Effects of offline ad content on online brand search: insights from super bowl advertising

Individuals watch TV shows while simultaneously and/or immediately searching online. Thus, the content of offline TV ads can affect online brand search, a key predictor of sales. Yet there are few insights on the effect of offline ad content on online brand search. We develop hypotheses relating the informational and emotional content of TV ads on online brand search, independently, and in conjunction with two attentional content elements of the ad campaign, prior media publicity and brand website prominence in the TV ad. We test the hypotheses using a quasi-experimental study, the telecast of TV ads on the annual Super Bowl event between 2004 and 2012 (n = 293 observations). We measure online brand search by online brand search lift, i.e., the growth in online brand search following the telecast of the brand’s ad on Super Bowl. The findings indicate that the informational content of the TV ad increases online brand search, while both attentional content elements decrease this effect. We find no support for the effect of emotional content of the TV ad on online brand search. Our findings extend marketing theory on online search and generate managerial implications for designing TV ads to increase online brand search.

[1]  Elison Ai Ching Lim,et al.  Frontline employees’ nonverbal cues in service encounters: a double-edged sword , 2017 .

[2]  Xiaojing Yang,et al.  The effects of creativity on advertising wear-in and wear-out , 2016 .

[3]  Patrick De Pelsmacker,et al.  The influence of ad-evoked feelings on brand evaluations: : Empirical generalizations from consumer responses to more than 1000 TV commercials , 2013 .

[4]  Bernard J. Jaworski,et al.  Enhancing and Measuring Consumers’ Motivation, Opportunity, and Ability to Process Brand Information from Ads , 1991 .

[5]  Yuping Liu,et al.  What is Interactivity and is it Always Such a Good Thing? Implications of Definition, Person, and Situation for the Influence of Interactivity on Advertising Effectiveness , 2002 .

[6]  Debora Viana Thompson,et al.  Consumer-Generated Ads: Does Awareness of Advertising Co-Creation Help or Hurt Persuasion? , 2013 .

[7]  H. Varian,et al.  Predicting the Present with Google Trends , 2012 .

[8]  Kenneth C. Wilbur,et al.  Effects of TV Advertising on Keyword Search , 2014 .

[9]  Rajdeep Grewal,et al.  The Chief Marketing Officer Matters! , 2015 .

[10]  Donna L. Hoffman,et al.  Flow Online: Lessons Learned and Future Prospects , 2009 .

[11]  Scott C. Purvis,et al.  How Digital Conversations Reinforce Super Bowl Advertising , 2014, Journal of Advertising Research.

[12]  Matthew Lombard,et al.  At the Heart of It All: The Concept of Presence , 2006 .

[13]  Charles M. Bundrick,et al.  Measurement of Experience: Construct and Content Validity of the Experience Questionnaire , 1987 .

[14]  S. Shavitt,et al.  Getting too personal: Reactance to highly personalized email solicitations , 2008 .

[15]  R. Chandy,et al.  What to Say When: Advertising Appeals in Evolving Markets , 2001 .

[16]  K. Train,et al.  A Control Function Approach to Endogeneity in Consumer Choice Models , 2010 .

[17]  Jeffrey Loewenstein,et al.  The Repetition-Break Plot Structure Makes Effective Television Advertisements , 2011 .

[18]  J. Bettman,et al.  Effects of Prior Knowledge and Experience and Phase of the Choice Process on Consumer Decision Processes: A Protocol Analysis , 1980 .

[19]  David H. Reiley,et al.  Down-to-the-minute effects of super bowl advertising on online search behavior , 2013, EC '13.

[20]  Jan H. Schumann,et al.  Targeted Online Advertising: Using Reciprocity Appeals to Increase Acceptance among Users of Free Web Services , 2014 .

[21]  Hyun-young Choi,et al.  Predicting Initial Claims for Unemployment Benefits , 2009 .

[22]  M. Brucks.  The Effects of Product Class Knowledge on Information Search Behavior , 1985 .

