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INTR
23,4
Narrative online advertising:
identification and its effects on
attitude toward a product
414 Russell K.H. Ching and Pingsheng Tong
College of Business Administration, California State University, Sacramento,
Received 20 April 2012
Revised 1 September 2012 Sacramento, California, USA
12 January 2013 Ja-Shen Chen
29 January 2013
3 March 2013 College of Management, Yuan Ze University, Chung-Li, Taiwan, and
14 March 2013 Hung-Yen Chen
Accepted 14 March 2013
HannStar Display Corporation, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan

Abstract
Purpose – Drawing on extant literature on narrative persuasion, online advertising, and
transportation theory, this research aims to study Internet-based online narrative advertising and
investigate the effects of four pertinent advertising design elements, interactivity, entertainment,
vividness, and self-referencing, on consumer products and the moderating effects of advertisement
involvement on these relationships.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using an online questionnaire that contained
measures adapted from prior studies. Participants first selected a product that they would seriously
consider purchasing and answered a set of questions prior to viewing a narrative online
advertisement, which was followed by a different set of questions. Structural equation modeling was
used to empirically test the authors’ proposed model.
Findings – Greater levels of interactivity, vividness, entertainment, and self-referencing in narrative
online advertisements led to more favorable attitudes toward a product. In particular, self-referencing
had a substantial effect on transportation in forming product attitudes. Advertisement Involvement
moderates (i.e. enhances) the effect of self-referencing on attitudes toward a product.
Practical implications – If properly designed, a narrative online advertisement can fully utilize
Internet-enabled features and can maximize their potential to produce a favorable consumer attitude
toward a featured product.
Originality/value – This study advances narrative advertising research and provides empirical
evidence to highlight the effects of the pertinent characteristics of Internet-based advertising,
interactivity and entertainment in the conversion process of transportation and consumer attitudes.
Moreover, this study identifies and sheds light on important contingencies (i.e. advertisement
involvement) of the focal relationships.
Keywords Narratives, Advertising, Internet shopping, Transportation, Involvement
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
The increasing popularity in the internet, its growing ubiquity through the latest
smart devices and social networks, and continuous breakthroughs in web and
mobile technologies have produced a generation of sophisticated and knowledgeable
shoppers. The population of internet users has grown consistently at remarkable
Internet Research
Vol. 23 No. 4, 2013
rates worldwide (Internet World Stats, 2011). By 2015, internet users are forecasted
pp. 414-438 to reach 288 million in the USA alone and nearly 2.9 billion worldwide (eTForecasts,
r Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1066-2243
2012). Such a large group of users presents tremendous opportunities for online
DOI 10.1108/IntR-04-2012-0077 marketing and challenges marketers to create on-demand and interactive marketing
experiences that can effectively connect with and engage their target consumers Narrative online
(Mooradian et al., 2008). advertising
Advertising plays a major role in communicating the virtues of a business’ products
and services to consumers and typically involves two components: lecture and drama
(Wells, 1989). As such, advertising can assume the form of either arguments or
narratives (Boller and Olson, 1991). Argumentative advertising tends to present
fact-based information that persuades through logical arguments and lectures 415
(Deighton et al., 1989; Lien and Chen, 2013), whereas narrative advertising tells a story
about product consumption or related experiences or presents the consequences of the
product’s usage and achieves persuasion by appealing to the consumer’s affective
and emotional responses (Phillips and McQuarrie, 2010). Narrative advertising often
uses drama and storytelling (e.g. Deighton et al., 1989), humor (e.g. Gulas et al., 2010),
and/or editorial narrative (e.g. Chang, 2009) to evoke a person’s emotions and empathy
with the characters in the story (Mooradian et al., 2008). Research has found that
given sufficient consumer cognitive capacity, narrative advertising has superior
persuasive effects, particularly in facilitating favorable changes in beliefs toward
advertising and brand attitudes than argumentative advertising (Chang, 2009).
Traditional persuasion models, such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model, have
limited power to understand narrative advertising (Green and Brock, 2000). Narrative
transportation theory has been proposed as the underlying mechanism that drives
narrative-based persuasion (Escalas, 2004). Transportation is conceptualized as
a viewer’s experience of being lost in context or immersed in a story’s plot. The
literature suggests that by using drama or storytelling, narrative advertising
captivates and mesmerizes its audience through the dramatic unfolding of causally
related events in the form of storytelling or drama, which “transports” the viewer to the
narrative world (Escalas, 2004). That is, when a consumer becomes immersed in a
drama or narrative story and begins to experience the characters’ world vicariously,
he/she is “transported” and “hooked” to the narrative world (Escalas et al., 2004).
Research further suggests that highly transported viewers perform less critical
evaluations of facts and arguments, produce fewer counter-arguments, and report more
positive overall responses, including favorable attitudes toward the advertisement and
brand and favorable affective emotions, such as warm feelings (e.g. Chang, 2009).
Despite the growing interest in narrative persuasion, empirical research on
narrative-based advertising via transportation remains limited. Moreover, most studies
have examined narrative advertisements in traditional media, such as magazines (e.g.
Norris and Colman, 1992) and television (e.g. Gulas et al., 2010), and the focus has been
on the advantages of narrative-based advertising over argumentative advertising.
Online narrative advertising, as an important and rapidly growing venue to engage
consumers and connect with target markets (Mooradian et al., 2008), has not been
adequately researched in connection with its influencing factors (Brajnika and
Gabriellia, 2010; Ha, 2008). Because of the opportunities presented by online
advertising in comparison with traditional media advertising, greater attention should
be directed toward the design of online narrative advertisements to maximize their
persuasive power. Although internet-based narrative advertising shares some features
with traditional media advertising, it has unique capabilities and noteworthy
characteristics that must be carefully researched and studied to help advertisers
fine tune their design to achieve heightened effectiveness. As such, research on
the effectiveness of internet-based narrative online advertising and its influencing
factors is warranted.
INTR To address this research gap, the current study draws upon narrative advertising,
23,4 transportation, and internet marketing literature to identify salient elements of
internet-based narrative online advertising and investigates their effects on consumers’
attitudes toward an advertised product. This study further examines the boundaries
and conditions of these effects by testing the moderating role of advertisement
involvement on the aforementioned relationships.
416
2. Conceptual background
Online experiential marketing
Experiential marketing involves engaging consumers in a memorable event or
experience to make them feel that they are active participants in the event while
appealing to their senses and providing them with sufficient information to make
decisions (Gilmore and Pine, 2002). The advantage of this type of marketing is the
ability to interact at a personal level and to present a clearly differentiated product.
Captivating experiences have a favorable effect on consumers’ attitudes, moods,
and behaviors (Demangeot and Broderick, 2006) and are able to match consumers to
products by evoking consumers’ feelings (Frost et al., 2008). Among the different forms
of online experiential marketing (e.g. blogs, chat rooms, virtual communities), narrative
advertising has attracted considerable attention and has been proposed as an effective
means to instill a positive experience and favorable attitudes toward an advertisement
and brand (e.g. Keng et al., 2011; Kozinets, 2010).
Recent advances in information technology (IT) have allowed marketers to design
internet-based narrative advertisements that capitalize on the unique features and
capabilities of the internet. Yet, research on the effects of the attributes of the internet
has been limited. Prior studies suggest that web site features and attributes often
contribute to online consumer behaviors (e.g. Eroglu et al., 2003; Turley and Milliman,
2000). For example, the initial perceptions of a site’s technological characteristics
can either encourage or discourage a consumer’s willingness to engage with the
site (Shih, 2004). Additionally, the atmosphere, the physical attributes of the web site’s
design (i.e. color, hue, visualizations, graphics, sound) that appeal to the consumer’s
emotions and encourage him/her to buy, have a significant influence on the consumer’s
choices and purchase intentions (Constantinides et al., 2010; Mandel and Johnson,
2002). Thus, in the online marketing environment, technology can play an influential
role in creating an atmosphere with high levels of interaction and entertainment
features that is conducive to buying and improving the experience (Luo et al., 2011).

