Master Program in Business Studies

Transcription

1 Master Program in Business Studies MASTER THESIS Determinants and consequences of perceived intrusiveness in pre-roll video online advertising Author: Marcelo J. Cabrera Herrera Student Number: Supervisor: Dr. R. Pruppers Amsterdam July 2011 i

2 PREFACE I decided to write my master thesis about pre-roll video advertising because it has become a very important medium for companies when locating their marketing campaigns and conveying brand messages. Streaming video websites are becoming more and more popular occupying a high percentage of activity within the online tasks of consumers. Nowadays, marketers are aware of the opportunities coming from the online environment, however they should also be considered from a consumer behavior perspective. This is why I decided to focus on the determinants and consequences of one recognized effect of advertising named intrusiveness. From the consumer point of view better conditions could be provided to reduce negative feelings and a more effective approach could be achieved considering the managerial perspective. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This master thesis could not be completed without the help and support of many people. First, I would like to thank my supervisor Drs. Roger Pruppers. Thanks to his expertise in marketing research, he has done an amazing job by providing very valuable insights to every chapter of this research. Roger, it was a pleasure working with you and I was amazed by your enthusiasm and constant motivation. I also want to thank god and my family which from the distance knew how to provide strength. In addition, to my friends for their support and all the people that participated in the research and that made possible complete the experiment. To my girlfriend Lot, thank you so much for your love, ideas, criticism and constant motivation. Last but not least, to Mariëtte, Paul and Tim thank you for your support and incentive in everyway during this whole experience. Marcelo Cabrera Amsterdam 2011 ii

3 ABSTRACT The emerging advertising format of pre-roll advertising has positioned itself very strongly in the video streaming environment. However it has received relatively little academic attention concerning its negative perceptions coming from potential consumers. The present research addresses this important issue by focusing on the determinants and consequences of one very important driver of negative outcomes in advertising known as perceived intrusiveness. In order to find which confounding factors and consequences are involved in pre-roll ads, an experiment with 214 participants was conducted involving a 2x2x2 factorial design between subjects and putting to test five hypotheses. From the analysis it was found that the main drivers are ad location (beginning vs. middle) and video length of where the ad is embedded (short vs. long). Considering ad length it was found that once an ad is embedded in an online streaming video, its perception regarding its duration becomes altered due to a change in attention however its effects on intrusiveness were rejected. Moreover, a theoretical model is constructed with respect to the dependent variable (intention of avoidance) and suggests that irritation plays a mediating role for intrusiveness. Besides intrusiveness, the variables of attitude towards advertising in general, attitude towards the ad and attitude towards pre-roll ads were also found as predictors of irritation yet intrusiveness was the stronger one. The overall outcome is discussed along with the implications for theory and practice and finally it is proposed future research directions in the field of pre-roll advertising taking in consideration the contributions of the present study. Keywords: pre-roll, advertising, intrusiveness, irritation, avoidance iii

4 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO PRE-ROLL ADVERTISING PRE-ROLL ADS, NOTION OF INTRUSIVENESS AND RESEARCH GAP PROBLEM DEFINITION DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY CONTRIBUTION THEORETICAL MANAGERIAL STRUCTURE/OUTLINE OF THE RESEARCH 5 2 ONLINE ADVERTISING CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS IN AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT DESCRIPTION EVOLUTION CURRENT TYPES OF ONLINE ADS COMPARISON WITH TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING PRE-ROLL ADVERTISING 14 3 ADVERTISING PROCESSING PERCEPTIONS NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS IN TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING NEGATIVE PERCEPTION IN ONLINE ADVERTISING REVIEW OF INTRUSIVENESS 22 4 HYPOTHESES INTRODUCTION CONFOUNDING FACTORS CONSEQUENCES 31 5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY OVERVIEW RESEARCH DESIGN INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLES MEASUREMENTS AD LENGTH VIDEO LENGTH PERCEIVED INTRUSIVENESS INTENTION OF AVOIDANCE IRRITATION STIMULI DEVELOPMENT THE VIDEO THE COMMERCIAL PRE-TEST PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE RESULTS OF PRE-TEST CHOICE OF AD LENGTH CHOICE OF VIDEO LENGTH 48 iv

5 5.6 CONTROL VARIABLES BRAND FAMILIARITY ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE PRODUCT ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE VIDEO ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE AD ATTITUDE TOWARDS PRE-ROLL ADS ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE STREAMING MEDIA AMOUNT OF STREAMING WEBSITE USAGE DEMOGRAPHICS PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE PARTICIPANTS PROCEDURE 58 6 RESULTS RESPONDENTS DATA PREPARATION MANIPULATION CHECKS BRAND FAMILIARITY VIDEO UNDERSTANDING ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE VIDEO ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE AD VIDEO LENGTH AD LENGTH HYPOTHESIS TESTING HYPOTHESIS HYPOTHESIS HYPOTHESIS HYPOTHESIS HYPOTHESIS DISCUSSION INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS AD LENGTH AD LOCATION VIDEO LENGTH INTERACTION EFFECTS AND OVERALL ANALYSIS CONSEQUENCES IMPLICATIONS THEORETICAL MANAGERIAL 94 8 CONCLUSION CONCLUSION OF THE STUDY LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 98 REFERENCE LIST 100 APPENDIXES 106 v

6 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO PRE-ROLL ADVERTISING The increasing usage of internet and different activities of online presented opportunities for advertising campaigns and new ways to approach consumers. For instance, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2010), by May % of American adults are online in the U.S. in contrast to the 68% found in 2006 and 59% in Moreover watching a video on video-sharing sites like YouTube or Google Video are represented by the 23% of users in an average day. Whether users browse for information, play games, seek for social interactions or other forms of entertainment they are in an aware state with a goal by being online, which implies being exposed to advertising (Ko, et al., 2005). Thus, this phenomena is aimed to be leveraged by companies through online advertising across different ad formats for example pop-ups, pop-unders, in-line (banners) which are embedded in different activities such as search platforms, game websites, social media, blogging and content communities (McCoy, et al., 2007). The objective of the latter is sharing media content between users ranging from text, photos (e.g., Flickr), PowerPoint presentations (e.g., Slideshare) and videos like in Youtube (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Video sharing and streaming is currently one of the most popular activities online, statistics of January 2009 show that every minute, ten hours of content was uploaded to Youtube and over 100 million videos per day were served (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Thus, content communities of video became a very attractive contact channel for many firms. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2010), 69% of internet users watch or download video online, 14% post videos and the year-olds are the heaviest consumers of online video. Additionally since 2007 the amount of viewers in the U.S. has increased drastically. For example adult users in humorous videos risen viewership from 31% to 50%, educational videos 22% to 38% (videos shown as teaching material in class), movies or TV show videos from 16% to 32% and political videos 15% to 30%. This increase is also explained also by the growing social networking in the same timeframe where status updates in Facebook or Twitter for example involve sharing popular or favourite videos from Youtube. Nowadays watching videos online can be found in any place and form that allows usage of internet going from households and offices and from PC s to devices like the Apple Ipod and smartphones. Technology of the latter contributed in a very important way to this increase, for example with the idea of why wait until you return home to watch the new YouTube video if you can do it very easily on your iphone? (Pew Internet and American Life Project 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). 1

7 2 Inevitably companies aware of this are locating advertising on streaming websites and its videos, in forms ranging from pop-ups and pop-unders in the beginning or after five seconds that the video has started. The latest trend is pre-roll video advertising, which is a format similar to a television commercial, but integrated in the videos, lasting from 15 to 30 seconds and normally shown before the video is displayed however it can also be located at the end or the middle. (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010, p. 16 and MacMillan, 2009). 1.2 PRE-ROLL ADS, NOTION OF INTRUSIVENESS AND RESEARCH GAP Pre-roll ads emerged as an alternative for reaching older and younger viewers who are increasingly difficult reaching through TV ads. According to research conducted in the Netherlands by Microsoft Advertising (2008) 74% of pre roll ads are viewed from beginning to end and higher spontaneous recall of the ad is experienced in pre-roll than in banners and ads shown during commercial breaks. In the online environment companies in the Netherlands like T-Mobile and ASN Bank are examples currently maintaining a campaign using this type of ads on Youtube. Yume (2010) a video advertising technology company, indicates that the category spending the most in pre-roll ads are consumer packaged goods, completion rates in average are 70% but female audience presents higher with 74% versus 67% of males. In contrast, Tubemogul (2010) a company analyzing video advertising, reported that in pre-roll ads 15.89% of viewers clicked away from a video rather than staying with the ad. Clearly there is an avoidance behavior encountered also in other advertising formats where people tend to avoid commercials for example in TV by switching channels, putting on silence, etc. (Speck and Elliott, 1997). Comparing pre-roll ads with TV, the last format have small ads generally encountered as pre-roll before a program or live show. It is understood that consumers may have negative perceptions such as interruption leading to avoid the ads (Wang, et al., 2002), the intrusive feeling phenomena is precisely the focus of this research in the pre-roll ad context. Interruption-feeling levels could vary across different formats, for instance it is not the same being interrupted while watching television than when intending to look a video on internet. Factors like purpose and higher motivation to process that video can mark that difference. That deviated attention can cause a forced-feeling and perceived intrusiveness leading to avoid the ads and making them less effective. Intrusiveness was already studied in formats such as pop-ups or banners (Li, Edwards and Lee 2002), however it continues being a research gap in the pre-roll video advertising context, along with its confounding factors and consequences of being that intrusive in comparison to other more traditional ads.

8 1.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION The overall and general question of this research is: What determines the level of perceived intrusiveness in Pre-roll advertising and what are its consequences? In other words: What factors come together in explaining the feeling of perceived intrusiveness for pre-roll ads and what consequences come with it? 1.4 DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY The research focuses on the confounding factors which are expected to explain perceived intrusiveness in the mindset of viewers regarding pre-roll advertising. These may be congruence, duration, position, intensity of task and attitude towards advertising in general. In order to achieve this, the research focuses on a comparison of intrusiveness from another advertising formats such as television, print ads in magazines, pop-ups, etc. Moreover it deals only with the interaction of these factors for assessing the construction of intrusiveness leading to avoidance of the ad and ultimately a change of the streaming website. It becomes clear that the goal is to understand the consumer intrusive perception in pre-roll ads. The study will not include product class relevance or product involvement. At the same time brand familiarity or attachment is excluded for analyzing if it has a certain influence on intrusiveness. Utility of the ad in terms whether is informative or entertaining is also excluded because the analysis focuses on the response towards the interruption factor rather than in the content of the ad itself and its message. Thus it focuses on the drivers of intrusive feelings rather than possible moderators of after exposition. Finally we are not concerned in advertising processing as such and the positive impact that can have on factors like brand perceptions, rather we focus on the downsides of advertising, in other words the study of the factors making the video pre-roll ads ineffective. 1.5 CONTRIBUTION THEORETICAL The research aims extending theory of intrusiveness which is encountered mainly in traditional advertising formats but continues as a research gap in pre-roll video advertising, moreover extending understanding of the downsides of pre-roll advertising in terms of consumer perceptions. The relations of the proposed confounding factors are expected to explain the formation of intrusiveness in the consumer mindset when watching videos. Thus, the contribution is to provide more understanding of the relation between different purposes of watching the videos when they are interrupted. For example, users could be mindlessly surfing videos in Youtube (low intensity of task) in contrast to users surfing for specific purposes as 3

9 4 investigation or entertaining (high intensity of task). This relationship could be significant the moment of choosing videos where to allocate the ads that may lead to less perceived intrusiveness. Thus it becomes important to study the mindset watching online videos and the determinants of perceived intrusiveness. Finally is expected that the investigation yield a reasonable conclusion of what is the proper combination of the confounding factors that may lead to less intrusiveness. By making a simple comparison with television, ads can be perceived as intrusive but it is known that a set of several commercials is coming, therefore the audience can leave the room or do other activity. In contrast, pre-roll ads are displayed as one every certain time, therefore the user would not be expected to leave the room or change immediately of activity because is known that is just one commercial, and may choose to watch it but at the same time the feeling of being interrupted or forced can be perceived as not worth to watch a 30 seconds ad, especially in cases when the video intended to watch was of the same or even less duration. Thus, it is interesting to explore the mindset when watching videos and the factors coming together for the feeling of perceived intrusiveness. For example what is known about intrusiveness from other formats is the irritation feelings that lead to avoidance but this is only taken in formats such as pop-ups and banners (Li, et al., 2002) where the mindset is quite different. Furthermore in pre-roll can be considered that the confounding factors for this intrusiveness is for instance congruence between the ad and the content of the video, duration, location, and even the type of video being watched at the time. Different videos at that moment could also yield higher or lower value of the time for instance whether they are entertainment, news, or looking for information where situations of higher goal pursue can be encountered. Interestingly enough previous literature has not studied these factors along with intrusiveness in the pre-roll context in a proper manner MANAGERIAL The expected contribution is to improve the practice of advertising strategies in an online environment; specifically marketers could use the expected empirical evidence to reduce perceived intrusiveness in campaigns involving pre-roll ads. The importance of the study is justified due to the increasing audience of video streaming and the growing trend of advertising itself. Reports from ComScore, a company that evaluates the internet rate s usage, indicated that online video ads reached almost half of users in the U.S. and estimates that a total of 4.37 billion video ads were served to U.S. users in September 2010, (Marshal, 2010). Moreover video advertising spending is expected to grow around 60 percent for 2011 (Kaye, 2010),

10 5 however the intrusiveness feeling may cause annoyance and ways to ignore advertising, thus a practical relevance is encountered given that the findings may help reducing this factor that influences overall advertising effectiveness. The findings may create potential advantages for better conditions to position the ads that can contribute to better attitudes towards brands or products in an increasing competitive online advertising environment. Managerial implications can exist for companies that want to leverage better pre-roll ads and influence effectively the user environment in order to reduce avoidance. Finally, companies that manage streaming videos can use this information to locate in different way the ads, and gain competitive advantage in contrast to companies that stay in the current way, which is maintaining a similar level of perceived intrusiveness as it is known. Thus consumers would switch to the platform web that gives less annoyance and intrusiveness in terms of pre-roll advertising. Arguably the amount of videos existing per platform can establish a strong reason for not moving to other one despite of having less intrusive advertising. 1.6 STRUCTURE/OUTLINE OF THE RESEARCH The chapter that follows introduces the knowledge pre-roll advertising and how is encountered in terms of consumer perceptions. Online Advertising is described for understanding better the context in contrast to traditional advertising. The chapter three discusses Intrusiveness and starts by providing a comprehensive overview of advertising processing perceptions. The fourth chapter presents the hypotheses and predictions of the study. The next chapter explains the research methodology, continued by the chapter where empirical results are given from the hypotheses testing. The last chapter deals with the analysis of the results, interpretation and implications. Finally conclusions, limitations and directions for future research will be discussed.

11 6 2 ONLINE ADVERTISING Given that this investigation deals with one of the formats that correspond to online advertising. It is necessary to describe and give an overview of online advertising, also in terms of its evolution and types, including a comparison with traditional advertising and the way consumers perceive it. Finally Pre-roll advertising format is introduced and thoroughly explained with current research and general knowledge. A deeper explanation of advertising perceptions, specifically negative ones are described in the chapter three. 2.1 CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS IN AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT Internet is seen as a convergent medium for other media, in the way of an hybrid of TV, radio, newspapers, billboards and magazines where people can watch and listen to programs, read newspapers, ads, banner ads, etc (Cho and Cheon, 2004). Furthermore the Internet can be used like traditional media for purposes like seeking information or entertainment but there are more specific purposes which influence them. According to Wang, et al. (2002) advertising in general is easily ignored, but the factors identified that contribute to consumer perceptions of ads are entertainment, irritation, informativeness, credibility, demographic and interactivity. In addition the study of consumer perceptions and its implication in online advertising has been already discussed in previous research, for example Rodgers and Thorson (2000) mention in their internet advertising model (IAM), motives for internet use which are consumer-controlled functions of research, shop, entertain, communicate, socialize. These motives interact with the mode, which is defined as the extent to which Internet activities are goal-directed ranging from playful to serious. The outcome of this interaction develops a mindset on the cognitive information processes (attention, memory and attitude) which then go through the advertised-controlled structures which are the ad type, format and features of the ad. The outcomes are included in terms of several consumer responses where a negative one is ignoring or avoiding the ad. The figure 1 shows the discussed model.

