Perceptual and Conceptual Effects of Incidental Exposure to Web Ads

Extant literature on web ads tends to isolate web ads from the web environments that they are embedded in and focus on individuals’ responses to the web ads per se. As a departure, our research recognizes the possible subtle influences that web ads could exert on consumers when they shop online by drawing on the marketing literature on perceptual and conceptual fluency. We hypothesize that a salient web ad can exert perceptual and conceptual influence on a consumer’s online shopping behavior such that the consumer is more likely to choose a product that has a perceptual or a conceptual link to the stimuli contained in the web ad and to use the activated mind-set to evaluate and choose products. We present three experiments, two completed and one on-going, that are designed to test the hypotheses empirically. Preliminary data analyses of the completed experiments have largely supported our hypotheses.