When users are entertained by online content, do they respond to display ads more positively than when they are informed, educated, or engaged by publishers in other ways? And does the entertainment value of a site's content always confer positive impressions to the brands advertised on it? Psychster put these notions to the test in a series of studies conducted for our client Bookrags.com (a site devoted to providing study guides, lesson plans, and educational resources to students and teachers). Read our full whitepaper of these studies here (1MB).
We first assessed the perceptions of online ad buyers, and confirmed that they believe that users of entertainment sites show better responses to ads, higher purchase intent, and better brand retention than do users of other sites. These beliefs were mirrored by the fact that reported ad spend on entertainment sites was about 6 times greater than spend on education sites. In a subsequent study, we showed a sample of college students the ads of 3 different brands (for a bank, soft drink, and computer company) on 2 different types of sites, both of which target college students, but which differ in their goal of providing entertainment versus educational resources.
Key findings:
● We found no experimental evidence for the hypothesis that brands are perceived more positively when their display ads appear on entertainment sites rather than on education sites.
● In fact, the bank that was displayed in the ads was perceived as less classy, cool, modern, and honest when its ads appeared on entertainment sites compared to education sites.
● The same pattern was found for intent to engage with the ads: there was no evidence for the superiority of the entertainment sites, and the bank ads were more likely to be clicked when appearing on the education sites.
● Neither the entertainment nor the education
sites produced significantly better brand recall.
Click here to download PDF file of image (1MB)
These results suggest that, contrary to widespread beliefs among ad buyers, sites whose goal is to entertain do not carry a universal advantage as an advertising platform over sites whose goal is to inform, educate, or meet users' needs in other ways. In fact, users of other sites may be more inclined toward acquiring goods or services by virtue of the site's content, and all the more so when relevant ads are displayed. For complete details of the study, read the full whitepaper here (1MB).
