TOPCO 崇越論文大賞
論文題目：
Understanding Online Intrusive Video
Advertising: Antecedents and
Consequences of Cognitive Absorption in
Video Scenarios
報名編號：
O0048
Understanding Online Intrusive Video Advertising:
Antecedents and Consequences of Cognitive
Absorption in Video Scenarios
Abstract
Improving ad effectiveness and reducing ad intrusiveness is an essential issue for online
advertising. This study investigates the antecedents of cognitive absorption in online video
environment and understands the effect of cognitive absorption on the viewer’ attitude
toward the video advertising. The study examines the effects of relevance of content, balance
between skill and challenge, interestingness, and relatedness between episodes on video
viewers’ cognitive absorption on the basis of cognitive absorption theory and the
inter-related theories: visual search theory, flow theory, cognitive engagement theory and
attention inertia theory. Furthermore, examining how cognitive absorption leads to ad
intrusiveness, irritation and avoidance. We posit that as a video viewer highly absorb in the
video content, his or her cognitive processing is enhanced and therefore the interruption of
the viewing by ads will lead to higher perceived ad intrusiveness. A laboratory experiment is
conducted to examine the proposed research model. The research findings can help
marketers and advertisers understand how to deliver effective advertising and minimizing
the perceived intrusiveness.
Keywords：Online video advertising, Intrusive advertising, Cognitive absorption, Ad
irritation, Ad avoidance
1. Introduction
1.1 Research Background
The rapidly increasing number of Internet users leads to the dramatic growth of
advertising media. Online advertising is a form of online marketing through which
businesses leverage Internet technologies to deliver promotional advertisements to
consumers. There are different formats for online advertising, including promotional
advertisements and messages delivered through social media websites, search engines, and
banner ads on websites (Pashkevich, Dorai-Raj, Kellar, & Zigmond, 2012). Video
advertising is a popular form of digital web-based ads that displays commercials within the
original video or play brief commercial before the video loads, during a break in the video or
at the conclusion of the video. Many search engines or social network sites offer video media
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options to advertisers. As many people know, YouTube is the world’s most popular online
video-viewing platform (comScore, 2014; DoubleClick, 2011; Nielsen, 2014). The online
video advertising formats can be variety as the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB, 2012)
proposes some common current in-stream ad formats, such as linear video ads, non-linear
ads and companion ads. Viewers might feel irritated when they have to watch the ads during
their viewing experience, which results in a negative impact on the ads. Marketers have to
find more effective ways to deliver video ads while reducing ad intrusiveness.
1.2 Research Motivation
There are various video ads in social video websites. Marketers have noticed the power
of social media and leveraged hosted video in video sharing sites like YouTube. As users
surf on Internet or view a video, they experience an intensified cognitive process. The video
ad might be perceived as more intrusive when viewers highly absorb in video content.
Cognitive absorption (CA) is a state of involvement. Previous studies about CA focused
mainly on Internet usage (Lee, Chen, & Ilie, 2012), education (Guo & Ro, 2008), IT
acceptance behaviors (McKinney, Yoon, & Zahedi, 2002), and an individual’s tendency to
be engaged spontaneously with the activity (Engeser & Rheinberg, 2008). CA is less
discussed in the field of advertising. This study uses cognitive absorption theory to explain
how viewers perceive online video ads as intrusive and further identifies four antecedents of
cognitive absorption that may influence perceived ad intrusiveness and examines whether
the perception of higher intrusiveness toward the video ad will lead to higher ad avoidance
and ad irritation. When viewers highly absorb in video content the interruption of the
viewer’s viewing task may increase the viewer’s perception of the intrusiveness of the ad. If
an online ad can be delivered when cognitive absorption is at a low level, the viewer might
perceive a lower level of intrusiveness. As rapid growth of new technologies and the Internet
usage behavior has changed, which motive us to understand how and when to deliver
effective video ads.
1.3 Research Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop strategically suggestions for marketers to
evaluate the effectiveness of video advertising. Lacking of empirical studies on video
advertising makes it harder to understand how viewers’ cognition affects perceived
intrusiveness and results in ad avoidance and irritation. The contribution of this study is
providing a reasonable explanation for video ad intrusiveness and providing guidelines for
advertisers to deliver effective video ads and reduce perceived ad intrusiveness.
