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However, as noted in the Introduction of this book, few studies have examined consumers’ Web ad processing when advertisements are outside of attentional focus. The most relevant study was done by Moore, Stammerjohan, and Coulter (2005). Even though Moore et al. did not specifically address consumers’ preattentive processing in the article, their manipulation of Web ad exposure in the experiments encourages subjects to perform preattentive processing (i.e., inducing goal-oriented behaviors and peripheral placement of banner ads). The results were very interesting. Consistent with the results of the current study, Moore et al. (2005) found that advertiser-Web page congruity generated more favorable attitude toward the advertisement. Furthermore, they found that attitude toward the banner advertisement is more positive for those who did not remember seeing the ad.
For practitioners, a study by Geisser, Zinkhan, and Watson (2006) gives a valuable insight when it comes to designing a Webpage. Findings show that consumers respond more favorably toward Webpages with moderate complexity in its elements (i.e., number of graphics, number of links, and Web page length) than those in either a less complex or more complex range. In other words, there is an inverse curvilinear relationship between consumers’ perceived complexity and communication effectiveness (i.e., attitudes, purchase intent).
A third study by Yang, Roskos-Ewoldsen, Dinu, and Arpan (2006) is also worth noting. Even though Yang et al. explore a different type of new media advertising—in-game advertising—the way they approached the research question is very similar to preattentive processing, in which consumers pay conscious attention to the main task (i.e., playing video games), and they are accidentally exposed to various brand names appearing in a video game.