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Interactive media strategies and digital tools have enabled advertisers to target children with promotional offers and creative appeals.

Based on theories related to metaphors in advertisements, cognitive comprehension by children, promotional appeals, and presentation techniques, the research for this study comprised a content analysis of 1,980 online banner advertisements with reference to use of metaphors, promotional appeals, creative content, and selling techniques.

The research study concludes that online advertising to children, in contrast to traditional advertising vehicles, is characterized by (a) a vibrant visual metaphor, (b) surfeit of animated content, (c) interactive features, (d) myriad product types, and (e) creative content for a mixed audience of adults and children.

This study argues that the impact and content of the Internet as a new advertising medium are distinctly different from traditional characteristics of television and print.

Drawing on extant literature on narrative persuasion, online advertising, and transportation theory, this research aims to study Internet‐based online narrative advertising and investigate the effects of four pertinent advertising design elements, interactivity, entertainment, vividness, and self‐referencing, on consumer products and the moderating effects of advertisement involvement on these relationships.

Data were collected using an online questionnaire that contained measures adapted from prior studies. Participants first selected a product that they would seriously consider purchasing and answered a set of questions prior to viewing a narrative online advertisement, which was followed by a different set of questions. Structural equation modeling was used to empirically test the authors’ proposed model.

Greater levels of interactivity, vividness, entertainment, and self‐referencing in narrative online advertisements led to more favorable attitudes toward a product. In particular, self‐referencing had a substantial effect on transportation in forming product attitudes. Advertisement Involvement moderates (i.e. enhances) the effect of self‐referencing on attitudes toward a product.

If properly designed, a narrative online advertisement can fully utilize Internet‐enabled features and can maximize their potential to produce a favorable consumer attitude toward a featured product.

This study advances narrative advertising research and provides empirical evidence to highlight the effects of the pertinent characteristics of Internet‐based advertising, interactivity and entertainment in the conversion process of transportation and consumer attitudes. Moreover, this study identifies and sheds light on important contingencies (i.e. advertisement involvement) of the focal relationships.

This study aims to explore the interdependent impacts of online word-of-mouth (WOM) and online ads on digital product adoptions, as well as their dynamic changes throughout the product life cycle.

This study adopted an empirical approach by using a unique data set of five mobile games launched between 2012 and 2014 provided by Renren Games Ltd. in China.

The results indicated that advertising generally has a positive impact on WOM. During the product life cycle, the influence on volume and variance gradually decreases, whereas the impact on valence increases over time. WOM (including WOM volume and WOM valence) and advertising both have positive impacts on game adoptions. They complement each other to shape adoptions throughout the product life cycle: advertising is more effective in encouraging adoptions in the early and later stages of the demand evolution process, whereas WOM has a greater impact on adoptions in the mid-stage.

This study provided detailed managerial recommendations on how to effectively integrate different types of marketing communication and optimize the investment strategy of online ads and online WOM in different stages of the product life cycle.

First, the study enriched the theory of digital marketing communication by studying the relationship between mass media (online ads), interpersonal media (online WOM) and product adoptions in the network context. Second, it provided an empirical basis for the inference of the dynamic development of media effect in the new product diffusion theory. Third, the results will be helpful to end the debate in current theoretical literature on whether there is a complementary or alternative relationship between the two effects. Last but not least, it enriched research on the antecedents and dynamic effects of online WOM.

The purpose of this paper was to identify whether the two‐sided nature of markets in both online and offline channels affects the versioning strategies of multi‐channel publishers in the presence of channel substitutability.

Using analytical models, the versioning of a multi‐channel publisher is analysed, with consideration of advertising revenue and possible channel substitutability.

The paper shows that not only the two‐sided nature of the online market but also that of the offline market affects the versioning strategy online. Multiple online versions are desired when the offline advertising market shrinks and the online advertising market proliferates. In a reverse situation, providing one online version (for free) can be optimal.

Previous studies on versioning have mostly considered only the information market per se. However, studies on two‐sided markets have shown that analysis that focuses on a single side leads to analytical error due to inter‐market network externalities. In this context, it is proven that advertising revenue is a critical factor in the publisher's decision whether to provide multiple online versions.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on college students, users of online social networks, as main sources of information that helps advertisers understand the ways in which advertisements are perceived online.

Results were reached through qualitative research. Personal in‐depth interviews, utilizing Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), were conducted among 20 college students. Interviews consisted of using screenshots of advertisements in online social networks to uncover respondents' reactions.

It was generally concluded that the users of online social networks do not dislike advertisements, but they simply do not notice them. Other content found in online social networks mitigates the attractiveness of the advertisements. Hence, the respondents reported that the brand recognition in online social networks was found to be much lower than the one created through other media channels.

Advertising in online social networks is a major unexplored advertising area. Interactivity on the internet shifts the ways in which users perceive advertising, and whether they perceive it at all. The paper discusses content that catches users' attention and its relation to advertisements.