2. Theoretical Bases
2.1 Cognitive Absorption
Cognitive absorption (CA) could explain an online user’s holistic experiences from a
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theoretical perspective and defined as the state of deep involvement (Agarwal & Karahanna,
2000). CA theory is rooted in psychological theories that conceptualize absorption as a trait
(Tellegen, 1982), the state of flow (Csikszentmihaiyi, 1990), and cognitive engagement
(Webster & Hackiey, 1997). First, as opposed to trait, Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) have
redefined absorption as individuals’ state of deep attention and they are absolutely absorbed
with the activity they are experiencing. Second, the flow experience describes the state in
which people are involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Third, cognitive
engagement is considered as one’s psychological presence and focus at human-computer
interaction. Agarwal and Karahanna (2000) integrated these theoretical bases and further
explored the realm of CA in an online environment. CA captures the totality of an
individual’s experience with new technologies and is likely to be achieved with hedonic
technologies that are “visually rich and appealing” (Agarwal & Prasad, 1998).
According to Agarwal and Karahanna (2000), CA is a construct derives from five
intrinsic dimensions that can explain CA in an online environment: (1) temporal dissociation,
the inability to register the passage of time while engaged in interaction; (2) focused
attention, the experience of total engagement where other attentional demands are ignored;
(3) heightened enjoyment, capturing the pleasurable aspects of the interaction; (4) control,
representing the user's perception of being in charge of the interaction and; (5) curiosity,
tapping into the extant the experience arouses an individual's sensory and cognitive curiosity.
In this study, we center our inquiry on the four dimensions of cognitive absorption, temporal
dissociation, focused attention, heightened enjoyment, and curiosity since the dimension
control does not correspond to our proposed model to fit online video circumstances.
2.2 Flow Experience
Csikszentmihaiyi (1990) developed a theory of flow that is “the state in which people
are involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.” Hoffman and Novak (1996)
defined online flow as “the state occurring during network navigation which is characterized
by a seamless sequence of responses facilitated by machine interactivity, intrinsically
enjoyable, self-consciousness, and self-reinforcing.” Cszikszentmihaly (1975) proposed that
humans could enter into a state of “flow” in which they are in a state of intense concentration
and experience a shift in their perception of control over the activity. Flow is simply stated
as the process of optimal experience and preceded by a set of antecedent conditions
necessary for the experience to be achieved. Flow experience is a multi-dimensional
construct including a sense of intense concentration, a feeling of control, a loss of
consciousness and a temporal transformation (Csikszentmihaiyi, 1990). Since the theoretical
bases for CA derive from flow theory the drivers of flow experience might be the drivers of
CA. As noted by Csikszentmihaiyi (1990), flow is an intense psychological state when
people participate in activities in which the challenges and skills involved are high and
balanced. Our study examines the effect of balance between skill and challenge on CA in
online videos from the perspective of flow experience. In the video scenario, we posit that if
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the difficulty level of video content can match the viewer’s skill the viewer’s CA in the
video content will be higher.
2.3 Cognitive Engagement and Attentional Inertia
Cognitive Engagement refers to people’s psychological presence in their activities. The
cognitive engagement is composed of two dimensions: attention and absorption (Kahn,
1990). Attention is defined as cognitive availability and the amount of time one spends
thinking about a work while absorption refers to the intensity of one’s focus on a work.
Webster and Hackiey (1997) consider cognitive engagement as individual subjective
experience of human computer interaction. In addition, research on school engagement is on
the basis of the literature on cognitive engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004).
By taking attention and absorption as the components of engagement into account, both
attention and absorption are closely related to each other. According to Hawkins, Tapper,
and Pingree (1995), visual attention may actually reflect great variation in underlying
cognitive attention and associated processes. There are several factors that contributes to
visual attention including the orienting response to engagement with content, occurrence of
cues having learned associations with desirable content, and inertia of the current activity
(Anderson & Burns, 1991; Davenport & Beck, 2001). In previous studies (Hawkins et al.,
1995), there are some evidences to show attentional inertia phenomena might occur in not
only biological processes, but also content-based processes. According to Huston and Wright
(1983), as a look begins, the decision to continue watching or not will be made quickly on
the basis of salient cues having learned associations with cognitive and affective
expectations of viewing content. Because the theory of CA derives from the theory of
cognitive engagement that is highly related with attention, the antecedents of cognitive
engagement and attention inertia might be the drivers of CA. The interestingness of content
attracts viewers’ attention and influence the cognitive engagement (Kankanhalli, Wang, &
Jain, 2006) and the relatedness of episodes is positively associated with attention inertia
(Hawkins et al., 1995). In this study, we examine the influence of interestingness of the
video content and relatedness between video episodes on CA.