12 7 Figure 1 Source: Rodgers and and Thorson, The Interactive advertising model. 2.2 DESCRIPTION Internet, web or online advertising was introduced in 1994 in the form of banner ads (Robinson, Wysocka and Hand, 2007). From this point internet marketing industry continued growing and expansion of advertising communication through the web became generally known due to the potential of global reach, interactivity and ultimately more effective one-toone targeting ability (Dreze & Hussherr, 2003 and Yaveroglu & Donthu, 2008). Ha (2008) defined it as messages placed on third-party websites including search engines and directories available through internet access. There are several features that are characteristics of this format, for example data collection mechanisms are used to target specific individuals and elicit in a more automatic way the buying and selling behaviour, in this way it relies in economic and statistical methods for its successful positioning on the web (Evans, 2008). Furthermore, web advertising makes possible to users to act as soon as they are exposed to the ad and whatever is their reaction, they are not acting only as an audience but as users having a goal when they are online (Ha & McCann 2008). This behaviour and the importance of advertising online, lead to more research to help understanding its impact. For instance, even though that part of the benefits are a mass reach and targeted messages providing better information, Dreze and Hussherr (2003) addressed advertising effectiveness online and found that the reason for low clicking-through rates are that people avoid looking at banner ads during the activities they are engaged. Moreover internet advertising allow marketers and advertisers to

13 8 have control regarding the features that the ad will present, in other words consumers have no control to what type of ads they may be exposed (Rodgers & Thorson 2000) and the interactivity that the ads will include (Ha, 2008). The following section will provide an explanation of the evolution of online advertising including the evolution of its characteristics. 2.3 EVOLUTION After its apparition in 1994 with banner ads, the business of online advertising basically consisted in buying and selling advertising space which is accessed by web users. According to Evans, (2008) by 2006 it was already identified in the industry categories in which web advertisement evolved, such as search advertising (in search-result pages), display advertising (in non-search web pages), classified listings appearing on websites and based advertisements. Search advertising is displayed after doing a search query in search engines like Google and a list of paid search results are displayed related to the results according to the keywords provided by the user. The display advertising depends on the provision of web publishers which create advertising inventory by designing their web sites, written to accept graphical, text, or video ads in various portions of the page. Classified listings can or not be related to the content of the website and are similar to search advertising. Finally based advertising can appear in an informative and promotional way including banners, buttons, etc (Evans, 2008). The different types of ads that can be encountered will be explained in the further subsection. Another way to explain this evolution is that it became harder to connect with consumers given that more tools were developed, for example pop-up blockers allowed to avoid ads and with users having control upon the media experience (IBM Global Services 2009), it required to develop more interactive and measurable formats that can increase consumer attention. According to previous research, interactivity can be functional according to interactive elements present according to the interactive perception that relates to previous ad messages, in a way that when clicking in an ad, this leads to further pop-up ads as consequence (Shyam and Jinhee, 2005). It becomes important then to understand that even if having more interactive ads this will lead to a desired response and not irritation or avoidance, because interactivity may not erase levels of interruption or irritation given by interactive ads that are totally irrelevant, negative reactions are discussed further in depth in chapter three.

14 9 Furthermore even tough that more effective strategies are considered in terms of how the ads are developed, according to the IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report (2009) search engines accounts for the 47% of the revenues, and the increasing usage of internet became proportionally related to online advertising, pointing out that not only Pc computers or laptops are used, different electronic devices before stated that allows getting online permits establish advertising campaigns, moreover the arrival of Social Media marked a whole new territory for online advertising. At the same time the evolution of technology developed different formats for online ads which have different characteristics such as animation, audio, video and allow interacting with the user; this is better described in the following point. 2.4 CURRENT TYPES OF ONLINE ADS In this point it is described the current types of online advertising existing. According to Robinson, et al., (2007) the growth spending on web advertising shows the excitement marketers have about campaings in an online environment and executives regarding the spending involved and which formats are the best decision given that attitude towards a partuicular online advertising format influences attitute towards the ad (Burns and Lutz 2006). Apart from the categories of Evans (2008), Faber et al. (2004) made already a distinction in web advertising that we can still find in the current environment, it starts with images displayed on a web page used as an ad (banner advertisings), websites with advertising content that pop up or appear in front of the original website that the online consumer aimed to visit (Interstitials) and finally the ones comparable to banners, but appearing in a different window in front of the original website that the user aimed to see (Pop-ups). Furthermore according to Rosenkrans (2009) the concept of rich media advertising includes several interactive methods displaying motion, sensory traits and multimedia elements like video, audio or animation (including content that moves when the user clicks). The author within this context found that interactive ads, lead to more clicks than non-interactive ads, and provide a description of different online rich media ads that include, floating ads, wallpaper ads, fold-over ads, video ads, expandable banner ads, ghost ads, and advergames (Rosenkrans, 2009). Moreover regarding the current ad platforms, projections for interactive ad revenues ( ) indicate a compound annual growth rate of 34% ads in social media, 27% in mobile marketing, 17% in display advertising, 15% in search marketing and 11% in marketing (Kirchhoff, 2009). Online ads can also be located in Podcasts. According to (Goga,

15 ) podcasting is is the creation of digital audio files that may be easily downloaded from the Web to any portable MP3 player and listened to at the user s convenience. Thus podvertising is part of the content which is downloaded to portable MP3-players with formats such as sponsorship, ad-spots and infomercials (Ridåker et al., 2006). Besides the types discussed in the literature, the annual internet advertising revenue report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) gives an important overview of the current online advertising types in the market. The formats already explained are: Display Advertising (Banner Ads), banner ads, links or advertiser sponsorships that appear in newsletters, and Rich Media which may appear in ad formats such as banners, buttons and interstitials. Search continues as the most important format regarding amount, its subcategories include: (1) Paid listings, appearing at the top or side of search results based on keywords. (2) Contextual search, appearing in an article based on the context of the content, instead of a user-submitted keyword. (3) Paid inclusion, which guarantees that a marketer s URL is indexed by a search engine and (4) Site optimization, that modifies a site to make it easier for search engines to automatically index the site and hopefully result in better placement in results (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010). In addition Sponsorship is custom content created for an advertiser which may or may not include ad elements such as display advertising, brand logos, advertorial or pre-roll video and Classifieds and auctions are fees advertisers pay Internet companies to list specific products or services (e.g., online job boards and employment listings, real estate listings, automotive listings, auction-based listings, yellow pages). Finally, Digital Video Commercials are TV-like advertisements appearing as in-page video commercials in a player environment or streaming content (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2010). This is also known as pre-roll advertising which is the focus of this study within online advertising and it will be thoroughly reviewed after the next section which addresses a comparison between traditional and online advertising. 2.5 COMPARISON WITH TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING At a general level traditional and online advertisement have the same purpose. In the way that content is used by publishers to attract an audience and publishers sell access to advertisers to convey information related to their marketing campaigns (Evans 2008). Formats like radio and video television commercials are part of traditional advertising, newspapers and magazines address text ads like classifieds which can contain graphics (Evans, 2008). A point of distinction for instance in print ads, is whereas the space on paper is sold to the company,

16 internet web revenues from ads like banners are mostly generated by number of clicks in the ad (Burns, 2010). 11 Technology and Interactivity.- The most logical difference between traditional and online formats is technology. Given that web ads can target particular consumers in real time considering language, content and can be more content specific. Google AdSense for instance looks at the content of individual web pages and serves ads relevant to that content (Evans, 2008). Thus, online ads serve advertisement for the viewer of the web page based on knowledge of the viewer s socioeconomic characteristics or even what sorts of products the viewer is considering to purchase for example with click-through behaviour (Evans, 2008). Web advertising then, is more interactive and the consumer actively crosses through the pieces of information depending whether he wants to go further or not (Bezjian-Avery, et al., 1998). In this way Internet provides two-way communication between sources and consumers while most traditional advertising provide only one-way communication. In other words with internet, users can interactively enjoy choosing what they want and when they need (Wang, et al., 2002). This interactivity, allow consumers to have more control over the order in which they are exposed to information (Bezjian-Avery, et al., 1998). According Wang, et al. (2002) interactivity is one of the factors that contributes to consumer perceptions of ads, moreover the importance and relevance of the ad regarding the consumers information needs, would determine how becomes involved and how it values the ad (Wang, et al., 2002). It is important to make the distinction of interactivity with traditional formats because consumers perceptions upon exposure in an online environment can elicit more action than in traditional advertising. For example when a relevant ad is found on the web, due to the interactivity present it can elicit a response of looking for more information, visiting the website and ultimately purchasing due to the constant stimuli and payment facilities online. In this way the consumer can chose to click or not, and even choose ads personalized according to particular interests expressed by the consumer, this has not been encountered either with broadcast or print genres as part of traditional advertising (Rodgers and Thorson, 2000). Viewer Experience.- in traditional and online advertising the viewer experience could be explained by certain advertising feature variables. Rodgers and Thorson, (2000) give a

17 12 comparative overview of these variables, in this study fits to mention that online format gives more objective ad features which are advertiser-controlled, in terms of interactivity, telepresence, vividness, realism and number of choices. This marks a difference regarding subjective ad features which are consumer-controlled, given that in traditional formats like print and broadcast the experience is for example in terms of interesting, boring and attitude towards the ad. The online format can be experienced as friendly navigation, current information, attitude towards the ad and the website (Rodgers and Thorson, 2000). Even tough it could be a slight similarity with television for example, where different channels give more or less advertising and consumers develop a certain attitude depending on the amount of advertising that they are being exposed (Ofcom, 2008); this similarity with traditional and online advertising is mentioned because in the case of pre-roll could be that this attitude is now expressed to the streaming video website that is locating more or less pre-roll ads. Consumer s Perceptions.- The comparison in this study has to do also with how consumers perceive ads across the two formats and what are the responses occurring, for example in traditional formats such as print and broadcast media if we consider radio listeners of a talk-show and/or music they are suddenly interrupted by a set of commercials which are the station sponsors, in print magazines while reading articles of interest it encounters different types of ads. From the viewer experience perspective consumers can react in several ways for example by easily changing the radio station and switching back when they think the commercial is over, in magazines it can be easily skipped or ignored and in Television, where a more visual and animated environment is experienced by the audience, then different behaviours such as changing channels among the most familiar, putting on silence, leaving the room or changing activity are encountered (Speck and Elliott, 1997). Thus, across traditional formats there are different ways of experiences and reactions towards advertising. In contrast, with the arrival of internet a different way of experience was born and the difference is mostly explained by the activities the web provides, unlike traditional limited formats, internet includes different elements but also motives and goals from the consumer perspective, for example Rodgers and Thorson, (2000) proposed that given that consumers are actively in internet to fulfil several goals, the functions of internet was included as part of the internet advertising model (IAM) include consumer controlled functions which are primarily internet motives such as research, shop, entertain, communicate, socialize, and the mode which can range from playful to serious in selecting and constantly comparing information that includes videos, music, and others as well as interacting with different websites. During all this different experiences the

18 13 audience is influenced by design, events, emotions and an atmosphere that includes the influence of advertising that comes as opportunity to provide persuasive messages during this interaction on the Web (Constantinides, 2004). Different Activities and Targeting.- In this way because consumers are engaged in different activities, different types of ads were developed to target across those activities ranging from communication where for example in the Hotmail platform a free account is created but by being exposed to different advertising in forms of banners, others uses such as information searching in Google present different formats that were already mentioned. However from the start of online ads in 1994 users became used to advertising in the web, and it was easy to avoid ads which were irrelevant but at the same time they were mainly perceived as annoying (Dreze and Hussherr, 2003). This avoidance may develop more aggressive formats such as when a clicking in order to visit a website is made, one or two pop-ups came before you could display the intended website. At the same time tools such as pop-up blockers became more popular to avoid ads more effectively, and due to this strategies ads with animation or interactivity, became more successful in get easier attention of potential customers, in this way it was experienced a different approach than in print and broadcast media, giving a whole new experience of exposure towards ads. Later on, relevance in targeting ads according location, language and content, represented a new experience to the customer for example if the user was in a game page, or a blog with certain topic he will be targeted with pop-ups that may be interested in congruence with the site content and task performed (McCoy et. al, 2007). In traditional formats this can also be encountered for example in a sports radio, with ads that target sport accessories and so on, the same concept applies for print magazines and television but the difference lies that it is in real time and constantly evolving as the interest of the user changes during surfing the website. Thus, because of the different mindset in comparison with traditional media, more and more ads were located on internet and of course ads could easily be ignored, however consumers felt also flooded due to some strategies which where experienced as more aggressive in comparison with traditional means (Ha and McCann, 2008). Implications of time usage.- Furthermore, in traditional media there is a limited amount of time that the average audience is engaged in, whether is listening to radio, watching TV or reading a magazine. In the web in contrast, new activities came along in appealing higher

19 14 internet usage. This represented new ways of locating advertising (Xian-Sheng, Tao & Shipeng, 2008). Social Networks is a clear example of big influence where advertisers could make use of clicking behaviour in websites like Facebook in order to address different ad messages and extract information from target markets (Story and Stone, 2007). As it was mentioned before, video content communities as part of social networking represent an important amount of time that users invest on internet. Whether is watching previous shows, sharing videos or songs, or looking for information implicated new ways to locate ads (Catone, 2007). From the start the amount of videos uploaded with different campaigns in Youtube was remarkable, and the user experienced it as free, easy and practical, at the same time advertising started here with pop-ups and popunders, due to the potential and increasing usage. A normal discontent or annoyance came along even though these ads can be closed or ignored (Schiffman, 2008). In contrast, TV is the traditional format with most similarity towards online video communities, however in TV there is fixed programming that users are used to, as the same as radio programming and spaces in magazines. The difference with watching videos online is that the user goes and has a more free feeling of what he or she is choosing to watch and as in other formats being able to avoid advertising when is exposed to it in ways of pop-ups or banners. In this context time usage of online videos evolved given that more time was invested and likewise technology improved locating now pre-roll ads posted in the videos, but what happens when the consumer may not feel free to skip ad information but rather forced to watch it. The next point explain in more detail Pre-roll ads and the subsequent chapter the negative reactions linked to advertising. 2.6 PRE-ROLL ADVERTISING The arrival of this type of advertising came as a new way to approach consumers which are engaged in video streaming websites like Youtube, Dailymotion, etc. YouTube became one of the world s most popular web sites in 2006 and at the age of 18 months, it was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion (Boone et. al, 2007). The amount of time consumed in video streaming yielded opportunities already before, with formats like pop-unders and text Google ads that were most of the times related to the name that contains the video (MacMillan, 2009). However, this type of ads could easily be ignored or avoided and pre-roll became an alternative also by putting commercials that already were avoided in television (Microsoft 2008). This, however does not imply that the pre-roll ads will not be avoided, in fact by being so intrusive, heavy users in internet have posted ways to try to avoid them, for example by clicking F5 (Website: Crisfinke.com) which is intended to refresh the video, it will re-start the

20 15 video without the ad, although sometimes it has to be refreshed several times before the video comes without the ad or the page has to be closed and reopened. The issue dealing here may be also the value of time, given that or either you let the ad role, in which you can look into another direction, take the time to refresh the web site or even closing it and opening again. Similar behaviours have been found in a format that is related to pre-roll, in television commercials for example, ads can be located before, after and in the middle of the show, thus users show an avoiding behaviour when they are interrupted with advertising content (Cronin and Menelly, 1992). Previous research focus on different aspects in understanding commercials such as content, relevance, frequency and the effects in recall and recognition (Terry, 2005), however among the scarce research approaching location of ads in television, Bollapragada and Garbiras (2004) found that in commercial breaks the audience ratings tend to be higher at the beginning and end than in the middle of the break., thus advertisers prefer these positions in a commercial segment, to those in the middle. Other than this (rating measures), there is no preroll ad research in television, that aims getting a deeper insight from the consumer behavior perspective which is the focus of our study. In comparison to pre-roll video, this could be different and tedious for example for heavy users who watch videos as aim of entertaining, where they were used to watch playlist of videos coming together to an hour or more for completing a show, documentary or even a movie without having to watch ads from time to time. In that period several commercials are shown now and according to Gold (2011) one preroll ad will be shown at least maintaining 7 minutes between the next pre-roll ad. There is no available academic research approaching pre-roll ads and its implications from a consumer perspective. Pre-roll ads are also known as in-stream ads ranging to its location from before, in the middle or at the end of the content of the video, in average most of them are of 15 seconds of length (Boone et. al, 2007). In the report of 2010 published by the PricewaterhouseCoopers, preroll is defined as a: TV-like advertisements that may appear as in-page video commercials or before, during, and/or after a variety of content in a player environment including but not limited to, streaming video, animation, gaming, and music video content. This definition includes digital video commercials that appear in live, archived and downloadable streaming content. PricewaterhouseCoopers (2010: 16) video on the website. The following picture shows how a pre-roll ad looks like before streaming a

21 16 Figure 2: Pre-roll Ad format in Youtube It is clear that this type of advertising represents a good opportunity for many companies maintaining commercials on television and that want to locate their message in video streaming platforms. At the same time it becomes important for them to understand if it is wise to do so, given that the intrusive tactic that represents may generate negative perceptions that could transfer to the brand, product, company and even the website provider of the videos. Previous research shows that users perceive online ads as more intrusive that in other media (Zhu, et al. 2009), thus there is no guarantee that by posting the ad before a video in Youtube it will not be ignored or the user will not feel irritated. Pre-roll advertising is clearly positionated and needs to be further examined, there is no basic research addressing pre-roll, rather the most information is encountered in companies dedicated to analyze the new formats in the market but not from a consumer behaviour perspective. Even though that pre-roll is a new context it can also be compared with television commercials and small ads shown before regular programming, and as it was mentioned before it was only reviewed in terms of rating but not in depth with behavior and possible determinants and consequences of their perceptions (Bollapragada and Garbiras, 2004). In the scientific literature there is nothing to find regarding pre-roll online video ads and its consumer experience has not yet been scientifically researched. The present study can give a contribution by extending to a new context which is pre-roll advertising as a hybrid experience for the viewer with online video and a TV format commercial. For this reason the following chapter focuses in negative processing perceptions in advertising, before understanding perceived intrusiveness in the pre-roll consumer mindset and draw up hypotheses regarding the factors coming together for its formation and its consequences.