Through literature review it has been revealed that no similar research exists. The findings of this research will aid advertisers in recognizing the possibility of advertising to the online social networks' population, taking into consideration different needs, and preferences of such users.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate beliefs about and attitudes toward online advertising (ATOA) among Chinese consumers and the relationship between belief factors, ATOA, and consumers' behavioral responses to online advertising.

Data were collected from students of a large metropolitan university in China. A total of 202 questionnaires provided usable data and were analyzed using AMOS.

Five belief factors that underlie Chinese consumers' ATOA were identified: entertainment, information seeking, credibility, economy, and value corruption. Information seeking, economy and value corruption were significant predictors of ATOA. ATOA was found to be a significant positive predictor of ad clicking and online shopping frequency.

Global marketers would benefit from understanding how consumers from a booming emerging market perceive the internet as a source of advertising. Thus, the study will enable businesses and organizations to use online advertising more effectively and efficiently in their global marketing efforts.

Investigating Chinese ATOA extends current research on ATOA to a distinctly different cultural context and may provide useful implications about expanding business across cultures.

This study examined the relationship between perceived personalization and positive electronic word of mouth, as well as the mediating impact of online advertising engagement and the moderating effect of online users' modes on that relationship. The theory of presence serves as the foundation for the relationships among variables.

A quasi-experimental research design was used to carry out the investigation. The analysis was performed on 865 valid responses from the treatment and control groups.

Results showed no mediation for the control group and partial mediation for the treatment group. The treatment group's moderated mediation relationships were found as significant, but the control group's relationships were insignificant. The findings also supported the hypothesis that there is a significant association between perceived personalization and online advertising engagement for playful online users and a weak relationship for serious online users. On the mediation link of online advertising engagement between perceived personalization and positive electronic word of mouth, the conditional indirect influence of “online users' modes” has been specifically studied.

This study is the first to examine online advertising through the lens of the theory of presence and offers a moderated-mediation model of Online Users' Modes and Online Advertising Engagement, which is a valuable addition to the marketing body of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate online advertising across different cultures such as Romania and the USA. In the meantime, this paper attempts to examine the relationships among beliefs about online advertising, attitudes toward online advertising (ATOA), and consumer responses to online advertising.

Surveys are conducted among 577 internet users from both Romania and the USA structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among variables.

Belief factors (i.e. information seeking, entertainment, economy, credibility, and value corruption) are statistically significant predictors of ATOA; ATOA is a significant predictor of consumer responses to online advertising; as compared to Americans, Romanians tended to hold a more positive ATOA and are more likely to click advertisements, whereas Americans are more likely to buy online than do Romanians.

Convenient sampling technique and the operationalization of culture are main limitations associated with the paper.

Findings may help businesses and organizations employ online advertising more effectively and efficiently in their global marketing endeavors.

Currently little is known about online advertising in developing countries, particularly eastern European countries such as Romania. The current paper extends research on ATOA to a cross‐cultural context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of online advertising spending on automobile sales through both search and non-search advertising.

Sales data of the top 52 vehicle models were collected in two consecutive years in China. The advertising spending data of both formats were collected from a leading consulting company and a major search engine company. Then several empirical models were proposed to evaluate the effects of online advertising on automobile sales. Two extended models were further investigated for search advertising.

The results revealed that both formats of online advertising have significantly positive effects on automobile sales. However, excessive spending on non-search advertising does not help sales and a moderate budget is preferred. On the other hand, spending on search advertising has no such constraint to improve the vehicle sales.

The empirical findings have proved the importance of online advertising to the automobile companies and thus can help companies improve their decision making in online advertising allocation strategies.

This study provides a better understanding of the relationship between online advertising spending and automobile sales, and helps business to define sophisticated online advertising strategies to improve sales performance.

This study aims to examine what parents from across the USA know about online advertising/marketing tactics directed at children, their familiarity with these tactics and what they believe about the appropriateness of using these promotional methods to target children.

The online survey company Qualtrics was used to collect data from 500 parents in the USA. Parents had to have at least one child between the ages of 5 and 14 to participate. To ensure socio-economic diversity, half of the participants had an associate degree or more of schooling while the other half of participants had some college or less. Participants were given vignettes describing 11 different online advertising/marketing tactics and were asked how familiar they were with each tactic, whether they could identify the tactic by name, at what age they believed their child could understand the promotional intent of the tactic and the age that they thought it was ethical to use this tactic with children.

The results revealed that parents were only moderately familiar with many of these advertising/marketing tactics and had difficulty identifying most of them by name. In addition, parents reported that, on average, most 11-year-old children would understand the purpose of these marketing approaches and that it was ethical to target children with them.

The results of this exploratory study offer researchers some key insights into how American parents perceive online advertising that targets children.