3. Research Framework and Hypotheses
3.1 Research Framework
We have developed a research framework (see Figure 1) based on the theories of CA
flow experience, cognitive engagement and attentional inertia with four antecedents,
containing relevance of content, balance between skill and challenge, interestingness, and
relatedness between episodes. This framework investigates how CA influences viewers’
perceived ad intrusiveness. Contributing by prior studies, Edwards et al. (2002) had proved
the relationships between ad intrusiveness, ad irritation and ad avoidance in the context of
text-based websites, and we reexamined these relationships in the online video context. We
conducted an experiment to test the relationship between these constructs while considering
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three control variables, containing editorial-ad congruence, ad informativeness, and ad
entertainment which were mentioned as the factors that affect ad intrusiveness (Blanco,
Blasco, & Azorín, 2010; Cho, 2003; Ducoffe, 1995). The dimensions of CA contain focused
immersion, temporal dissociation, heightened enjoyment, and curiosity. Since viewers watch
video passively and there is no interaction, we do not consider control.
Figure 1. Conceptual model of cognitive absorption and perceived Ad intrusiveness
3.2 Hypotheses
According to the proposed models, we develop the hypotheses derive from the
theoretical bases and describe in detail in the following subsections
3.2.1 Relevance of content
The operational definition of content relevance in this study is the extent to which video
contents are perceived as being important to the personal goal. Visual search theory
postulates that users selectively allocate their attention into processing information in the
visual field bases on the perceived relevance to their search task (Lee et al., 2012).
According to Lee, Chen and Ilie (2012), relevant content could capture user’s attentions and
thus results in higher focused immersion, temporal dissociation and heighten enjoyment.
Applying to video viewing, we can argue that when viewers find information to be
personally relevant, they dedicate more attentional capacity to process that information at a
deeper level. According to visual search theory (Lee et al., 2012), the relevance of text and
images on webpages can play a major role in influencing viewers’ cognitive absorption.
Relevant content may create feeling of focused immersion in the video scenarios by
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attracting viewers’ attention and engaging in processing the relevant information and causes
temporal dissociation, which refers to an individual’s inability to register the passage of time
while engaged in an activity. Moreover, heightened enjoyment refers to the pleasurable
aspect of the interaction with content. Therefore, we hypothesize that video content that is
highly relevant to the viewer can capture the viewer’s attention deeply and leads to higher
cognitive absorption.
H1: The relevance of video content is positively associated with the video viewer’s
cognitive absorption in the content.
3.2.2 Balance Between Skill and Challenge
Many researchers have noted the conceptual similarity between the state of absorption
and the flow experience (Csikszentmihaiyi, 1990; Hoffman & Novak, 1996). As noted by
Csikszentmihalyi (1975), the original model specified that flow occurred when an equal
match between skill and challenge was perceived. In this study, we conceptualized flow
experience as a cognitive state experienced during online video viewing. Flow is operated in
several dimension, including concentration, transformation, and enjoyment (Guo & Ro,
2008). The perceived balance between challenge and skill affect the flow experience in terms
of focused concentration, time dissociation, and autotelic experience that related to the
dimensions of CA: focused immersion, temporal dissociation, and heightened enjoyment
(Guo & Ro, 2008). Since the theoretical bases for CA derives from flow experience, the
balance between challenge and skills of flow experience might be the drivers of CA. We
posit that the balance between skill and challenge determine viewers’ degree of CA in
experiencing video content.
H2: Viewers’ experience of the more balance between skill and challenge leads to
higher cognitive absorption.
3.2.3 Interestingness
The interesting content can catch viewers’ attention and lead to cognitive engagement.
