NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY

ADVANCED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

Perception towards Online Advertising and Its
Influences on Consumer Behavior

Researcher: Ngo Thanh Ha
Class: Advanced Accounting 54A
Supervisor: Tran Thi Thu Trang



January, 2014

ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 1

Perception towards Online Advertising and Its Influences on Consumer Behavior
Ngo Thanh Ha
English 100
January 10, 2014
Tran Thi Thu Trang










ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 2

Contents
LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................................ 8
METHOD ................................................................................................................................................ 11
PARTICIPANTS ............................................................................................................................................... 11
RESEARCH DESIGN ......................................................................................................................................... 11
MEASURES ................................................................................................................................................... 12
PROCEDURE .................................................................................................................................................. 13
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................... 14
FINDINGS ..................................................................................................................................................... 14
Students have positive disposition towards growth potential of online advertising ............................ 14
Students are more likely to have negative perception towards online advertising .............................. 15
Online advertising sometimes is useful and informative ...................................................................... 16
Students use online advertising as a service to aid in consumer decision making ............................... 17
Quality of services and products advertised through online advertising is not as
students expect ................................................................................................................................................... 18
DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................................. 19
Students have positive disposition towards growth potential of online advertising ............................ 19
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 3

Students are more likely to have negative perception towards online advertising .............................. 21
Online advertising sometimes is useful and informative ...................................................................... 23
Students use online advertising as a service to aid in consumer decision making ............................... 25
Quality of services and products advertised through online advertising is not as
students expect ................................................................................................................................................... 27
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................................... 30
APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE ............................................................................................................... 32
APPENDIX B: FIGURES AND TABLES ........................................................................................................ 34
REFERENCE ............................................................................................................................................. 38


ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 4

List of Figures
Figure 1. Average Times per Day of Seeing E-Ads ................................................................. 34
Figure 2. Attitudes towards E-Ads ............................................................................................ 35
Figure 3. Perceptions on Underlying Factors about E-Ads .................................................... 35
Figure 4: Average Points of Underlying Factors ..................................................................... 36
Figure 5. Perceived Values of E-Ads ......................................................................................... 36


List of Tables
Table 1. How Online Advertising Influence on Consumers .................................................... 37
Table 2. Challenges Consumers Encounter .............................................................................. 37
Table 3: Quality of Products bought through Online Advertising ........................................ 37




ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 5

Perception towards Online Advertising and Its Influences on Consumer Behavior
Nowadays, as well as the breaking out of the Internet, several of different services are
being occurred on it such as shopping online, social networks, online newspapersin order to
attend to relaxing requirements of human beings and advertisements are one of them. Different
from the previous studies, this study explores students perceptions towards advertising which
usually appears on the Internet; in other words, it is called Online advertisement- one of the
fastest forms to approach Internet users. However, there are many contrary ideas of users about
this genre of marketing, about the effectiveness of them on their choice of products. In terms of
Internet users, there is considerable academic research into the motivations behind consumers
attitudes toward and perception of advertising and the Internet. On the other hand, online
advertisements also act directly on many firms. For example, the last decade is a short time
which turned Google from a humble search company into the E-Marketing tycoon with earning
profits were an estimated 28 billion of dollars (Insider, 2011). The future of Internet is dependent
upon the continued support of advertisers in this new medium, which is linked to the acceptance
of advertising on it by their target audience. This exploratory study used the qualitative research
methods of conducting an inquiry to gain insights from the student participants. Therefore, the
aims of this research are to find out the feelings of students when having too many
advertisements sent to them (whether they like or dislike, if they pay some money for those
goods, etc.) and they effect on them in which form.
In recent years, online advertising has developed strongly in Vietnam and theses
advertisements turn up numerous on many websites. For instance, there are some websites which
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 6

specialize in diffusing online products such as nhommua.com, muachung.vn, cungmua.com, etc.
Besides, when accessing any websites or forums to see movies and listen to music, Internet users
may come across many spam emails which manifest continuously. So there are three main
reasons so that our group goes on this research:
First of all, AEP students are very interested in the Internet, they suggest that Internet is a
wonderful world where they can do anything they want, of course, no one is unaware of the
advertisements appear incalculable on the Internet. Therefore, they will be pleased to answer our
questions.
Secondly, the recent development of shopping online is spreading in Vietnam and the
main consumer using this kind of shopping are youngsters, especially for AEP students, some of
them have an online fashion shop and many of them used to buy something on the Internet by
that way. Therefore, E-Marketing affected them by any ways.
Finally, there are quite many previous studies and articles which referred to this issue.
We suppose that these are resources of great worth for our study in this area.
The major purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of online advertisings on
AEP Students. Specially, the study determined:
The views of students about online advertisements
Find out the disposition of students towards online advertisings.
Find out the attitudes and perceptions of students towards the online advertisings
appearing on many websites.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 7