22 17 3 NEGATIVE ADVERTISING PERCEPTIONS Advertising has been successfully used to influence consumer behaviour and/or attitude. Proving to be a marketing tool capable of deliver messages regarding certain product, brand or company information in order to persuade consumers attitude, believe and awareness which ultimately is intended to have effect on consumption (Wright-Isak, et al. 1997). The different strategies used across different advertising formats (e.g. cognitive, affective, conative) and appeals (e.g. humor, sex, rationality, etc) have been supporting in creating awareness, associations, attachment and attitude towards brands and its ads (Clow and Baack, 2007; Keller, 2001). However, consumer perceptions and outcomes are not only positive in advertising. The present chapter gives an overview of the side effects of advertising starting from traditional to online formats in order to understand the negative side of ads while addressing factors that explain these perceptions. A review of current knowledge regarding perceived intrusiveness is given before establishing the hypotheses of the study in the chapter four. 3.1 NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS IN TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING As starting point in traditional advertising, behaviours like avoidance or perceptions of irritation from users have been identified in intended campaigns. Irritation has been known as the most common factor of negative perceptions among advertising. The study of Aaker and Bruzzone (1985) provides an overview of the causes of irritation in traditional formats such as commercials in broadcast media. These causes have to with the product class and content; however our understanding focuses more on the mindset of the consumer, given that in previous research, it was found that some commercials are not even evaluated or are simply ignored regardless of the content. Several studies have addressed the way consumers act towards certain type of advertising. In television commercials for example, it has been found that a high percentage of commercials were zipped. Benedicta (1989) mention zipping as the electronic avoidance of commercials by fast-forwarding through them while viewing pre-recorded video-taped programs. Cronin and Menelly (1992) found that 9 out of 10 commercials that were zipped, were made in an avoidance mode, the authors suggest that is not the content of the commercial causing avoidance but that the commercials do not have even the opportunity to have viewers attention. It is important to consider these findings because in pre-roll advertising, television commercial formats are used, and a similar behaviour could be founded on them; however it

23 was also suggested that the level of clutter relates to higher zipping because some viewers differ in tolerance for clutter (Ha, 1996 and Rotfeld, 2006). 18 Irritation from repetition and forced exposure.- Teachings from previous findings regarding negative perceptions in traditional media stems for instance by exposing to an audience seeing a single ad too frequently (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985), this can make television users get irritated and therefore avoid the ads (Li, et al 2002). In pre-roll video ads, even though that there is a period between the ads they can come across as extremely annoying if the same ad is shown when a viewer is watching a set of videos from a playlist, the question lies in what happens if every seven minutes is exposed to the exact same commercial. We could relate this phenomena to the feeling of reactance, considering that if reactions of consumers are defensive, it may not be an effective strategy to force them view ads, thus according to the reactance theory, forced exposure will result in negative consequences, however if it could be minimized, it would not represent a threat to viewers perceptions of freedom (Li, et al. 2002). Furthermore, causes of irritation are broadly classified into ad content (e.g. exaggerated, confusing), execution (too loud, long or large) and placement referring to too many or repeatedly shown (Li et al, 2002a). Moreover, this irritation leads to avoidance behaviour for example in television commercials by changing channels, focusing on something else or leaving the room are the most common (Cronin and Menelly, 1992). In addition cognitive, behavioral and mechanical avoidance was found in print and broadcast media where cognitive relates to shifting focus, behavioral leaving the room, and mechanical use remote to change station (Speck and Elliott, 1997). Avoidance.- Another negative implication in advertising has to do with avoidance. In traditional formats Speck, et.al (1997) studied the predictors of avoidance in print and broadcast media, specifically in magazines, newspapers, radio and television where it was discovered that different ad perceptions were the stronger predictors for avoidance. Demographic characteristics (age and income), breadth of media use, and communication problems (hindrance) were altogether considered the predictors for avoidance in these formats. Across Magazines, search hindrance and the perception that ads are not interesting are the strongest predictors, the same way in Newspapers plus considering them excessive, however the audience gets self-directed to classified ads in newspapers, moreover in radio format, commercials are considered annoying, hindering search for programming and seem disruptive. Finally, on television an avoiding behaviour in commercials is found depending on whether they watch

24 19 many channels, consider them unbelievable, commercials seem disruptive, perceive a waste of time in progress of programming or perceive them as annoying are the strongest ones (Speck, et.al 1997). Another perspective of avoidance in broadcast media is given by Rojas-Mendez and Davies (2005) where according to time allocation theory; users perceive ads depending on their time orientation (i.e. past, present or future). The authors suggest that this, influences attitude towards advertising and avoidance in the way that past-oriented users see ads as important, but promoting consumption and tend to avoid them more than present people, which see ads as complimenting concerns from daily live, finally future-oriented people see ads as important in planning purchases and are less likely to avoid them. This mindset characteristic could represent a description for consumers when watching pre-roll ads, inferring if there is a relation that makes them feel less interrupted in an online environment and pre-roll advertising. These negative feelings may also be related to perceptions of a delay in searching for programming content, blocking access to programming, interruption causing distractions and disrupt interaction with the desired content, in that way consumers can perceive them as intrusive. (Li et al. 2002a). Intrusiveness is mentioned here in a general way as part of negative perceptions in traditional advertising. Ha (1996) defined it as the interruption of editorial content and by definition, advertising seek to interrupt editorial content by interfering with their goals and limiting actions that consumers take to attain fully their goals, in traditional formats this may involve the effort implied in changing channels, skip ads in magazines and a perception of waist of time involved with this intrusiveness. A deeper overview of Intrusiveness is discussed in the 3.3 paragraph. 3.2 NEGATIVE PERCEPTIONS IN ONLINE ADVERTISING In 1999 a research survey showed that 69% of users considered pop-ups annoying, and 23% said they would not return to the site simply because of the ads (McCoy et. al, 2007). This concerning can also be related to consumers being exposed to a high amount of ads leading to an ad clutter. The ad clutter was examined by Ha & McCann (2008) suggesting that the amount of advertising may play only a small role in creating negative advertising effects, however they identified characteristics like visibility and time delay affecting perceived advertising clutter level. Additionally the task which the consumer is focused on while using internet, may determine negative responses, for instance when searching for specific information in a limited amount of

25 20 time there can be different reasons to avoid the ads such as time pressure, irrelevant or nontargeted ads, etc., than those who use the Internet to pass time or for pure entertainment purposes (Cho and Cheon, 2004). Avoidance.- in an online environment, several perceptions towards advertising can cause effects such as avoidance. Cho and Cheon (2004) found that perceived goal impediment, perceived ad clutter and prior negative experience explains why people cognitively, affectively, and behaviourally avoid the ads. Perceived goal impediment was the most significant antecedent explaining advertising avoidance on the web and its antecedents are search hindrance, disruption and distraction. Moreover perceived ad clutter is constructed by excessiveness, exclusiveness and irritation. The antecedents of prior negative experiences are dissatisfaction, perceived lack of utility and perceived lack of incentive (Cho and Cheon, 2004). In this way they suggest that the unexpected appearance of ads on Internet disrupts user tasks or goals and causes avoidance, this consequence could be applied for pre-roll advertising given that at the moment of video streaming an ad is not expected. A further reason may be that because it is a video format, a certain content of audio and video intended to see, so there is a motivation to process video and not advertising instead. Irritation and placement.- Besides avoidance, other authors studied different effects in other ad formats, for example Ritther and Cho (2009) analyzed responses to advertising in podcasts. Specifically, they addressed the placement of the ad in contribution to the perception of irritation or annoyance. It was demonstrated that participants perceived less irritation from ads located at the start of the podcast than in the middle. Irritation it is an emotional response, which is a transitory affective experience that describes a feeling of annoyance, impatience or anger as a result of a certain experience (Ritther and Cho, 2009). This finding could be further applied for pre-roll ads given that is not standardized and some ads are located at the beginning, middle or the end. Moreover, frequency at which the ads are exposed was found to be a cause for irritation in pop-up ads and irritation is mentioned as precursor for ad avoidance (Li et. al, 2002). Negative attitudes.- In the online environment, regardless that consumers find some information useful or entertaining in ads, reports present that consumers develop negative attitudes towards ads in internet and avoid them as much as possible, in contrast to traditional advertising; this attitude in a Web context means avoidance to the site (McCoy et al., 2007). In

26 21 other words more negative perceptions could be developed from a site that delivers more advertisement, in the pre-roll context for example, this distinction could be made from web pages that deliver more ads such as Youtube in contrast to a broadcast page of a TV station or other streaming websites Dailymotion. In addition of the reviewed negative perceptions in traditional and online advertising, it may be interesting to test the attitude towards advertising in general, advertising online and towards television commercial formats (Shavitt, et al. 2004), given that some negative attitudes already established in the mind of consumers could influence the perception of intrusiveness, irritation and avoidance in pre-roll advertising, due to its characteristics by being a mixture of television commercial format in an online environment. Perceived goal impediment.- Additionally, within negative perceptions online, the format can represent a varying perception according to the format for example in pop-ups, banners, or others that yield a different perceived goal impediment (Li et.al, 2002). In banner ads for instance, Newman et al. (2004) state that consistency is expected by consumers, with product class associated with the banner and the web page in balance, to ensure positive brand associations and reduce negative effects (Li et al, 2002). Part of these negative effects can have impact on the long term regarding advertising exposure, this may relate to psychological reactance which was mentioned before. In other words, even though that currently it exist tools to avoid ads more effectively such as popblockers, important implications could be further examined for certain websites that manage advertising that threatens consumers freedom, sense of control and goal attainment through its exposition to ads (Truong and Simmons, 2010). Irritation and irrelevant advertisement.- other reactions have been studied in formats not so conventional such as mobile phones. In this format consumers hold a very personalized relationship with their mobiles in the way of companion and connection with their community, thus they could be more easily irritated when receiving intrusive pushed advertising (Truong and Simmons, 2010). Intrusive tactics also have been taken in consideration for its analysis and users have made a distinction between helpful and misleading internet advertisements, the latter like erroneous benefit information, products and services located on banner advertisements with prices to capture attention, which led to unavailable stock of products or services. Thus trust reveals a determinant of perceptions relating to online advertising and users seem to have negative perceptions of internet as conveyor of impersonal and irrelevant advertising, however the web environment is appreciated as a medium of having

27 22 control over what is searched and is wanted to view (Truong and Simmons, 2010). At a general level this idea can be applied to the video streaming platform, where users approach to the content but may be exposed to pre-roll ads that can manifest impersonal or irrelevant, this can keep those negative perceptions as in other formats and cause avoidance or irritation, considering as well that consumers nowadays use mobile phones to watch videos on Youtube contributing to a possible perception of ad clutter besides the current advertising existing for mobile phones. As it was described, there is a high similarity between the negative perceptions of traditional media and the online environment, given that the latter is a hybrid form that allows to access to different type of information at once, ranging from text, pictures, videos and others. In this way irritation and avoidance are encountered in both even considering the important difference with the web which lies regarding the motives behind its usage such as communication or building online communities. In the same way, an important phenomenon named as intrusiveness may be the core driver for the negative perceptions, for instance in online advertising is found as antecedent of irritation and avoidance (Li et al. 2002b) and needs to be further described in other to assess its relevance, relation and consequences regarding its effect in pre-roll advertising. 3.3 REVIEW OF INTRUSIVENESS Li, Edwards and Lee (2002) defined intrusiveness as a cause of annoyance and irritation that affects the way consumer processes ads tending to form negative attitudes. Their studies are limited to pop-ups, magazine printed ads and television commercials. But still it has not been researched on the pre-roll ad context. It is clear that intrusive tactics for getting consumer s attention in an online context may create intrusiveness (Wang Zhang, Choi & D`Eredita, 2002). However, in pre-roll ads there are different factors versus other advertising formats that make intrusiveness a very important issue that needs to be better understood from the perspective of consumer behavior and the impact in advertising effectiveness. By being a format that suddenly pops-up in the screen before streaming a video, consumers are prepared to mentally process that video and rather are forced to watch an ad. In this type of advertising it has not been addressed yet which are the confounding factors for perceived intrusiveness. Definition.- Part of the definition of Li et al (2002) deals intrusiveness as a psychological reaction to ads that interfere with a consumer's ongoing cognitive processes, they state this interference as broader than interruption given that includes aspects of an ad itself

28 23 (volume, length, or size) and the media schedule (frequency and clutter) that could add to feelings of this intrusiveness. This definition applies logically to the context of pre-roll advertising and the authors identified specific constituents for it in the terms of distracting; disturbing, forced, interfering, intrusive, and obtrusive. As it was stated before a distinction needs to be made across online ads because several formats have different characteristics that influence perceived intrusiveness, for example a preroll ad may yield different perceived goal impediment in comparison to a pop-up or banner which is ignored more easily than pre-roll ads. In formats such as banners or pop-ups, users are interrupted in their task and have to scroll ads and close pop-up windows. According to McCoy, et al., 2007 the more important or urgent this task is, the more intrusive the interruption is likely to be perceived. Moreover (Ritter and Cho, 2009) studied intrusiveness in podcast advertising and found that they are easily found intrusive because the goal is to download a particular file and listen to that content and not to advertising, this effect can lead to avoidance as it was proven by other studies for example in pop-ups where intrusiveness is antecedent of avoidance (Lee, et al, 2002) The implication of this studies and the similarity with pre-roll is that the audience made an effort to look for a video and intends to direct the attention to look at certain video and not to advertising. Location.- Another contribution of Ritter and Cho (2009) has to do with the placement of the ad in the podcasts, where perceived less intrusiveness came from ads located at the start of the podcast than in the middle. However they also found that when ads were placed in the middle, sponsorships resulted in noticeably less intrusiveness than traditional ads. This insight could be applied for the pre-roll context where commercials with a higher length could be located only at the start and very short commercials in the middle, in this way because of its short length it could be perceived as less intrusive and reduce avoidance or irritation. Performed task.- Perceived intrusiveness is explained by interruptions caused from a certain task. The negative reaction comes from the need to expend additional effort to process information coming in the interruption, leading to ad avoidance and irritation (McCoy, et al and Li et al. 2002). Regarding the comparison of intrusiveness in several formats it was found that pop-ups were 24% more intrusive than in-line ads and pop-unders were 33.1% more intrusive than in-line ads (McCoy et al. 2007). The reason why one format is considered more intrusive than other is that apparently users prefer not deviating their attention and take additional steps to close pop-up windows. In the case of pre-roll even tough some ads may

29 24 contain an option to close it after 5 or 10 seconds it still implies having to do an action which was not expected and interrupted the intended goal. The authors also measured behavioural intentions to return to the site, but even considering one or other format, the tendency was negative regarding decisions of returning, this assumption could be applicable for pre-roll advertising given that from the start when advertising was not located and when pop-ups and popunders appeared, they were not as intrusive, as to getting to the point of suspending the rolling of the video and locate an ad instead, which can present higher perceived intrusiveness, considering that some ads equals the length of the video intended to watch. Thus the intentions of remaining in that website can be questionable if competing companies do not locate ad in such formats or manage to locate them in such a way which is not that intrusive or annoying. Region of interest and deviated attention.- Liu, Qiu, Huang, Jiang and Xu (2009) studied intrusiveness and attention of the audience in in-image advertising and discovered that two aspects of attention affect intrusiveness, being first if the inserted ad covers the Region of Interest (ROI), then it is very intrusive and second if distracts attention from the original attending points. Based on these findings pre-roll advertising may be considered as highly intrusive given that involves all the region of interest, however the original attending points remain the same, rather what is intended to see is changed. Antecedents and consequences from previous studies.- The antecedents of the model of intrusiveness of Li et al. (2002) are cognitive intensity, editorial-ad congruence, Ad entertainment and Ad informativeness, the evidence they provide regarding the consequences of intrusiveness is that, when ads are perceived as intrusive, feelings of irritation are elicited and advertisements are avoided. Ad entertainment and informativeness moderate perceived intrusiveness. The level of cognitive intensity is related to the intensity the viewers pursue their goals, thus when they are focused, perceive interruptions as more severe. Based on this pre-roll ads may have a higher level of perceived intrusiveness given that cognitively viewers are motivated to process certain content and are more sensitive to such interruption although this could vary among the purpose of watching the videos whether involve a task with more value of time or more serious purposes rather than entertainment or surfing. Li et al. (2002) provides a scale for measuring perceived intrusiveness and proposes variables to limit perceptions of intrusiveness, which are, first targeting viewers when their cognitive effort is low for example locating at breaks, second increasing the relevancy of the advertising, and finally providing value to viewers in the way of information or entertainment.