When viewers browse on the Internet, they often goal-oriental and are regardless other
information that is not caught their attention or interest. Kankanhalli, Wang, and Jain (2006)
proposed that interestingness is the power of attracting viewers’ attention; therefore, the
interestingness of webpage or video contents might cause different influences on the
viewer’s cognitive engagement. A viewer’s attention is selective regard to the interestingness
of the contents and influences cognitive engagement. The interesting contents can catch
viewers’ attention then the likelihood that they absorb in the content might increase. As
noted by Fraisse (1984), interesting prose passages provided better enjoyment for users’
viewing experience, and according to Choi and Anderson (1991), the consequence of
sustaining attention to any comprehensible and relatively enjoyable source of information
affect engagement, interestingness of the content in the video scenario might affect viewer’s
cognitive processing in terms of curiosity and heightened enjoyment. Thus, we propose the
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following hypothesis.
H3: The interestingness of video content is positively associated with the viewer’s
cognitive absorption in the content.
3.2.4 Relatedness between Episodes
If a medium of information has held a person’s attention for a period of time, a
generalized tendency develops to sustain attention to that medium. In the various
phenomenon of inertial attention, Hawkins et al. (1995) proposed three kinds of relationships
between episodes (content units): outcome-embedding connection, ending-embedded
connection, and then/meanwhile connection between episodes for investigating the variation
of attentional inertia. First, outcome-embedding connection is a causal linkage between two
episodes. It generates when the story protagonist fails to achieve a goal in an episode leads to
formulating a sub goal in the beginning of the next episode for accomplishing original goal.
Secondly, ending-embedded linkages are causal in nature but less complex and the ending of
the first episode remains relevant in the second episode. Third, the then/meanwhile
connection represents every single episode is considered as purely temporal and independent
story and stands on its own as a complete unit while they are still part of the overall story.
Hawkins et al. (1995) found that the relationship between the length of time the viewer’s
gaze remained on the first episode and the length of the viewer’s gaze on the second episode
was strongest for outcome-embedded boundaries, followed by ending-embedded and
then/meanwhile boundaries. In the video viewing process, when viewers watch a series of
videos, they decide continually watching a video if they expect to see the following video
content. If the relatedness of two successive video clips is high, i.e., the content on one video
clip continues from the content on the previous video clip, the viewer generate stronger
inertia to sustain attention to the video viewing and thus results in more cognitive absorption.
We propose the following hypothesis.
H4: Viewers generate higher cognitive absorption when watching video with highly
related video content than those watching with lower related content.
3.2.5 Ad Intrusiveness
The levels of ad intrusiveness vary, depending on its content, execution, or placement.
Marketers should provide the advertisements that demand consumers’ or viewers’ scarce
attention while reducing the viewers’ perceived ad intrusiveness. Intrusiveness is a
perception or psychological consequence that occurs when an audience’s cognitive processes
are interrupted and is a common complaint of advertising that interrupts the goals of viewers.
Perceived ad intrusiveness has been defined in several studies in different perspectives.
According to Li, Edwards, and Lee (2002), intrusiveness is used to describe the way in
which negative feelings arise from advertisements, which are related to feelings of irritation,
leading to avoidance behavior. Ha (1996) defined intrusiveness as “the degree to which
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advertisements in a media vehicle interrupt the flow of an editorial unit.” Speck and Elliott
(1997b) mentioned ads often act as noise in the environment, where noise is defined as all
communication elements that affect the value of desired content. Ad intrusiveness occurs
when an individual perceives advertisements to be disruptive in the cognitive process.
Edwards et al. (2002) found that higher cognitive intensity leads to higher ad intrusiveness.
Once viewers are mentally engaged and absorbed in the video content, they might perceive
more intrusiveness as an online video ad interrupting in the cognitive process. The
perception of an advertisement as intrusive should be considered as a cognitive evaluation. It
is important to understand the means by which perceptions of intrusiveness can be limited to
reduce the negative outcomes that are likely to occur. As a result, we hypothesize that:
H5: Greater cognitive absorption within online video content will positively relate to
higher ad intrusiveness.