How advertisements effect on consumer purchase behavior of students
Find out the ways online advertisements rule over students choice of products.
Find out the challenges students encountered while patronizing products and
services seen advertised on the web.
In order to explore how students perception towards advertising on the Internet, the
research questions to be addressed in this thesis are:
1. What are the views of AEP students about online advertising?
2. In what ways have online advertising influence consumer behavior of AEP students?
We also hope that throughout our study, online advertisers can understand nonmarketable
issues in their advertisements, and then they can develop E-marketing by the better way which
makes people to be pleased. At last, our team expects from the students the main consumers on
the Internet will find out how to manage to buy products by the online advertisements.




ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 8

Literature Review
Advertising (Ads) provides information about products and services to intending
consumers. This information help consumers to make choices among different brands based on
their needs, wants and problems confronting them. The ultimate purpose of advertisers is to
make their audience purchase such products and services either immediately or in the near
future.
Mcquail sees advertising as a paid publicity in media for goods or services directed at
customers. It has various aims including the creation of awareness, making brand images,
forming positive association and encouraging consumer behavior (McQuail, 2005). Belch &
Belch described the internet as an advertising medium. According to Belch & Belch, web
advertising is in a variety of forms. These are banner ads, sponsorships, pop ups, interstitials,
push technologies or web casting and links (Belch, G. E., & Belch, M. A., 2001).
Using a convenience sample of 329 undergraduate students, Goldsmith and Lafferty
assessed the effects of viewing Web sites on Internet advertising. The findings are both positive
and negative for online advertisers. Visiting Web sites appear to increase the ability to recall
brand names and to improve consumers views of the brands. However, these young consumers
perceive both advantages and disadvantages in Web advertising. The advantages include
providing privacy and more information and the disadvantages include cluttered and hard to read
Web sites (Goldsmith, R. E., & Lafferty, B. A., 2002).
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 9

On the study of how young consumers perceive the Web as an advertising medium in
relation to other traditional media, Calisir discovered that the Web site is a less effective medium
for communicating both brand and corporate image, although it is a more reliable source of
information and less irritating than traditional media like radio, television, press, and magazine.
The author suggests that Web addresses should be included in outdoor ads to prompt young
consumers to visit the Web sites to obtain more information on the products or services of their
interest (Calisir, 2003).
Wolin and Korgaonkar examine the differences between males and females in consumer
beliefs and attitudes toward Internet advertising. The study revealed gendered differences with
males exhibiting more positive in both beliefs about and attitudes toward Web advertising
(Wolin, L. D., & Kogaonkar, P., 2003).
One of the established works in the advertising literature is Ducoffes framework for
predicting consumers value and attitude toward traditional advertising. Entertainment,
informativeness, and irritation are identified as factors contributing to consumers evaluations of
advertising values and attitude (Ducoffe, How consumers assess the value of advertising, 1995).
Ducoffe then applied the model to the Web environment. Without distinguishing the two types of
advertising strategies (brand building and targeted), he confirmed that attitude toward Web
advertising is directly dependent on advertising value. Furthermore, advertising value is
dependent on perceived levels of entertainment, informativeness, and irritation (Ducoffe,
Avertising value and advertising on the web, 1996). Brackett and Carr further validated
Ducoffes model and extended the model to include credibility and consumer demographics.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 10

Credibility is directly related to both advertising value and attitude. Demographic variables such
as college major and gender are shown to affect only attitude toward advertising. Brackett and
Carr did not separate brand building from targeted purposes (Brackett, L. K., & Carr, B. N.,
2001).
Based on the review of the research studies mentioned above, it is clear that Internet
advertising is gaining more attention and should be an essential part of a marketers advertising
media mix. However, it seems that there are inconclusive findings regarding the following
issues:
1st. Consumer response toward Internet advertising.
2nd.The effectiveness of Internet advertising.
3rd. The relationship between Internet advertising and purchase intention.
These inconclusive findings call for further studies on Internet advertising to gain more
insight into consumers response and perception of the Internet as an advertising medium. In
addition, more studies are needed to cover various samples in different countries to increase
external validity of the research findings.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 11

