The phenomenon of advertising blindness: A qualitative case study of how a Swedish interior design company tailor their e-commerce marketing strategies to cope with the phenomenon of advertising blindness

(1)

The phenomenon of

advertising blindness

A qualitative case study of how a Swedish interior

design company tailor their e-commerce marketing

strategies to cope with the phenomenon of

advertising blindness

Bachelor thesis

Author: Cassandra Thomas & Linn Andersson Supervisor: MaxMikael Wilde Björling

(2)

Abstract

This bachelor thesis researches the question of “How do Swedish interior design companies tailor their e-commerce marketing strategies to cope with the phenomenon of advertising blindness?” through a qualitative case study. In order to conduct this research, relevant aspects of the phenomenon have been analysed in relation to actual marketing strategies. By following the qualitative methods with a semi-structured interview and content analysis, a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and how Swedish interior design companies cope with it can be gathered. The thesis follows a deductive approach, due to that the research topic in the specified industry was considered rather unexplored, thus a better preunderstanding of the topic was deemed relevant.

The existing knowledge and research have been compiled and resulted in a conceptual framework. The pre-existing studies on advertising blindness have been conducted in other industries; this thesis will thus be founding its analysis on previous studies but in a new industry with different types of consumers and marketing.

The analysis of the empirical findings encompassed a discussion about how theoretical models and practical marketing methods are used by a Swedish interior design company. The conclusions drawn from the analysis present both implications, recommendations, and limitations. The empirical findings showed that advertising blindness is not a phenomenon actively planned against in the interior design case company that was researched for this thesis. The main theoretical implications derived from this thesis, was giving marketing students and marketing managers insight into the importance of understanding the advertising blindness phenomenon. The main practical implication was found to be that although certain KPI are used to monitor consumer behaviour and purchases, advertising blindness has not been prioritized in the measurements. Thus, as omni channels such as the case company have to increase their focus on e-commerce, the attention to advertising blindness has to be more present from managers. Furthermore, a continuation of this research would find value in conducting research from the consumer perspective in order to give marketing managers a second perspective that could show the importance of studying advertising blindness.

Key words

Advertising blindness, Interior design, Online marketing strategies, Retail, Visual attention

(3)

Acknowledgments

During the course of this thesis, we have gained a lot of new knowledge in marketing and what opportunities and obstacles companies have today when marketing online. To begin with, we would like to express great gratitude to our interview candidate from one of Sweden's largest furniture companies, which through a rewarding interview enabled us to get a deeper understanding and knowledge of our subject. Without their contribution, we would not have been able to complete this thesis.

We would also like to thank our opponents who contributed with constructive criticism and feedback during the course of the study. Finally, we want to take this opportunity to thank our supervisor MaxMikael Wilde Björling and examiner Miralem Helmefalk who provided us with valuable suggestions and guidance throughout the progression of our thesis, which contributed significantly to improving the quality of this bachelor thesis.

Finally, we would like to thank family and friends who, during this process, have inspired, supported, and helped us through this project during our final semester at Linnaeus University.

(4)

1 Introduction

This introductory chapter will review the background and previous research of our research question. The practical problem and the scientific research gap, along with the research purpose, will be discussed and presented.

1.1 Background

Marketing has been around for hundreds of years and the way it is designed has changed. The marketing campaign has gone from going through newspapers and TV sets that have published one-way communication to digitalization as social media, which instead is a two-way dialogue between companies and recipients. Advertising plays an important role in society, it creates competition, it informs, and it contributes to work and growth (Ericson, 2015). Without advertising, mediums such as magazines would be more expensive, and social media and the entertainment industry would probably not be the same.

Digital marketing strategy builds on and adapts the principles of traditional marketing, using the opportunities and challenges offered by the digital medium (Ismail et al., 2017). It drives the creation of demand using the power of the Internet. Companies often use multiple creative formats in their campaigns to target consumers with product-based messaging and prices. With the increasing use of the internet and social media, companies have more opportunities to reach their customers, as new platforms create room for advertising in new ways. The new ways to reach customers and a combination of the globalization has meant that online sales have rapidly expanded every year. Between 2008 and 2018, the number of internet purchases by the Nordic residents increased from 21 percent to 61 percent (PostNord, 2018).

