Entertainment and Informativeness as Precursory Factors of Successful Mobile Advertising Messages

Abstract

The growth of mobile devices has created a new communication channel for companies. The use of Short Messaging Service (SMS) allows marketers to directly communicate with their consumers anytime and anyplace making mobile advertising an ideal advertising tool. Borrowing the technology acceptance model (TAM) we use utilitarian (informativeness) and hedonic aspects (entertainment) of mobile advertising in order to investigate how these aspects affect consumers´ attitudes toward mobile advertising; to contrast the impact of general opinion about advertising on mobile attitudes; and to study the relationship between attitudes on behavioral intentions in mobile environments. Data were collected from 429 users of different countries. Structural modeling techniques were applied to analyze the data. The results indicate that attitude toward mobile advertising depend on the level of entertainment and informativeness of a mobile advertising and there is a direct relationship between consumer attitudes and consumer behavior. Finally, some implications for practice are discussed.