consumers' attitudes toward mobile advertising

116 Pages·2015·0.78 MB·English

UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ
School of Business and Economics

CONSUMERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARD MOBILE
ADVERTISING – A RHETORICAL APPROACH

Master’s Thesis, Marketing

Author: Sanna Andersson

16.6.2015

Supervisors: Heikki Karjaluoto
Matti Leppäniemi

ABSTRACT
Author
Sanna Andersson
Title
Consumers’ attitudes toward mobile advertising – a rhetorical approach
Subject Type of degree
Marketing Master’s Thesis
Time of publication Number of pages
2015 115
Abstract
Mobile advertising adoption has not been as rapid as it could have been, even though
the techniques for its full exploitation have existed for years. Understanding
consumers’ attitudes toward the phenomenon is crucial in order to enhance the
situation.
The purpose of this research was to examine young consumers’ perceptions
about mobile advertising in order to clarify what type of meanings they give to the
phenomenon, what kind of argumentation means are found and in which contexts it
is evaluated positive or negative. The theoretical framework of this research is based
on the principals of rhetorical social psychology (Billig 1987/1996).
The data of this study was gathered by using the method of qualitative attitude
approach. The target group was asked to comment the claims presented to them.
Eighteen personal interviews were conducted for both Finnish (9) and American (9)
young adults. The interviewees’ views and arguments behind the views were
categorized and analyzed. Based on the analyses, an interpretation of their attitudes
and the way the attitudes appeared in the interviewees’ speech could be done.
Nine argumentation categories could be formed. Further, four contextual
dimensions, from which the argumentation was done could be distinguished: 1.
Societal 2. User (including advertiser, consumer and personal role), 3. Technical, and
4. Time dimension. Attitudes and objects of attitudes varied in different dimensions.
Mobile advertising was experienced more positively in the role of a member of
society than in the role of a customer. The biggest concerns were the purposes the
advertiser uses one’s information and the fear of one’s information getting into wrong
hands. From advertiser’s perspective mobile advertising was seen only positive.
Mobile advertising was viewed more positively from the general consumer view than
from the role of the receiver/oneself. Mobile advertising was perceived safe and
reliable in general, but the functionality of personalized advertising caused doubts.
Mobile advertising was seen better and more beneficial in the future, when it will be
more developed. Certain parts of the results show similarities to previous research.
Key words
mobile advertising, attitudes, rhetorical social psychology, qualitative attitude
research, qualitative attitude approach
Storage
Jyväskylä School of Business and Economics
CONTENTS

ABSTRACT
CONTENT

1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 5
1.1 Basis of the research .......................................................................................... 5
1.2 The objectives of the study and the research questions .............................. 6
1.3 The research methods ....................................................................................... 7
1.4 The structure of the research ........................................................................... 8
2 MOBILE ADVERTISING AS AN ADVERTISING CHANNEL AND A
RESEARCH OBJECT .................................................................................................. 9
2.1 What is mobile advertising? ............................................................................ 9
2.2 Different categorizations of mobile advertising ......................................... 10
2.3 Mobile advertising today ............................................................................... 12
2.4 Attitudes toward advertising ........................................................................ 13
2.5 Attitudes toward mobile advertising ........................................................... 16
2.5.1 Context-awareness and personalization in mobile advertising ........ 17
2.5.2 Trust, control and privacy issues in mobile advertising .................... 20
2.5.3 Novelty in mobile advertising ............................................................... 22
3.1 The concept of attitude ................................................................................... 24
3.2 Criticism toward mainstream attitude research ......................................... 24
3.3 Rhetorical nature of attitudes ........................................................................ 27
3.4 Attitudes and qualitative attitude approach ............................................... 29
3.5 Qualitative attitude approach in previous research .................................. 32
4 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE RESEARCH....................................................... 33
4.1 The interview strategy .................................................................................... 33
4.2 Research interviews ........................................................................................ 33
4.3 The themes and formation of the claims ..................................................... 34
4.4 Principles of the analysis ................................................................................ 38
5 ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................. 40
5.1 Background information ................................................................................ 40
5.1.1 Mobile phone features ............................................................................. 40
5.1.2 Receiving mobile advertising ................................................................. 41
5.2 Categorization of the claims .......................................................................... 43
5.3 Summary of the analysis ................................................................................ 87
5.4 Argumentation types ...................................................................................... 91
6 CONCLUSIONS: DIMENSIONS OF EVALUATION AND DISCUSSION .. 93
6.1 Dimensions of evaluation .............................................................................. 93
6.1.1 Societal dimension ................................................................................... 94
6.1.2 User dimension ........................................................................................ 96
6.1.3 Technical dimension .............................................................................. 100
6.1.4 Time dimension ...................................................................................... 100
6.2 Cultural roles in argumentation ................................................................. 101
6.3 General discussion and managerial implications .................................... 102
6.4 Evaluation of the study ................................................................................ 106
6.5 Implications for future research .................................................................. 108