3.2.6 Ad Avoidance and Ad Irritation
Ad irritation and Ad avoidance are the phenomenon that online users’ reaction to
reduce the intrusiveness toward ads (Speck & Elliott, 1997a). Viewers could become
overwhelmed if the ads are excessively stimulated, such as too long or too loud, and elicit
feelings of irritation. Advertising avoidance including zipping, zapping or grazing can be
divide into cognitive, behavioral, and mechanical ad avoidance (Nam, Kwon, & Lee, 2010).
Developing a better understanding of these irritating tactics should allow for creating more
effective advertisements. Irritation is considered as if advertising could not provide the
functionality needed for the consumer and lead to a negative attitude (Galbraith, 1956;
Schudson, 1984).
Speck and Elliott (1997b) found evidence of cognitive, behavioral, and mechanical ad
avoidance across both electronic and print media. The avoidance behavior can skipping or
ignoring the ads. Regardless of the means by which people choose to avoid ads, it seems
clear that ad avoidance limits the ability of commercial messages to reach their intended
audiences. In the online viewing experience, if users feel the interruption from the ads, they
will actively avoid them. Viewers’ responses to intrusive ads lead to some possible outcome.
Intrusiveness could be considered as a major cause of advertising annoyance. A study (Li et
al., 2002) has examined the ad avoidance in the context of rich online media and found that
ad is more likely to be avoided if the user has expectations of a negative perceptions of the
advertising, i.e., intrusiveness or interrupted. Edwards, Li and Lee (2002) found that the
consequences of ad intrusiveness are ad irritation and ad avoidance. Perceived ad
intrusiveness is an important construct that affected viewer’s attitude toward the ads. This
finding is obviously in line with much often research on ad irritation and avoidance (Aaker
& Bruzzone, 1985; Edwards et al., 2002; Kelly, Kerr, & Drennan, 2010; McCoy, Everard,
Polak, & Galletta, 2008; Speck & Elliott, 1997). In video watching circumstance, we
propose the following hypotheses.
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H6: The perceived ad intrusiveness is positively related to the feelings of irritation
towards the video advertising.
H7: The perceived ad intrusiveness is positively related to avoidance toward video
advertising
H8: Feelings of ad irritation will be positively related to ad avoidance.
4. Methodology
The study conducted an experiment to manipulate the constructs and to ensure a
controlled setting for outcome measurement. We chose educational videos as the stimuli
because this kind of video can be adopted by general viewers and be easily evaluated under
the video-viewing scenario. We first conducted a pretest to determine suitable experimental
stimuli, i.e., video clips and ad. Next, a pilot test was conducted to examine the validity and
reliability of the scales that we used for the video circumstance. Especially, the scale for
measuring relatedness between video clips was developed by this study on the basis of the
concept of episode relatedness defined by Hawkins et al. (1995). A total of 74 college
students at National Taipei University participated in the pilot test. A principal component
analysis (PCA) was conducted using SPSS 20.0 for item purification. The items with
loadings lower than 0.4 were eliminated. The reliability, discriminant and convergent
validities of the final scales were good. We also collected the participants’ suggestions as to
where the survey could be clarified and their opinions on other areas in which the survey
could be improved. Thus, participants in the formal survey could clearly understand each
question, and content validity was ensured.
4.1 Research Procedure
We designed an experiment online video website. The experimental videos have two
themes related to educational purpose. The videos were for English learning purpose with
similar length. They are English-taught lessons and American talk shows. Secondly, we
selected the most suitable video clips for each theme. Each video clip is about 3 to 5 minutes
long. Each theme contains two different levels: basic and advanced, which was manipulated
by showing or hiding Chinese subtitle. And each level of video was designed to have three
clips as a series of video, their contents are either related or not. In the eight treatments, the
video ads appeared during the transition between the second and the third clips. The
participant was noticed it was the video ad by appearing the video ad containing ad signs.
We selected a medical ad which appear to contain low congruency with the video content
and excluded famous brand or product because congruent ads might induce ad awareness
that influences ad effectiveness (Macdonald & Sharp, 2003)
The participants were recruited from the crowds walking through the lobby of the
college of business building in National Taipei University. Students are considered as the
largest segment of Internet users. Participates were randomly assigned to one out of eight
9
treatments. The experiment procedure was processed as followings: First, they read the
instructions contained the purpose of this survey and the steps to perform the survey. Then,
they watched a series of videos. After viewing the videos, they were asked to finish a
questionnaire in order to collect data of the constructs in the research model. After finishing
the survey, each participant can receive a gift certificate in the amount of NT$50 as a reward
for participating in the experiment.