30 25 Furthermore, Wehmeyer (2007) studied intrusiveness in mobile ads, and found that the situation type (high versus low level of activity or cognitive intensity) was found to significantly influence perceptions of ad intrusiveness and it was not important to subjects regarding intrusiveness whether the ad was mainly informative or entertaining as the model of Li et al, (2002) suggested. This can be a proof that intrusiveness varies across different formats and needs to be studied. In traditional formats, intrusiveness is found as interruption of consumers goals, for example with billboards on a highway, television commercials during an important scene, an airplane with a sign on the beach; this intrusive effect it is seen as major cause of traditional advertising annoyance (Li et al. 2002). The authors mention that intrusiveness should be considered as a cognitive process that recognize ads as disturbing and suggests it as different from the negative emotions and reactions that evokes such as irritation and avoidance. As we have seen, with technology improvements ads can be forced on viewers at unexpected intervals. In the online environment an example is pre-roll advertising. The timing of ads can be programmed to occur at certain intervals during normal sessions involving watching videos on the Web, for example in Youtube this interval is seven minutes between each pre-roll video ad. According to Li et al. (2002) the ability to target ads when viewers are not expecting them may affect viewers' perceptions of intrusiveness and ad effectiveness. Moreover previous studies show that users perceive online ads as more intrusive that in other media (Zhu, et al. 2009). This is why the present research aims to operationalise perceived intrusiveness in pre-roll video advertising, as it continues being a research gap in advertising literature. The following chapter develops the corresponding hypotheses for the study of intrusiveness and pre-roll ads.

31 26 4 HYPOTHESES The present chapter contains the hypotheses and expectations that came from the theoretical framework and that will be further tested. The focus subject of this study is pre-roll video advertising and the negative effects coming from the degree of perceived intrusiveness. Specifically the key factors intended to research are the confounding factors that explain the formation of the intrusive feeling and the consequences linked to this type of advertising due to the intrusive feeling. The methodology of the study and how the hypotheses are tested is described in chapter five. 4.1 INTRODUCTION It is interesting to research pre-roll video advertising because of its special characteristics in the online environment. It is presented as a television commercial format in an web environment. In general the audience is used to commercials within broadcast media but not in online streaming video, rather merely as small banners or pop-unders embedded in the videos which could be easily avoided (Microsoft 2008). This change in attracting consumers attention has been related to negative perceptions, however it remains subject of interest due to the increasing behaviour of watching videos online and awareness of companies who want to locate ads in a new way, considering that the ones located in television are highly avoided (Cronin & Menelly, 1992). Even though this behavior is growing, it does not mean that is totally successful. The reality of combining an already highly avoided format into a context where it was never expected could be very annoying. In addition, the forcing strategy of making them watch an ad when it was an existing motivation primarily to process other content, could create a negative attitude even towards the website (McCoy et al., 2007 and Dreze & Hussherr, 2003). Thus, by testing the expectations regarding the factors that may cause these feelings and the possible consequences coming from its exposition, it is expected to give a contribution in academia with a better understanding for companies who are engaging in pre-roll video advertisement and the providers of the videos which is the streaming website. Pre-roll video ads are located within a different mindset that consumers are used to, at the moment of exposition. In other words the behaviour of being surfing in the web implies higher motivation to process and focus, rather than merely watching television and being

32 27 interrupted by commercials. Moreover the motivations behind watching videos in internet can vary. The most common is entertainment, but looking and sharing information, involving educational, political and commercial purposes are also encountered in the streaming video environment (Rodgers & Thorson, 2000 and Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2010). With a different mindset of experience in viewing content, other levels of intrusiveness can exists in comparison to other regular traditional and online formats known to date (Li et al, 2002). Youtube for example is seen as a platform where control is given to the users. The arrival of pre-roll ads put this to question because the audience suddenly found itself forced to watch ads that could not be avoided. Recently some companies that locate pre-roll video ads through Youtube give a five seconds exposition, and after that they can be closed. This takes us to the point that possibly because giving at least the possibility to avoid those, consumers may not feel that forced in a way and would be less likely to avoid them out of annoyance caused by the intrusive feeling. However this opens the possibility to avoid them totally. The following paragraph explains the factors in the present study which are related to perceived intrusiveness in pre-roll video advertising. 4.2 CONFOUNDING FACTORS As said in previous chapters, intrusiveness has been studied in other advertising formats (Li et al, 2002). In Television ads for instance, negative effects regarding avoidance was studied (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985), however the different state of mind involved in the usage of internet may create different levels of negative perceptions and make perceive ads as more intrusive. Thus, even though pre-roll ads are in a TV-like format, the different way of thinking involving the web environment may cause users be more sensitive to intrusive tactics. According to Zhu, et al and McCoy et al. 2007, this is because they are more goaloriented and judge online advertisements even more harshly than those in other media. Given that ads are seen as noise in the environment that affects availability of desired content, interrupt the use of programming, causes distractions and lastly it may completely disrupt the interaction with the desired content (Li et al. 2002a). Compared with audiences of television and radio, they tend to be more task-oriented because more specific activities are performed, such as research and seeking particular information. By being more control-oriented and task oriented they are likely to be less tolerant of interruptions caused by ads, because these reduce their perceived control of web navigation, disrupting them from their online tasks (Chan et. al, 2010)

33 28 In this way, compared with traditional media, the internet it is believed to be a more goal, task, interactivity, and/or information-oriented medium (Cho and Cheon, 2004). Because its activities range from access to information to entertainment purposes, moreover unlike traditional media, web users value the limited time they have to perform while being concerned with the speed of data access and retrieval (downloading time), which is less applicable to other traditional media (Cho and Cheon, 2004). This would contribute to a more sensitive mindset of the audience and make them evaluate intrusive tactics more harshly. Consequently in streaming websites, when an video ad is located it may be considered as more invasive of their space, than when a commercial ad interrups a show in television. However a more delicate approach can be taken with factors encountered in practice such as the duration and the location of the ad, which has been proved to have a big effect on consumer s perception of the interruption, especially by perceived ads as too long (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985 and Ritter and Cho, 2009 ). Moreover the duration of the programming content that the audience is exposed to, the moment of the interruption may be an important factor for the tolerance towards the ad, given that consumers may also feel overstimulated when viewing many ads in a short time (Li et al 2002a). We could relate this to the time that an ad occupies within the context of the duration of programming. In other words, the duration and location of the ad together with the duration of the video intended to watch are the core elements for the present study of intrusiveness in pre-roll ads. The following paragraphs explain more in depth the argumentation for considering this constructs. Length of the ad.- refers to the duration of the interruption of the pre-roll ad embedded in the video. Viewers may perceive less control over length of exposure with longer ads. This relates to a perceived disruption where the commercials constitute involuntary signal loss (Speck and Elliott, 1997). According to Li et al. (2002b), as long as the ads interfere with the cognitive processing, it is possible to perceive the ads as intrusive. Li et al. (2002a) hypothesized with pop-up formats that longer ads will be perceived as more intrusive than will shorter ads in forced exposure situations. The authors did not found support for this hypothesis, however the participants could close at will the ads and there was no perceived difference in the length of the ads. Evidently, the different conditions in the pre-roll advertising as forced exposure situation, include that in real life the audience can not close the ads at will and they must wait before being able to watch the video. The format as such may be then more intrusive that pop-up ads, and the longer the interruption, the heavier the perceived threats to freedom and discomfort may exist (Li et al. 2002a). Based on the last assumption which also

34 relates to the different mindset present and the effects of commercial length, it is hypothesized that in pre-roll video advertising: 29 H1: a longer ad is perceived as more intrusive than a shorter ad. Length of the video.- it could be infered that the duration of the video intended to see plays an important role in the perception of intrusiveness. The audience is self-motivated to the exposition of certain chosen programming content that carries particular forms of information or entertainment. The audience then may perceive higher rewards coming from more programming content, which may be more likely to be encountered in longer than shorther videos. Television, which is a medium to produce strong rewards for paying attention to something (Sigman, 2007) can be compared with the streaming video platform and the rewards coming from paying attention to content of the available videos. Watching longer videos present a different experience for the viewer, this is explained by foundings coming from biological studies. According to Sigman (2007), television has been studied considering its rapidly changing images and different scenes in videos that are perceived as stimulating and extremely interesting for the audience, in this way screen entertainment causes our brain to release dopamine. The release of dopamine in the brain is associated with reward and dopamine is seen as rewarding us for paying attention, especially to things that are novel and stimulating (Sigman, 2007). Thus, by knwoing the rewards that may come from larger content it would create a condition where the viewer is more willing to accept being interrupted by not solicitated content where the rewards may present higher. This is expected to be encountered in longer videos, conversingly, a short video may provide less content of information or enternatinment, which translates into less rewards and consumers will be less willing to accept any interruptions. Based on the last assumption it is hypothesized that a: H2: pre-roll video ads located in shorther videos are perceived as more intrusive than in longer videos. Location of the ad.- according to (McCoy et al. 2007) pop-ups and pop-unders are considered to be more intrusive than in-line ads. Given that users seem to prefer not to have to divert their attention from their task or take additional steps. In this way, when the audience is already looking at the videos, they may have a stronger attention in the middle, making them

35 30 perceive ads as more intrusive than when they are located in the beginning. This location effects could contribute to the perception of intrusiveness. As it was shown in the podcasts advertising study, where higher perceptions of intrusiveness was encountered in ads located at the middle than at the start (Ritter and Cho, 2009). This assumption can be related to pre-roll video ads because they can be located at the beginning but also in the middle (Youtube, 2011). It could be that when the ad is located in the middle it may interfere with an important scene within the video, this is in concordance with tactics applied in television where ads are located in exciting parts of the programming (Bollapragada and Garbiras, 2004). However, even though a middle location can enhance recall they may be perceived as a more severe interruptions than in the beginning (Terry, 2005). Regarding cognitive intensity in websites, in pre-roll it is expected to be higher in the middle of the video, this is in concordance with the proposition of Li et al., (2002a). Thus, the location of the ad it is expected to influence the perception of intrusiveness and it is hypothesized that: H3: perceived intrusiveness is higher when the ads are located in the middle than in the beginning of the video. Interaction effects.- the interaction of the variables presented in the previous hypotheses are expected to generate different conditions yielding several levels of perceived intrusiveness. In concordance with the previous hypotheses and considering the duration of the ad, the expected pattern is that as long as the ad gets, the level of intrusiveness will be higher due to an interruption caused by an involuntary signal loss which creates a forced-exposure situation in a goal-oriented task (McCoy et al, 2007) that may be perceived as threats to freedom (Li et.al, 2002a). Likewise considering its interaction with the location of the ad. First, in commercials located in the beginning intrusiveness is expected to be higher for shorter videos than for longer videos, in concordance with the level of rewards expected from more programming content (Sigman, 2007). Moreover, the expected pattern of the difference in perceived intrusiveness between short and long ads is similar for short and long videos. This expectation is given because in the beginning under both conditions, the audience is willing to process the video and rather they have to watch the ad, thus the interruption is given indistictive of the length of the video. Nevertheless, for commercials located in the middle it is expected a higher level of perceived intrusiveness, specially with the consideration of longer ads in shorter videos. In a short video there it is expected less tolerance for an ad due to the rewards that present in

36 comparison to a long video and by putting the ad in the middle will be escenario where an interruption is perceived as more severe. Thus, it is hypothesized that: 31 H4a: for commercials placed in the middle, the difference in intrusiveness between short and long commercials is larger for shorter videos than for longer videos The relation between commercial and video length is found due to the interruption in the cognitive process that causes the ad or the involuntary signal loss as it was mentioned by Speck and Elliott (1997) and discomfort creation, mentioned by Li et al. (2002a). In contrast, in the streaming platform, the experience of watching a selected video is expected to generate comfort and be the medium to produce strong rewards as long as the cognitive process is not significantly interrupted (Sigman, 2007 and Speck and Elliott 1997). Thus the length of the ad is expected to interact with the length of the video, however this relation may be influenced by the location of the ad in concordance with the study of Ritter and Cho (2009). In other words, the perceived intrusiveness coming from the relation between commercial and video length would be more pronounced when the ad is located at the middle rather than at the beginning. Pieters and Bijimolt (1997) found more favorable effects for ads placed in the beginning because they do not interrupt consumers activity. It could be that in the middle the level of attention is higher and an important scene is stopped within the video which makes perceive intrusiveness perception more sensitive in the middle. Based on this it is hypothesized that: H4b: the interaction effect between commercial length and video length is more pronounced for ads located in the middle than for ads located in the beginning. 4.2 CONSEQUENCES Negative reactions.- during the literature review, it was identified that there are two major negative responses encountered through different formats of advertising. These are irritation and avoidance. In relation with intrusiveness the study of Pop-ups, Li et al. (2002b) states that to the degree that ads are perceived as intrusive, feelings of irritation are likely to occur. These feelings of irritation may be heightened to the degree that the ads are disturbing because of their execution (e.g., too loud or too long) or placement (e.g., too many or too frequent). Moreover, if feelings of irritation develop, consumers are more apt to engage in ad avoidance behaviors Li

37 32 et al. (2002b). In addition Li et al., (2002a) found that when ads are perceived as intrusive, feelings of irritation are elicited and advertisements are avoided, providing evidence that intrusiveness is a precursor to feelings of irritation and avoidance behaviors. Nonetheless, Wehmeyer (2007) studied mobile ads and stated that perceptions of intrusiveness and irritation are likely to mingle given that the act of intrusion and the processing of the ad s content and stimuli occur simultaneously. In addition, given the nature of the format it was likely that consumers have not yet developed routines of avoidance due to an almost compulsive behaviour, of feeling forced to read the message received, which is explained by an emotional attachment to the mobile device. Finally, according to Ritter and Cho (2009), the factors influencing irritation may include content and frequency at which consumers are exposed, placement of ads, and poorly designed ads. In the present study it is not related the content nor the design or frecuency but a focus on placement. Moreover the most frequent consequence of irritation is avoidance of the source (the ad) if that is possible (Ritter and Cho, 2009) and people also avoid advertising messages because of perceived ad clutter, goal impediment and prior negative experience (Cho and Cheon, 2004). The focus of this research do not consider clutter as such given that the ad is exposed as one and not a set of commercials like in television for instance or in combination with other formats, however goal impediment and prior negative experience can be directly related to perceived intrusiveness. The expectations from our study in intrusiveness in pre-roll video ads are in alignment with the studies of McCoy et al., (2008) who found a direct positive relationship between perceived ad intrusiveness and user irritation and the findings of Li et al. (2002a), who concluded that the experience of intrusiveness will drive the feeling of irritation and in consequence avoidance. Based on the last assumption it is hypothesized that in pre-roll video advertising: H5: There is a positive effect of perceived intrusiveness in avoidance and it is fully mediated by irritation.

38 33 5 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY In the present chapter, the method for the research is presented. Including the research design, independent and dependent variables, how to measure these variables and a pre-test to decide which ads and videos will be located as part of the stimuli. Additionally it is explained the participants and data collection procedure for the experimental study. 5.1 OVERVIEW The research involves measuring reactions of streaming video viewers towards an exposition to a pre-roll video ad, considering a manipulation in length of the ad (short versus long), location of the ad (beginning versus middle) and a manipulation of the length of the video (short versus long). The reactions are measured in terms of perceived intrusiveness, avoidance and irritation. A number of videos with commercials embedded in those are the scenarios of exposition. The following table presents the 2x2x2 research design and the conditions created for the experiment: Table 5.1: Scenario Overview

39 5.2 RESEARCH DESIGN The present study deals with a 2x2x2 factorial design experiment between subjects. The length of the ad, location of the ad and length of the video will be manipulated on the levels of short and long ad and beginning and middle location for short versus long video. For allocating successfully these conditions, a pre-test is necessary where the viewers are assigned to one of three conditions to decide on the length of the video and the ad. It is important then to know what is in the mind of consumers a short and long ad or video, in order to have reliable measures. However this is not necessary for location of the ad given that the middle is generally known as in the half of the duration of the video. In the actual experiment, the participants will be randomly exposed to one of the conditions presented in the table 1. The stimuli to be used, is similar to the pre-roll ads found in the most popular streaming website (Youtube). 5.3 INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLES As mentioned before, the independent variables are: a) the length of the video and b) length and c) location of the ad. According to the Yume metrics report (2010) and Elliott (2009), pre-roll ads can go from 5 to 30 seconds. It will also be considered the length that Youtube presents for its pre-roll ads. According to their guidelines for location, there is a restriction to locate ads up to 30 seconds for long-form of videos and up to 20 seconds for short-form of videos. In their classification short videos are under 10 minutes and long videos over 10 minutes (Youtube, 2011). The average time that has been mentioned for a video watched in Youtube is of 3.8 minutes (Scott, 2009). However according to the press release of the ComScore research (2010), the duration of the average online video was 4.3 minutes. Regarding the position of the ad, it has not been discussed if other location is considered the middle rather than the position at the half of the video. In other words, it is expected that the ad will be embedded in the half position in of the video, this is why is not considered to test it in the pre-test. 34 The expectation in watching the video will be created by a short text introducing generally what is the video about. In this way eliciting the motivation to watch the video in a similar way of the real context, normally when a user click on a streaming video, he or she has a certain expectation about the video based on the title or other references. Thus, the text will also include the title of the video. Nevertheless, in the actual experiment they will not be told that an exposition to a commercial is included, to avoid any additional expectation, what is intended is that once they expect to watch a video, they are exposed to the ad according to the scenarios provided in Table 1 and the context in real life. Finally, these three variables are

