Attitude toward Location-based Advertising

Abstract

Location-based advertising (LBA) is not new but being able to access it through one's mobile communication device is. Description of this revolutionary advertising medium is provided as well as some opportunities and challenges that come with it. Desperately needed is more scholarly research since in-depth examination of the topic has barely begun. To assist researchers in their investigations, a scale is provided here that is likely to become central to many studies: attitude toward location-based advertising (Alba).Support for the scale's psychometric quality comes from a preliminary study and a twostage analysis of a large, national sample. 2 ATTITUDE TOWARD LOCATION-BASED ADVERTISINGWe are approaching a time when the ability will exist to contact individuals at any time, at any place. This is due to the ubiquity of mobile devices, particularly mobile phones with GPS functionality. The technology holds the potential for marketers to send information and offers to consumers based on their proximity to places where the marketers' products are available.Given the growing ability to reach people in a much more targeted manner than was possible in the past, the next question one must ask is, what do consumers think about it? If consumers have generally positive attitudes toward such advertising, then this could be the very technology that allows m-commerce to kick into high gear. If consumers are generally negative about it then advertisers will have to sell the medium first before they can successfully use it to sell other things.Mobile advertising in general is only beginning to receive scholarly examination.A specific type of mobile advertising, location-based advertising (LBA), has received even less scholarly attention. One purpose of this paper is to describe LBA. To facilitate future studies by academic and industry researchers, a second purpose of this paper is to provide a multi-item scale for measuring the construct. The results of a preliminary study and a two-stage process of refining and testing the scale are reported along with the implications for future research.

Customization in location-based advertising: Effects of tailoring source, locational congruity, and product involvement on ad attitudes

“…Sundar (2008b) argues that some modalities that are unique to digital media (e.g., pop-up ads on websites) tend to negatively influence content evaluations because they appear unsolicited, causing disturbance and irritation. Given that the mere recognition of an advertising attempt is intrusive enough to cause psychological disturbance (Edwards et al, 2002) and that unwanted information distracts users even when it is in fact useful (Bruner & Kumar, 2007), the sudden, unexpected appearance of LBA on mobile devices may lead to involuntary recognition of the ad, thus hijacking user attention and interfering with cognitive processing (Edwards et al, 2002). Thus, perceived intrusiveness in advertising generally has negative effects on user attitudes toward ad content.…”

“…LBA uses location-tracking technologies such as the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Galileo Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) to pinpoint users' real-time locations and deliver location-specific ads on their mobile devices. Ads delivered via mobile LBA tend to be highly individualized, with instant, personalized, and location-aware characteristics that cater to the specific needs of each ad recipient (Bruner & Kumar, 2007;Dhar & Varshney, 2011). Such individualization and geo-conquesting serve to make LBAs more likely to attract click-throughs because of the timeliness of the ad offers.…”

Location-aware service applied to mobile short message advertising: Design, development, and evaluation

“…By contrast, the push-oriented LBAM has two options. One is opt-in, which sends advertising messages only after obtaining the users' permission; the other is opt-out, which directly sends messages without permission until the users refuse the receipt of the messages (Bruner & Kumar, 2007;Unni & Harmon, 2007). Based on one of their experimental findings, Unni and Harmon (2007) reported that consumers prefer the pull-oriented LBAM because of their concern on intrusiveness.…”

FTrack: Infrastructure-free floor localization via mobile phone sensing

“…For any pair of the S states on floor k, the probability that their next S states are on floor m (k < m) is 1/(f − k) 2 . We know the probability of merging any two S states on floor m is p m .…”

“…Such applications can be microblogging [1], location based advertising [2], local traffic [3], etc. In a multi-floor building environment, knowing the floor level of a mobile user is particularly useful to a variety of LBAs.…”