Advertising in New Media: Exploring Adoption of Location-Based Mobile Application Advertising

With the development of various mobile applications, more and more advertisements are embedded in these applications. In this study, we aim to investigate what factors influence people’s adoption of location-based mobile application advertising (LMAA). Combining technology adoption literature and advertising literature, we develop a theoretical model which proposes that entertainment, informativeness, irritation, credibility and social norm are antecedents to attitude towards LMAA, which in turn influence people’s intention to use it. We conducted a survey to empirically test the research model. 213 students from two large universities in China were recruited to complete the questionnaires. Our findings show that entertainment, informativeness, credibility and social norm are positively related to attitude towards LMAA, while irritation is negatively related to attitude towards LMAA. Moreover, attitude towards LMAA significantly affects people’s intention to use it. This study has both theoretical and practical implications. It does not only propose a novel research model to explain the adoption of a new kind of advertising, but also provides insightful suggestions for practitioners to pay more attention to those factors which may greatly help them persuade individuals to accept advertisements on mobile applications.