40 35 expected to influence the dependent variables starting with the perception of intrusiveness, to know to what degree the audience has an intrusive feeling. Further on, a feeling of irritation will be measured with the response to the conditions and importantly as predictor of intention avoidance which is the last dependent variable. 5.4 MEASUREMENTS The conditions of the independent variables are measured to test if they reflect the actual perceptions of the audience in concordance to the stimuli that will be provided, however as stated before, ad location is excluded from the measure. In the pre-test, three items were considered to measure the perception of video length and ad length Ad length The participants are first asked with an open question how much time in seconds, they perceive as a short commercial; likewise the second measure is how much time they perceive as a long commercial. They have to express this in a number in seconds according to their opinion. Later on, they were exposed to an ad (see Appendix B and the pre-test paragraph for conditions) followed by a question to measure and know if they perceived it as short or long. The third item is measured on a 7-point Likert scale (see Appendix A) Video length As same as done with the ad length, the participants are asked openly with two questions to how much time in seconds, they perceive as a short and long video. They are exposed to one of the three conditions (see Pre-test paragraph) and likewise they have to respond it they agree with perceiving it as short or long after exposition. The reason for this order is to have a first impression in the mind of the participants, otherwise an influence could exist if first the video is located and see what they think and after ask what they think is a short or long video. In this way any possible influence of the video is avoided in order to have a more accurate response among the sample of respondents. The third item is measured on a 7-point Likert scale. The following paragraphs describe the measures for the dependent variables Perceived Intrusiveness In order to measure the intrusiveness level, several items validated in previous research in advertising are employed. Specifically stemming from the scale developed by Li et al. (2002) where three items for the measure of intrusiveness are chosen (i.e. distracting, interfering,

41 36 invasive). The items were used by Edwards and Lee (2002) in intrusiveness of pop-up ads and by Ritter and Cho (2009) with podcast advertising, where they were answered using seven-point scales with response types going from strongly agree to strongly disagree Intention of Avoidance Ritter and Cho (2009) measured ad avoidance with a modified scale for podcast ads, considering the three types of avoidance of Speck and Elliott (1997), these are ignoring ads, flipping past ads, and eliminating ads. Likewise the present study will measure with a sevenpoint likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree) to the items: did participants had the intention to tune out the ad on the video (ignoring or attending to other things), intention to skip past the ad on the video (fast-forward the ad), or intention to switch off the video during the ad (removing the sound until the ad is over). An intention of avoidance is considered and not a direct avoidance to have a better understanding of the respondent, given that by participating in a questionnaire he or she may think that is necessary to watch the full ad. However, the question is applicable to the real context of pre-roll ads in concordance to the experiment in this study Irritation The items to measure irritation were taken from the study of Wells, Leavitt, and McConville (1971), which considered a reaction profile to television commercials. The modified scale for this study used the items of: irritating, annoying, and ridiculous. Li et al. (2002) used these items to measure irritation in the study of intrusiveness of pop-up ads with a seven-point scales with response from strongly agree to strongly disagree. 5.5 DEVELOPMENT OF STIMULI The video.- according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project (2010) the mostwatched genre of video is news with 37% of adult internet users, followed by 31% of comedy videos and 22% of educational and music videos, in the lowest positions are animation, political, commercial, sports and others. In addition 62% of online video viewers say that their favourite videos are those which are professionally produced, 19% of viewers express a preference for amateur content and 11% enjoy both professionally-produced video and amateur online video equally. However among the preference a distinction is made, given that news videos are the most popular category for everyone except young adults (i.e. age 18-29) who prefer comedy with 56% of users saying they watch humorous videos, compared with 43% who

42 37 say they watch news videos. Based on this, a public video would be extracted from the website Youtube, which has a professional-made look containing some information that can be compared to the news as in novel and interesting educational facts while providing entertainment that can have humour. In this way, this type of video aim to represent the type of content that the audience is familiar with and watch the most the moment of exposition to a pre-roll ad. The measures focus more in the intrusive effect caused rather than the opinions of the respondents coming from the content of the ad. However, homogeneity across the video (short and long) and the ad (short and long) will be considered in order to get effective results by giving the same message and that the only variants are the length as much for the video and for the ad. The content of the video is also aimed to appeal the male and female audience. In the same way, it should be a novel topic that generates the interest that will do a normal video on Youtube. The content is expected to have a normal balance between humour and interesting facts. In the same way the difference between the length of the short and long video will be tested. According to Youtube short videos are under 10 minutes and long over 10 minutes, however as it was presented before, users engage in average in even shorter videos (i.e. the average time of a video found in streaming websites like Youtube is 4.3 minutes). Considering that pre-roll ads are located in very short videos as well, is necessary through the questions of the Appendix A to identify what consumers perceive regarding the length of the video. Videos under the average (4.3 minutes) may be considered as short, but these could range from 60, 150 seconds or even 2,5 minutes for short videos and a long video from what is above 4.3 minutes just to give an example. Based on this reasoning the conditions from the video stimuli will range among these timeframes. In any case, once identified what consumers see as short and long video, the content will be a reduced version to manage the same message to be conveyed. Logically as being a longer video a higher level of rewards would be expected by the respondents but if the short video contained three humorous parts and three interesting facts, the longer video should contain the same but amplified. An existing YouTube video with humorous scientific facts is used as stimuli. Creating own stimuli would be very time consuming, however it is edited its length to create the proper conditions maintaining as stated before homogeneity across the videos and the message in order to be able to compare the results.

43 The commercial.- the ad will be created with a product that can be considered as neutral in regard to the gender focus in the market. In other words is not a product for men or women, rather neutral such as a television or a cell-phone. The level of product involvement may influence the responses between man and women; this is why is considered such product. Moreover a fairly non-known brand could be located given that locating a highly loved or hated brand (e.g. Apple) could bias the perception of intrusiveness due to previous involvement, level of attachment and established associations may influence the perception of intrusiveness in a negative or positive way. In this case, a question should be included to measure whether having the ad with such brand influences the perception of intrusiveness. Moreover, the level of congruence or relevance between video and ad will not be considered given that ads embedded in the videos in the real environment are not considered to be similar. The focus of the research is to test the effect of the commercial and the interactions of its length and location with the length of the video. Regarding the length of a long commercial 30 seconds is the maximum restriction of time for a pre-roll ad. This is why 30 seconds will be considered as the longer option for the pre-test scenario. In order to have two more conditions a distance of 10 seconds between them will allow testing the perception of short and long ad. Thus, it will be tested as of 10, 20 and 30 seconds to see until what length the ad will be considered short or long in the pre-roll context. Once tested the experiment could consider for instance a 10 seconds short version of a 20 seconds commercial making a distinction from short and long pre-roll ad. In the case that the short video is established in 10 seconds, a middle of 20 seconds and a larger of 30 seconds, the difference of 10 seconds or more between each other should not contain any further information that changes the message being received, in other words it would not provide further cues changing the meaning of it. The long ad will contain the same message and have the same meaning of the short ad but extended in time with no further influencing arguments. Thus, it will be edited and the larger commercial should have the same meaning as the short one, the same principle applies to the videos in the streaming platform. Based on this the Appendix A, provides the questions regarding the length of the ad.

44 Pre-test The previous paragraphs give a strong foundation to the conditions that are created for the independent variables. Given that three conditions are formed (see Appendix A for the questionnaire), the participants will express their opinions regarding the lengths of the ad and the videos to be considered in the experiment. This is made in order to ensure that the stimuli do not have multiple interpretations. Thus, the same video and the same ad are tested within three different lengths each, to open the opportunity to choose the videos and the ads that best fit the scenarios. The description of the contents of the video and the ad can be found in Appendix B Participants and Procedure The pre-test survey was sent to a total of (N=47) respondents who were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions. It was necessary to have a fair distribution among the different cases, to have a more balanced distribution in terms of time. Thus, A) a long video (4.5 minutes) with a short commercial (10 seconds), B) a middle-short video (2.5 minutes) with a middle-short commercial (20 seconds) and C) a long commercial (30 seconds) with a short video (60 seconds). At the end, 15 respondents were assigned to one of the three conditions and were expected to identify and difference a short from a long commercial and video. The results are expected to give a foundation for the variables that will be used in the scenarios mentioned in the Table 1. The video and the ad were carefully edited to avoid any perception of difference regarding its message as it was discussed in previous paragraphs, given that this could be replicated in the actual experiment. A link was sent directing users to thesistools.com which is a website that allows creating and posting questionnaires for research. The surveys included one condition (a video and a commercial) and in total 8 items were asked on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from totally disagree to totally agree, which is a common way to collect opinion data (Saunders, 2008). Two open questions were asked in the beginning to know what is in the mind of a consumer, a long or a short ad and video in terms of time. Then they were exposed to a commercial and were asked to score on a 7-point Likert scale if they agreed with the statement that the commercial that just saw was short or long. Users were asked then if they were familiar to the brand presented in the commercial and if they liked the ad. The same structure of questions were used to measure Video length, the difference is that after looking at the video it was asked if they understood the video and if they liked it. The last item of the pre-test was an open question

45 40 which invites to the respondents to share any thoughts they had while they were watching the video and the ad. This will allow having a better understanding of the relations of their opinions and the outcomes of those thoughts. The participants were chosen based on the category of young adults (18-29) given that 76% of them watch online videos (Pew Internet and American Life Project 2010) Results of Pre-test The survey was distributed among 65 people in the age of The targeted group consists of citizens living in the Netherlands. After five days there was a response of 47 people (N=47). Scenario one and two had 15 responses and Scenario three had 17. The following section describes the test results and conclusion for the different items. The mean scores are outlined and they have to score above four in order to test whether the manipulations are successful. This measurement is set because it is an average score or above four based on a 7- point Likert scale. The mean scores of the different scenarios considering short and long videos and ads are outlined in the table 2. Table 5.2: Mean Scores of the Pretest - Ad Seen as Short Seen as Long Scenarios (#) Mean St. Dev Mean St. Dev 1) Short -Samsung Ad (10 sec) 6, , ) Middle-short - Samsung Ad (20 sec) 5, , ) Long - Samsung Ad (30 sec) 2, , Table 5.3: Mean Scores of the Pretest - Video Seen as Short Seen as Long Scenarios (#) Mean St. Dev Mean St. Dev 1) Long Benefits Laughter Video (4,5 minutes) 1, , ) Middle-short B. Laughter Video (2,5 min) 3, , ) Short - Benefits of Laughter Video (1 minute) 5, , The mean scores show that the stimuli in the scenarios two, three and four meet the expectations of that particular scenario. Moreover to be able to check reliability for the items of ad length and video length in the categorical values, a Cronbach s alpha was computed.

46 41 Table 5.4: Reliability for Ad Length Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items N of Items,959,959 2 Table 5.5: Reliability for Video Length Cronbach's Alpha Reliability Statistics Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Items N of Items,935,935 2 The items are reliable when the Cronbach s alphas score above 0.70 (Cortina 1993). The above results indicate that all of the variables score above the required α = Thus, the items for these variables in this pretest are internally consistent and reliable. In order to compare the means for the continuous variables of their opinion regarding the open questions of ad and video length a one-way analysis of variance between groups was conducted. The table below presents the results and it can be concluded that according to the Levene s Test by having a sig. value > 0.05 the assumption of homogeneity of variance has not been violated. Moreover the ANOVA (table 5.5) shows that the p value is higher than 0.05 which means that there is not a significant difference among the mean scores on the continuous variables for the three groups. In other words there is not a significant difference between the groups for the answers given for the open questions regarding short/long ad length and for short/long video length. Table 5.7 ANOVA for Continuous Variables Variable F p-value Short Ad Length Between Groups 2,047,141 Long Ad Length Between Groups,162,851 Short Vid Length Between Groups 2,357,107 Long Vid Length Between Groups,318, Choice of Ad Length The descriptive statistics for the first and second question regarding ad length is shown in the following table, frequencies can be looked with more detail in the Appendix D.

47 42 Table 5.8 Descriptive Statistics of Perceptions for a Short and Long Ad N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Short Ad ,11 5,669 Long Ad ,60 23,028 Valid N (listwise) 47 According to the results, the general opinion regarding a short commercial is of 15 seconds. Given that 21 respondents express this opinion which represents 44.7% of the sample. Moreover the mean was of which confirm the general perception in time for a short ad. Likewise for the long ad perception, 22 respondents said that a long commercial is of 60 seconds, this represents 46.8% of the sample and is in concordance with the mean by having a close value which is seconds. However the standard deviation is quite high given that a three respondents said 120 seconds and eight seven said that it was 30 seconds. From these answers it could be selected a 15 second ad for short and a 60 second ad for long, but as it was presented before, in Pre-roll video ads there is a limit to a maximum of 30 seconds. The answers from the third question will help to shape the stimuli, the statements came after exposing the respondents to one of the commercials, the following table presents a comparison of the means of the three conditions (10, 20 and 30 seconds) and the agreement of the respondents as perceiving them for short or long. The pre-test presented a 7 point Likert-scale where 1 equals to Totally Disagree and 7 to Totally Agree. Table 5.9 Opinion after exposition to the Ads ConditionAd Perception of Ad Shortness Perception of Ad Length 10 seconds Mean 6,33 1,40 N Std. Deviation 1,113, seconds Mean 5,80 2,00 N Std. Deviation 1,207 1, seconds Mean 2,24 5,71 N Std. Deviation 1,602 1,687 Total Mean 4,68 3,17 N Std. Deviation 2,285 2,303

48 43 The results show that the 10 and 20 second ad, are perceived as short and there is a clear disagreement for the 30 seconds commercial as being short. In concordance, the 30 seconds ad was perceived as long. Based on the data, the option most logical for the long commercial is of 30 seconds and for the short commercial will be within 10 to 20 seconds. In addition, a one-way between groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of ad length in the perceptions for short or long. The three groups were the ones corresponding to the three conditions of the commercial (10, 20 and 30 seconds). There was a statistically significant difference at the p <.05 level in the perception of Ad shortness scores for the three groups: F (2, 44) = , p=.0005 and likewise for the perceptions of Ad length F (2, 43) = , p=.0005 Table 5.10 ANOVA between groups (10, 20 and 30 seconds Commercial) Variable F p-value Perception Ad Shortness Between Groups 45,071,000 Perception Ad Length Between Groups 59,763,000 The following table presents the results of the post-hoc tests, which presents where the differences among the groups occur. The dependent variable is the perception of ad shortness and ad length. Table 5.11 Post Hoc Tests - Multiple Comparisons (I) (J) Mean Dependent condition condition Difference Std. Variable Ad Ad (I-J) Error p-value Ad Shortness Perception Ad Length Perception 10 sec 20 sec,533,489, sec 4,098 *,474, sec 10 sec -,533,489, sec 3,565 *,474, sec 10 sec -4,098 *,474, sec -3,565 *,474, sec 20 sec -,600,450, sec -4,306 *,429, sec 10 sec,600,450, sec -3,706 *,437, sec 10 sec 4,306 *,429, sec 3,706 *,437,000 The results tell us that the 10 second and 30 second group are significantly different from one another at the p<.05 level. The same conclusion goes for the comparison of the 20 second and

49 44 30 second group, however for the 10 second and 20 second group comparison there is not a significant difference from one another (p > 0.5). The groups differ significantly in terms of their perceptions for Ad shortness and for Ad length. Figure 5.1 Perception of the Ad as Short Figure 5.2 Perception of the Ad as Long As the mean plots show, even though that there is a difference of ten seconds between the 20 second commercial and the 10 and 30 second one, the longest commercial differs significantly

50 45 in the perception as much for shortness and for length. In order to test this assumption, a oneway repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to compare scores on the Perception of duration of an ad (short and long). There was a statistically significant effect for ad length, Wilk s Lamba =.63, F(1, 43) = 24,49, p<0.0005, multivariate partial eta squared =,36. Likewise a significant effect was found for the interaction between the perception of the ad and the commercial scenario. The following table presents the Multivariate tests of the ANOVA. Table 5.12: Multivariate Tests b Effect F p-value Partial Eta Squared Perception of Ad Duration Wilks' Lambda 24,499,000,363 perception of ad duration* Ad Wilks' Lambda 58,666,000,732 length with different scenarios b. Design: Intercept + condition of the Ad Within Subjects Design: perception of Ad Table 5.13 Tests of Within-Subjects Effects Source F p-value Partial Eta Squared Perception of ad duration Sphericity Assumed 24,499,000,363 perception of ad duration* Ad length with different scenarios Sphericity Assumed 58,666,000,732 Table 5.14 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source F p-value Partial Eta Squared Intercept 3143,566,000,987 Ad length (Dif. Scenarios),212,810,010 The within subjects test indicate that the interaction of perception of duration of the ad and the commercial scenarios are significant. The main effect of perception of the ad and the commercial condition are significant. The between groups test indicates that the variable condition of the ad is not significant. In other words the difference in the scores for each commercial s scenarios depends on the perception regarding the question if it is a short or a long ad. The following figure presents this interaction.