Method
Participants
The study uses the survey research design and Internet resources. This study covers
students in Advanced Educational Program (AEP) in National Economics University (NEU).
The population for the study comprises Second year students- Intake 54 students who are
making courses in the study area. The students are all interested in surfing Internet. There are 4
classes in Intake 54 and they learn in the morning and afternoon. Thus majority of these students
have a computer or a laptop connected with the Internet. The average class size is 45 students.
Research Design
According to my research questions, we design a questionnaire (English version will be
introduced in appendix) including only selection questions. In the next step, we will carry out a
survey of AEP Students (I-54 students) in 2 days. The surveys distributed are 100. Then we
totalize these questionnaires and analyze the data carefully. The data we collect through the
survey is just primary data.
Beside the primary data, we also use some secondary data including online newspapers
articles and academic research as a reference sources to support our ideas.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 12

Measures
Altogether 100 copies of the questionnaire will be administered by hand and via the
Internet to the respondents. Data will be analyzed using means, frequencies and percentages. All
of the metrics will be coded and classified by mathematical tool of Excel software.
The survey questionnaire contained questions measuring the frequency rate of E-Ads,
attitudes and perceptions of students toward E-Ads, perceived values of E-Ads and how they
influence on purchase behavior.
One item was used to measure the frequency rate of E-Ads in terms of the average times
per day of seeing Ads. The respondents were asked how many times, on the average, the saw the
E-Ads when surfing the Internet per day. Three items were applied to measure students attitudes
toward E-Ads in terms of favorableness, what they like and desirability and they chose one of
three options only. The respondents were asked to answer the questions based on a five-point
scale. An example of the scale ranged from (1) strongly agree to (5) strongly disagree with
respect to the measurement of perceptions and perceived values. Three main factors were used to
evaluate perceived values of E-Ads namely useful, important and valuable. The perceptions of
the students toward E-Ads were measured based on several nouns as follows:
Entertainment Irritation Interactivity
Informativeness Credibility Privacy
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 13

The respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with respects to each of
these six dimensions in terms of how they perceived E-Ads.
The variable Consumer Behavior was measured using multiple choices. Respondents
were asked which way E-Ads influenced on them and the quality of products bought via E-Ads.
They were asked to tick only one option in each question. They also were asked to tick many
choices they wanted.
Procedure
Works H Dip M. Anh
Outline draft research
Outline official research
Design draft questionnaire and draft interview
questions

Print official questionnaire and interview
questions

Give out the questionnaires and interview
Collect the questionnaire
Input data
Process data
Analyze data
Summarize data
Write the draft report
Write the official report

ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 14

Findings and Discussion
Findings
Students have positive disposition towards growth potential of online advertising
Nowadays, with the wide deployment of digital technologies, come along information
artifacts in various forms for various purposes that consumers have to interact with, the online
advertising, including brand building Ads and targeted Ads become more familiar with Internet
users. The bar chart 1 illustrates the proportion of people reported seeing number of online Ads
every day.
Respondents overall impressions of the Internet advertising were assessed with the
question, How many times per day do you see online advertising? The results indicated that all
of the respondents came across the advertising on the web at least once, of whom nearly two
thirds of answers was 1 to 5 times per day, 20.69% saw online Ads appearing from 6 to 10 times
and the remaining 17.24% of respondents complained that they were obliged to see pop-ups,
banner on the website over 10 times per day. Hence, there is a little consensus among those who
have had at least some Internet experience about the evaluation of online Ads.
The previous section was devoted to examining respondents impressions of Internet
advertising. In this section, the relation between respondents attitude and E-Ads is examined.
Attitude is an overall or take-away message one forms toward a stimulus and is normally
measured by items such as favorable, like and desirable. The chart 2 gives information about the
consideration for students attitude to the development of online advertising today.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 15

In general, the number of students believed that online advertising was a favorable
marketing industry made up over 41%. The proportion of what I like group was approximately
38%, and what I like here means pleased or neutral. Finally, there was only 21% of the
respondents highly appreciated potential of online advertising, they asserted that the heading of
E-Marketing today was desirable. From these figures, a lower proportion of participants believed
in the growth of advertising on the Internet. This will be contrasted in the next speculation that
online Ads would be judged through many underlying factors. Possible reasons why
proportionally fewer people desired E-Ads than favored them are discussed in the Discussion
part.
Students are more likely to have negative perception towards online advertising
In Figure 3, we have identified six underlying factors for perceived values as entertainment,
informativeness, irritation, credibility, interactivity and privacy concerns. To assess the relationship of
these factors with overall perceptions toward online advertising, the relatedness of these items was
analyzed by displaying the ratio. Nearly two thirds somewhat agree online advertising is irritative while
the number of people who has no sympathy with the credibility of them was over half. With reference to
privacy of advertising, there were up to three quarters assumed that online advertising was not secrecy.
These figures were affirmed by means of the rating of each factor in Figure 4. There was many people
assumed that online advertising made them irritated (2 points- somewhat agree). In addition to confidence
in online advertising, more participants felt they could not generally trust E-Ads than felt they could trust
them, thus the score of Credibility item was very high (3.8 points- somewhat disagree). A surprised result
that contrasted with the scores of entertainment and informativeness item, respondents marked about 3.86
points for privacy factor.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 16

