The Effects of Progressive Levels of Interactivity and Vividness in Web Marketing Sites.(Statistical Data Included)

This experiment examines interactivity and vividness in commercial web sites. We expected increased levels of interactivity and vividness would lead to more positive attitudes toward web sites, stronger feelings of telepresence, and greater attitude-behavior consistency. In addition, we expected increased levels of vividness to lead to the development of more enduring attitudes toward the site. Participants explored four web sites. Increases in interactivity and vividness were associated with increased feelings of telepresence. in addition, increases in vividness were associated with more positive and more enduring attitudes toward the web site. Implications for new media researchers and practitioners are discussed.

The demand for greater knowledge about how to create a successful brand presence on the Internet continues to increase. At a recent summit meeting that included both Internet and consumer goods companies, much of the discussion revolved around how the formal features of web sites might be better utilized to create strong brands (Hansell 1998). Also, a recent study suggests that larger, more complex Internet ads may be more memorable, communicate more information, and be more likely to engage consumers (Beatty 1998). Many marketers are beginning to demand that web content providers "accommodate advertisements that use techniques known as 'rich media,' which can enable both banners and bigger ads to include animation, sound, and even full video" (Hansell 1998, p. D7). Nevertheless, most large consumer goods companies have been slow to adopt the use of advanced web design tools like animation and sound (Cho and Leckenby 1997).

Researchers also are beginning to understand the need to explore the design tools that the Internet offers advertisers more fully (Dholakia and Rego 1998; Dreze and Zufryden 1997; Ducoffe 1996). As Coupey (1999, p. 198) notes, 'The unique features of the (new) media can provide a focus to extend or to create theory, methodologies, and the discovery of new phenomena." Understanding and discovering the impact of these unique features may be especially helpful to interactive marketing researchers hoping to study the business of the Internet (Hoffman and Novak 1997).

One of the most important dimensions that differentiates new media from traditional media is the level of realism provided. New media can incorporate levels of vividness and interactivity that traditional media cannot. This study explores those strengths. It investigates how varying levels of realism within new media may affect attitudes, behavioral intentions, and the level of consistency between these attitudes and intentions.

There are several important areas of literature that should be examined to provide the theoretical construct for the hypotheses tested here. In the following sections, we investigate the comparative impact of direct and indirect experience, as well as the definitions and impact of telepresence, interactivity, and vividness, and then consider how these concepts can help elucidate how and when web sites might operate most effectively.

The Effects of Indirect and Direct Experience

According to Fazio and Zanna (1981), attitudes based on direct experience result from prior behavior toward an attitude object. Many researchers (Cetola 1988; Fazio and Zanna 1978; Fazio, Zanna, and Cooper 1978; Regan and Fazio 1977; Sherman 1982) have provided evidence that indicates that direct experiences lead to greater consistency between attitudes and behaviors than do indirect experiences. Also, Fazio and Zanna (1981) identify three attitudinal attributes that appear to vary across attitudes developed through direct and indirect experiences. Attitudes developed through direct experience are more confidently held, more enduring, and more resistant to attack than are those developed through indirect experience. According to Fazio and Zanna's (1981) model, these attitudinal features contribute to attitude-behavior consistency.

Experience with an attitude object can be considered a continuum anchored by direct and indirect (Fazio and Zanna 1981). Seeing a product demonstrated on television is a more direct experience than hearing it described on radio, and receiving a trial sample provides a more direct experience than watching the product being demonstrated on television. In other words, seeing a household cleanser cause stains to disappear, seeing pets eating happily, or driving a car that performs well on a slick highway is much closer to a direct experience than hearing about these experiences is.

Smith and Swinyard (1982, 1983) test the usefulness of the concepts of direct and indirect experience in the advertising domain. They find that attitudes based on direct experience, such as through product trial, better predicted subsequent behaviors (like purchasing) than did attitudes formed through advertising, an indirect experience. They also find that attitudes formed through product trial were more confidently held than were those formed through advertising.

There are various concepts that must be explicated and related to directness of experience. The concepts include telepresence, vividness, and interactivity. We look at each in turn and then interrelate them as they are likely to affect web advertising.

Telepresence-Interactivity, Vividness

Biocca (1992, p. 23) defines virtual reality as "the environment created by a computer or other media, an environment in which the user feels present." Steuer (1992, p. 76-77) defines virtual reality as "a real or simulated environment in which a perceiver experiences telepresence." Telepresence, in turn, is defined as "the mediated perception of an environment" (Steuer 1992, p. 76). In other words, presence is the direct experience of reality, and telepresence is the simulated perception of direct experience. A person whose perception is mediated by a communication technology necessarily perceives two separate environments, and telepresence occurs when the perception mediated by the technology takes precedence over the unmediated perception (Steuer 1992).

Closely related to telepresence is the concept of "flow." Flow is "the state occurring during network navigation which is: (1) characterized by a seamless sequence of responses facilitated by machine interactivity, (2) intrinsically enjoyable, (3) accompanied by a loss of self-consciousness, and (4) self-reinforcing" (Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 2000, p. 23). Recent research by Hoffman and colleagues (Hoffman and Novak 1996; Novak, Hoffman, and Yung 2000) posits that flow is enhanced by telepresence.

Kim and Biocca (1997) examine the communication effects of telepresence on people's attitudes and behaviors toward an infomercial. Participants' sensory immersion, thought to be a quality that contributes to the feeling of telepresence in a mediated environment, was manipulated. Although sensory immersion was not a significant predictor of telepresence, the authors found two factors that contributed to the perception of telepresence. "Arrival" was defined as "the feeling of being there in the virtual environment" (Kim and Biocca 1997), and "departure" was defined as "the feeling of not being there in the physical environment" (Kim and Biocca 1997). Arrival was a significant positive predictor of increased brand preference, and departure was a significant positive predictor of buying intention (Kim and Biocca 1997).

Two of the most important determinants of telepresence are interactivity and vividness (Laurel 1991; Naimark 1990; Rheingold 1991; Steuer 1992). We discuss those two concepts and describe the hypotheses to be tested in this experiment.

Interactivity

One conceptualization of interactivity comes from an interpersonal communication perspective (Ha and James 1998) and focuses on interactivity as communication, either through a medium or without the aid of a medium. For example, Rafaeli and Sudweeks (1997, p. 3) define interactivity as "the extent to which messages in a sequence relate to each other, and especially the extent to which later messages recount the relatedness of earlier messages." Similarly, Blattberg and Deighton (1991) define interactivity as individuals and organizations communicating directly with one another regardless of distance or time. In marketing, Ghose and Dou (1998) identify 23 functions of interactivity driven largely by this communication-based conceptualization of interactivity.

Another conceptualization of interactivity, and the one that will be used in this work, comes from a mechanical perspective (Ha and James 1998). Research in this area considers interactivity a property of the medium. Specifically, Steuer (1992, p. 84) defines interactivity as "the extent to which users can participate in modifying the form and content of a mediated environment in real time." Interactivity is a function of three things: (1) the speed with which content can be manipulated; (2) the range of ways in which content can be …