51 46 Figure 5.3 Perception of Ad Duration and Ad Length In the table below is displayed that the three conditions present a good brand familiarity, all scored above 4. In ad likeness, 10 seconds commercial was the only one which presented an score below 4, the possible reasons to explain this is that some respondents gave comments as too short and it won t stick on the people, hard to remember its purpose. Thus, for the actual experiment could be used a 15 seconds version than a 10 seconds one, given that provides a better likeness and still is perceived as a short ad. Table 5.15: Report Variables related to the Commercial Attitude towards ConditionAd Brand Familiarity the ad 10 seconds Mean N Std. Deviation seconds Mean N Std. Deviation seconds Mean N Std. Deviation

52 47 The pre-test showed that the commercials of 10 and 20 seconds, had a high rating on a 7 point Likert scale (1= totally disagree and 7= totally agree) for being considered as a short commercial (see table above). The value four is used here as the reference value to which the means are considered for a comparison. Thus, a mean of four indicates that the audience either agree or disagree with the presented statement. Moreover, a one-way between-groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of ad length on ad likeness and brand familiarity in that ad. There is not a statistically significant difference at the p <.05 level in the scores of ad likeness and brand familiarity for the three ad conditions. Table One-Sample Test (Test Value = 4 ) t Df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Brand Familiarity 6,146 46,000 1,702 Attitude towards the ad,200 45,000,043 Table 5.17 ANOVA Variable F p-value Brand Familiarity Between Groups,318,729 Attitude towards the Ad Between Groups 2,858,068 The results from the one-sample t-test tell us that there is a significant difference of the mean from brand familiarity above four for all the scenarios. Regarding ad likeness there is not a significant difference given that the 10 second ad, had a mean below 4. This is the reason why for the experiment a commercial of 18 is used, which based on the results it is expected to have a score above four and still considered as short Choice of Video Length The descriptive statistics for the first and second question regarding video length is shown in the following table. For detail of frequencies (see Appendix D): Table 5.18 Descriptive Statistics- Opinion of Video Length N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Statistic Short Vid Length ,96 42,579 Long Vid Length ,48 202,586

53 48 According to the results, the general opinion regarding a short video is of 60 seconds. Given that 18 respondents express this opinion which represents 38.3% of the sample. Moreover the mean was of 70.96, given that 10 and 8 respondents answered as 2 minutes and 30 seconds correspondingly as being a short video. Likewise for the long video perception, 13 respondents said that a long video is of 10 minutes, this represents 27.7% of the sample and is higher than the mean which is 399,48 seconds (6,6 minutes). However the standard deviation is quite high given that the answers are distributed in several options, for instance 21% said that a long video is 6 minutes and 12% said that it is 5 minutes. From these answers it could be selected a 1 minute video for short and a 6 minute video long. But after having an exposure to different lengths we could know more about what length is also considered as long. It would be quite inconvenient to locate a 6 minute video for matters of time and getting responses. The answers from the third question will help to shape the stimuli, the statements came after exposing the respondents to one of the videos, the following table presents a comparison of the means of the three conditions (1, 2.5 and 4.5 minutes) and the agreement of the respondents as perceiving them for short or long. Scale: 7 represent Totally Agree and 1, Totally Disagree. ConditionVideo Table 5.19 Opinion after exposition to the Video Perception of Video Shortness Perception of Video Length 1 minute Mean 5,18 2,53 N Std. Deviation 1,879 1,807 2,5 minutes Mean 3,86 3,21 N Std. Deviation 1,657 1,929 4,5 minutes Mean 1,93 5,67 N Std. Deviation,704,816 The results show that the 1 minute video is perceived as short, the 2.5 minute video is perceived as short nor long, and there is a clear disagreement for the 4,5 minute video as being short. In concordance, the 4.5 minute video was perceived as long. Based on the data, the most logical option for the long video is of 4.5 minutes and for the short Video of 1 minute. In addition, a one-way between groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of video length in the perceptions for short or long. The three groups were the ones

54 49 corresponding to the three conditions of the videos (1 minute, 2.5 minutes and 4.5 minutes). There was a statistically significant difference at the p <.05 level in the perception of Video shortness scores for the three groups: F (2, 43) = 18.26, p=.0005 and likewise for the perceptions of Video length F (2, 43) =16.51, p=.0005 Table 5.20: ANOVA Variable F p-value Perception Video Shortness Between Groups 18,266,000 Perception Video Length Between Groups 16,516,000 Table Multiple Comparisons Dependent Variable Video Shortness Perception Video Length Perception (I) Condition Video (J) Condition Video Mean Difference (I-J) p-value 4,5 min 2,5 min -1,924 *,004 1 min -3,243 *,000 2,5 min 4,5 min 1,924 *,004 1 min -1,319,052 1 min 4,5 min 3,243 *,000 2,5 min 1,319,052 4,5 min 2,5 min 2,452 *,000 1 min 3,137 *,000 2,5 min 4,5 min -2,452 *,000 1 min,685,467 1 min 4,5 min -3,137 *,000 2,5 min -,685,467 The previous table presented the results of the post-hoc tests, which presents where the differences among the groups occur. The dependent variable is the perception of Video shortness and ad length. The results tell us that the 1 minute and the 4,5 minute video groups are significantly different from one another at the p<.05 level. The same conclusion goes for the comparison of the 2,5 minutes and 4,5 minutes group, however for the 1 minute and 2,5 minutes group comparison there is not a significant difference from one another (p > 0.5). The groups differ significantly in terms of their perceptions for Video shortness and for Video length.

55 50 Figure 5.4 Perception of a Video as Short Figure 5.5 Perception of a Video as Long As the mean plots show, the longest video differs significantly in the perception as much for shortness and for length. In order to test this assumption, a one-way repeated measures

56 51 ANOVA was conducted to compare scores on the Perception of duration of a Video (short and long). There was a significant effect for the interaction of Perception of the Video Duration and the Video Scenarios, Wilk s Lamba =.053, F (2, 43) = 19.09, p<0.0005, multivariate partial eta squared =,47. Moreover there was not a significant effect for the perception of video as short or long, p=.73. The following table presents the Multivariate tests of the ANOVA Table 5.22: Multivariate Tests b Effect F p-value Partial Eta Squared Perception duration of the video Wilks' Lambda,114,737,003 Perception duration of the video * Wilks' Lambda 19,090,000,470 Scenario b. Design: Intercept + condition video. Within Subjects Design: perception Table 5.23 Tests of Within-Subjects Effects Source F p-value Partial Eta Squared Perception duration of the video Sphericity,114,737,003 Assumed perception duration of the video* Scenario Sphericity Assumed 19,090,000,470 The within subjects test indicate that the interaction of perception of duration of the video and the video scenarios are significant. The main effect of perception of ad duration is not significant. The between groups test indicates that the variable condition of the Video is not significant but the interaction between the perception and the scenarios is significant. In other words the difference in the scores for each commercial s scenarios depends on the interaction of the two variables rather than one driver. The following figure presents this interaction. Table 5.24 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Intercept 2599,852,000,984 Scenario 1,748,186,075

57 52 Figure 5.6 Perception of Video Duration and Video Scenarios Furthermore, in the three conditions the respondents expressed a good understanding of the video given that all scored above 4. Regarding likeness of the video, all three conditions scored above four, however the longest video was the one that scored the least with 4.33, probably due to boredom and unnecessary details expressed by some of the respondents that shared additional thoughts. Table 5.25 Variables related to the Videos ConditionVideo Video Understanding Attitude towards thevideo 1 minute Mean 5,82 5,06 N Std. Deviation 1,237 1,676 2,5 minutes Mean 6,71 5,00 N Std. Deviation,469 1,569 4,5 minutes Mean 6,33 4,33 N Std. Deviation,816 1,345 Total Mean 6,26 4,80 N Std. Deviation,976 1,544

58 53 Moreover, a one-way between-groups analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of Video Length on Video likeness and Video understanding. There is not a statistically significant difference at the p <.05 level in the scores of video likeness for the three video conditions. However there is a significant difference regarding the video understanding, the table of the Post Hoc Test, present in more detail these differences. Table 5.26 ANOVA F p-value Video Understanding Between Groups 3,641,035 Video Likeability Between Groups 1,044,361 Table 5.27 Multiple Comparisons (Post Hoc Test) Dependent Variable Vid Understanding (I) Condition Video (J) Condition Video Mean Difference (I-J) p-value 4.5 m 2.5 m -,381,513 1 m,510, m 4.5 m,381,513 1 m,891 *,028 1 m 4.5 m -,510, m -,891 *,028 Vid Likeness 4.5 m 2.5 m -,667,481 1 m -,725, m 4.5 m,667,481 1 m -,059,994 1 m 4.5 m,725, m,059,994 The results indicate that the 1 minute and 2.5 minute video are significantly different from one another at the p <.05 level for Video Understanding.

59 54 Figure 5.7 Video Understanding for the Three Scenarios Figure 5.8 Attitude towards the Video for the Three Scenarios Table 5.27 One-Sample Test (Test Value = 4 ) t df p-value. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Vid Understanding 15,710 45,000 2,261 Vid Likeness 3,534 45,001,804

60 55 The results from the one-sample t-test tell us that there is a significant difference of the mean for video understanding and video likeness above four for all the scenarios. For the items of brand familiarity, video understanding and likeness of the video and ad (see above Tables 9 and 14), in general the mean scored above four. This is taken in consideration for the experiment, otherwise it could be assumed that the participants are not familiar with the brand, do not understand the video and dislike both of them. This could represent a problem because the respondents could not evaluate other dependent variables properly and these other factors may influence their answers and would make them hard to use. As conclusion from the Pre-test, the stimuli that will be used in the experiment is: short commercial (18 seconds), long commercial (30 seconds), short video (1 minute) and long video (4 minutes). 5.6 CONTROL VARIABLES Considering the nature of this research, there are several factors that could influence the dependent variables and therefore the results. As in other measurements, these variables are also measured on a seven-point Likert scale. Below is presented an outline of these control variables Brand Familiarity Brand familiarity is significant to measure, given that participants that are not familiar with it, will be unable to answer for instance questions regarding attitude towards the brand which is included here, or questions related to the product or the ad. Thus, their responses may be unusable. The participants are asked in the Pre-test whether they are familiar with the brand that they just saw in the ad. Their opinion is measured with a 7 point Likert-scale Attitude towards the product.- the attitude that consumers can have towards the advertised product may influence the outcomes. If they have a negative or positive attitude to that particular product it could influence the perceptions of intrusiveness. Moreover, attitude towards the product can be measured the same way as attitude towards the brand (three item, 7- point Likert scale: good, nice, likeable (Zhang & Zinkhan 2006). However, attitude towards the product as only being control variable for this study and due to matters of time, only the likeable item is used to measure it Attitude towards the video.- it could be that the information presented in the video influence the perception of intrusiveness. Because a negative attitude towards it could be related

61 56 to the ad and a high positive attitude towards the video could bias the intrusive effect and the dependent variables of irritation and avoidance related to the ad. Likewise it will be asked if the respondent has already watched the video, it could be that he or she has an existing attitude given its familiarity. In the pre-test a question to know if the respondent understood the content of the video is included and other item measured likeness of the video. A 7 point Likert-scale was used to measure these variables Attitude towards the ad.- it could be that the content, the message or the cues in these ad are somewhat annoying to the respondents and therefore influence the perceptions of intrusiveness and the other dependent variables. Familiarity with the ad will be also considered to measure if the respondents have watched the ad in the past. Like the video, likeness of the ad is also considered to ask in the Pre-test and a 7 point-likert scale is used for the correspondent measurement Attitude towards pre-roll ads.- it may be that some users are familiar with the format and have an existing attitude towards pre-roll ads. This could influence the outcomes coming from the dependent variables. It will also be asked if they have watched before a pre-roll ad on internet. Lastly a question about attitude towards advertising in general is included. A seven point Likert scale will measure the opinion of the respondents Attitude towards the streaming media.- even tough the majority of internet users engage in watching videos, they could hold a negative attitude towards the websites that are a platform of videos. It could be that some users are more in favour of other activities on internet and hold more to watch content on television rather than in streaming websites. A seven point Likert scale will measure their opinion Amount of streaming website usage.- it could be that a heavy internet user of streaming platforms is somewhat more tolerant to pre-roll ads and therefore bias the results of the dependent variables. Thus it is asked if respondents watch videos in streaming websites in a daily basis, several times per week, once every two weeks, never or once per month Demographics.- finally demographics can also influence the dependent variables. As an example, females, level of education and other background may respond differently to the

62 stimuli. In order to control for these variables, demographical questions including nationality and age are asked in the questionnaire of the experiment PARTICIPANTS AND PROCEDURE Participants A total number of 200 participants completed the questionnaire (see Table 14 for the total number of participants in each condition). From the total sample, X% is male and X% is female. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project (2010), 76% of the young adults between 18 and 29 watch online videos. It is important to have this group as a sample, given that they are more exposed to pre-roll ads. The demographic indicate that X% of all participants are between X and X and the average age is X. The youngest participant in the study is X and the oldest participant is X years old. Most of the participants are of X nationality (X%). The table below indicates that the participants are more or less equally distributed across the scenarios. Equal distribution is important because the ANOVA tests that will be conducted require equal distribution when comparing between different groups. Remembering that the present study is a 2x2x2 factorial design between subjects and when there is no equal distribution the ANOVA output may not correspond with one another (Shaw & Mitchell-Olds 1993). Table 5.28 Size of the Sample Short Video N Scenario 1 (Short ad located in the Beginning) 27 Scenario 2 (Short ad located in the Middle) 25 Scenario 3 (Long ad located in the Beginning) 28 Scenario 4 (Long ad located in the Middle) Procedure Long Video Scenario 5 (Short ad located in the Beginning) 26 Scenario 6 (Short ad located in the Middle) 28 Scenario 7 (Long ad located in the Beginning) 25 Scenario 8 (Long ad located in the Middle) 28 Total 214 In the phase of the experiment, before answering any questions and being exposed to the video the participants will be explained that they are about to watch a video about the benefits

63 58 of laughter. A short introduction about the content will be included. This can be introduced by text and is expected to elicit an expectation similar to the one found just before watching an actual video in the streaming website. The moment they stream the video or the moment they are watching the video they will be exposed to a pre-roll ad. The ad features the Samsung Galaxy Smartphone and in the left corner it will be located an indication in yellow letters that it is an Advertisement, this labelling is located in the real pre-roll ads as well. The results from the pre-test lead to these lengths: 15 and 30 seconds for the ad and 1 and 4.5 minutes for the videos. After being exposed to these conditions, it will be measured the corresponding responses according to the 2x2x2 factorial design of length of the ad (short vs long), length of the video (short vs long) and location of the ad (beginning vs middle). Thus, eight versions of the experiment were available and 25 respondents per condition is the preferable outcome. The survey contains items (See Appendix C) that will measure the expectations regarding the confounding factors and the consequences of perceived intrusiveness. The respondents are thanked after their participation.