Online advertising sometimes is useful and informative
Carried out a survey of 100 AEP students about their perceptions toward E-Ads, we
asked them the knowledge of advertising utility on the Internet throughout factors above.
Advertising utility consisted of items related to the value or effectiveness of advertising in
meeting consumers need- that is, how informative and entertaining the online advertising is and
how useful it is for making purchase decisions. Indeed, informativeness and entertainment have
been identified as positively contributing to the perceived values of E-Ads in the Figure 5. The
chart 3 shows consistent low scores on entertainment, informativeness, interactivity. The
majority of participants agreed somewhat that E-Ads is informative and entertained (1.93 and
1.99 in turn). However, they did not hold such a favorable view of E-Ads enjoyableness. In
terms of the interactivity item, they estimated this factor 3.11 point meaning that they occupied
the middle ground about the interactivity between online advertising and consumer.
Value can be measured in a number of ways to indicate a sense of worth and reflects
cognitive evaluations. This study used three items: useful, important and valuable. Figure 5
shows the group means. Online advertising hold slightly higher score on being valuable (3.15
points- neither agree nor disagree). Participants agreed that the advertising on the website was
useful in part (1.88 points) and the important level was just assessed at 2.88 points (neither agree
nor disagree).


ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 17

Students use online advertising as a service to aid in consumer decision making
Naturally, advertising only appears when human being has demands of purchasing. And
online advertising is one of the masks in broadcasting products and services of shopping online.
So, how and in what way E-Ads controlled the clients purchasing decisions.
The results obtained from the preliminary analysis of usefulness are presented in Table 1.
This table illustrates the ways online advertising influenced on students. Generally, shopping
online is quite popular with students. However, only 30.22% of respondents were used to
purchasing goods thanks to online advertisements. By contrast, the percentage was 7.91% for the
number of people who had never paid attention to this form. Furthermore, the number of students
bought some of products and services so advertised made up 15.83%.
However, 23.02% of students answered that they just used those E-Ads as reference
materials for their future purchases. Thus, in the future, they could buy products either via the
Internet or direct purchase.
Our questionnaire also asked the participants to judge the influences of online advertising
by means of pricing and belief. There were just 4.32% of people suggesting that the products and
services supplied on the online stores were too expensive. Meanwhile, 18.70% of respondents
said that they did not trust online purchases because sometimes banners and pop-ups made them
offended compared with the score of Credibility participants marked in Figure 3 (3.8).
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 18

Quality of services and products advertised through online advertising is not as
students expect
Compared with the percentage of people bought and used products and services (more
than 46%), we brought a question out for the students that which challenges they encountered
while patronizing products and services seen on the website. Overall, services were not provided
as advertised, there was over half of participants complained about this challenge (55.17%). The
percentages were 24.14% and 27.59% for Lack of access to Internet factor and Fraud factor
respectively. By contrast, bad delivery factor and erratic electricity supply factor were quite few
in compared with factors above (10.34% and 13.79% respectively).
Nevertheless, when evaluating the quality of products and services bought throughout
online advertising, there was only 20.59% of students pleased with them, they said that the
products exactly liked the details of advertising while the proportion of people tricked was
17.24%, what they bought via online purchase was completely different from the details of
advertising. In addition, the number of respondents not expected too much accounted for about
half, because the products they received were just quite like the details of advertising. Finally,
there were 13.79% of people who have never using online purchase.
This questionnaire was conducted to answer the two questions raised at the beginning of
this paper. Overall, this study reveals the following take-away messages:
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 19

