Caleif Brooks – BTMM 4446 – 4/1/10
READING SUMMARY: Telepresence and... business and commerce
Fortin, D. R., & Dholakia, R. R. (2005). Interactivity and vividness effects on social presence and involvement with a web-based advertisement. Journal of Business Research, 58(3), 387-396.
The article discusses how advertisers have used media over a long period of time to reach specific target markets. Since the introduction ofcomputer-mediated environments(CMEs), advertisers have been inspired to establish commercial web sites despite uncertainness regarding effective use of thenew medium. Of these advertisers, most are used to the vintage style of early web sites, which were mostly text-based. Butwith many advances in technological development,there are a variety offeatures advertisers can use to enhance the appeal of the interface. For example combining print and electronic media, allowing for more control ofpaceand exposure with impressive forms of communication like motion, audio and videofiles. Since CMEs are a new medium for advertising, advertisers are still trying to figure out how to use the capabilities of thenew media to achieve their communication objectives. More than likely advertisers will find their answers by generating a greater understanding of how the newmedia is similar and/or different from traditional media.As well as determining how these differences might influence the effectiveness of advertising with the new medium.Later the article focuses on the importance of interactivity and themanner in which it affects consumers in regards to opinions and attitudes.They predictthat as newer technology emerges, there will probably be anincrease in the interactive capabilities of new media moving closer to the level reached by face-to-face (FtF) interactions.The main objectives of the article were toprovide a review of interactivity and evaluate the effects ofincremental levels of interactivity on attitudes about anonline advertisement.
Going forward, the article discusses the rapid growth of the web as well as the new term “interactivity.”The term is described as being, “the degree to which a communication system can allowone or more end users to communicate alternatively assenders or receivers with one or many other users orcommunication devices, either in real time or on a store-and-forward basis” (p. 388). Moreover, the article then discusses why the web was chosen as a context for this kind of research. One reason was because of the “Arousal” factor of web-based advertisements. Interactive features of an advertisementare usually quickly identifiable within the ad, and there’s apossibility that the availability of these featuresmight increase arousal directly.Once it was established that there was a direct relationship between arousal and interactivity, it helped formulate the basis to conduct the experiment.
The research consisted of a 3x3 factorial design. Three levels of both interactivity and vividness(low, medium, and high) were manipulated as independentvariables, generating nine experimental conditions.The stimuli for the experiment consisted of a banneralong with a web site advertisement for a fictitious productcalleda Powerstrip.Both ad configurations anddata recording forms were created specifically for theexperiment by using HTML markup language. Based on the factorial design, nine versions of thestimulus material representing three levels of interactivity bythree levels of vividness were generated. The goal of thestudy was to manipulate interactivity and vividness whilemaintaining other factors constant. Throughout the experiment the information content of the stimulus material essentially remainedconstant and onlythe interactivity and vividness features were allowed to vary.
Aconvenience sample of undergraduate studentsat a university in the northeast United States was used fora pretest. After the pretest a total of 360 questionnaires were collected through the web server, apparently after an e-mail announcement wassent to potential participants. Once they clicked through to the experimental site,participants were randomly directed to one of the nineexperimental conditions. After examining a banner ad for theproduct, participants were instructed to click on it to proceedto section two. This section of the experiment was the actualweb site for the PowerStrip product. Participants were toldto spend as much time as they required going through thetest site. The last phase of the experiment asked theparticipants to respond to a questionnaire, which involvedfilling out the dependent measures (including involvement, social presence, arousal, attitudes toward the ad and brand and purchase consideration) and a short set ofbackground demographics using an easy and friendly‘‘point-and-click’’ interface.
The results of the experiment suggested that those with a higher Need For Cognition (NFC) would tend to respond more positively to enhanced interactivity than those who scored lower in that area. Therefore in conclusion, the new medium of the web has significant implications for advertisers, as being a powerfuloutlet for consumer communication. However, the approach does not necessarily lead toenhanced communication effectiveness. As the complexity ofthe advertisement increases, so does the possibility ofdiminishing returns on effectiveness. Moreover, if the interactive features and design elements are properly balanced,the new media has the ability to impact favorably oninvolvement, which has traditionally been hard to achievein conventional media. The findings suggested thatproviding enhanced vividness of the message by means ofcolors, graphics, and animation is more likely to generate afavorable impact than comparable levels of interactivity.By focusing on theenhancement of social presence elements in the designof the advertisement, firms have the uniqueopportunity of establishing virtual or perceived relationshipswith their customers on a one-on-one basis and creating a more effective advertisement to be placed on the web.
For me summarizing this article was challenging because it had so many different elements to it, and I felt like I did not know what I was talking about. At the time I wrote this summary we had just started class, and I was not too familiar with the terms interactivity and presence. Overall the article was very boring simply because it had a lot of data and analysis, and I really just wanted it to get the gist of how the Internet advertisements affected consumers.