Research Article – Critical Analysis Assignment – Digital Marketing Assignment instructions: This assignment should be completed specifically for this course. All other terms of the course outline a

Jason Hamilton

MKT 3248 - A01: Digital Marketing

September 26, 2019

A Review: “Opening” location-based mobile ads: How openness and location congruency of location-based ads weaken negative effects of intrusiveness on brand choice:

With consumer’s increasing dependency on technology over the past few years, mobile

advertising has been swiftly moving its way as the forefront of the marketing media mix. Mobile

marketing is extremely popular because retailers are able to segregate and target their customers

or advertising audiences based on information that is often stored in consumers’ smartphones --

their location, interests, social media, and purchase behaviour. Despite the seeming limitless

possibilities of relevant ads, marketers biggest obstacle is overcoming advertising avoidance.

This study aims to provide more insight into the factors that may overcome resistance to mobile

ads and stimulate acceptance and positive receptiveness towards the ad and brand.

The authors propose that perceived intrusiveness is the root problem to advertising

avoidance. Consumers often perceive their relationship with their phones as personal so

perceived intrusiveness is even more pronounced because mobile ads take up the limited screen

space of smartphones and interrupt personal media content. To manipulate the consumer's

perception of intrusiveness and the negative effect it has on brand choice, this research studies

the effect of openness in message design and its interplay with location congruency.

The authors speculate that by using open ads that have low levels of verbal and brand

anchoring, it invites customers to “think into” the ad and decipher its message, consumers would

be more receptive to the self-generated positive attitude about the ad and the brand. Additionally,

the active task of “completing” an open ad fit better with the interactive medium of smartphones

compared to the experience of “processing” closed ads. Thus, forming their first hypothesis that

(1) “Consumers will perceive open ads as less intrusive than closed ads.” and their second

hypothesis of (2) “Consumers who receive and open ad on their smartphone will have a more

positive attitude than consumers who receive closed ad because they see the ad as less intrusive.”

Furthermore, Ketelaat et al., (2018) also hypothesize that (3) the effectiveness of location

congruence is more pronounced when they’ve received an open ad.

To test his hypothesis, Ketelaat et al., (2018) simulated a real shopping experience via

virtual reality. Participants were given a grocery shopping and were tasked to buy four items:

French red wine, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, and tomato soup. The targeted product being the

French red wine because it's a high involvement, hedonistic product. Ad openness was tested

through the two versions of the mobile ad. Both versions contain a visual metaphor but the

closed ad contains a verbal anchor. Location congruency was tested by changing the products on

the shelf where the ad is triggered. Variables like brand choice, privacy concerns, and need for

cognition were also measured through a questionnaire. All of the authors’ initial hypotheses were proven correct. They also found out that

consumers’ privacy concerns and need for cognition negatively relate to attitude towards the ad

and brand choice. The study contributes a new-found understanding for marketers to use

openness in ad design to maximize the retailer’s collection of customers’ personal information

while minimizing the backlash of a customer’s perceived intrusiveness and privacy invasiveness

of a mobile ad.

Ketelaar et. al (2018)’s research paper was well researched, relevant, and makes a

significant contribution to marketing literature and applications in our modern technological

world.

A serious weakness with this study is that the authors overlook the real-life implication

that the average modern person gets flooded with thousands of ads per day, almost three hundred

every waking hour. Without much context given by the authors, their experiment seemingly only

triggered one ad throughout the whole grocery shopping task experience. This can result in

difficulties when marketers attempt implement the theory over to reality for marketers. Authors

can rectify this weakness by either explicitly conveying that given that there is no competitors

who do the same.

One of the most interesting parts of this study was how it used virtual reality as a market

research tool. Virtual reality could theoretically be used to test how consumers interact with a

sizeable physical environment like a grocery store. However, VR as a method of analysis could

concern the ecological validity of the research.

Although VR’s graphic quality of simulation is high, it is not fully immersive. The

defining factors that make up the grocery shopping experience is that you can see, smell, touch,

and sometimes taste the products that you’re buying. VR only taps into one of the 5 senses, a

limitation of which can be a major drawback to the study’s application to the marketing industry.

Furthermore, the isolating nature of VR also could be limiting to the implementation of this

study’s findings in real life.

Despite the limitations, the authors raised several insightful points that could be

ground-breaking for the marketing industry. By linking openness in mobile ad design and

location congruence to consumer’s ad intrusiveness, marketers can now make further research

into the other aspects that make an ad seem open aside from the visual anchoring that the study

tested -- as well as offer consumers with a more valuable and enjoyable experience while

increasing profits.

Ketelaar, P., Bernritter, S., van Woudenberg, T., Rozendaal, E., Konig, R., Hühn, A., … Janssen, L.

(2018). “Opening” location-based mobile ads: How openness and location congruency of location-based

ads weaken negative effects of intrusiveness on brand choice. ​Journal of Business Research ​, ​91 ​, 277–285.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.06.018