How banner ads can be effective

This research examines the impacts of exposure duration and banner ad complexity on advertising persuasion in a web advertising environment. Processing fluency is used to explain the underlying process that occurs among consumers during exposure to advertisements, and refers to the ease of stimulus encoding and processing that is facilitated by prior exposure to a banner ad. Based on previous studies (e.g. Reber et al. 1998), this research used a priming phase and a testing phase, in which respondents viewed two banner ads for the same brand. A banner ad presented in the priming phase facilitates viewer processing of a target banner ad in the testing phase due to processing fluency. The findings show that, when a banner ad is difficult to process in the priming phase, increasing the duration of exposure to the ad in the priming phase causes a linear increase in respondent attitudes towards the target ad and brand in the testing phase. When the priming banner ad is moderately difficult to process, increasing the exposure duration in the priming phase first increases, and then decreases, respondent attitudes towards the target ad and brand (an inverted-U pattern) in the testing phase. When the priming banner ad is easy to process, increasing the exposure duration in the priming phase first decreases, and then increases, respondent attitudes towards the target ad and brand (a U pattern) in the testing phase.