Narrative advertising and transportation theory

Narrative advertising involves storytelling or communicating a lived experience that
unfolds in a sequence of events, conveys the storyteller’s reactions to the events,
describes the location and time, and captivates the audience (Padgett and Allen, 1997).
Narrative advertising can take the form of drama, transformation, or a slice-of-life
(Mick, 1987; Stern, 1994; Swatman et al., 2006). The narrative should deliver an
involved, self-relevant experience and should call upon the consumer to interpret the
narrative to understand the storied stimuli (e.g. actors with motives, an event sequence,
and setting that has physical, social, and temporal components) (Bruner, 1986;
Padgett and Allen, 1997). Narrative advertising unveils episodes “consisting of
actors engaged in actions to achieve goals” (Escalas, 1998, p. 273) through which it
presents the intangible benefits of the product (Batat and Wohlfeil, 2009). Narrative
advertising is processed through appeals to viewers’ subjective feelings and empathy
(Deighton et al., 1989), allowing viewers to construct mental simulations of Narrative online
hypothetical and self-relevant scenarios that elicit transportation and narrative advertising
persuasion (Escalas, 2004).
In advertising research, transportation refers to a conversion process in which
viewers of a narrative advertisement have the experience of being lost in the drama or
story and deeply immersed in the narrative world (Escalas, 2007; Green and Brock,
2000; Wang, 2006). The stories create scenarios in which viewers assume the role of a 417
main character, vicariously living the experience (Escalas, 2004) and performing
the drama (Bruner, 1986). In this way, viewers become so emotionally immersed in the
story that they lose connection to the real world. Escalas (2004) proposed that the
underlying mechanism of narrative transportation is mental simulation, which is
the “cognitive construction of hypothetical scenarios” (Taylor and Schneider, 1989,
p. 175) that generates a high degree of transportedness in viewers.
According to Green and Brock (2000), the evocation of transportedness is a result of
viewers’ cognitive attention to the unfolding events, their emotional involvement in the
characters with whom they identify, and their tendency to construct mental imagery.
A review of extant research on narrative advertising suggests that a number of
factors from three domains contribute to the successful completion of transportation.
A vivid and consumer-relevant narrative story can offer better elaboration of details
(Keller and Block, 1997), increase the realism of the experience, facilitate mental
imagery and simulation (Escalas, 2004), and thereby induce transportation and
increase the effectiveness of persuasion (Petrova and Cialdini, 2005). The realism of a
narrative allows consumers to simulate a direct experience by immersing themselves
in a character’s world (Escalas et al., 2004). Attitudes that are developed through such a
direct experience tend to be more confidently held, more enduring, and more resistant
to attack (Fazio and Zanna, 1981). A relatable and meaningful story is cognitively
and affectively engaging and allows consumers to bond with the main character and
to identify with his/her experience in the story. This self-referencing facilitates easy
mental simulation and heightens the effectiveness of persuasion via transportation
(Boller and Olson, 1991). Research further suggests that the superior effect of
narrative advertising hinges on the consumer’s cognitive capability (Chang, 2009)
and the continuity of his/her pleasurable immersion experience (Wang and Calder,
2006). Specifically, depletion of cognitive resources and an interruption of the
immersion experience may both hinder the transportation effect and diminish
favorable consumer attitudes.
Internet-based narrative advertising differs from advertising in traditional media
because the internet platform possesses technological capabilities that support unique
features ( Jiang and Benbasat, 2007), including interactivity between the consumer
and stimuli and entertainment elements (Childers et al., 2001), to captivate consumers
and influence their thinking. Traditional media cannot offer as much power to
consumers as internet-based online advertising can in today’s marketplace. Consumers
have unprecedented control over their advertisement viewing experiences in terms
of what they view, how they view it, how long they view it, and even the ability to
modify the story (Zeff and Arinson, 1999). In addition, online narrative advertising,
especially in the form of drama or storytelling, is often viewed as a form of
entertainment as much as persuasive communication. The effects of these unique
capabilities and characteristics of online narrative advertising remain unclear
(Ha, 2008). Prior studies have shown that product representation and the quality of an
online shopping experience have significant effects on attitudes toward online
INTR shopping (Burke, 2002; Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1997; Keng et al., 2011). A positive
23,4 attitude can be achieved not only by providing a simulated direct experience but also
by stimulating the moods of viewers/listeners. Consequently, both experiences
affect consumers’ evaluations of an object, such that positive moods lead to favorable
evaluations (Bagozzi et al., 1999). With online advertising, positive moods can be
achieved through consumer interface technologies that encourage positive moods in
418 consumers through auditory and visual stimulation (Baker et al., 2002; Batat and
Wohlfeil, 2009; Puccinelli and Zaltman, 2001).

