Memory for Interactive and Animated Banner and Square Ads

Student Researcher

Jinhee Kim

Faculty Supervisor

Dr. S. Shyam Sundar

For a complete report of this research, see:

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).

For more details regarding the study contact

Dr. S. Shyam Sundar by e-mail at sss12@psu.edu or by telephone at (814) 865-2173

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Media Effects Research Lab at College of Communications, Penn State University