4.2 Measures
We measured cognitive absorption by adapting the items from (Agarwal & Karahanna,
2000). The measurement items of relevance of content were adopted from Lee et al. (2012).
Balance between skill and challenge were adopted from Guo and Ro (2008). The perceived
interestingness of the video content was adapted from Olney et al. (1991). We develop the
scale for measuring relatedness between video clips on the basis of the concept of episode
relatedness defined by Hawkins et al. (1995). Ad intrusiveness and ad irritation were
measured using a scale from Li et al. (2002). Ad avoidance was assessed using three
different types of avoidance behaviors (Speck & Elliott, 1997a) and the items were adopted
from Cho and Cheon (2004). Ad Informativeness and ad entertainment were adopted from
Ducoffe (1996) while editorial-ad congruence was measured by the items from Cho (2003).
This study uses a seven-point Likert scale to measure all items where 1 indicates, “strongly
disagree,” 4 indicates “neutral” and 7 indicates “strongly agree.”
5. Data Analysis and Results
5.1 Data and Analytical Methods
We adopted SPSS and SmartPLS to analyze the collected data. This study used PLS
rather than CB-SEM because PLS is utilized to accommodate the presence of a complex
model and is suitable for exploratory nature of research (Chin, 1998). We received a total of
215 effective samples out of 240 participants. Students constituted 93.5% of the sample;
male is 40.9% of the sample while female is 59.1%; 97.2% of the sample are less than 30
years old.
5.2 Measurement Model
The measurement model was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test
construct validation and reliability. The reliability of the scales was assessed by examining
(1) Cronbach’s Alpha should be greater than 0.7, (2) composite reliability (CR) should be
greater than 0.7. Table 1 shows that the criteria are met, indicating that the scales are reliable.
The convergent validity of the scales was assessed by examining (1) the average variance
extracted (AVE) should exceed 0.5, (2) factor loadings should exceed 0.7 (Chin, 1998;
Fornell & Larcker, 1981). All factor loadings of measurement items are higher than 0.7 and
AVE result showed the criteria are met. Examining the discriminant validity by assessing the
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square root of the AVE being greater than the variance shared between the construct and
other constructs (i.e., correlations) (shown in Table 2) (Chin, 1998; Compeau & Higgins,
1995). The results show that all constructs share more variance with their indicators than
other constructs and suggest that discriminant validity is satisfactory.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of constructs
No. of
Cronbach's
Composite
Construct
Mean
Std. Dev.
Items
Alpha
AVE
Reliability
RC
4.75
1.25
5
0.94
0.79
0.94
BSC
5.42
1.15
4
0.92
0.79
0.93
INT