Attitude toward a product

Attitude is often viewed as an index of the degree to which a person likes or dislikes
an object and carries favorable connotations (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980). It plays an
important part in determining a person’s behavioral choices and intentions (Dabholkar,
1994) because it reflects a person’s evaluation of an object (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977)
or evaluative judgment (Bagozzi et al., 1999) and embodies his/her salient beliefs
at a given point in time (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975). Changes to a person’s attitude
require changes to his/her salient beliefs. However, changing a salient belief requires
a change to the strength of the belief, a change to the evaluation of a belief, the creation
of a new belief, or a change of the belief to a non-salient status (Lutz, 1975, 1977). The
importance of forming a favorable attitude toward a product, the result of a consumer
holding favorable beliefs toward the product, is that it segues to purchase intention
(e.g. Jiang and Benbasat, 2007).

3. Research model and hypotheses

Drawing on extant literature, this study identified vividness and self-relevance,
and two internet-based elements, interactivity and entertainment, as four salient
elements that comprise online advertising. A model that incorporates the effects
of these elements on consumer attitude toward a product, and the moderating effect of
advertisement involvement is proposed (Figure 1).

Narrative online advertising elements and attitude toward a product

Interactivity. Interactivity is defined as the degree to which an individual can act on
and react to (i.e. influence or be influenced by) a particular stimulus (Florenthal and

Narrative Online
Advertising
Elements

Interactivity H1

Vividness H2

Attitude toward a product

H3
Entertainment

H4 Moderator
Self-referencing
H5a H5b H5c H5d
Figure 1.
Research model Advertisement Involvement
Shoham, 2010). In internet-based online applications (e.g. advertising), interactivity Narrative online
entails establishing direct two-way online communication between the user and the advertising
software application (Gurau, 2008). It is a key component in web site design (Ghose and
Dou, 1998; Macias, 2003). In an online advertising setting, interactivity allows
consumers to control what and how much they want to view through active links
or control buttons embedded in the screen or through their responses to events in the
story. Highly interactive advertisements give consumers a considerable level of control 419
and choice to help shape their online experience. The extant literature suggests that
high interactivity on online shopping web sites contributes to increased patronage,
such that the greater the degree of consumer-web site interactivity, the higher the level
of involvement, which, in turn, influences web site loyalty (Campbell and Wright, 2008;
Dann and Dann, 2004). Furthermore, high interactivity helps to build long-term
customer relationships (Fiore et al., 2005; Heldal et al., 2004).
Based on narrative transportation theory, interactivity should positively affect a
consumer’s attitude toward a product. High interactivity helps a consumer mentally
simulate scenarios that praise the virtues of the product and its consumption
(Schlosser, 2003). This high mental simulation leads to the (narrative) transportation
effect, engages consumers in the story (advertisement) in a “pleasurable and active
way” (Wang and Calder, 2006, p. 5), and encourages their active participation and
responses to increase the story’s realism and to transform their vicarious viewing
to a self-involving participatory experience. Enabling consumers to control and
participate in highly interactive online narrative advertisements can help consumers
to generate mental images of themselves as the major character in the story, making
mental simulation easier and smoother and ensuring the transportation effect. Thus,
high interactivity positively affects a consumer’s attitude toward a product:

H1. Advertisement interactivity positively affects a consumer’s attitude toward

a product.

Vividness. The literature suggests that perceived advertisement vividness is one

of the most prominent attributes of advertising that contributes to a consumer’s
emotional response (Mooradian et al., 2008). Vividness is defined as the
“representational richness of a mediated environment as defined by its formal
features, that is, the way in which an environment presents information to the senses”
(Steuer, 1992). It includes breadth, the number of senses that are engaged, and
depth, the quality or proximity to replicating parts of the human senses (e.g. three-
dimensional animations). A vivid advertisement is likely to attract a viewer’s attention,
emotionally engage him/her, provoke concrete imagery, and excite the imagination
(Nisbett and Ross, 1980). Additionally, web sites that are more vivid impress a more
enduring attitude on the viewer, particularly toward the site, than those that are less
vivid (Coyle and Thorson, 2001).
Prior research attests to the positive effects of vivid narrative advertisements on
experiential and emotional responses (Mooradian et al., 2008). Vividness involves the
clarity of images and significantly improves consumers’ understanding of a product,
enhances their beliefs that their virtual experiences are compatible with their physical
shopping behavior, and improves their shopping enjoyment ( Jiang and Benbasat,
2007 ). Furthermore, the richness of contextual details and attractive demonstrations
in an online narrative allow a consumer to form self-simulated mental imageries with
realism and ease, facilitate mental simulation (Petrova and Cialdini, 2005) and
INTR transportation, and enhance persuasion. Thus, the vividness of an advertisement
23,4 (i.e. the way it can touch the senses) can positively influence a consumer’s beliefs about
and attitude toward a product:

H2. Advertisement vividness positively affects a consumer’s attitude toward

a product.
420
Entertainment. Entertainment satisfies the pleasures of perusing the internet. Prior
research reveals that many people use the internet to seek enjoyment, relaxation, and
entertainment value (Childers et al., 2001; Mathwick et al., 2001), and they expect high
entertainment value in online advertising as well. Entertainment involves the
appreciation and savoring of all the nuances of an experience or the appreciation of
the retail spectacle (Mathwick et al., 2001). The experience can produce enjoyment
and fun (Babin et al., 1994), an intrinsic, personal, and emotional reward, a hedonic
value, including increased arousal, heightened involvement, perceived freedom,
fantasy fulfillment and escapism (Bloch and Richins, 1983), and vicarious consumption
(MacInnis and Price, 1987).
In light of narrative transportation theory, the current study proposes that when
processing a highly entertaining narrative online advertisement, consumers can be
easily transported by attention-getting, emotionally interesting, and imagery-
provoking entertainment (Batat and Wohlfeil, 2009) and can be prevented from
cognitively processing the advertisement’s argument strengths (Escalas, 1998). Highly
entertaining advertising also lures consumers into experiencing the narrative stories
as pleasurable activities. Once captivated, highly entertaining advertising evokes
consumers’ affective involvement, a sense of “fun, cool, entertaining, and fast flow of
time” (Wang and Calder, 2006, p. 152). Furthermore, such advertisements mesmerize
and retain the consumer’s attention, induce affective involvement, and facilitate the
consumer’s transport processing of the stories in the advertisement. Therefore, highly
entertaining advertising that stimulates affective responses and creates pleasure and
enjoyment can produce favorable attitudes toward a product:

H3. Advertisement entertainment positively affects a consumer’s attitude toward

a product.

