peter, J P “ Consumer behaviour and marketing strategy’’ , Edition-3rd,2011

publisher: Art Book

. Pollay ,R.W “ Segments in consumer criticism of advertising”, Edition-1st,1999

Publisher: Dover Publication

. Shimp, T.A “Consumer perceived advertising value and attitude “,Edition-2nd,2004

Publisher : Balboa press

Article

1.Programme-ad congruence integrating advertising and entertainment.

2 Attitude toward the ad as a mediator of consumer brand choice.

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3. Speculations on the future of advertising.

4.Functional and belief dimension of attitude to television advertising .

Website

1 . www.newvisionsynergy.com

2.https://economictimes.indiatimes.com /

3. www.facebook.co m

4.https://www.zaubacorp.com /

5.https://connect2india.com /

6.https://www.quickcompany.in /

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