| dc.description.abstract | The main goal of the present study was to test the advertisement effectiveness of immersive virtual reality (VR) systems. Two experimental studies were conducted to address the goal. The first experiment was done to compare the effects of an immersive VR interface and a traditional non-VR 2-D interface on consumers’ perceived presence, brand recall, perceived product knowledge, ad attitude, brand attitude, purchase intention, and sharing intention. The second study was conducted to identify and compare the effects of a high immersive VR system and a low immersive VR system. In addition, study 2 focused on examining the effects of modality interactivity (a type of interactivity) and sensory breadth (a type of vividness) on both platforms. In doing so, the study also tested how the perceived media novelty moderated the effects of immersive VR system type on consumers’ responses. Finally, the mediating role of presence was examined in both studies.
Results of study 1 revealed that an immersive VR ad is more effective in creating users’ sense of presence, ad attitude, purchase intentions and sharing intentions than a 2-D ad. The mediation analysis also confirmed an indirect effect of interface type on such variables via different dimensions of presence (e.g., spatial presence, engagement, and naturalness). Interestingly, although significant direct effects of interface type were not found on participants’ brand recall, perceived product knowledge, and brand attitude, the mediation analysis identified indirect effects of interface type on such variables via different dimensions of presence.
Results of study 2 revealed that a high immersive VR system is more effective in creating sense of presence and sharing intentions than a low immersive VR system. Although most of the direct effects of the immersive VR type were absent, the mediation analysis confirmed indirect effects of the immersive VR type on all variables (i.e., brand recall, perceived product knowledge, ad attitude, brand attitude, purchase intention and sharing intention) via different dimensions of presence.
Study 2 also revealed that the combination of modality interactivity and sensory breadth significantly increased the sense of presence, while their individual main effects on presence were missing. The immersive VR type was found to interact with different levels of modality interactivity only on presence such that a high immersive VR system was more effective in increasing the dimensions of presence than a low immersive VR system. However, perceived media novelty of the users moderated several relationships in study 2. In the case of presence, perceived media novelty moderated the interaction of modality interactivity and sensory breadth such that when perceived media novelty is high, then any combination of modality interactivity and sensory breadth became more effective. But, the combination of modality interactivity and high sensory breadth did not contribute more effectively than other situations in the case of high perceived novelty. Perceived media novelty of the users also moderated the effectiveness of the high immersive VR on ad attitude and sharing intention. The study found that when perceived novelty was high, an immersive VR system was more effective than low immersive VR in creating favorable ad attitude and sharing intention. But, when perceived novelty was low, the difference between high and low immersive VR became very low or almost similar. Further, the study found that perceived media novelty also moderated the interaction of immersive VR type and sensory breadth on brand attitude. When the perceived novelty was low, a high immersive VR system with high sensory breadth was not more effective than low immersive VR. But, when the perceived novelty was high, a high immersive VR system with high sensory breadth became more effective than low immersive VR.
Both studies have important theoretical and practical implications. The first primary theoretical contribution of this dissertation comes from its overall test to find out the effects of an ad presented via different interfaces that varied in terms of immersive features or modalities: non-immersive interface/non-VR interface (e.g., 2-D), low immersive VR interface (e.g., monoscopic VR), and high immersive VR (stereoscopic VR). The results contribute to the body of research on immersive VR media and VR environments done earlier. Another key contribution made by the dissertation was its conceptualization of perceived media novelty as a moderator of the relationships between immersive VR systems and the measure of ad effectiveness. The dissertation showed how high perceived media novelty can exaggerate the real effect of high immersive VR, making it almost equally effective to low immersive VR. Effects of perceived media novelty can provide important insight into the theoretical framework development of immersive VR and virtual product experience to evaluate the effectiveness of emerging immersive VR media more accurately. This dissertation’s next theoretical contribution comes from its mediation analysis done on the relationship between interface type and ad effectiveness measures via the sense of presence. Such relationships are theoretically important for several reasons. First, it established the important role of presence to evaluate VR ad effectiveness. The study found that although the direct effects of interface type on several variables were absent, indirect effects were still active in VR ad via different dimensions of presence. Second, the mediating role of presence is rarely tested in case of monoscopic or stereoscopic VR ads. So, the current study extended the theoretical validity of the mediating role of presence on such platforms. Next, the study focused on determining different dimensions of presence (e.g., spatial presence, engagement, naturalness, and negative effects), rather than determining presence as one single construct. Finally, the dissertation empirically tested Steuer’s (1992) presence framework. The dissertation indicates that Steuer’s presence framework worked only when users consider the combined role of interactivity and vividness. The findings of the two studies of this dissertation are also important to marketers and have immediate implications. The results indicate that marketers can implement technological modalities of VR to enhance persuasive outcomes. Next, the dissertation upholds the importance of improving “presence” strategy in VR ad campaign and including presence measurement in ad copy pre-testing. Moreover, the dissertation also suggested several insights on the strategy of elevating presence via different combinations of modality interactivity (i.e., using/not using a hotspot) and sensory breadth (i.e., using only text/using text plus visual information). Finally, the dissertation also suggested how marketers should consider the role of perceived media novelty with caution while evaluating the immersive VR ad effectiveness. | en_US |