Self-referencing. When viewing an advertisement, consumers often engage in

self-referencing, a process in which they apply the advertisement’s relevance to
themselves to judge its usefulness (Debevec and Iyer, 1988). Self-referencing is a
cognitive processing strategy that relates input information to an individual’s self-
construct (Burnkant and Unnava, 1995). It is practiced by encouraging consumers to
relate a product or situation to their experiences or self. Debevec and Romeo (1992)
found that individuals who were high in self-referencing possessed more positive
attitudes toward advertisements and products and consequently had more favorable
purchase intentions than individuals who were low in self-referencing. Furthermore,
a narrative that references landmarks may be more successful in forming a positive
attitude toward an object or advertisement because it lends greater relevance to the
object (Debevec and Romeo, 1992).
Self-referencing can be advertising evoked, self-focussed mental simulation that
involves the use of contextual details in the advertisement to construct a self-focussed
story (Escalas, 2004; Keng et al., 2011) or to anticipate scenarios in which the product
may be beneficial (Escalas, 2004). When consumers simulate an event, they frequently Narrative online
think about their own actual or potential behaviors and create behavioral episodes in advertising
which they become the main character (Fiske, 1993). As such, the transportation
effect is more likely to occur in high self-referencing consumers (Escalas, 2007).
In online narrative advertising, self-referencing creates mental simulations that build
self-imagery and lend interpretations to the event, leading to positive affective
responses. Thus, online narrative advertisements that promote self-referencing are 421
more successful in building positive attitudes toward a product:

H4. Self-referencing positively affects consumers’ attitudes toward a product.

The moderating effects of advertisement involvement

Involvement reflects a motivational state: the extent to which a person is motivated
to respond to a stimulus (Taylor and Thompson, 1982), direct his/her personal demand,
conception and interest to the product (Zaichkowsky, 1985), and achieve a desired
outcome (Wang and Calder, 2006). Highly involved consumers often exhibit higher
cognition and more information-processing activities than those with lower
involvement (Petty et al., 1983). In the context of advertising, advertisement
involvement is a person’s intrinsic motivation to cognitively process the content of an
advertised message (Laczniak and Muehling, 1993). Consumers with a high level of
advertisement involvement will carefully scrutinize the message’s claims, make a
greater effort to examine these claims, and persist in their efforts in the context of
personal factors, such as values, personal relevance, and beliefs. Thus, advertisement
involvement reflects a person’s desire and motivation to achieve an outcome and can be
considered a moderator or enhancer.
The current study focusses on consumers’ involvement in messages embedded
in a narrative online advertisement (i.e. advertisement involvement). When consumers
visit a web site, they often actively seek content (information) or entertainment that
not only attracts their interests but also has personal relevance and increases
their motivation to cognitively process the message. Prior studies that have
investigated involvement with traditional media have reported a deteriorating
effect of subsequent advertisement effectiveness in a highly involving media context
external to the advertisement (e.g. Chang, 2009). However, involvement in the
content of the advertisement itself may affect transportation. Narrative transportation
theory suggests that highly involved consumers are motivated to mentally simulate
scenarios in which the advertised product may be relevant and useful (Wang and
Calder, 2006). Such mental simulation facilitates the convergent process of
transportation (Green and Brock, 2000) and reflects the degree of the consumer’s
experiential involvement, or “being hooked” (Escalas et al., 2004). To the extent allowed
by cognitive capacity, consumers who are highly involved in advertisement content
are more likely to experience and complete the transportation process, and these
consumers report favorable advertisement and brand attitudes (Chang, 2009).
Highly interactive online advertisements give consumers control and choices in
their participatory experience with the narrative story, which enhances their sense of
vicariously living the experience of the characters in the narrative advertisement
(Escalas, 2004; Wang and Calder, 2006) and invites them to react and respond to the
narrative story as it unfolds. Although such high engagement imposes high cognitive
demands on the consumer’s information processing and decision making, a highly
involved consumer is more likely to experience an increase in his/her cognitive
INTR capacity. Because narrative transportation depends on a consumer’s cognitive capacity
23,4 (Chang, 2009), high advertisement involvement may increase the consumer’s cognitive
capacity and enhance the transportation effect on product attitudes. Therefore,
a participatory experience in a highly interactive advertisement may facilitate
transportation to produce a favorable attitude toward the product:

422 H5a. High advertisement involvement enhances the positive relationship between
interactivity and attitude toward a product.

The representational richness of vivid online advertisements appeals to the consumer’s

senses (Steuer, 1992) and can offer a wealth of details and clues that the consumer
can use to interpret and elaborate on the advertisement’s content. Highly involved
consumers will seek and focus on such details and clues to cognitively process them
(Keng et al., 2011). As such, highly involved consumers are more likely to become
immersed in a narrative advertisement, both affectively (via the vividness of the story)
and cognitively (by processing its content) and subsequently may experience
transportation. Thus, high advertisement involvement enhances the transportation
process triggered by vivid online advertising to produce a favorable attitude toward
a product:

H5b. High advertisement involvement enhances the positive relationship between

vividness and attitude toward a product.

Entertainment in narrative online advertising appeals to the consumer’s sense of

enjoyment, relaxation, and emotion (Babin et al., 1994) and encourages the consumer
to affectively engage and immerse him/herself in the narrative story (Wang and Calder,
2006). Because affective involvement is often closely associated with cognitive
involvement (Chang, 2009), cognitively involved consumers will both engage in
cognitive processing of the advertisement’s content and enjoy affective involvement
with the highly entertaining advertisement (Edwards et al., 2002). A person who is
characterized by high advertisement involvement will engage in the cognitive
processing of the advertisement’s content (Chang, 2009) and will enjoy affective
involvement due to the advertisement’s highly entertaining features (Wang and Calder,
2006). Together, these features entice the consumer to immerse him/herself in the
storied world. Because cognitive and affective involvement reinforce one another
and facilitate narrative transportation, high advertisement involvement can be
expected to strengthen the transportation effect of entertainment and to moderate
(enhance) the relationship between entertainment and attitude toward a product:

H5c. High advertisement involvement enhances the positive relationship between

entertainment and attitude toward a product.

Prior research suggests that a person’s high involvement in a message’s content is

frequently associated with higher personal (self-)referencing, personal goals, and
product consumption (Wang and Calder, 2006). When the association is strong,
more personal connections occur (Petty et al., 1983). When coupled with high cognitive
processing, these connections will further reinforce the consumer’s feeling of
self-reference, facilitate his/her mental simulation of product consumption, and
commence narrative transportation (Escalas, 2004). Thus, high advertisement
involvement should strengthen the self-referencing effect on transportation and the Narrative online
narrative transportation effect on favorable attitudes toward a product: advertising
H5d. High advertisement involvement enhances the positive relationship between
self-referencing and attitude toward a product.