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 110
5

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Basis of the research

The importance of advertising as a social phenomenon is undeniable.
Advertising has positive effects on consumption and economic activity as it
modifies lifestyles and values. (Pollay & Mittal 1993.) Despite of its notable
role and positive effects on today’s society, advertising industry has also
suffered from unfavorable reputation in recent years. Advertisements have
been accused, for instance, triviality and bad influence on morality as well as
for cheating, manipulating and underestimating consumers (Pollay & Mittal
1993; Mittal 1994).
It is important to understand consumers’ perceptions of advertising,
because – according to several studies – attitudes toward advertising in
general may affect attitudes toward an individual commercial (Lutz 1985;
Mehta 2000), brand in question (Lutz 1985) and ultimately, to purchase (Bush
et al. 1999). Similarly, personal attitudes toward advertising influence on
consumers’ exposure and attention to advertising, politics and regulations
and other outcomes that have a remarkable effect on the whole advertising
industry (Shavitt, Lowrey & Haefner 1998).
Further, a study concentrating especially on mobile advertising, a form
of advertising that is communicated to the consumer via a handset (MMA
2008a), reveals that customers who are satisfied and trust advertising can
convince other potential customers of the benefits of the service. Viral
marketing is also the most effective way over any campaigns to boost mobile
advertising. (Vatanparast & Butt 2009.)
Advertising has both existed and been studied for a long time, but what
is fascinating right now is digital marketing, which is booming. Along with
the high penetration rate of mobile phones, the use of mobile devices as
advertising channel has increased notably (Ul Haq 2012; eMarketer 2013).
Mobile commerce offers a significant advantage, since it can deliver
personalized messages to a user by utilizing the user-profile and location-
awareness (Tsang et al. 2004; Lee & Jun 2007). Actually, due to the
personalization possibilities and the fact that mobile devices are affordable
and accessible to more consumers compared to having access to ‘traditional’
electronic commerce via personal computers, the mobile technology can be
seen offering better opportunities than ‘traditional’ internet-based advertising
(Haghirian & Inoue 2007). Also, mobile marketing is a cost-effective way to
reach customer segments (Leppäniemi & Karjaluoto 2005; Vatanparast & Butt
2009). Nevertheless, without fully understanding the elements affecting
consumers’ perceptions about mobile advertising, marketers will not be able
to get good results from their marketing efforts (Vatanparast & Butt 2009).
6
One of the biggest challenges in mobile advertising is the consumer
adoption, which can be seen as a side effect of consumers’ attitudes toward
mobile advertising. Although the overall trust and familiarity with mobile
advertising is much higher than in its beginning, there still is a lot of work to
do in convincing consumers of the benefits and the safety in mobile
advertising. Lack of consumer trust is one reason why marketers hesitate
using mobile marketing: they assume consumers are afraid of spamming
(Grenville 2005). Important questions are how to bring more relevant
advertisements to consumers by utilizing the opportunities of the mobile
channel and how to make difference between the mobile advertising
experience to other advertising channels.
Asia has been considerably ahead of Europe and USA in terms of mobile
internet development and adoption (Haghirian & Inoue 2007), which can
result from the privacy concerns and stricter legislation common in Western
countries. Therefore, it is crucial to examine trust issues and attitudes toward
using contextual information in mobile advertising in order to develop
marketing methods more efficient and consumer-friendly.
Combining features such as personalization, interactivity, low cost of
reaching the consumer at the right time and place is so far possible only for
mobile channel, which makes mobile marketing a unique marketing tool
compared to other media (Jayawardhena et al. 2009). Therefore marketers
need information about how to best approach an individual consumer.
Attitudes toward advertising have been mostly researched with
quantitative surveys and large sample sizes (e.g. Tsang et al. 2004).
Nevertheless, personal interviews provide more possibilities to interpret the
answers and give deeper reasoning for presented opinions (Hirsjärvi, Remes
& Sajavaara 2006, 194-195). Therefore, instead of giving the respondents
prepared options to choose from, this study aims to reveal reasons consumers
think in a certain way.
In this study the concept of attitude is seen differently than in major of
the studies about attitudes toward advertising. Attitudes are understood
according to Billig’s (1996) ideas of their rhetorical nature, which will be
presented in chapter 3.
1.2 The objectives of the study and the research questions