The online fast fashion industry is one of the industry's that is increasing, it is leading to a race for market share, the fast fashion business model with low prices and high turnover, is now turning into ultra-fast fashion (Hughes, 2018).The rapid delivery rate also gives the opportunity that consumers can buy according to the trends often. This fast-paced marketing environment that happens in fast fashion is also found in the interior industry. During 2018, the interior industry has grown stronger and has increased its sales with 13 percent (Hansson, 2019). The interior industry includes the furniture industry segment and companies can encompass both the entire interior industry or only parts of it, such as only interior decoration or only furniture (Piotrowski, 2020). This case study will research a company that encompasses both

(7)

interior decorations and furniture. The furniture industry, that sell non-frequent goods, has a connection to the property market, where consumers get an increased need for new interior decorations and furniture when moving (Hansson, 2019). Interior design has also become of greater interest to the general public, partially due to the increasing amount of interior decorating programs (Marjamäki, 2018). The interior industry has started to follow the fast fashion approach with many quick changing seasons where the consumers can update their home with small styling accessories, rather than buying large furniture, according to Sofia-Li Molin, Creative director for the market research department at the Swedish Fashion Council (Bergström, 2017).

There has been a high increase in amount of retail companies in most industries in society the past years, which has led to an increase in the amount of advertising (Holmström, 2019). The trade association Svensk Handel Stil recommend retailers to keep a maximum of four sale seasons per year, as to not risk breaking the Swedish Marketing Act (Bränström, 2018). According to Bränström (2018), some Swedish fast fashion companies have in just three months’ time marketed around eight to nine price promotions to their customers through text messages. By studying the fast fashion marketing methods, inferences can be drawn to the possible near future for the growing interior design industry.This growth leads to an increase in marketing activities such as sales seasons, campaigns and other price promotions and can result in consumers not engaging with the retailers marketing efforts. At the same time the trends are changing, and new marketing channels are constantly appearing, channels that were working a few months ago can be replaced today. Therefore, companies need to work constantly to be part of the present and keep track of which channels the customers are in.

But even though companies would be where the customer is, there is a high risk that the customer will not pay attention to the ad anyway. As a response to the increasing amount of advertising, advertising fatigue and advertising blindness have grown (Cho & Cheon 2004). According to Marshall (2015) we are the recipient of more than 4000 advertising messages daily in the society. This large amount of messages makes it difficult for the individual to process all information and thus a noise has been created. A noise that is constantly tried to penetrate marketers and communicators in their struggle to catch the attention of consumers. At the same time the attitude of advertising has also changed in recent years. A survey that Svenska Annonsörer had Novus execute found that the percentage of people in Sweden that are negative towards advertisements have increased from 44 percent to 59 percent in just five years (Riberdahl, 2019). The article by Riberdahl (2019) describes that according to research by Peter Field, the retailers focus is on the short term conversion driving campaigns,

(8)

and the long-term corporate branding marketing has to stand back in favour for easy purchase focused messages that are being pushed to as many channels as possible. The increased advertising fatigue where the declining confidence for the advertisements in consumer behaviour can affect both the retailers but also the society.

By consolidating the theories and studies in attention and awareness in the fast fashion industry, inferences of how the interior design industry strategize their marketing can be made. With increasing frequency of sales seasons in a fast-paced digital environment, it is possible to determine interesting possibilities for new research. When designing a marketing strategy for a Swedish interior design company, the understanding of how the previous marketing studies in other fields, such as fast fashion, could be applied to the interior design industry is of high relevance. Thus, the combination of advertising blindness in the interior design industry is a phenomenon that proves to be a relevant research topic for retailers.

1.2 Problem discussion

1.2.1 The practical problem

With the growth of internet, companies now have the opportunity to reach the consumers with new marketing methods, these new methods have led to an increase of advertising in the society. When consumers see advertising everywhere, they will begin to notice less about what the advertising is trying to convey, which results in that they avoid engaging with the message from the retailers. A new phenomenon has arisen: advertising blindness. Advertising blindness is something that has been used to explain the phenomenon whereby an observer fails to notice an appearing stimulus when focusing attention on a present stimulus (Mack & Rock 1998). There have been conflicting results regarding whether this phenomenon truly exists, when it appears, and why (Bredemeier & Simons 2012). David Hällström (2017) means that advertising blindness exists and describes it as “Customers have grown tired of ads and hard-selling advertising”. Hällström (2017) describes that when we come across advertising daily, whether we just go to the store or check social media, people have become so used to the fact that there is advertising everywhere, that people have learned to disregard the advertising. This is highly relevant to research further in as these phenomena are increasing in society each year and affecting the effectiveness of current advertising strategies.