The proposed model identifies salient elements and a moderator as well as the 423
interrelationships that lead to a positive attitude toward a product. Four hypotheses
are developed to test the direct effects of each narrative online advertising element
on attitude toward a product. A fifth hypothesis (divided into four sub-hypotheses)
tests the moderating effect of advertisement involvement on each direct effect.

4. Research methods
Measure development
A survey instrument was developed with measures adapted from previous studies
(Table I). Minor modifications were made to the measures to suit the study’s context.
The measures were then tested following standard scale development guidelines
(Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). All construct items (measures) were measured on a
seven-point Likert-type scale (1 ¼ strongly disagree, 7 ¼ strongly agree). Because this
study was conducted in Taiwan, all items were translated from English to Chinese and
back to English for vetting. When necessary, adjustments were made to the Chinese
translation.
A pilot study was planned to determine whether the psychometric properties were
adequately preserved, to evaluate the suitability of the narrative online advertisements,
and to test the survey instrument for measurement validity. Several domain experts
were called upon to review the instrument and provide their recommendations. After
the necessary adjustments were completed, the survey was posted on the my3Q web
site (www.my3q.com) for two weeks. A total of 101 responses were received, of which
90 were usable.
An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed on the 90 responses for
construct validity, and Cronbach’s a’s were computed for each construct to test the
construct reliability. As a result of the EFA, two items (one for interactivity and the
other for vividness) were deleted. Additionally, minor adjustments were made to the
wording of some items to improve their clarity.

Construct References

Narrative online advertising elements

Interactivity Ko et al. (2005), Liu (2003)
Entertainment Chen and Wells (1999), Ko et al. (2005)
Vividness Bone and Ellen (1992)
Self-referencing Burnkant and Unnava (1995)
Dependent variables
Attitude toward the product Appiah (2001) Table I.
Moderating variables Items adapted from
Advertisement involvement Lee (2000) prior research
INTR Data collection
23,4 Data were collected using the refined online questionnaire and through the Chunghwa
Telecom web site (qqq.cht.com.tw). Participants were asked to select one product from
a list of four products that they would seriously consider purchasing in the near future:
an automobile from Nissan Tiida, a MP3 player branded Elio, a bottle of perfume from
Kiss, or a bag of potato chips from Lay’s. After making their selections, participants
424 were directed to answer a set of questions regarding their respective products. Upon
completing the questions, the participants followed a hyperlink that led them to the
actual retailer’s web site to view a narrative online advertisement featuring the
product. The four advertisements selected as stimuli for this research had the following
characteristics: all four advertisements conformed to the definition of a narrative
advertisement in the literature (Padgett and Allen, 1997) and were internet-based
online narrative advertisements in the form of storytelling and drama; all had pertinent
online narrative advertising features that were of primary interest in this study; all
were common products for which viewers could easily imagine consumption; and the
four advertisements represented different consumer product categories to minimize
possible product bias. For example, in the Elio-branded MP3 player advertisement,
viewers watched a young, up-and-coming male business executive who had to juggle
between his challenging office life and his after-hours social life. The Elio-branded
MP3 player not only enabled him to communicate with his boss efficiently regarding a
business meeting, which eventually led to his career advancement, but also allowed
him to relax and enjoy his favorite music afterwards. As a result, the character was
able to enjoy a vibrant life and simultaneously overcome its hardships. Instead of
emphasizing Elio’s enormous storage capacity, this advertisement downplayed the
product’s utilitarian aspect and emphasized its value for lifestyle and enjoyment by
presenting a narrative story. Similarly, in the advertisement for Lay’s potato chips,
a young, fun-loving man brought tubes (different flavors) of Lay’s potato chips to an
outdoor party. When he opened them, colorful screens popped up to suggest the joy
and excitement of the people at the party. The advertisements for the Nissan Tiida and
the Kiss perfume were similar, each highlighting a lifestyle associated with the product
while downplaying the utilitarian benefits. After finishing the advertisement, the
participants were connected to the remaining portion of the questionnaire. Convenience
store vouchers and a sweepstakes were used as incentives to encourage participants
to complete the survey. Of the 1,281 questionnaires that were collected after three
weeks, 816 were deemed usable (229 viewed the car, 109 the perfume, 132 the potato
chips, and 346 the MP3 player), and 465 data points were discarded, mainly due to
missing or invalid data on the second part of the questionnaire or failure to correctly
answer the manipulation check question.

Data validation check

Table II summarizes the sample’s demographic characteristics. The sample contains
a wide range of internet usage behaviors and diversity among occupations (after
removing the student group). A majority of the sample spends two to eight hours a day
on the internet (63.6 percent). Interestingly, the sample’s proportion of female
respondents slightly overshadows that of males, (53 and 47 percent, respectively) but
closely reflects Taiwan’s general population (49 percent females vs 51 percent males).
The vast majority of respondents reported having (or currently receiving) a college
education (95.8 percent) and were clustered in the 21- to 30-year-old age group (79.2
percent). Thus, based on these qualities, the sample was deemed appropriate for this
Variable Category n % of total
Narrative online
advertising
Gender Male 387 47.4
Female 429 52.6
Age o20 years 103 12.6
21-30 years 646 79.2
31-40 years 49 6.0 425
41-50 years 10 1.2
51-60 years 8 1.0
460 years 0 0.0
Education Junior high school or less 3 0.4
Senior high school 31 3.8
College undergraduate 586 71.8
College graduate and above 196 24.0
Occupation Student 509 62.4
Housekeeper 16 2.0
Government (public sector) 47 5.8
Business 35 4.3
Service industry 69 8.5
Freelance 18 2.2
Manufacturing 55 6.7
Other 67 8.2
Monthly disposable income oNT5,000 (EUS$154) 267 32.7
NT5,000-10,000 (EUS$308) 240 29.4
NT10,001-15,000 (EUS$462) 85 10.4
NT15,001-20,000 (EUS$616) 36 4.4
NT20,001-25,000 (EUS$770) 39 4.8
NT25,001-30,000 (EUS$924) 42 5.1
NT30,001-35,000 (EUS$1,078) 38 4.7
435,001 69 8.5
Frequency of internet usage Not often 9 1.1
o2 hours/day 106 13.0
2-4 hours/day 254 31.1
4-8 hours/day 265 32.5 Table II.
48 hours/day 182 22.3 Respondent demographics

research because most respondents possessed sufficient capability, history, and

knowledge to ensure the quality of the captured information.