Consumers hold extremely negative scores on attitudes and perceptions. Low
scores were also found for entertainment, informativeness, irritation and
interactivity, and high scores for credibility and privacy concerns.
Consumers mainly used ads to purchase and plan for their future purchases and
were not pleases with the services online stores supplied.
Despite the negative reactions, many consumers used online advertising as an
efficient tool to purchase via the Internet. In addition, the quality of products and
services was not as they expected.
Discussion
Participants recognized in online advertising both benefits for consumers and economic
advantages for advertising networks. The most commonly articulated benefit of online
advertising was that it would help participants see advertising targeted towards and relevant to
their personal interests. Some participants also expected that marketers would use online
advertising to target special offers to consumers who were interested in a particular product.
Students have positive disposition towards growth potential of online advertising
Internet is used for many different aims. Nowadays, students make use of Internet to
serve for entertainment or relaxing, namely searching details, chatting on Yahoo or Facebook,
listening to music and seeing movies. If these accessing goals made up a high rate, it was
because the objects investigated were 19 year-old students who are still youngsters. Therefore,
the demands of entertainment have a high level.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 20

In addition, the evolution of free websites happens in amusement area. Just consider
particularly online music website in Vietnam, there is over 100 pages not including abroad
websites. Along with breaking out of information over the world, a lot of search services were
founded such as Google, Ask, and Bing. For example, in 2011, Ask.com achieved 210 million
times for unique visitor and 2 billion times for page view.
In fact, online advertisers usually approach students through entertainment websites.
There are two reasons which induced this result: demands of using Internet of students and
freedom of websites.
In regards to the first cause, compared with the data achieved from Figure 1, the
relationship between the marks of accessing Internet and the density of appearance of advertising
on the websites is extremely closed. It is complicated that website attracts many people, it
contains many advertisements. Thus, as mentioning above, students usually use Internet to relax;
online advertisers approach the clients by posting product advertisements on the amusement
websites.
On the other hand, the remaining reason is that the websites such as social network search
engines and forum act as free online websites. Therefore, to maintain the operation of pages,
administrations open the service of posting advertising on their pages. For instance, onphim.net
is a website which can see many hot free films immediately, when login in these pages, the users
can see a lot of advertisements on it. Those are the reasons for why advertising appears dense on
these kinds of pages.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 21

However, growth potential of online advertising industry is appreciated at favorable
level. The reasons lodged are very objective. The fact that entertainment, credibility and
interactivity directly contribute to attitude may suggest that competition of online advertising
based on underlying factors, which will be mentioned in the next part.
Students are more likely to have negative perception towards online advertising
Look at Figure 3 we can see two varying opinions. One supported that online
advertisements are quite informational and entertaining whereas the other one disagreed with the
credibility and the privacy of online advertising bringing to avoiding advertising. For us, there
are three main reasons for this.
First of all, students avoid advertising on websites when they feel it disrupts their goals
online. If students use Internet for a pressing case such as writing report or learning English, it
will be very uncomfortable when there are too many advertising appearing on the screen that will
induce difficult concentration for the users. In addition, they were annoyed by advertising that
suddenly pop up or make noise. They felt that many of the advertising were not relevant to them.
They did not believe that there is a link between the advertising they receive on their site and the
information they had disclosed on their site. The respondents also understood they are able to use
the websites for free because of the advertising on them. They did not feel that there was too
much clutter on their sites or that the advertising disrupted their time online. Most of them were
still distrustful of the validity of the information or the potential consequences of clicking onto
an advertisement.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 22

Another point to consider is students ignore advertising when they perceive that there is
too much clutter. The proportion of people who felt misled by E-advertising are quite appropriate
the number of people avoiding E-advertisement in the Figure 3. From that point, we can realize
the connection between avoiding and misleading details, in other words misleading details is one
of the causes of ignoring E-advertising. For example, to see the advertising, clients usually go on
some steps such as supplying personal details, moving another page and something like that.
These steps cause clutter in consumers mind which make them feel offended and uncomfortable
to continue them.
Finally, students avoid if they had negative experiences with the previous online
advertisements. The students are distrustful of online advertisements because the details of
advertisements are mess and baseless, otherwise they also appear too much on the Internet-create
washy information for viewers unexpectedly. Most of this distrustful also comes from word of
mouth, parents and peers. Far from that, students see advertisements as a risk or threat. Many of
them had heard of people who had negative experiences such as getting a computer virus or
receiving incorrect information and were therefore reluctant to click onto any advertisements.
For instance, on the forums, there are some vibrate messages such as click onto, receive The
New Ipad or Do you know your IQ? Click now, but in fact, only reading the title of them we
can realize that they are unjustified and cannot believe them, however, if the consumers click on
them, they will be asked to supply phone number or name. These can effect on the secretary and
privacy of the users.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 23

