Internet Users’ Attitude towards Web Banner Advertisement (Published)
This research has explored the behaviors and attitudes of internet users towards web banners. How people behave when they encounter banner adverts? The rationale behind conducting this research is that nowadays internet is actively serving as a major medium for advertisement (KRIGE, 2008), but what sort of attitudes do people carry towards web banners? What are the impacts of web banner on the internet users? Do people have positive/negative attitudes about them? It has investigated why people click/do not click on banners adverts? It has been observed that in similar situations genders behave differently (KRIGE, 2008), so this research has also studied that different genders react differently towards web banners. Another objective was that, to find out the ways through which online display advertising agencies can make web banners more effective and appealing. This research has investigated the behaviors and feelings towards web banners in order to increase the effectiveness of web adverts. In order to bring the important aspects of previous studies related to this topic in lime light, a detailed review of literature has been conducted. This is an exploratory research, because behaviors and attitudes of different people with different genders have been explored (Saunders, et al., 2011). Inductive approach has been used and phenomenological philosophy has been adopted. A survey through semi structured interview has been conducted. Convenience sampling has been done. Classical content analysis has done and the sample size is 100 interviews for this research. This research is limited to Karachi only and only those were interviewed who were familiar to internet. It is found from the survey that most of the people don’t like web banners, there are some internet users who ignore web banners and there are few who like web banners. Therefore on the bases of the respondents input the attitudes of net users are classified into to two types negative and positive. There are many people who have negative attitudes towards web banners and there are few who have positive attitude towards web banners. Mostly people find web banners irritating, irrelevant and threatening and few who have positive attitudes, think that they are entertaining and informative. Most of the people think that web banners show irrelevant information, show erotic feature, and slow down internet speed and mostly females consider web banners as viruses. Those who have positive attitudes, say that web banners show discounts, keep up to date and provide relevant information. People have different attitudes in different situations and majority of the people want to see web banners on the right-hand side of the web site. This study is very valuable for all the web advertisers because it will help them to improve the effectiveness of web banners. Therefore, they can gauge the attention of internet users. It illustrates the information about different attitudes of people towards internet advertising and it will also create awareness among those who don’t know about web banners.
Keywords: Ads Banner, Internet Users' Attitude, Mobile Advertising, Online Advertisement, Pixel Advertising, Pop Ups, Targeted Audience, Web Ads, Web Banner, advertisement