4.85
1.29
4
0.94
0.83
0.94
REL
4.31
1.48
3
0.91
0.77
0.92
CAFI
4.20
1.19
5
0.91
0.72
0.81
CATD
3.99
1.36
3
0.94
0.88
0.80
CAHE
4.70
1.29
4
0.95
0.86
0.92
CACU
4.47
1.21
3
0.90
0.83
0.87
IN
2.93
1.14
4
0.84
0.71
0.87
EN
2.67
1.20
4
0.97
0.90
0.97
ED
2.55
1.26
4
0.97
0.92
0.97
INTR
5.16
1.12
7
0.93
0.72
0.94
IRR
4.34
1.16
5
0.92
0.74
0.90
AVO
5.98
1.03
3
0.91
0.85
0.91
RC: Relevance of content
CAFI: Focused Immersion
IN: Ad Informativeness
INTR: Ad Intrusiveness
BSC: Balance b/w Challenge & Skill
CATD: Temporal Dissociation
EN: Ad Entertainment
IRR: Ad Irritation
INT: Interestingness
CAHE: Heightened Enjoyment
ED: Editorial-ad Congruency
AVO: Ad Avoidance
REL: Relatedness b/w Episodes
CACU: Curiosity
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Table 2. Correlation matrix of constructs
Pearson
Correlation
RC
BSC
INT
REL
CAFI
CATD CAHE CACU
IN
EN
ED
INTR
IRR
RC
0.89
BSC
0.33
0.89
INT
0.41
0.14
0.91
REL
0.07
0.16
0.08
0.88
CAFI
0.27
0.22
0.43
0.18
0.85
CATD
0.30
0.15
0.57
0.21
0.57
0.94
CAHE
0.33
0.19
0.84
0.15
0.54
0.68
0.93
CACU
0.53
0.16
0.74
0.21
0.48
0.59
0.72
0.91
IN
0.18
-0.01
0.11
-0.10
0.08
0.08
0.02
0.12
0.84
EN
0.12
-0.04
0.07
-0.06
0.07
0.05
-0.03
0.11
0.79
0.95
ED
0.16
-0.08
0.03
-0.15
0.01
0.01
-0.05
0.06
0.59
0.67
0.96
INTR
0.00
0.07
0.06
0.16
0.03
0.12
0.11
0.12
-0.56
-0.55
-0.46
0.85
IRR
-0.02
-0.09
-0.02
0.25
0.08
0.10
-0.01
0.14
-0.39
-0.35
-0.30
0.65
0.86
AVO
-0.03
0.09
0.00
0.08
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.06
-0.49
-0.44
-0.47
0.66
0.45
Note: The diagonal line of correlation matrix represents the square root of AVE.
5.3 Structural Model
We examined the proposed model by two steps. Before conducting the data analysis,
we performed manipulation checks to examine whether the four antecedents were
successfully manipulated. The exogenous variables in this model were manipulated as 2×2×2
experimental scenarios with total eight treatments. The descriptive statistics of the treatments
are shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics of the treatments
A
Cognitive Theme
Absorption Difficulty Basic
Relatedness Related
B
Advanced
Basic
Advanced
Video 1 (n=27) Video 3 (n=24) Video 5 (n=30)
Video 7 (n=26)
mean=4.56
mean=4.29
mean=4.08
Std. Dev.=1.219 Std. Dev.=1.064 Std. Dev.=1.29
mean=4.52
Std. Dev.=0.97
Video 2 (n=28) Video 4 (n=28) Video 6 (n=26)
Video 8 (n=26)
mean=4.04
mean=3.92
mean=4.88
mean=4.56
Unrelated Std. Dev.=0.935 Std. Dev.=0.935 Std. Dev.=0.875 Std. Dev.=0.796
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AVO
0.92
Table 4. ANOVA result of between-subjects effects
Manipulate
Std.
Source
N
Mean
Relevance
of content
Theme A
107
5.44
0.94
Theme B
108
4.07
1.13
Balance Between
Challenge and Skill
Basic
111
5.63
1.04
Advanced
104
5.19
1.21
Theme A
107
4.67
1.13
Theme B
108
5.05
1.4
Related
107
5.27
1.08
Unrelated
108
3.37
1.18
Antecedent
Interestingness
Relatedness
between
Episodes
Ｆ
Sig.
