An Examination of Effects of Credibility and Congruency on Consumer Responses to Banner Advertisements

Abstract

This study examined the effects of advertiser credibility and Web site reputation on consumer responses to banner advertisements. In addition, the study investigated the moderating role of productWeb site congruency in determining the effects of the two forms of source credibility on banner ad effectiveness. The results showed that, while advertiser credibility had a significant impact on consumer responses to banner ads, Web site reputation was found to exert no significant influence. Specifically, advertiser credibility appeared to positively influence perceived credibility of and attitudes toward the banner ad, the advertised brand, and the intention to purchase the brand. More interestingly, the findings suggest product-Web site content congruence effects that are contingent on advertiser credibility. That is, the persuasiveness of a banner ad is enhanced when a highly credible company advertises a product that is congruent with the Web site content. However, such congruence effects are not found for a company of low credibility.

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“…Kim and Choi [6] do not offer a definite answer for this issue. They suggest that further research in a variety of settings (e.g., low involvement product) would provide more insights on the role of website credibility in effective banner advertising.…”

“…Kim and Choi [6] examined the effects of advertiser and website credibility on consumer response to banner advertisements. The study failed to show significant effects of website credibility, but they showed significant effects of advertiser credibility on ad credibility, attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand and purchase intention.…”

“…Source credibility has received little attention in research on web advertising, in spite of the plethora of studies covering the effects of source credibility on advertising effectiveness in conventional media settings [6]. Source credibility refers to a message sender's positive characteristics that influence the receiver's acceptance [10] and determine the persuasiveness of the message [11].…”

“…Source credibility refers to a message sender's positive characteristics that influence the receiver's acceptance [10] and determine the persuasiveness of the message [11]. These findings suggest that websites, as advertising vehicles, are an important source that affect the effectiveness of banner advertisements [6,2,13].…”

“…vehicle source or site provider) to make judgments about the ads [2]. According to Kim and Choi [6], the issue of media vehicle credibility still calls for additional research attention, in order to extend the knowledge of the Internet as an advertising medium.…”