On the surface, advertising on the Internet should be a very attractive proportion for
marketers and advertisers. Advertising messages can be sent to specific targets based on their
disclosed interests and demographics. These messages appear in a website which is controlled by
receivers of the message and is appreciated by them. The receiver of message is generally in a
relaxed frame of mind and has chosen to be on the Internet to relieve boredom or to socialize.
Yet, if advertising is ignores or dismissed then advertising dollars are wasted.
Online advertising sometimes is useful and informative
Although most of students had a negative perception towards E-advertising, someone still
found out the benefits of advertising, especially clothes sales, games online advertising and study
courses. Some male students enjoyed playing the interactive games that appeared on their site
but most did not view this as advertising. However, they would not give out any personal
information to receive prizes from these games. Female students loved clothes or accessory
which broadcasted fascinatingly on the websites. They suggested that this kind of advertising is
pretty clear and trustful. They do not ask buyers to give personal details as well as do not need to
pay any money to use them, it is simple that consumers read advertising, if they like, they will
buy.
In fact, advertising value and advertising perception are highly associated. Therefore, a
consumer who assesses advertising to be valuable is expected to generate favorable perception.
In this sense, Advertising value is positioned as one of the antecedents (or predictors) of
Perception toward Advertising. Furthermore, entertainment would directly impact advertising
attitude. Although interactivity does not contribute to value, it does have a small but significant
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 24

effect on advertising attitude. This relationship is the same for both traditional and Internet based
advertising. One way of interpreting the high correlations interactivity has with the other four
constructs is that interactivity enhances entertainment for example. High interactivity results in
high level of perceived entertainment, which in turn contributes to advertising value. That is,
interactivity itself does not contribute to the value directly but has impact on the antecedents of
value. High interactivity also seems to correlates with low irritation level, high credibility and
high in formativeness, which all has positive impact on value.
People who believe online advertising has a positive impact on the economy tend to have
a positive attitude toward online advertising. A basic view of advertising proponents is that
advertising is the lifeblood of business it provides consumers with information about products
and services and encourages them to improve their standard of living. Information has been a
common belief about advertising identified by previous studies. One of the most important
functions of advertising is to improve information. Past research on Internet use motives has
revealed that searching for information is the primary reason why people use the Internet. It is
logically sound that those who perceive online advertising to be informative are more likely to
favor it. Entertainment is another component influencing the effectiveness of advertising by
establishing an emotion link between consumers and a brand message. With the marketplace
cluttered with advertising messages vying for peoples attention, advertising needs to be
interesting and enjoyable in a creative way to attract audiences attention. Furthermore,
information and entertainment are often intertwined with each other in an information society.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 25

Students use online advertising as a service to aid in consumer decision making
46% of participants have gone shopping online at least once by depending on advertising,
it is astonishing figure. That proved the strong development of shopping via the Internet in
general and online advertising in particular. Although there are quite a lot of people who do not
believe in online advertising, they still usually buy something through advertising because of the
cheapness of products and the appropriateness of students pocket. In addition, instead of going
to each store to see and choose something for self, from now on, students only use mouse to click
in anything they want on a shopping website and they need to pay a routine money to home
delivery.
But online advertising still induce for consumers a lot of doubts. With the same good, this
website sold it with this price while that website sold it with another price or different origin.
Thus, when reading baseless advertising like that, students will feel misled and misunderstood.
Maybe the reason is competition between firms, they want to achieve the highest sales as well as
create a stable brand for self. Also may be the reason is having someone who wants to seek
profit, give out the wrong information and reduce consumers to be tricked.
Nevertheless, we must admit E-advertising is pretty engrossing which makes viewers to
notice them. Because of being shopping online, picture of product plays the most important
factor during students purchasing decision. The snapshots are taken in many different angles in
order to describe product clearly. And this is the only way so that consumers can see the shape or
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 26

color of product they choose. Therefore, image is always the aspect fascinating viewers in E-
advertising.
Subsequent to seeing pictures, they pay attention to enclosed information of product such
as price, producer or size. From then, they can give out comparison and decisions for whether
should buy that one or not. Finally, people notice full of promise advantages advertisers supply
which ensure for the operation of product or sales promotion of it. Look at this, we can see the
process of clients purchasing decisions, this process seems not to change even when they are
going shopping by Internet: seeing picture of product (shape, color) then seeing enclosed details
after that is warranty, it is quite similar to going shopping in fact.
Though effect aspect made up more than full of promise advantages aspect, we believe
that this aspect depends on buying objects. If buyer finds an item initiatively, they will not notice
effects like sound, content or color of advertisements. By contrast, some people also buy an item
when running into any advertising. (In fact, they are attracted by effects of advertisements and
curious about them).
Nevertheless, many students complained that fraud and lack of access to Internet were
their main challenges while patronizing products and services advertised on the web. Minority of
the respondents said products were delivered in bad conditions was their difficulty. Generally,
people still seem not to fully believe in credibility of online advertising and advertisers have not
had a well-balance operation in caring customers.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 27