64 59 6 RESULTS In this chapter the results of the experiment are presented. First an overview of the scenarios and its corresponding conditions are presented. Then, the first paragraph outlines the reliability of several items conforming one variable. In the second paragraph, the manipulation checks of ad duration and video duration are presented. Subsequently the hypotheses are tested, followed by the corresponding analysis. Table 6.1 Scenario Overview of the Experiment Scenario Video Length Ad Length Location of the Ad # of Respondents 1 Short Short Beginning 27 2 Short Short Middle 25 3 Short Long Beginning 28 4 Short Long Middle 27 5 Long Short Beginning 26 6 Long Short Middle 28 7 Long Long Beginning 25 8 Long Long Middle _Respondents A total of 214 respondents participated in this research, each respondent filled out one of the questionnaires with eight different scenarios as is displayed in the table 6.1. Of all respondents, 71% was female and 29% was male. The difference between male and female in number does not represent any possible incumbency given that the product and the video was not intended to appeal any of the groups, in other words they were neutral. Moreover, the overall age of the respondents was young, 87% are between 18 and 30. Moreover the main groups of the respondents had a Dutch nationality (70%) and 23% are from different nationalities but living in the Netherlands, therefore they are exposed to pre-roll ads in internet. Moreover the sample is highly educated, HBO or University (98%) and present a behavior of often watching videos in streaming websites (mean score = 5,54), this was tested with a one-sample t-test (see appendix G), which was successful, this shows that the sample was suitable for the experiment. 6.2 Data preparation Before conducting the manipulation checks and tests of the hypotheses, the reliability of variables measured with more than one item was checked. The table below shows the Cronbach s alpha values and in order to indicate that the items are internally consistent, they have to score above 0.70 (Cortina 1993). It is also tested whether the Cronbach s alphas substantially improve when one of the items is eliminated. The table below indicates the alphas

65 for intention of avoidance, perceived intrusiveness, ad length, video length, and irritation. The scales have good internal consistency and all score above Variables Table 6.2 Cronbach s alpha Cronbach s alpha Item (#) Cronbach s alpha if item deleted Intention of Avoidance α = Ignoring Ad α =.772 Perceived Intrusiveness α = Distracting α =.741 Irritation α =.816 Ad Length α =.947 Video Length α = In the variable Intention of Avoidance, if the first item was removed (i.e. Intention of ignoring the ad) the impact goes to having an alpha of.772, and in the variable of Perceived Intrusiveness if the first item (i.e. Distracting) is removed, the alpha increases to.741. Given that all variables score above.70 and the difference in increase is not substantial, it is considered to maintain all the items to avoid any loss of data. 6.3 Manipulation checks In order to check whether the video and the ad are manipulated successfully, several manipulation checks are conducted for: brand familiarity, video understanding and video and ad length. The manipulation checks are based on a 95% confidence interval. The first two variables have to have a mean score of above four. The reason for this is that this is a score above average on a 7-point Likert scale and it can then be assumed that the participants are familiar with the brand and understand the video. For ad length and video length a distinction is made between short versus long ad and short versus long video. All of these variables are tested based on a test value of four. In the following paragraphs, the manipulation checks of each variable are presented. Table 6.3 One-Sample Test Test Value = 4 Variable Degrees of Freedom T-Value P-value Mean Difference Brand Familiarity p<.0005 (two-tailed) Video Understanding p<.0005 (two-tailed) Video Likeability p<.0005 (two-tailed) Ad Likeability p<.0005 (two-tailed) -.565

66 Brand familiarity The mean scores of brand familiarity all score above four. The total mean for all scenarios is 6.14 with an standard deviation of In order to check whether the means score significantly above four a one-sample t-test is used. The results of table 6.3 show that the respondents are familiar with the brands across all scenarios. Thus, brand familiarity is manipulated successfully Video understanding The mean score of video understanding for all scenarios is of 5.98 with an standard deviation of The one sample t-test show that the score is significantly above four across the different conditions. In concordance with the pre-test, the stimuli used regarding the video allows to the respondents overall understand what the video is about. In case of having a non understanding of the video, participants could get focused in this and not being able to evaluate properly the pre-roll ad Attitude towards the Video The mean score of video likeability joining all the scenarios is of 4.83 with an standard deviation of The one sample t-test shows that the score is significantly high above four across the different conditions. In concordance with the pre-test, the stimuli used regarding the video shows that the respondents fairly liked the video they watched. In general, in the real online environment respondents watch videos they find likeable, this was successfully manipulated in order to place a pre-roll ad in a video that represents the conditions in real life Attitude towards the Ad Table 6.4 Means Comparison for Attitude towards the Ad ConditionAd Mean N Std. Deviation Long Ad 3, ,785 Short ad 3, ,587 Total 3, ,688 The mean for ad likeability in the scenarios is The results show that there is a significant difference with a value of four. This means that overall the respondents somewhat disagree in considering that the ad is likeable. The commercial was expected to generate a close to an average likeability, given that a strongly attitude of favourability towards the ad or extreme

67 62 negative attitude may add too much information or influence that could get respondents to focused on details of the ad rather than evaluating properly the effect of its location within a video. This results differ from the scores of the pre-test, however, given the fact that now the ad is embedded in the video, this could have been the cause for less likeability towards the ad. In other words is not the ad itself that causes this, other ad could would have had the same effect, in changing is likeability once is embedded in certain content valuable for the user. This will be further extended in the discussion chapter. Additionally the ANOVA results show that there is not a significant difference of ad likeness among the different scenarios (p>0.05). Thus, it is successfully manipulated ad likeness for a short ad and for a long ad. Table 6.5 ANOVA for Attitude towards the ad F - Value P- Value Between Groups 1,219, Video Length This paragraph outlines whether ad length is manipulated successfully. First, the mean scores of video length are shown. Thereafter the results from a one-way analysis of variance and a repeated measures ANOVA are outlined. Scenario /Variable Table 6.6 Mean Scores Video Length Perception Mean Score for the Video perceived as Short Standard Deviation Mean Score for the Video perceived as Long Standard Deviation 1. Short Video , , Short Video , , Short Video , , Short Video , , Long Video , , Long Video , , Long Video , , Long Video , ,407 A one-way ANOVA was conducted in order to compare the scores of the scenarios 1, 2, 3 and 4 (short video) to find any significant difference among them in their perception of the video as short and long. Likewise for the scenarios 5, 6, 7 and 8, which address the long video condition. The results show that there is not a significant difference among their scores (p > 0.05). In

68 addition post-hoc tests were conducted to confirm this finding and yet again no difference among them was encountered (see appendix F). 63 Table 6.7 ANOVA Results for Short and Long Video Scenarios Test Groups Condition p - value Anova Between Groups Scenario (1-4) Perceived as Short p =.804 Anova Between Groups Scenario (1-4) Perceived as Long p =.551 Anova Between Groups Scenario (5-8) Perceived as Short p =.371 Anova Between Groups Scenario (5-8) Perceived as Long p =.150 Figure 6.1 Video Length Perception for all Scenarios A one-way Anova was conducted considering the eigth scenarios and the perceptions for short and long video. The results show that there is a statistically significant difference between groups (p<.0005) for short and long videos. In addition the post hoc tests (see appendix F) successfully show that the scenarios (1-4) differ with the scenarios (5-8) as much as for short and long video perceptions. The figure 6.1. display the results from a repeated measures Anova. First, the scenarios for short video (1-4) were analized with the perception of short and long video and a statistically

69 64 significant difference was encountered for the effect of perception (p<.0005) with a partial eta squared of.573, this suggests a very large size effect. In other words the mean decreased significantly for short videos when was asked if it was perceived as long. Likewise for the long video scenarios the level of significance shows a difference in their perceptions for short and long video (p<.0005) with a partial eta squared of.163, indicating a large effect size. In general, the mean score results show that the manipulations were successful for a short and long video perceptions. Interestingly, the difference between the perception of short and long video was shorter in the scenarios containing long videos. Moreover, in the scenario 8, were a long commercial was located in the middle the respondents perceive it not so long anymore the video, in other words less content perceived. This will be extended in the discussion chapter. Additionally Post-Hoc Test were conducted (see appendix E) across the scenarios and they do not differ statistically from each other in terms of their perception of video duration scores. The results of a repeated measures Anova are displayed below which confirms the previous assumptions. Table 6.8 Results from Repeated Measures ANOVA Test Effect Value p-value Partial Eta Squared Multivariate Test/ Video Perceptions Wilks'.923 p< Within-Subject Effects Lambda Multivariate Test/ Perceptions of Video Wilks'.618 p< Within-Subject Effects Duration * Video Length Scenario Lambda The pairwise comparisons (see Annex E) show that there is a statistically significant difference from a video perceived as short and a video perceived as long (p<.0005). Moreover as the Multivariate test show (see Apendix E), there is a change in scores for the two conditions, thus there is an interaction effect statistically significant. There is also a statistically significant difference for Video Perceptions, this suggests that there was a change of perception of video duration across the different conditions, thus the main effect is significant. In addition, to asess the effect size of this result, the partial eta squared shows for Video perceptions (.077) and for the interaction effect (.382). According to Pallant (2010, p.281) this means a moderate effect is above.06 and a large effect from.14. In the table 6.8 it is seen that the main effect for video length scenario is not significant (p>.05)

70 65 Table 6.9 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Intercept 26058,673 p<.0005,992 Video Length Scenario 1,576 p=.144,051 The previous analysis of variance considered the effect across the eight scenarios. The following ANOVA results has to do with the conditions of short versus long video. Figure 6.2 Video Length Perception (Short Video vs. Long Video) The pairwise comparisons (see Annex E) show that there is a statistically significant difference from a video perceived as short and a video perceived as long (p<.0005). In order to confirm previous assumptions an additional test was conducted. As the following tables show there is a change in scores for the two conditions, thus there is an interaction effect statistically significant. There is also a statistically significant difference for Video Perceptions, this suggests that there was a change of perception of duration across the different condirtions, thus the main effect is significant. In addition, to asess the effect size of this result, the partial eta squared shows for Video perceptions (.074) and for the interaction effect (.363). As mentioned before, this means a moderate effect is above.06 and a large effect from.14.

71 66 Table 6.10 Results from Repeated Measures ANOVA Test Effect Value p-value.p Eta Squared Multivariate Test/ Video Perceptions Wilks'.926 p< Within-Subject Effects Lambda Multivariate Test/ Perceptions of Video Wilks'.637 p< Within-Subject Effects Duration * Video Length Lambda Table 6.11 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Intercept 25697,792 p<.0005,992 Video Length 1,576 p=.258,006 A mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance was conducted to assess the impact of video length on two different perceptions (short versus long). There was a significant interaction between video length and perception of video duration. There was a substantial main effect for Video perceptions (opinion for short or long), the main effect comparing the video length and shortness was not signficant, suggesting no difference for perceptions across the groups. Thus, the manipulation checks were successful for video length Ad Length This paragraph outlines whether ad length is manipulated successfully. First, the mean scores of ad length are shown. Thereafter the ANOVA results are outlined. A one-way ANOVA was conducted in order to compare the scores of the scenarios 1, 2, 5 and 6 (short Ad) to find any significant difference among them in their perception of the ad as short and long. Likewise for the scenarios 3, 4, 7 and 8, which address the long ad condition. The results show that there is not a significant difference among their scores (p > 0.05). In addition post-hoc tests were conducted to confirm this finding and yet again no significant difference among them was encountered (see appendix F).

72 Scenario /Variable Table 6.12 Mean Scores Ad Length Perception Mean Score for the Ad perceived as Short Standard Deviation Mean Score for the Ad perceived as Long Standard Deviation 1. Short Ad Short Ad Short Ad Short Ad LongAd Long Ad Long Ad Long Ad Table 6.13 ANOVA Results for Short and Long Ad Scenarios Test Groups Condition p - value Anova Between Groups Scenario (1,2,5,6) Perceived as Short p =.317 Anova Between Groups Scenario (1,2,5,6) Perceived as Long p =.208 Anova Between Groups Scenario (3,4,7,8) Perceived as Short p =.360 Anova Between Groups Scenario (3,4,7,8) Perceived as Long p =.233 Figure 6.3 Ad Length Perception for all Scenarios

73 A one-way Anova was conducted considering the eigth scenarios and the perceptions for short and long Ad. The results show that there is a statistically significant difference between groups (p<.0005) for short and long ad. However, the post hoc tests (see appendix F) show that not all the scenarios (short ad) differ with the scenarios (long ad) as much as for short and long ad perceptions. The following table shows the multiple comparisons which contain a significant difference. Table 6.14 Post-Hoc-Test Results - Significant differences between the Scenarios (I) Scenario (J) Scenario Perceived as SHORT Mean Difference (I-J) p - value Perceived as LONG Mean Difference (I-J) p - value 1 3 1,396 *,033-1,614 *, ,396 *,033 1,614 *, ,360 *,046 1,736 *, ,321 *,050 1,571 *, ,360 *,046-1,736 *, ,321 *,050-1,571 *, The figure 6.3. display the results from a repeated measures Anova. First, the scenarios for short ad (1,2,5,6) were analyzed with the perception of short and long ad and a statistically significant difference was not encountered for the effect of perception (p=.675) with a partial eta squared of.002, this suggests a very small size effect. In other words the mean did not decreased significantly for short ads when was asked if it was perceived as long. However for the long ad scenarios the level of significance shows a difference in their perceptions for short and long ad (p<.0005) with a partial eta squared of.277, indicating a large effect size. Thus, the mean scores increased significantly for long ads when it was asked if they were perceived as long. The majority of the mean score results show that the manipulations were successful for long ads, being not the case for the short ads. Interestingly in the scenario two, the short ad was located in a short movie in the middle and was perceived more as a long ad rather than short. Similar, in the scenario six where there is a short ad in a long movie in the middle, the score between short or long ad is almost the same. For the scenario five where is not a signficiant difference between short or long ad perception either, it can be inferred that by putting it on a video made it feel as longer even tought it was a short ad as the results of the pre-test shown. It is important to consider that for these perceptions the respondents were exposed to different

74 conditions in terms of location of the ad and by being introduced in a video. This is the explanation for the difference between the perception between long and short from the pre-test for this scenario. A repeated measures Anova was conducted to test the manipulation of the variable. Table 6.15 Results from Repeated Measures ANOVA Test Effect Value p-value Partial Eta Squared Multivariate Test/ Ad Perceptions Wilks'.908 p< Within-Subject Effects Lambda Multivariate Test/ Within-Subject Effects Perceptions of Ad Duration * Ad Length Scenario Wilks' Lambda p= The pairwise comparisons (see Annex E) show that there is a statistically significant difference from an ad perceived as short and an ad perceived as long (p<.0005). Moreover as the Multivariate test show (see Apendix E), there is a change in scores for the two conditions, thus there is an interaction effect statistically significant. There is also a statistically significant difference for Ad Perceptions, this suggests that there was a change of perception of duration across the different conditions, thus the main effect is significant. In addition, to asess the effect size of this result, the partial eta squared shows for Ad perceptions (.092) and for the interaction effect (.382). According to Pallant (2010, p.281) this means a moderate effect is above.06 and a large effect from.14. In the table 6.13 it is seen that the main effect for Ad length scenario is not significant (p>.05) Table 6.16 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Intercept 23519,534 p<.0005,991 Ad Length Scenario,840 p=.144,028 The previous analysis of variance considered the effect across the eight scenarios. The following ANOVA results has to do with the conditions of short versus long Ad. The pairwise comparisons (see Annex E) show that there is a statistically significant difference from an ad perceived as short and an ad perceived as long (p<.0005). In order to confirm previous assumptions an additional test was conducted. As the following tables show there is a change in scores for the two conditions, thus there is an interaction effect statistically significant. There is also a statistically significant difference for Ad Perceptions, this suggests that there was a change of perception of Ad duration across the different condirtions, thus the main effect is significant.

75 70 In addition, to asess the effect size of this result, the partial eta squared shows for Ad perceptions (.088) and for the interaction effect (.070). As mentioned before, a moderate effect is above.06. Figure 6.4 Ad Length Perception (Short Ad vs. Long Ad) Table 6.17 Results from Repeated Measures ANOVA Test Effect Value p-value Partial Eta Squared Multivariate Test/ Ad Perceptions Wilks'.912 p< Within-Subject Effects Multivariate Test/ Within-Subject Effects Perceptions of Ad Duration * Ad Length Lambda Wilks' Lambda.930 p< Table 6.18 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Source F Sig. Partial Eta Squared Intercept 23963,37 p<.0005,991 Ad Length Condition 3,35 p=.068,016

76 71 In the table 6.15 it is seen that the main effect for Ad length scenario is not significant (p>.05). Based on the previous analysis, a mixed between-within subjects ANOVA was conducted to assess the impact of ad length on two different perceptions (short versus long). Thus, there was a significant interaction between ad length and perception of ad duration. There was also a substantial main effect for ad perceptions (opinion for short or long) and the main effect comparing the ad length and shortness was not signficant, suggesting no difference for perceptions across the groups. However, as the figure 6.4 shows, the manipulations for ad length were not entirely successful but provided more information about the whole study. For one side the respondents made a clear differentiation for a long ad, between short and long but this was not the same for a short ad. Apparently the location of the ad and the video where is located alters the perception of the audience when evaluating the duration of the ad. This will be further extended in the paragraph of hypothesis testing and the discussion in the next chapter. 6.4 Hypothesis Testing: In the present paragraph, the hypotheses are tested. Each subparagraphs, contains the results and explanation for each hypothesis. A three-way ANOVA was conducted to explore the relations of the different variables. The test aims to explore the impact of three independent variables (ad length, video length and ad location) in perceived intrusiveness. The annex E shows the descriptive statistics of this test. The results, interactions and main effects are shown in the following tables. Table 6.19 Perceived Intrusiveness across scenarios Scenario N Mean Std. Deviation

77 72 Figure 6.5 Perceived Intrusiveness from lowest to highest across scenarios The figure 6.5 shows which is the most and the least intrusive scenario, a one-way Anova was conducted to calculate the means over the scenarios and post hoc tests were conducted (see appendix G) to find where are the most palpable differences. The table 6.20 show the significant differences and the table 6.21 show the results of the three-way Anova. Table 6.20 Post Hoc Test summary (I) (J) Mean (I) (J) Mean Scenario Scenario Difference (I-J) p-value Scenario Scenario Difference (I-J) p-value * * * * * * * *.015

78 73 Table 6.21 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Dependent Variable: Perceived Intrusiveness Source F-Value p - value Partial Eta Squared Corrected Model 4,217,000,125 Intercept 3373,911,000,942 Ad Length 1,668,198,008 Ad Location 17,326,000,078 Video Length 10,155,002,047 Ad Length * Ad Location,002,968,000 Ad Length * Video Length,203,653,001 Ad Location * Video Length,927,337,004 Ad Length * Ad Location * Video Length,007,936,000 The overall model is statistically significant (F=4.217, p<.0005). The variables video scenario and ad location are also statistically significant (F=10.155, p<.0005 and F=17.326, p =.002, respectively). However ad length and the interactions between ad location, ad length and video scenario are not statistically significant Hypothesis1: a longer ad is perceived as more intrusive than a shorter ad. According to the results of the table 6.19 the hypothesis 1 can be rejected given that the effect of ad length in the perception of Intrusiveness is not significant (p=.198). The three items of the scale of intrusiveness were added and calculated its average into a new variable called Total Perceived Intrusiveness. In the following table it is displayed the mean scores of the test, the overall desceptive statistics can be seen in the Appendix F. Independent Variable: Ad Length Table 6.22 Mean Scores for Perceived Intrusiveness Variable Condition Mean Score for Perceived Std. Deviation N Intrusiveness Short Ad 5,1164 1, Long Ad 5,3673 1, Hypothesis 2: pre-roll video ads located in shorter videos are perceived as more intrusive than in longer videos.