5. Data analysis and results

Measure purification and validation
Measures were purified following Anderson and Gerbing (1988). As a result, three
items were deleted due to either a factor loading lower than 0.60 or a cross-loading
behavior. The EFA produced the expected four narrative online advertising factors
(elements): interactivity explained 21.91 percent of the variance, vividness 20.53
percent, entertainment 19.64 percent, and self-referencing 12.89 percent (the four
factors explained 74.97 percent of the variance). Additionally, the Cronbach’s a’s for all
factors surpassed the recommended 0.70 threshold (Nunnally, 1978), and the scale
factor loadings all exceeded the recommended 0.70 benchmark (Churchill, 1979),
providing evidence for construct reliability and convergent validity (Bagozzi and Yi,
1991; Churchill, 1979), respectively. Table III contains the Cronbach’s a values and
the EFA factor loadings. Furthermore, a confirmatory factory analysis reported the
 23,4

426
INTR

Table III.

factor loadings
Cronbach’s a and EFA
Attitude toward a Advertisement
Loadings less than 0.600 not shown Vividness Entertainment Self-referencing Interactivity product involvement

Vividness Cronbach’s a 0.875 0.911 0.916 0.787 0.944 0.934

Appearance looks clear 0.788
Appearance looks vivid 0.762
Appearance looks lifelike 0.755
Euphonious sound effects 0.649
Multimedia technology made ad 0.681
vivid and rich
Entertainment Contents are fun 0.741
Contents are cool 0.733
Process entertaining 0.772
Flow (time passed fast) 0.642
Self-referencing Ad made me think about product 0.710
use
Ad written with me in mind 0.792
Ad related to me personally 0.873
Ad made me think about my 0.890
experiences in life
Inter-activity Control over experience 0.840
Chose freely what I wanted to see 0.860
Stay longer for details 0.624
Attitude toward Believe ad is interesting 0.814
a product
Think product is good 0.879
Positive evaluation toward product 0.870
Product is worthy to buy 0.711
Product attractive 0.732
Advertisement Paid attention to content of ad 0.870
involvement
Concentrated on content of ad 0.888
Thought about content of ad 0.909
Spent effort looking at content of ad 0.878
Carefully read content of ad 0.877
goodness of fit index (GFI), normed fit index (NFI) and comparative fit index (CFI) Narrative online
as 0.89, 0.93, and 0.96, respectively, all exceeding or approaching the standard advertising
0.90 benchmark (Bentler, 1990). This suggests a plausible model fit. Table IV
summarizes the mean and standard deviation for each construct, the values of
inter-construct correlations, and the average variances extracted (AVE) values. The
AVE values met or exceeded the recommended 0.50 (Barclay et al., 1995), lending
support to construct reliability and convergent validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). 427
Discriminant validity was evidenced by the square root values of AVEs, all of which
exceeded their inter-construct correlations (Peter, 1981).
In addition, we examined the respondents’ demographics to determine whether
they had a significant impact on consumers’ attitudes toward products. The results
of an ANOVA (in Appendix) suggested that three demographic variables, age, gender,
and income, were highly associated with attitudes toward products. Thus, we include
these three as control variables in our proposed model.

Model fit and hypothesis testing

Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. The
overall model testing yielded a w2 of 657.228 with 223 degrees of freedom ( p40.001)
and a w2/df ratio of 2.947, indicating a plausible model fit (Marsh and Hocevar, 1985).
All of the model’s GFI, including the GFI, the adjusted goodness of fit index, the CFI,
and the NFI, exceeded or approached the recommended standard of 0.90 (Bentler,
1990). The root mean square error of approximation was reported at 0.049, well below
the recommended 0.08 cutoff. Together, all goodness of fit measures indicated a
probable model fit (Table V).
H1 through H4 address the relationships between the narrative online advertising
elements and attitudes toward a product. Essentially, greater levels of interactivity,
vividness, entertainment, and self-referencing in an advertisement lead to more

Mean SD AVE I V E S A Ad I

Interactivity (I) 4.822 1.149 0.565 0.752

Vividness (V) 5.159 0.979 0.604 0.482*** 0.777
Entertainment (E) 4.951 1.167 0.710 0.431** 0.712** 0.843
Self-referencing (S) 4.466 1.232 0.703 0.453** 0.471** 0.603** 0.739
Attitude toward a product (A) 5.028 1.049 0.762 0.452** 0.519** 0.597** 0.634** 0.873
Advertisement involvement (Ad I) 5.030 1.040 0.728 0.422** 0.427** 0.427** 0.397** 0.525** 0.854 Table IV.
Mean, standard
Notes: **po0.01; *** po0.001 deviations, correlations

Fit indices Recommended criteria Result of current study

GFI (goodness of fit index) X0.9 0.937

AGFI (adjusted goodness of fit index) X0.8 0.915
CFI (comparative fit index) X0.9 0.97
NFI (normed fit index) X0.9 0.955
RMSEA (root mean square error approximation) o0.08 0.049 Table V.
w2 ¼ 657.228, df ¼ 223, w2/df ¼ 2.947 Model’s goodness of fit
INTR favorable attitudes toward the product. The results of a path analysis yielded positive
23,4 and significant standardized coefficients (binteractivity ¼ 0.12, po0.01; bvividness ¼ 0.13,
po0.01; bentertainment ¼ 0.22, po0.001; bself-referencing ¼ 0.42, po0.001) (Figure 2) and
lend full support to H1 through H4. Particularly noteworthy is the magnitude
of the standardized coefficient for self-referencing (0.42), which suggests that
self-referencing has a substantial effect on transportation in forming product attitudes.
428 Moreover, gender, the control variable, revealed a positive and significant standardized
coefficient (bgender ¼ 0.05, po0.05), suggesting that gender has a significant effect on
the proposed model.
Four hierarchical multiple regression models were created in AMOS 5.0 to test the
hypothesized moderating effects. Composite scores were produced for each construct
(from the sum of its items) and represent the first independent variable. An interaction
term, the multiplicative product of a single composite score and the moderator
variable, was used to measure the moderating effect and represents the second
independent variable. Models 1, 2, and 3 (Table VI) tested the moderating effects of
advertisement involvement on the relationships between the four narrative online
elements and attitudes toward a product (the dependent variable). Model 1 tested
the main effects of the narrative online elements on attitudes toward a product; the
results were positive and significant. The moderator, advertisement involvement, was
introduced into Model 2, which tested its direct effect on attitudes toward a product.
The significant result suggests that advertisement involvement has a positive effect on
attitude. Model 3 included the four interaction terms (i.e. interactivity  advertisement
involvement, vividness  advertisement involvement, entertainment  advertisement
involvement, self-referencing  advertisement involvement). The model yielded
mixed results. For the moderating effect on the relationship between interactivity
and attitude, the coefficient was negative and significant (b ¼ 0.42, po0.05). In
contrast, the moderating effect on self-referencing and attitude was positive and
significant (b ¼ 0.24, po0.05). Similarly, the moderating effect on the relationships
between vividness and attitude (b ¼ 0.03, p40.05) and entertainment and attitude

