Exploring Wearout and Some Insights and Replies to Factors Affecting Irritation and Attitudes towards Mobile Advertising

Abstract

Purpose

To explore and measure wearout or the acceptance threshold, beyond which, messages in the form of mobile text advertising generate irritation. To assess the set of factors that positively or negatively, according to literature, influences the attitude towards advertising in short message service (SMS) format and on this basis to propose future research along this line. There is also a focus on irritation antecedents.

Methodology/approach

Two surveys are used to prevent unbiased answers. The first one is driven to study the wearout effect in the SMS context. An offline survey is carried out using a structured questionnaire. A sample size of 188 using convenience sampling is collected. The second research is driven to study irritation and attitude towards SMS advertising. Data are collected through an online questionnaire which is published through social media platforms, an e-mail mailing list and a quick response (QR) code. An international sample size of 253 applying a convenience and snow ball sampling procedure is collected.

Findings

The wearout threshold and irritation antecedents in the mobile advertising context are identified as well as positive and negative factors which influence attitude towards SMS advertising. The replies do not match exactly with the significant factors found in previous research.

Research limitations/implications

There are some, among them, sample size and sampling procedure; only one sector was analysed and, although reliability is acceptable, the number of items in each measurement scale was reduced to only two.

Practical implications

Wearout and the characteristics of an SMS message capable to generate positive attitude are described.

Social implications

Guidelines to improve public attitudes towards SMS advertising and prevention from wearout are given.

Originality/value

Wearout in the mobile advertising context is explored and some insights regarding irritation antecedents and the role played by frequency and other positive factors in the causal model proposed by the academy are assessed.

Citation

Royo-Vela, M. and Meyer, F. (2016), "Exploring Wearout and Some Insights and Replies to Factors Affecting Irritation and Attitudes towards Mobile Advertising", De Pelsmacker, P. (Ed.) Advertising in New Formats and Media, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 211-241. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78560-313-620151010