[23]  Gerard J. Tellis,et al.  Effective Advertising: Understanding When, How, and Why Advertising Works , 2003 .

[24]  Hyun Seung Jin.  COMPOUNDING CONSUMER INTEREST: Effects of Advertising Campaign Publicity on the Ability to Recall Subsequent Advertisements , 2003 .

[25]  James Gips,et al.  Enhancing television advertising: same-language subtitles can improve brand recall, verbal memory, and behavioral intent , 2014 .

[26]  Raji Srinivasan,et al.  Social Influence Effects in Online Product Ratings , 2012 .

[27]  M. Csíkszentmihályi.  Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life , 1997 .

[28]  Sridhar Moorthy,et al.  Advertiser Prominence Effects in Search Advertising , 2017, Manag. Sci..

[29]  P. K. Kannan,et al.  From Social to Sale: The Effects of Firm-Generated Content in Social Media on Customer Behavior , 2016 .

[30]  Dana L. Alden,et al.  The Effects of Incongruity, Surprise and Positive Moderators on Perceived Humor in Television Advertising , 2000 .

[31]  G. Loewenstein.  The psychology of curiosity: A review and reinterpretation. , 1994 .

[32]  Gerald J. Eskin,et al.  Effects of Price and Advertising in Test-Market Experiments , 1977 .

[33]  D. Lehmann,et al.  Reactance to Recommendations: When Unsolicited Advice Yields Contrary Responses , 2004 .

[34]  Kenneth C. Wilbur,et al.  Television Advertising and Online Search , 2013, Manag. Sci..

[35]  J. Gips,et al.  Breaking through Fast-Forwarding: Brand Information and Visual Attention , 2008 .

[36]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion , 1986 .

[37]  Wendy W. Moe,et al.  The Influence of Goal‐Directed and Experiential Activities on Online Flow Experiences , 2003 .

[38]  Scot Burton,et al.  The Role of Spokescharacters as Advertisement and Package Cues in Integrated Marketing Communications , 2005 .

[39]  K. Pauwels,et al.  Effects of Word-of-Mouth versus Traditional Marketing: Findings from an Internet Social Networking Site , 2009 .

[40]  Edward E. Rigdon,et al.  Play, Flow, and the Online Search Experience , 2004 .

[41]  Michel Wedel,et al.  The Stopping Power of Advertising: Measures and Effects of Visual Complexity , 2010 .

[42]  Bernd H. Schmitt,et al.  How to Advertise and Build Brand Knowledge Globally , 2014, Journal of Advertising Research.

[43]  Daniel L. Sherrell,et al.  Consumer Search: An Extended Framework , 1986 .

[44]  Tom Pyszczynski,et al.  Role of disconfirmed expectancies in the instigation of attributional processing. , 1981 .

[45]  Dominique M. Hanssens,et al.  The Effectiveness of Industrial Print Advertisements across Product Categories , 1980 .

[46]  Kenneth R. Lord,et al.  Advertising and publicity: An information processing perspective☆ , 1993 .

[47]  Scott A. Neslin,et al.  Driving Online and Offline Sales: The Cross-Channel Effects of Traditional, Online Display, and Paid Search Advertising , 2013 .

[48]  Dan Zigmond,et al.  Measurement of the Impact of Television Commercials on Internet Search Queries , 2010 .

[49]  Rama Yelkur,et al.  Super Bowl Advertising Effectiveness: Hollywood Finds the Games Golden , 2004, Journal of Advertising Research.

[50]  Cornelia Dröge,et al.  Shaping the Route to Attitude Change: Central versus Peripheral Processing through Comparative versus Noncomparative Advertising , 1989 .

[51]  Ambar G. Rao,et al.  Assessing When Increased Media Weight of Real-World Advertisements Helps Sales , 2002 .

[52]  P. A. Dabholkar,et al.  Consequences of Forcing Consumers to Use Technology-Based Self-Service , 2008 .