Narrative Online
Advertising Elements
Age Gender Income

Interactivity
0.05*
–0.2 –0.1
0.12**
Vividness
0.13** Attitude Toward a
Product
Entertainment 0.22***

0.42***
Self-referencing

Figure 2.
Direct effects
Notes: *p<0.05; **p <0.01; ***p<0.001
 Dependent variable: attitude toward a product
Narrative online
Main Moderator Moderated advertising
effect directed effect effect
Path Model 1 Model 2 Model 3

Interactivity-attitude toward a product 0.12* 0.09* 0.4*

Vividness-attitude toward a product 0.13* 0.1 0.04 429
Entertainment-attitude toward a product 0.22*** 0.22*** 0.19
Self-referencing-attitude toward a product 0.42*** 0.42*** 0.15*
Age-attitude toward a product 0.02 0.03 0.02
Gender-attitude toward a product 0.06* 0.07* 0.05*
Income-attitude toward a product 0.01 0.01 0.001
Advertisement involvement-attitude toward a product 0.21*** 0.26*
Interactivity  advertisement involvement-attitude toward
a product 0.42*
Vividness  advertisement involvement-attitude toward a
product 0.03
Entertainment  advertisement involvement-attitude
toward a product 0.004 Table VI.
Self-referencing  advertisement involvement-attitude Direct and moderating
toward a product 0.24* effects for narrative online
advertising elements to
Notes: * po0.05; ***po0.001 attitude toward a product

(b ¼ 0.004, p40.05) were not significant. Thus, the results support H5d, but not H5a,
H5b, or H5c. Advertisement involvement enhances the effect of self-referencing on
attitudes toward a product.