79 74 Based on the results of the table 6.19 there is a significant difference among the groups, p<0.05. Thus, the hypothesis can be accepted and there is an effect of video length in the perception of intrusiveness. In other words, ads located in longer videos are perceived as less intrusive. The following table displays the mean scores of the test. Independent Variable: Video Length Table 6.22 Mean Scores for Perceived Intrusiveness Variable Condition Mean Score for Perceived Std. Deviation N Intrusiveness Short Video 5,5171 1, Long Video 4,9688 1, Hypothesis 3: perceived intrusiveness is higher when the ads are located in the middle than in the beginning of the video. The results show that there is a significant difference among the groups (p<0.05). Thus, the hypothesis can be accepted and there is an effect of ad location in the perception of intrusiveness. In other words, ads located in the beginning are perceived as less intrusive. The figure 6.5 shows the contrast of the variables in the first three hypotheses. In the following table it is displayed the mean scores for perceived intrusiveness as dependent variable and ad location as independent variable. Independent Variable: Ad Location Table 6.22 Mean Scores for Perceived Intrusiveness Variable Condition Mean Score for Perceived Std. Deviation N Intrusiveness Beginning 4,8742 1, Middle 5,6049 1, Interaction Effects Hypothesis 4a: for commercials placed in the middle, the difference in intrusiveness between short and long commercials is larger for shorter videos than for longer videos Hypothesis 4b: the interaction effect between commercial length and video length is more pronounced for ads located in the middle than for ads located in the beginning.

80 Figure 6.5: Effects of Ad Length * Ad Location * Video Length (Short) on Intrusiveness Video Length: Short 75 Figure 6.6: Effects of Ad Length * Ad Location * Video Length (Long) on Intrusiveness Video Length: Long

81 76 As the results of the table 6.19 show the interactions between ad location, ad length and video scenario are not statistically significant (p>0.05). Based on the previous analyses then, these hypotheses can be rejected, first given that for commercials placed in the middle, the difference in intrusiveness between short and long commercials is larger for longer videos than for shorter videos as the figure 6.5 shows. In addition, the results show that for commercials placed in the middle the perceived level of intrusiveness is higher than in the beginning but the interaction is not more pronounced from one another. The figure 6.6 provides an additional perspective in relation to this statement. Figure 6.7: Effects of Ad Length * Video Length * Ad Location (Beginning) on Intrusiveness Ad Location=Beginning

82 77 Figure 6.8: Effects of Ad Length * Video Length * Ad Location (Middle) on Intrusiveness Ad Location = Middle In addition, two more three-way ANOVAs were conducted to check the direct effects of the independent variables on intention of avoidance and irritation and see for possible interactions. As the tables 6.23 and 6.24 show there was also not interaction effects between them. However there was a significant effect of video length and ad location on irritation and there was a significant effect of video length on intention of avoidance. Table 6.23 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Dependent Variable: Irritation Source F-Value p - value Partial Eta Squared Corrected Model 3,798,001,114 Intercept 2424,152,000,922 Ad Length,251,617,001 Video Length 8,198,005,038 Ad Location 15,355,000,069 Ad Length * Video Length,626,430,003 Ad Length * Ad Location 1,449,230,007 Video Length *Ad Location 1,402,238,007 Ad Length * Video Length *Ad Location,058,809,000

83 78 Table 6.24 Tests of Between-Subjects Effects Dependent Variable: Intention of Avoidance Source F-Value p - value Partial Eta Squared Corrected Model 1,779,093,057 Intercept 1541,912,000,882 Ad Length 1,554,214,007 Video Length 4,529,035,022 Ad Location 1,546,215,007 Ad Length * Video Length 2,352,127,011 Ad Length * Ad Location 1,354,246,007 Video Length *Ad Location,719,397,003 Ad Length * Video Length *Ad Location,327,568, Hypothesis 5: There is a positive effect of perceived intrusiveness in intention of avoidance and it is fully mediated by irritation. For the last hypothesis it was necessary to run a mediation test. This involved establishing the independent variable - IV (perceived intrusiveness), the dependent variable - DV (intention of avoidance) and the mediating variable - MV (Irritation). The conditions to test the mediation is first find out if the IV is significant related to the DV, if the IV is significant related to MV and if MV is significantly related to DV. These conditions are tested by performing three separate linear regression analyses. The following tables present the results. - Perceived Intrusiveness on Intention of Avoidance: Table 6.22 Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1,437 a,191,187 1,37486 a. Predictors: (Constant), Perceived Intrusiveness This table shows the multiple R (.437), which in this case is the same as the bivariate correlation between the variables, as there is only one predictor. The R Square shows that only 19.1% of the variance in Intention of avoidance is predicted by perceived intrusiveness. However the following table shows that the relationship (the R) is significant (F = , p <.0005).

84 79 Table 6.23 ANOVA b Model Sum of Squares Degrees of freedom Mean Square F-value Sig. 1 Regression 94, ,446 49,965 p<.0005 a Residual 400, ,890 a. Predictors: (Constant), Perceived Intrusiveness b. Dependent Variable: Intention of Avoidance Model Table 6.24: Coefficients a Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t P -value 1 (Constant) 1,533,369 4,156 p<.0005 Perceived Intrusiveness,481,068,437 7,069 p<.0005 a. Dependent Variable: Total Intention of Avoidance The table 50 shows the regression coefficients. As there is only one predictor, the Beta (.437) and its significance are the same as the R and its significance shown in tables 6.22 and However, we can now see that the direction of the relationship is positive: as predicted, the more intrusiveness, the more intention of avoidance. The results of this analysis show that the first condition for mediation has been met; the IV is significantly related to the DV. The second analysis is then performed, where the MV plays the role of the dependent variable. The following table show the results of this second regression analysis. - Perceived Intrusiveness on Irritation: Table 6.25: Model Summary Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1,644 a,415,412 1,11324 a. Predictors: (Constant), Perceived Intrusiveness This shows that perceived intrusiveness explains 41.5% of the variance in irritation. This shows that the relationship between perceived intrusiveness controlled regulation and irritation is significant (F = , p <.0005). Table 6.26 ANOVA b Model F-value p -value 1 Regression 150,131 p<.0005 a Residual

85 80 Model Table 6.27: Coefficients a Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t P -value 1 (Constant) 1,151,299 3,855 p<.0005 Perceived Intrusiveness,675,055,644 12,253 p<.0005 a. Dependent Variable: Irritation The beta shows that the relationship between perceived intrusiveness and irritation is positive. As predicted, the more intrusive the perception is, the more irritation occurs. The analysis shows that the second condition for mediation has been satisfied (the IV and MV are significantly related). Lastly, the following table presents the results of the final regression analysis. - Irritation on Intention of Avoidance (1) and Perceived Intrusiveness and Irritation on Intention of Avoidance (2): Model R R Square Adjusted R Square Table 6.28 Model Summary Std. Error of the Estimate R Square Change Change Statistics F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change 1,564 a,318,315 1,26182,318 99, p< ,572 b,328,321 1,25623,009 2, p=.091 a. Predictors: (Constant), Irritation. b. Predictors: (Constant), Irritation., Perceived Intrusiveness This shows the two steps in the analysis. At step one, Irritation explains 31.5% of the variance in intention of avoidance (R square =.318). At step two, perceived intrusiveness does not add significantly to the variance explained (R square change =.009, p =.091). The table 55 shows that the variance explained by irritation (F = , p <.0005) and by perceived intrusiveness (F = p <.0005) are significant. Table 6.29 ANOVA c Model F-value p-value 1 Regression 99,002 p<.0005 a 2 Regression 51,388 p<.0005 b a. Predictors: (Constant), Irritation. b. Predictors: (Constant), Irritation., Total Perceived Intrusiveness. c. Dependent Variable: Total Intention of Avoidance

86 81 Model Table 6.30: Coefficients a Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t P -value 1 (Constant) 1,274,292 4,360,000 Irritation,593,060,564 9,950,000 1 (Constant) Irritation Perceived Intrusiveness,948,508,138 a. Dependent Variable: Intention of Avoidance,349,078,081,483,125 2,720 6,552 1,700 The regression coefficients at step two (along with the results in tables 6.28 and 6.29) show that irritation is significantly (and positively) related to intention of avoidance, thus meeting the third condition for mediation (the MV is significantly related to the DV). The beta for perceived intrusiveness, which was significant in the first analysis, is now no longer significant when controlling for the effects of the MV, irritation. Thus the final condition for demonstrating mediation has also been met. The results of the mediated regression analysis are reported in the following table: Table 6.31 Mediation Analysis Results R R 2 R 2 Change Beta Analysis One Perceived Intrusiveness on Intention of Avoidance Analysis Two Perceived Intrusiveness on Irritation Analysis Three Step 1: Irritation on Intention of Avoidance Step 2: Intrusiveness on Intention of Avoidance ,007,000,091 Figure 6.9 Mediation Model Irritation Perceived Intrusiveness.437 (.125) Intention of Avoidance

87 82 The effect of perceived intrusiveness on intention of avoidance, became non-significant at the final step of the analysis, thus a full mediation is demonstrated. In other words all of the effects are mediated by Irritation. Therefore the last hypothesis is accepted. In addition, the following regression analysis includes other variables to see if the model improves and if perceived intrusiveness is the stronger driver or there are other factors that should be taken in consideration. Certain variables could influence irritation and intention of avoidance, thereafter the control variables of attitude towards the ad, attitude towards pre-roll ads, attitude towards the video, attitude towards the product, attitude towards advertisements in general, attitude towards streaming media and amount of streaming website usage are included. The following table presents the results of the regression considering the control variables. Intrusiveness plus Control Variables on Intention of Avoidance Table 6.32 First Analysis (a) Coefficients a a. Dependent Variable: Intention Avoidance Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t p-value 1 (Constant) 3,924,694 5,654,000 Attitude towards the Video -,061,073 -,052 -,841,402 Attitude towards the Ad -,108,062 -,118-1,743,083 Attitude towards preroll ads -,089,087 -,072-1,021,308 Attitude towards Advertising in general -,168,071 -,164-2,366,019 Attitude towards the product -,033,072 -,031 -,452,652 Perceived Intrusiveness,387,073,352 5,275,000 Attitude towards the streaming Website -,063,067 -,067 -,938,349 Streaming Website Usage -,016,069 -,017 -,240,811 The tables of the model summary and Anova can be found in the Appendix G, based on this previous results the R square shows an increase in the percentage of variance in intention of avoidance that is predicted by the independent variables. In this case is perceived intrusiveness plus the control variables 27,9% compared to the 19% of only perceived intrusiveness. Moreover as the table 6.32 shows, some variables should be excluded given their p value (>.05). These are: video likeability, youtube usage, attitude towards youtube, attitude towards the product and attitude towards preroll ads. A further analysis was conducted considering only the variables that presented a significant value. The following table presents the outcome of the new model.

88 Table 6.33 First Analysis (b) Coefficients a a. Dependent Variable: Intention of Avoidance Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta T 83 p- value 1 (Constant) 3,038,513 5,928,000 Attitude towards the Ad -,124,057 -,137-2,173,031 Attitude towards Advertising in General -,204,063 -,201-3,211,002 Perceived Intrusiveness,380,070,345 5,419,000 Model R R Square Table 6.34 Model Summary Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1,503 a,253,243 1,32690 a. Predictors: (Constant), Perceived Intrusiveness, Attitude towards the Ad, Attitude towards Advertising in General Considering these control variables, the relationship between attitude towards the ad and intention of avoidance and attitude towards advertising in general and intention of avoidance are negative. This means that negative scores of attitude towards the ad and advertising in general relates to an increase of intention of avoidance, moreover intrusiveness has a positive relationship with intention of avoidance. The following analysis includes control variables into the mediating variable. Intrusiveness plus Control Variables on Irritation Based on the results, there is an increment from the R square of,415 of only intrusiveness on irritation to,557 when the control variables are considered. However intrusiveness is still the stronger driver behind irritation in a positive way, but in a negative way there is an effect for attitude towards the ad, attitude towards advertising in general, attitude towards pre-roll ads and attitude towards youtube. The table value shows the coefficient values of the test, the model summary and Anova table can be seen in the Appendix G.

89 Model Table 6.35 Second Analysis (a) Coefficients a a. Dependent Variable: Irritation Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t 84 p- value 1 (Constant) 3,490,516 6,766,000 Attitude towards the Ad -,208,046 -,241-4,532,000 Attitude towards the Advertising in General -,157,053 -,162-2,982,003 Perceived Intrusiveness,524,054,503 9,622,000 Attitude towards the Video -,003,054 -,003 -,062,951 Attitude towards the pre-roll ads -,140,065 -,119-2,159,032 Attitude towards the Product,005,054,005,093,926 Attitude towards Youtube -,102,050 -,114-2,036,043 Amount of streaming website usage,074,051,082 1,451,148 The variables with a non significant value were removed and the regression was conducted once more. This time as the table below shows the R square (,559) does not vary much but the value of attitude towards youtube becomes non-significant Model Table 6.36 Second Analysis (b) Coefficients a a. Dependent Variable: Irritation Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t p- value 1 (Constant) 3,640,419 8,695,000 Attitude towards the Ad -,206,044 -,240-4,715,000 Attitude towards the Advertising in General -,149,050 -,154-2,956,003 Perceived Intrusiveness,532,052,507 10,148,000 Attitude towards the pre-roll ads -,153,063 -,133-2,449,015 Attitude towards Youtube -,061,042 -,069-1,469,143 An additional analysis was conducted taking in consideration the amount of streaming website usage given that by including it in the model, the R square value improves to,561 and attitude towards the website becomes a significant value.

90 Model Table 6.37 Second Analysis (c) Coefficients a a. Dependent Variable: Irritation Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t 85 p- value 1 (Constant) 3,459,433 7,987,000 Attitude towards the Ad -,207,044 -,241-4,744,000 Attitude towards the Advertising in General -,156,051 -,161-3,078,002 Perceived Intrusiveness,526,053,504 9,996,000 Attitude towards the pre-roll ads -,138,064 -,117-2,160,032 Attitude towards Youtube -,102,049 -,114-2,082,039 Amount of streaming website usage,078,049,086 1,577,116 The R square value improves from,415 to,561 it is interesting that further factors also have a significant value as predictors for irritation. A last analysis in this part was conducted only with the variables that present a significant value, likewise the further details can be found in the appendix G. Model R R Square Table 6.38 Model Summary Adjusted R Square Std. Error of the Estimate 1,745 a,555,546,97770 Model Table 6.39 Second Analysis (d) Coefficients a Dependent Variable: Irritation Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t p- value 1 (Constant) 3,383,381 8,870,000 Attitude towards the pre-roll ads -,152,063 -,132-2,420,016 Attitude towards the Advertising in General -,159,050 -,164-3,166,002 Attitude towards the Ad -,207,044 -,240-4,715,000 Perceived Intrusiveness,520,052,497 10,013,000 The model improves in relation to only considering intrusiveness as predictor from,415 to,555. Based on the last table, the strong positive predictor for irritation is perceived intrusiveness, however attitude towards pre-roll ads, attitude towards advertising in general and attitude

91 86 towards the ad present a negative relationship with irritation. The second condition is accepted before conducting the last regression analysis. Irritation on Intention of Avoidance (1) and Irritation, Intrusiveness, Attitude towards the ad and Attitude towards Advertising in General on Intention of Avoidance (2) The last analysis was conducted based on the variables that complies with the conditions going from the independent variable to the dependent variable and the independent variable towards the mediating variable. Thus, as control variables were included: attitude towards the ad and attitude towards advertising in general. Mod el R R Square Adjusted R Square Table 6.40 Model Summary Std. Error of the Estimate Change Statistics R Square Change F Change df1 df2 Sig. F Change a b a. (1) Predictors: (Constant), Irritation b. (2) Predictors: (Constant), Irritation, Attitude towards Advertising in general, Attitude towards the Ad and Intrusiveness Table 6.41 Coefficients a Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients B Std. Error Beta t p-value 1 (Constant) Irritation (Constant) Irritation Perceived Intrusiveness Atittude towards the Ad Attitude towards Advertising in General a. Dependent Variable: TOTALIntentionAvoidanceNEW The regression coefficients at step show that irritation is significantly (and positively) related to intention of avoidance, thus meeting the third condition for mediation (the MV is significantly related to the DV). The beta for perceived intrusiveness, attitutde towards advertising in general and attitude towards the ad which were significant in the first analysis, are now no longer significant when controlling for the effects of the MV, irritation. Thus the final condition for demonstrating mediation has also been met. The results of the mediated regression analysis indicate a full mediated effect, in this confirming the last hypothesis. The following figure gives

92 an overview of the model followed by the chapter which gives a critical discussion based on the analysis of the results of this study. 87 Figure 6.10 Model of Determinants and consequences of Perceived Intrusiveness in pre-roll video advertising