[53]  Kihan Kim,et al.  Creative strategies of Super Bowl commercials 2001-2009: an analysis of message strategies , 2011 .

[54]  Erik L. Olson,et al.  Sponsorship effect metric: assessing the financial value of sponsoring by comparisons to television advertising , 2009 .

[55]  Curtis P. Haugtvedt,et al.  Message Order Effects in Persuasion: An Attitude Strength Perspective , 1994 .

[56]  Udo Rudolph,et al.  An experimental analysis of surprise , 1991 .

[57]  Rex Du,et al.  Decomposing the Impact of Advertising: Augmenting Sales with Online Search Data , 2014 .

[58]  Diane M. Mackie,et al.  The Feeling of Familiarity as a Regulator of Persuasive Processing , 2001 .

[59]  J. Cacioppo,et al.  Central and Peripheral Routes to Advertising Effectiveness: The Moderating Role of Involvement , 1983 .

[60]  M. Laroche,et al.  Effects of Multi-Channel Marketing on Consumers' Online Search Behavior , 2013, Journal of Advertising Research.

[61]  Andrew T. Stephen,et al.  The Effects of Traditional and Social Earned Media on Sales: A Study of a Microlending Marketplace , 2012 .

[62]  Gerard Llobet,et al.  Advertising and Consumer Awareness of New, Differentiated Products , 2012 .

[63]  Prasad A. Naik,et al.  Understanding the Impact of Synergy in Multimedia Communications , 2003 .

[64]  R. Petty,et al.  Attitude strength: An overview. , 1995 .

[65]  François A. Carrillat,et al.  Investigating sponsorship effectiveness: Do less familiar brands have an advantage over more familiar brands in single and multiple sponsorship arrangements? , 2005 .

[66]  Jason Kuruzovich,et al.  Marketspace or Marketplace? Online Information Search and Channel Outcomes in Auto Retailing , 2008, Inf. Syst. Res..

[67]  M. Eisend.  A meta-analysis of gender roles in advertising , 2010 .

[68]  Randall A. Lewis,et al.  Display advertising’s competitive spillovers to consumer search , 2015 .

[69]  Swee Hoon Ang,et al.  The ad creativity cube: conceptualization and initial validation , 2007 .

[70]  Michel Wedel,et al.  Eye Fixations on Advertisements and Memory for Brands: A Model and Findings , 2000 .

[71]  Koen Pauwels,et al.  Paths to and off purchase: quantifying the impact of traditional marketing and online consumer activity , 2016 .

[72]  M. Eisend,et al.  The effectiveness of publicity versus advertising: a meta-analytic investigation of its moderators , 2011 .

[73]  Kenneth C. Wilbur,et al.  Television Advertising and Online Shopping , 2014, Mark. Sci..

[74]  H. Varian,et al.  Predicting the Present with Google Trends , 2009 .

[75]  Jörg Matthes,et al.  The effectiveness of celebrity endorsements: a meta-analysis , 2016, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

[76]  Keith Wilcox,et al.  Consumers’ Response to Commercials: When the Energy Level in the Commercial Conflicts with the Media Context , 2015 .

[77]  Rex Du,et al.  Leveraging Trends in Online Searches for Product Features in Market Response Modeling , 2015 .

[78]  Jiwoong Shin,et al.  Uninformative Advertising as an Invitation to Search , 2011, Mark. Sci..

[79]  V. Kumar,et al.  Synergistic effects of social media and traditional marketing on brand sales: capturing the time-varying effects , 2017 .

[80]  Diego Rinallo,et al.  Does Advertising Spending Influence Media Coverage of the Advertiser? , 2009 .

[81]  Feng Wang,et al.  Why Do Moviegoers Go to the Theater? The Role of Prerelease Media Publicity and Online Word of Mouth in Driving Moviegoing Behavior , 2010 .

[82]  L. Reder,et al.  What determines initial feeling of knowing? Familiarity with question terms, not with the answer , 1992 .