91.57
0.000
7.83
0.006
4.77
0.030
149.64
0.000
Deviation
Table 5. Result of structural models path coefficient and hypotheses supports
Path coefficient
Hypothesis
and significance
T-value
Supported
Antecedents of Cognitive Absorption
H1
RC -> CA
0.120***
5.26
Y
H2
BSC -> CA
0.054**
2.89
Y
H3
INT -> CA
0.709***
43.56
Y
H4
REL -> CA
0.162***
9.3
Y
Impact of Cognitive Absorption
H5
CA -> INTR
0.162***
5.442
Y
H6
INTR -> AVO
0.67***
22.44
Y
H7
INTR -> IRR
0.702***
52.78
Y
H8
IRR -> AVO
-0.018
0.43
N
Antecedents of Ad Intrusiveness
Ad Informativeness
IN -> INTR
-0.331***
8.08
Y
Ad Entertainment
EN -> INTR
-0.216***
4.49
Y
Editorial-ad congruency
ED -> INTR
-0.117**
3.08
Y
*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001
13
We used analysis of variance (ANOVA) to verify the success of the manipulation. The
subsequent ANOVA test (shown in Table 4) confirms the success of the manipulation. We
tested the proposed model using PLS. All of the constructs were modeled as reflective and
measured using multiple indicators. CA is a second order reflective construct and PLS does
not directly support second order factors, so we used the two-stage approach to estimate the
hierarchical latent variable (Agarwal & Karahanna, 2000). First, we got the latent variable
scores of the constructs via the CFA analysis. Then, CA was represented by the latent
variable scores of the first-order constructs, i.e., focused immersion, temporal dissociation,
heightened enjoyment, and curiosity in the PLS model. According to an examination of the
influence of the independent variables on the dependent variable in the proposed model (i.e.,
cognitive absorption, ad intrusiveness, ad irritation, and ad avoidance) while consider control
variable: ad informativeness, ad entertainment and editorial-ad congruency. As we showed
in Table 5, all the hypotheses were confirmed except H8. 6. Discussion and Implications
6.1 Major Findings
By adopting the theory of cognitive absorption as our theoretical basis, this study
enhances our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of cognitive absorption in
the online video context. The influences of relevance of content, balance between skill and
challenge, interestingness, and relatedness between episodes on cognitive absorption are
systematically examined from the perspective of visual search theory, flow states, cognitive
engagement and attention inertia. Most hypotheses were confirmed, which indicated that the
four antecedents have strong influences on cognitive absorption in online video circumstance.
A video viewer will generate high cognitive absorption if the video content is relevant to the
viewer, the challenge of the video content meets the skill of the viewer, the video content is
interesting to the viewer, or the content episodes are related.
Moreover, examining the effect of cognitive absorption on ad intrusiveness indicated
that video ads interrupting higher cognitive absorption process will be perceived more
intrusive than those interrupting a lower cognitive absorption process. Correspond with our
expectations, testing the H5 supports the positive relationship between cognitive absorption
and ad intrusiveness. When viewers are viewing the video content with heavy cognitive
workload, an interruption by a video ad will be perceived much more intrusiveness. The
relationships between ad intrusiveness, ad avoidance, and ad irritation were reexamined, our
experiment results consist with the previous findings (Edwards et al., 2002). Ad irritation did
not significantly influence ad avoidance, which contradicts the proposed model. The same
finding has been shown in Cronin and Menelly (1992) and Edwards et al. (2002), which
suggest that ad avoidance may take place when viewers recognize the ad as intrusive even if
they do not feel irritated yet.
14
6.2 Limitations and Future Research
Limitations restricted the interpretation that must be acknowledged prior to discussing
the implication of our findings. Our study may lack external validity in the subjects and
setting. The most subjects are students from a public university. Although students represent
the target audience of video websites, other segments of customers in real video marketing
environments are somehow required to strengthen the generalizability of this study. In
addition, using learning videos in this research may cause some limitations. The results may
not be generalized to other video categories since there are various needs and purposes of
watching videos. Further research is certainly needed extending a better understanding and
knowledge gained within this context.
6.3 Implications and Contributions
Most previous findings about online advertising concentrate on ads’ formats, property
and content, such as ads’ informativeness, entertainment, and congruence. Rare study
investigates the right timing to delivering the ads. Cognitive absorption is a state of
involvement or engaging experience. As users surf on Internet or view a video, they may
experience an intensified cognitive process. The video ad will be perceived as more intrusive
when viewers highly absorb in video content. This study has successfully identified the
factors that influence cognitive absorption in video circumstances; containing relevance of
content, balance between skill and challenge, interestingness, and relatedness between
episodes. According to our findings, the right timing to delivering video ads is when viewers
are viewing less relevant content, content that does not match their skills, lower interesting
content, or content with unrelated episodes.
The proposed model and findings contributed to the knowledge base of online
marketing and online advertising literature. The effect of cognitive absorption on ad
intrusiveness was also examined that contributes to the knowledge base of intrusive
advertising in online video marketing. The research findings provided preliminary
knowledge and understanding of four antecedent and consequences of cognitive absorption
during the video watching processes and develop theoretical foundation for future related
research. In addition, the findings can provide advertisers and ad service providers with the
suggestions of when to delivery ads while reducing the perceived ad intrusiveness and guide
marketers to manage their video advertising and promotion campaigns and to avoid the
viewer’s negative reactions.
15
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