5. Discussion and conclusion

The current study examined the effects of four narrative online advertising elements
(i.e. interactivity, vividness, entertainment, and self-referencing) on consumer
attitudes toward the featured product and the moderating effects of advertisement
involvement on these relationships. Transportation theory, particularly mental
simulation, was employed to explain the impact of narrative online advertising
elements on consumer information processing and the effectiveness of narrative
persuasion in the context of online narrative advertising. The findings suggest that a
highly interactive, vivid, entertaining advertisement to which a consumer can relate
facilitates the development of favorable product attitude, although these positive
effects are contingent upon the degree to which a consumer is cognitively involved in
the content of an advertisement.
Specifically, greater self-referencing in the narrative advertisement induces
transportation in the consumer and leads to favorable attitudes. Similarly,
entertaining narrative advertising promotes consumer immersion by providing
entertaining contextual details and elaboration that evoke emotional responses and
facilitate mental simulation. In general, this study’s empirical findings are consistent
with the extant literature and provide insights for advertising practitioners to
effectively manage and design such advertisements. The positive effect of self-
referencing is further enhanced by the consumer’s cognitive involvement in processing
the message of the narrative online advertisement. Highly involved consumers are
exposed to a rich set of visual, auditory, and cognitive cues that arouse and stimulate
their senses and help them to relate their experiences to the advertisement’s story,
INTR especially when the narrative is structured similarly to the ways consumers receive
23,4 information in their daily life experiences.
The results suggest that advertisement involvement did not show positive and
significant effects on the relationship between vividness and entertainment with
the attitude toward a product. An uninterrupted pleasant experience with a narrative
advertisement is highly associated with a successful convergent process of
430 transportation and frequently leads to a favorable product evaluation and the
development of favorable attitudes toward the product. However, the positive effects
of vividness and entertainment on consumers’ attitudes seem to remain the same
regardless of their cognitive involvement in the advertisement’s content. Vividness
and entertainment stimulate affective involvement, which facilitates immersion and
transportation in the consumer’s processing of the advertisement. However,
advertisement involvement reflects the consumer’s cognitive involvement in the
advertisement’s content. Previous studies have rarely distinguished affective
involvement from cognitive involvement. However, the findings of this study
suggest that although the two may be closely associated, affective involvement and
cognitive involvement work independently of each other in the consumer’s processing
of the advertisement. Thus, a highly vivid and entertaining advertisement is likely
to induce a favorable attitude toward a product, and a consumer’s cognitive
engagement in the advertisement’s content has little impact on his/her immersion
and enjoyment of the experience.
A particularly interesting finding is that cognitive involvement in the content of an
advertisement weakens the positive relationship between interactivity and the
consumer’s attitude toward the product. Although greater cognitive attention to an
advertisement’s content strengthens (enhances) the positive effect of a vivid and
self-referencing advertisement on attitude, greater involvement in an advertisement’s
content appears to mitigate the effect of interactivity on attitude. The extant literature
on narrative advertising and transportation suggests that the transportation effect
of narrative advertising is contingent upon the viewer’s cognitive capability (Chang,
2009). Specifically, highly involving tasks, such as reading narrative editorials,
are cognitively demanding and may deplete an individual’s cognitive resources, deter
the transportation process, and, consequently, attenuate persuasion effectiveness.
Interactivity, as a unique feature of online advertising, offers a high level of control
over the consumer’s interactions, but at the same time, it creates potential decisions
about what should be done next. Because decision making requires information
processing that can be cognitively demanding, a consumer who is also highly involved
in processing the advertisement’s content will likely experience limited leftover
cognitive resources to successfully complete the transportation convergent process.
Thus, when highly involved consumers are required by a highly interactive online
advertisement to perform two cognitively demanding tasks, the depletion of their
cognitive resources deteriorates the transportation process and mitigates the positive
effect of interactivity on consumer attitude.
The current study’s findings also suggest that a highly interactive narrative online
advertisement has a positive effect on favorable attitude. High interactivity allows
consumers to enjoy elevated control of their viewing process (Bezjian-Avery et al.,
1998). As such, consumers who are drawn into these advertisements are prompted
to actively participate in the story as it unfolds and are encouraged to engage in and
vicariously live the experience of the story’s characters. The participatory experience
drives the consumer to further immerse and lose him/herself in the self-constructed
alternative world (Wang and Calder, 2006). This facilitates the transportation effect Narrative online
and contributes to producing a favorable attitude toward a product. advertising
This study revealed intriguing findings that contribute to the body of knowledge
about online narrative advertising research. This study expanded the boundaries
of transportation theory and its explanatory power from narrative advertising in
traditional media to internet-based online advertising, a new and rapidly growing
field of research. This study empirically tested the unique characteristics of online 431
narrative advertising and their effects on consumer attitude. As such, the study
advanced narrative advertising research and provided empirical evidence of the effects
of pertinent characteristics of internet-based advertising, interactivity, and
entertainment in the conversion process of transportation and consumer attitudes.
Moreover, this study identified and shed light on important contingencies
(i.e. advertisement involvement) of the focal relationships. These moderating
contingencies certainly warrant further discussion and research because they offer
possible explanations for how the effects of narrative online advertising may vary as
consumers pay attention to the content of narrative advertisements.
Furthermore, this study provides important research and practical implications.
Narrative advertising induces consumers to vicariously experience the purchase
and consumption of a product or service through storytelling or drama. Advertisers
must understand the potential effects of IT-enabled features that take consumers
beyond static displays and images and immerse consumers in a virtual dynamic and
interactive world. The four elements represent important factors that enhance and
enrich the storytelling experience, allowing the consumer to become an active
participant through interactivity, entertaining the consumer through episodes
encapsulating goals, actions, and outcomes, relating the consumer’s narrative
experiences to his/her stored experiences, and persuading the consumer through the
vividness of the presentation. If properly designed, a narrative online advertisement
can fully utilize important internet-enabled features and can maximize its potential to
produce a favorable consumer attitude toward a featured product. Furthermore,
interactive advertising is unique to internet-based marketing communications, and
advertisers are often inclined to take advantage of interactive interface features in an
attempt to engage online consumers. However, our findings suggest that although a
highly interactive narrative advertisement can promote transportation and induce
favorable consumer attitudes, high involvement in the content of an advertisement
may, in fact, have a detrimental effect on this relationship. This finding is particularly
relevant and intriguing because the primary goal of advertising is to deliver brand
and product information to a targeted market, and advertisers expect their target
audience to find products relevant and beneficial. As such, it is natural that the target
audience should be at least somewhat interested in seeking information about this
content and should be cognitively involved in processing this information. Although
advertisers often find high advertisement involvement advantageous because it can
enhance the positive effect of self-relevant narrative advertisements on favorable
attitudes, it is imperative to maintain a balance between content involvement and
interactivity when designing an effective online narrative advertisement. Excessive
advertisement content in combination with highly interactive advertising may
overload the consumer’s cognitive capabilities, hinder his/her immersion in the
narrative story, and negate favorable attitudes toward the advertised product.
Advertisers must adequately address the balance between an online advertisement’s
interactivity and content in its design.
INTR 6. Limitations and future research
23,4 The results of this research do not come without limitations. Because this study was
conducted with consumers in Taiwan, a number of confounding factors, such as
culture and social trends and norms, may have been introduced. The respondents
were mostly younger consumers between 21 and 30 years old. Although this sample
may be the appropriate for the products used in the survey, it may lead to a narrow
432 variance in the responses. Therefore, until this research is replicated in other contexts
(e.g. products and age groups) and markets, generalization of the results should be
performed with caution. However, although these limitations are acknowledged, the
four narrative online advertising antecedents to product attitude, the moderating effect
of advertisement involvement, and the overall model should perform equally well.
Additionally, this study was conducted using a self-administered online questionnaire.
Although this approach may subject the study to potential threats of subjectivity
and common biases of the respondents, the rigorous data collection procedures,
including the pilot test, produced valid and high quality data. Some measures in this
study may be further validated and improved.
The rapid increase in internet advertising and new technology-enabled
features offers enormous opportunities for advertisers and advertising researchers.
The current study examined the relationships between four salient elements of
internet-based narrative online advertising (interactivity, vividness, entertainment,
and self-referencing), their effects on consumers’ attitudes toward a product, and the
contingency effect of involvement. Future research could expand this study to other
contexts and markets with different advertising stimuli, including additional unique
characteristics of online advertising, and could investigate their effects on other
outcome variables. Alternatively, researchers could explore and clarify the underlying
mechanism of the transportation process in online advertising, especially with highly
interactive narrative advertisements.

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Appendix

Source Sum of squares df Mean squares F-value Significance

Age
Between groups 28.013 4 7.003 7.562*** 0.000
Within groups 751.045 811 0.926
Total 779.058 815
Gender
Between groups 112.640 1 112.640 137.585*** 0.000
Within groups 666.417 814 0.819
Total 779.058 815
Education
Between groups 5.331 3 1.777 1.865 0.134
Within groups 773.727 812 0.953
Total 779.058 815
Occupation
Between groups 7.086 7 1.012 1.060 0.388
Within groups 771.971 808 0.955
Total 779.058 815
Monthly disposable income
Between groups 20.413 7 2.916 3.106** 0.003
Within groups 758.645 808 0.939
Total 779.058 815
Frequency of internet usage
Between groups 3.255 4 0.814 0.851 0.493
Within groups 775.802 811 0.957
Total 779.058 815 Table AI.
ANOVA results of the
a
Notes: Dependent variable: attitude toward a product. **po0.01; *** po0.001 demographic variablesa
INTR About the authors
Russell K.H. Ching was a Professor and Associate Dean of the Undergraduate Program in the
23,4 College of Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento. Dr Ching
received his doctorate from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. His research in service
management, CRM, e-business and organizational absorptive capacity has been published
in various journals and international conference proceedings. Dr Ching passed away on
438 May 25, 2012.
Pingsheng Tong is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the College of Business
Administration, California State University, Sacramento. She received her doctorate from
Washington State University. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Business and Industrial
Marketing and Journal of Education for Business among others.
Ja-Shen Chen is currently a Professor and Dean of College of Management in Yuan Ze
University, Taiwan. He holds M.S. and Ph.D., both in Decision Sciences from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, NY. His research interests include service innovation, customer
relationship management, and e-business management. He has published a number of
research articles including recent ones which appeared in Information & Management,
Industrial and Marketing Management, Journal of Service Research and OMEGA. He also
actively associates with industries as a consultant or a principal project investigator. Ja-Shen
Chen is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: jchen@saturn.yzu.edu.tw
Hung-Yen Chen received her MBA degree from the College of Management, Yuan Ze
University. She is currently a product strategy engineer at HannStar Display Corporation.

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