Discouting the Competition: Online Advertising Effects on Searching in Choice Mode

17.06.2019 12:00 – 13:00

MANAGEMENT BROWN BAG SEMINAR / ABSTRACT

Advertising can be effective by improving consumers’ product choice intentions, but consumers can fail to implement their intentions due to competitive clutter at the point-of-purchase. The authors examine when and how online advertising can improve the efficiency of intention implementation by consumers. They propose that advertising can do so by speeding up either the identification of the target product or the rejection of competing products, and that advertising’s effect on the perceptual salience of the target product plays a pivotal role in this process of “searching in choice mode.” Across three controlled eye-tracking experiments, exposure to online ads with a packshot led to search efficiency gains of about 30 percent, even when three other searches intervened between ad exposure and target search. Moreover, improved search efficiency was mostly due to the faster rejection of competing products when advertising enhanced the perceptual salience of the target product. The results provide new insights into short-term advertising effects, the mechanisms through which these accrue, and reveal how ads can help consumers to implement their product choice intentions by discounting the competition.

Lieu

Bâtiment: Uni Mail

Boulevard du Pont-d'Arve 40
1205 Geneva

Room M 3220, 3rd floor

entrée libre