An Examination of Consumers' Attitudes and Beliefs towards Web Site Advertising

This article examines consumers' attitudes towards Web site advertising (WSA), and the beliefs that help shape these attitudes, using an established model of consumers' evaluation of advertising (Pollay and Mittal 1993). The authors apply these constructs to WSA, using three years of data gathered from consecutive student samples. Key findings indicate that while global attitudes towards WSA are relatively stable, consumers have become less positive about the “hedonic/pleasurable” aspects of WSA. In addition, this analysis suggests that consumers can be segmented based on their beliefs about Web site advertising in terms of the following: (1) Pro WSA; (2) Ambivalent towards WSA; and (3) Critics of WSA.