Memory for Interactive and Animated Banner and Square Ads
Student Researcher: Jinhee Kim.
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. S. Shyam Sundar
Sundar, S. S., & Kim, J. (2004, May). High recall and low recognition of interactive Ads: A limited-capacity exploration. Paper presented to the Information Systems division at the 54th annual convention of the International Communication Association (ICA), New Orleans, LA.
Introduction
How does interacting with online advertisements influence the cognitive processing
of ad information? While interactivity is a much-touted aspect of Web advertising,
not a single study till date has manipulated the level of interactivity in ads
and experimentally determined its effect. The present study manipulated the
level of interactivity with two other ad features – animation and Ad shape
– and investigated their impact on ad memory in terms of free recall,
cued recall, and recognition.
Method
All participants (N = 48) in a 3 (Interactivity: Low, Medium, High) x 2 (Animation:
Static, Animated) x 2 (Ad Shape: Banner, Square) experiment design were exposed
to 12 Web pages containing news articles, with each page containing a stimulus
ad. They saw one of three different samples of stimulus ads in one of four orders.
After browsing through each Web page for a maximum of 90 seconds, they filled
out a paper-and-pencil questionnaire, which contained memory measures. Free
recall was assessed by asking participants to list as many ads (including descriptions)
they could remember from the Web pages. Cued recall was assed by asking participants
to fill in the blanks of sentence, usually the slogan or central message featured
in the ad. Recognition was assessed by asking participants to match each ad
from the list of 12 they saw to one of a set of 12 slogans or offers culled
from those ads.
Results
Interactivity showed a main effect for free recall such that high-interactive ads were recalled significantly better than low and medium, and a main effect for recognition such that medium ads were recognized significantly better than high. In addition, animated ads fared significantly better than static ads on cued recall, and banner ads were recognized significantly better than square ads.
Results also showed three significant two-way interactions. The one between
interactivity and animation showed that while animation leads to superior free
recall in low-and medium-interactive ads, its effect is inferior to static in
high-interactive ads.
Significant three way interaction was observed on all three types of memory.
Among them, on cued recall, the differentiation was best between static and
animated ads. For static ads, cued recall was positively influenced by interactivity
in the case of banner and negatively influenced in the case of square ads while
for animated ads, an inverted V-pattern was obtained for both ad shapes.
Conclusion
Findings may be best interpreted from the limited-capacity framework claimed
by Lang (2000), which treats recognition, cued recall, and free recall as indicators
of encoding, storage, and retrieval respectively. High-interactive ads result
in better recall but poorer recognition than medium-interactive ads. Animated
ads fared better than static ads on cued recall, while banner ads were recognized
better than square ads. It seems that animated square ad in the medium-interactivity
condition is the point of cognitive overload, and increasing interactivity beyond
that point is likely to degrade encoding of ad information. These results show
the opposite trend with previous common findings with tradition media, which
claimed low recall and high recognition of advertisements (Krugman, 1986).
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