Factors affecting online advertising recall: A study of students

In this article we examine factors that might impact on web advertising recall and recognition. These factors include the viewing mode, duration of page viewing, and web page context factors, including text and page background complexity and the style of the banner advertisement. Via an experimental design conducted on a student sample, we manipulate these factors over several levels. The key finding is that the longer a person is exposed to a web page containing a banner advertisement, the more likely they are to remember that banner advertisement. We also find that recognition scores are much higher than both unaided and aided recall scores. Finally, web users in a goal-directed mode are much less likely to recall and recognize banner advertisements than users who are surfing a site.