The object of this study is to find out how the use of personalization (both
context-aware and history information), trust, control and privacy issues and
novelty of mobile advertising phenomenon are experienced among consumers
and in which contexts the phenomenon gets positive and reserved arguments.
This will be done by using the qualitative attitude approach by Vesala (Vesala
1996; Vesala & Rantanen 1999), in which the analysis will be done by
examining what kind of speech the topic mobile advertising (including its
subthemes evolved from previous research) arise and what types of
arguments are used in presenting one’s views.
7
The purpose of this research is not to find the absolute truth about
peoples’ attitudes toward mobile advertising but to examine speech related to
the topic. Further, the goal is not to present an inclusive depiction of
everyone’s views and attitudes related to mobile advertising. Thus, this study
can be viewed as a sample of current attitudes toward mobile advertising.
Personal interviews are conducted in order to study aforementioned
themes and thus, some new factors affecting consumers’ attitudes toward
mobile advertising that have not been taken into consideration in previous
research, might emerge. By using a qualitative approach (personal interviews)
it is possible to find more in-depth information about consumers’ viewpoints
than by using a survey. The concentration on factors personalization, trust,
and novelty in mobile advertising is justified with the previous research and
publications about mobile advertising.
This research aims to clarify consumers’ attitudes towards mobile
advertising by answering the following research questions:

•
What are consumers’ attitudes toward mobile advertising?
o
What kind of meanings and benefits consumers relate to mobile
advertising?
o
What kinds of dimensions are appeared in the evaluations and what
kind of argumentation means are found?
o
In what kind of contexts the evaluations are positive or negative?

1.3 The research methods

The research approach applied in this study, qualitative attitude
approach (see Vesala 1996; Vesala & Rantanen 1999), is not only a
methodological perspective but also a method. This approach has its origins
in rhetorical social psychology and it concentrates on resolving what people
are justifying, with which reservations and from what kind of role (Vesala &
Rantanen 2007.) The research was conducted by first getting familiar with the
topic by reviewing mobile marketing literature and attitude theories. The
most relevant themes appeared in the literature were chosen to be scrutinized
in this research. In qualitative research it is not typical to set or test
hypotheses but to view the data miscellaneously and with a detailed manner
(Hirsjärvi et al. 2006, 155). Thus, no hypotheses were set in this study.
Half-structured theme interviews were used as data collection method,
and the themes derived from the literature formulated the basis of the
interview framework. The sample group consists of young, from 21 up to 27
years old college or university students or working persons. Eighteen persons
were interviewed, of which half consists of USA citizens and the other half of
Finnish citizens. Data collection was done via Skype, a software application
that allows users to make voice calls over the internet. Skype was chosen to be
used for data collection since half of the interviewees lived in another
continent. To make the interview experience as similar as possible for
8
everyone, also the interviews with Finnish respondents were conducted via
Skype, even though personal interviews could have been possible. The
interviews were recorded and transcribed. The results were analyzed
according to the principles of qualitative attitude approach.

