The study is aimed to investigate the relationships among consumers’ beliefs about online advertising, attitudes toward online advertising (ATOA), and consumer behavioral responses in three different nations. Among the major findings, (1) all five belief factors (i.e., information seeking, entertainment, economy, credibility, and value corruption) were statistically significant predictors of ATOA, which in turn, significantly predicted online ad clicking and frequency of online shopping, and (2) consumers’ beliefs, attitudes and behavioral responses toward online advertising, and relationships thereof, varied across countries (i.e., the U.S., China, and Romania). Romanians had the most positive ATOA and were most likely to click on advertisements. Americans, however, made the most online purchases.
Consumers’ beliefs and attitudes toward advertising are important indicators of advertising effectiveness (Mehta, 2000). Presently, there exist two typical views about the relationship between consumers’ beliefs and their general attitudes toward advertising. The first treats the two constructs as equivalent and interchangeable, both conceptually and operationally (Mehta, 2000 and Schlosser and Shavitt, 1999), whereas the second postulates that there are fundamental distinctions between beliefs and attitudes. Specifically, beliefs are specific statements describing the attributes or consequences of objects. Attitudes, on the other hand, are summative evaluations of objects. Emanating from beliefs, attitudes operate at different levels of cognitive abstraction. Similarly, one's beliefs about advertising are antecedents of attitudes toward advertising (Brackett and Carr, 2001, Ducoffe, 1996 and Pollay and Mittal, 1993). In this study, our model is built upon the second perspective. Beliefs about online advertising are descriptive statements about the attributes of online advertising (e.g., online advertising is entertaining). Attitudes toward online advertising are defined as the aggregation of evaluations of perceived attributes and benefits of online advertising (e.g., overall, I consider online advertising a good thing).
Consistently, researchers have argued that ATOA have both cognitive and affective antecedents (Ducoffe, 1996 and Shimp, 1981). Belief about advertising, as a result of the benefit and cost that consumers derive from advertising, primarily serves as a cognitive predictor of ATOA. Moreover, one's belief plays a more important role in forming ATOA when the person is engaged in central processing (i.e., more deliberate, effortful and thoughtful) advertising information than in peripheral processing (low involvement, less thoughtful, and more emotional) (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
This study identified five common belief factors across the U.S., Chinese and Romanian samples: entertainment, information, credibility, economy, and value corruption. The results showed that all five factors were significant predictors of ATOA, which was consistent with previous research (e.g., Ducoffe, 1996 and Wolin et al., 2002). Among the five factors, the economy belief played the most important role in predicting ATOA. People who believe online advertising has a positive impact on the economy tend to have a positive attitude toward online advertising. A basic view of advertising proponents is that advertising is the lifeblood of business – it provides consumers with information about products and services and encourages them to improve their standard of living. Advertising has been linked to producing jobs and helping new firms enter the marketplace. Companies employ people who make products and provide the services that advertising sells (Belch & Belch, 2009). Advertising, therefore, stimulates competition and contributes to economic development.
Credibility factor is the second strongest predictor for ATOA. Specifically, when consumers believe online advertising is credible and trustworthy, they tend to have a more positive attitude toward online advertising. This result is consistent with Wolin et al.’s (2002) finding that falsity/no sense negatively predicted ATOA. Due to the immaturity of the market and a lack of regulation systems, consumers in developing markets often hold deep concern about the trustworthiness of online advertising. To establish credibility of online advertising, researchers have suggested that advertisers consider strategies such as money-back guarantees, improved customer services, and affiliations with credible organizations for a “seal of approval” (Wolin et al., 2002).
