was relatively weak. For attitudes, frequency led to a significant cubic relationship indicating two bends in the model. Data analyses showed that attitudes toward the familiar brand rapidly declined after frequency 7. For the unfamiliar brand, however, data analyses showed somewhat different trends. For both attitude toward the ad and attitude toward the brand, statistically significant U-shaped quadratic trends were found although they did not display a notable threshold that can be considered a tedium point.
The results of Pretest 2 generally suggest that the tedium points in web advertising may not be as clear as in traditional advertising. The only clear evidence of tedium found in Pretest 2 was on attitudes toward a familiar brand which showed that tedium in web advertising might occur around a frequency of 7. The results of Pretest 2 provide a framework for a frequency response model in the web advertising environment.
For the main experiment, research questions were drawn from a variety of theories, including encoding variability, differential attention, encoding specificity, and transfer-appropriate processing hypotheses. These questions were answered using a 2 (ad variation: varied or non-varied) x 2 (frequency: high or low) x 2 (brand familiarity: familiar or unfamiliar) between-participants factorial design with product involvement and web experience as covariates. Participants (N = 298) were exposed to banner ads featuring either familiar or unfamiliar brands. Participants in low frequency conditions were exposed to the same ad twice (non-varied ad condition) or two different ads (varied ad condition). Participants in high frequency conditions, on the other hand, were exposed to the same ad 8 times (non-varied ad condition) or 8 different ads (varied ad condition). Finally, four dependent variables (free recall, recognition, Aad, and Abrand) were used to measure participants’ responses to ads.
Drawing theoretical guidance from the encoding variability and differential attention hypotheses, the results of the present research