Quality of services and products advertised through online advertising is not as
students expect
This research points out one thing that students trust the information on a brands TV
more than the brands Internet. They believe that any one can develop an online advertisement
and give false information about brand on websites whereas before being posted on TV,
advertisements must be checked many times about reality of it. This is another reason for why
the quantity of goods bought through commercial advertisements is always more than through E-
advertisements.
Another reason for the distrustful of students to online advertisements is the quality of
products or services. In spite of 46% of people buying goods through E-advertising, 48% of them
complained that the items and services they bought via Internet were only quite like the details of
advertisements. As not seeing in their eyes the products they bought, suppliers can exchange
goods by the poor quality products easily or they give out the wrong information intentionally
(Dung Tuan, 2012)
Overall, E-advertising affected AEP students by some ways. Although students still
flinch with the burdensome of them, they view step by step online advertising as an effective tool
in purchasing. Thus, marketers and advertisers should find out the methods to improve online
advertising in serving consumers.
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 28

This study has explored the influence of E-advertising on AEP students. This research
has made the following contributions to theory regarding websites as an advertising medium.
These contributions are as follows:
Motivations behind use of Internet such as the need for social interaction, the need
for recognition, new experiences and information seeking.
New model of advertising avoidance in the Internet environment like expectation
of negative experiences, perception of relevance of E-advertising, skepticism
about advertising claims.
Characteristics of websites as an advertising including ability for interactive
advertising, synergistic by supporting advertising in other different websites.
Though online advertising plays an important role in purchasing decisions to some
extent, it does not really take consumers belief. This asks advertisers and marketers to carry out
targeted strategies to shorten distance with buyers.
First of all, they should found the particular websites which display advertising on it such
as nhommua.com, muachung.com instead of posting advertising density on every websites. In
addition, they need to remove the unnecessary advertising on the websites to reduce avoiding of
students.
Along with that, before advertising is posted, advertisers must supply the information of
products clearly and fully so that the consumers can see the truth of them and give out right
decisions in purchasing. In some discount shopping websites, they usually send e-mails spam to
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 29

consumer strictly except having their acceptation; however, they should stop doing like that as
they will cause offended f or Internet users.
Finally, advertisers and marketers should not ask consumers to supply the personal
details. If they are able to overcome these things, students will not have aversion to online
advertising.
For students, to find out the usefulness of online advertising and not feel uncomfortable
with them, especially in purchasing decisions, students should learn about them cautiously.
When login a websites, buyers should not supply personal details for them because it will effect
on their privacy of them. Otherwise, consumers should only see advertising on the particular
pages to prevent from virus injuring.






ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 30

Conclusion
Online advertising is a new form of advertising that many companies all over the world
are venturing into, for the purpose of informing consumers of their products and services. This
study has shown that Internet has influence on consumers than any other mass media when it
comes to making purchase decisions. According to Dever (2012) the Internet is the most
influential in the consumer purchasing decision process than advice from friends/family and any
other medium such as Television, Newspaper 66% of online consumers consider the Internet
helping them make purchasing decision compared to 61% from friends/ family and 42% from
Television.
The influence of online advertising on consumers over other forms of advertising will
continue to increase in many years to come because of its interactive nature, the global platform
it presents to companies that advertised on it and the opportunities it offers to consumers to make
purchases through online.
Participants found online advertising both useful and privacy-invasive. The majority of
participants were either fully or partially opposed to online advertising, finding the idea smart
but creepy. However, this attitude seemed to be influenced in part by beliefs that more data is
collected than actually is.
Our understanding of consumers interaction with such information artifacts is still
limited, and as a result, these information artifacts may not be designed to fulfill their greatest
potentials to both serve the consumers and generate business values. This study gathers
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 31

understanding and insights, with the hope of guiding better future designs and a less annoying
and stressful environment for consumers with adequate policing by certain online policies.












ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 32

Appendix A: Questionnaire
Online Advertising Questionnaire
We are the students from Advanced Educational Program at National Economics
University. This research project is conducted as part of our study program. The aim of this
research is to discover the perception towards online advertising and its influences on consumer
behavior of AEP students. All data and measurements obtained from this research study will be
stored confidentially. Only researcher will have access to view any data collected during this
research.
The research intends to cause no physical or psychological harm or offense and to abide by
all commonly acknowledged ethical codes. You voluntarily agree to participate in this research
project by filling the following questionnaire. You have the right to ask the researchers any
question regarding this project. You also have the right to reject participation. You may
withdraw from this research any time you wish. This may take 5 minutes of your time. Please
make sure that you have responded to every statement.
1. How many times per day do you see online advertisings?
A. 0
B. 1-5
C. 6-10
D. Over 10
2. How do you feel about the development of online advertising today?
A. Favorable
B. What I like
C. Desirable
Please indicate whether you: Strongly Agree (1); Somewhat Agree (2); Neutral (3);
Somewhat Disagree (4); Strongly Disagree (5) for Q3 and Q4
3. What do you perceive the content of online advertisings today?

Factors Strongly
Agree
Somewhat
Agree
Neutral Somewhat
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Entertainment
Informativeness
Irritation
Credibility
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 33

Interactivity
Privacy

4. How would you rate perceived values of online advertisings?
Strongly
Agree
Somewhat
Agree
Neutral Somewhat
Disagree
Strongly
Disagree
Useful
Important


Valuable



5. In what way does online advertising have influence on you? Please choose only one
statement
A. Purchase some of the products and services so advertised
B. Use some of the products and services
C. Only influences me to plan for their future purchase
D. It has no influence on me because the products and services are too expensive
E. It has no influence on me because I do not trust online purchase
F. I do not pay attention to online advertisings
6. What are the challenges you encountered while patronizing advertised products and
services seen on the web?
A. Erratic electricity supply
B. Lack of access to Internet
C. Services not provided as advertised
D. Fraud
E. Products are delivered in bad conditions
7. Could you consider about the quality of products and services brought throughout online
advertisings?
A. Exactly like the details of Ad. Very pleased
B. Quite like the details of Ad. Not expect too much
C. Completely different from Ad. Seem to be tricked
D. Never having bought something like that before

Thank you for your help!
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 34

Appendix B: Figures and Tables





Figure 1. Average Times per Day of Seeing E-Ads

0,00%
62,07%
20,69%
17,24%
0,00%
10,00%
20,00%
30,00%
40,00%
50,00%
60,00%
70,00%
0 1-5 6-10 Over 10
Percentage of People Reported Seeing Number of E-Ads Per
Day
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 35


Figure 2. Attitudes towards E-Ads


Figure 3. Perception on Underlying Factors about E-Ads

41,38%
37,93%
20,69%
0,00% 5,00% 10,00%15,00%20,00%25,00%30,00%35,00%40,00%45,00%
Favourable
What I like
Desirable
Attitudes toward E-Ads
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Strongly Disagree
Somewhat Diagree
Neither Agree nor
Disagree
Somewhat Agree
Strongly Agree
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 36


Figure 4: Average Points of Underlying Factors


Figure 5. Perceived Values of E-Ads

1,99
1,93
2,00
3,80
3,11
3,86
0,00
0,50
1,00
1,50
2,00
2,50
3,00
3,50
4,00
4,50
Perceptions on Other Factors
1,88
2,88
3,15
0,00 0,50 1,00 1,50 2,00 2,50 3,00 3,50
Useful
Important
Valuable
Perceived Values for E-Ads
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 37



Table 1. How Online Advertising Influence on Consumers

Response Percentage
Erratic electricity supply 13.79%
Lack of access to Internet 24.14%
Services not provided as advertised 55.17%
Fraud 27.59%
Products are delivered in bad conditions 10.34%
Total 100.00
Table 2. Challenges Consumers Encounter

Response Percentage
Exactly like the details of Ad. Very pleased 20.69%
Quite like the details of Ad. Not expect too much 48.28%
Completely different from Ad. Seem to be tricked 17.24%
Never having bought something like that before 13.79%
Total 100.00
Table 3: Quality of Products bought through Online Advertising

Response Percentage
Purchase some of the products and services so advertised 15.83%
Use some of the products and services 30.22%
Only influences me to plan for their future purchases 23.02%
It has no influence on me because the products and services are
too expensive
4.32%
It has no influence on me because I do not trust online purchase 18.70%
I do not pay attention to online advertisings 7.91%
Total 100.00
ONLINE ADVERTISING: PERCEPTION AND INFLUENCES 38

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