1.4 The structure of the research

In the first chapter the topic and the background of the research are
introduced and the research objectives and methods are presented. The
second chapter introduces the concept of mobile advertising and its features
relevant for this study. Further, the state of mobile advertising today,
especially in the countries covered in this study, Finland and the USA, is
discussed. Also, a review of the previous research about attitudes toward
advertising in general is presented followed by an overview of studies on
attitudes toward mobile advertising. The third chapter presents the rhetorical
nature of attitudes. First, some criticism toward the mainstream attitude
research is presented. Next, the concept of attitude, according to Michael
Billig’s rhetorical social psychology, is presented. Lastly, the method of
qualitative attitude approach and its use in previous research are introduced.
In the fourth chapter, the research methodology is introduced. The
methods of qualitative attitude approach are explained as well as the
interview strategy and the principles of the analysis. Further, the themes and
claims used in the interviews are introduced and justified. The fifth chapter
consists of the analysis of the interviews and the argumentation types that
were driven from the interviews. In the final chapter the conclusions and
dimensions of evaluation are presented, and managerial implications,
evaluation of the study and implications for future research are discussed.
9
2 MOBILE ADVERTISING AS AN ADVERTISING
CHANNEL AND A RESEARCH OBJECT

Mobile advertising opens new opportunities for advertisers. Due to the fact
that mobile phones are very personal devices, advertising via them needs to
be more personalized than before. Furthermore, since the devices are
portable, it is possible for the advertiser to connect the consumer anytime or
anyplace. Like traditional fixed-line access internet advertising, mobile
advertising enables the consumer identification and behavior analysis, but in
addition to that, it can also exploit the mobility. Thus, in location-sensitive
and time-critical cases it might be experienced in a more positive way. (Tsang
et al. 2004.) This chapter introduces the concept of mobile marketing and
discusses about previous research of attitudes towards advertising in general
and particularly towards mobile advertising. This chapter explains, by the
previous research, why personalization, history and novelty are the themes
chosen to be scrutinized in this study.

2.1 What is mobile advertising?

In the literature there are several terms used referring to marketing via
wireless data transmission such as ‘mobile marketing’, ‘mobile advertising’,
‘wireless marketing’, ‘wireless advertising’ and ‘mobile commerce’. However,
commonly accepted definition for the concept of mobile advertising does not
exist (Leppäniemi & Karjaluoto 2005).
Virtanen and Raulas (2004) define mobile marketing as wireless data
transmission, transferring digital content or digital dialog via a mobile device,
which purpose is to create a measurable change in the recipient’s reaction
toward a company, product or service. The Mobile Marketing Association
MMA (2008a) doesn’t even include ‘wireless marketing’ in its glossary and
defines mobile marketing as “the use of wireless media as an integrated
content delivery and direct response vehicle within a cross-media or stand-
alone marketing communications program”. Mobile advertising and wireless
advertising are defined similarly as “a form of advertising that is
communicated to the consumer via a handset” and which most common
forms are mobile web banners (top of page), mobile web posters (bottom of
page banner), full screen interstitials (appears while the requested page is
“loading”), SMS and MMS, mobile gaming, mobile video advertisements
(MMA 2008a) and in-app advertising. Further, Balasubramanian, Petrson and
Järvenpää (2002) remind that ‘wireless’ is not necessarily ‘mobile’. For
instance, communicating via a desktop computer at home, with signals
carried over a satellite network, would be considered as wireless but not
mobile communications.
Devices that use mobile technology include e.g. cellular telephones and
pagers, cordless telephones, two-way radios, baby crib monitors, remote car-