(9)

1.2.2 The scientific research gap

Several studies have been conducted on the topic of advertising blindness (Kaspar et al. 2019; Cho et al., 2004), except in the field of the fast fashion and interior design industry. In the fast fashion industry, the research topics has had attention on price image, brand image and consumers sense of self confidence (Frisk & Chu, 2017). The research done on the interior design industry has focused on consumers purchase decisions based on price, style, quality and functionality (Oh et al., 1999). Many of the studies have looked at the consumers’ behaviour and response to advertising and what the consumer remembers of the advertisement (Cho & Cheon, 2004). Studies done on the companies behind the marketing have looked at what marketing strategies are used and how they have to adjust to e- and m-commerce (Cole et al., 2003).

As the number of sales seasons, campaigns and discounts is increasing in the interior design industry, the amount of marketing for these events are also subsequently increasing. Consumers today are exposed to marketing in all aspects of their life, and that is psychologically affecting the consumers attention to marketing efforts.

Retailers in the interior design industry are trying to reach their customers in a competitive environment with increasing sales seasons and discounts. This has contributed to an increased amount of advertising in society and today there are more platforms than ever for companies to reach out to their target group. All the advertising that consumers encounter on a daily basis allows consumers to see past the advertisements, which has contributed to the phenomenon of advertising blindness (Mack & Rock, 1998). The loss of attention and the effects of advertising blindness are largely researched in the physical store environment and in other industries, while in the interior design industry, particularly online, very few studies have been made.

1.3 Research question

RQ: How do Swedish interior design companies tailor their e-commerce marketing strategies to cope with the phenomenon of advertising blindness?

1.4 Research purpose

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on how interior design companies in Sweden tailor their e-commerce marketing strategies, to cope with advertising blindness, in order for the companies to improve their marketing efforts. This study will help both the marketing department at these retail companies, and people interested in studying

(10)

marketing strategies to find out what strategy there is to cope with the phenomenon of advertising blindness.

The purpose is in line with an exploratory study since the research question seeks an explanation of ”How” Swedish interior design companies, through their e-commerce marketing strategies, cope with advertising blindness. Since the quality of the empirical data will rely on, and set the foundation for the results, the contributions from the interviewee and data gathered through a content analysis will support the exploratory research purpose. The research will draw connections from marketing methods used in the fast fashion industry in order to give context to this case study.

1.5 Delimitations

As there was such limited amount of previous research made on advertising blindness in the interior design industry, marketing concepts from the fast fashion industry has been used as context. Furthermore, fast fashion marketing with selling large volumes to a lower price with an increasing amount of marketing is a method that parts of the interior design industry has begun emulating. The interior design industry can be likened to the fashion industry with a divide between luxury and commercial. This thesis will be researching the commercial side of the interior design industry, rather than the luxury sector. The motive of targeting this sector is due to that sector being more transparent than its counterpart, making the empirical data collection more accessible. The phenomenon from the consumer perspective will not be explored in this thesis. It will also not explore the environmental considerations of the interior industry, due to the large scope of such considerations had to have taken. The ethical and environmental aspects of the concerned industry are important primarily from a sustainability perspective, though not within this thesis boundaries.

(11)

(12)

2 Literature review

The literature review will draw on research from the retail marketing literature, as well as psychological aspects and methods used in previous research. The literature review will highlight the possible reasons for advertising blindness and show general marketing strategies. As a beginning to understanding our chosen topic, the topic of pricing will be discussed.

2.1 Price promotion

One of the studies researching the effects of retail price promotions is conducted by Mulhern and Padgett (1995), which researches the relationship between retail price promotions and regular price purchases. The study notes that the fear of negative consequences of retail price promotions can range from increased price sensitivity to weakening of brand franchise, and cannibalization of regular prices. The study's empirical research showed that the use of short-term price promotions can attract shoppers who will also purchase regular price merchandise. The effect of long-term price promotions is not studied and is suggested as a possible future study. Another study done by Pauwels et al. (2002) researches the effect of long-term price promotions in the grocery store industry. The researchers concluded that the general absence of permanent effects reassures practitioners that promotional activity does not structurally damage any of the three sales components: category incidence, brand choice, and purchase quantity. It suffices to monitor sales and profits during and up to two months after the promotion and as long as the immediate and adjustment effects are profitable, playing the promotional game appears better than staying out of it, Pauwels et al. (2002) concludes.

2.1.1 Price image

Price image can be viewed as a part of a company’s brand image (Hamilton & Chernev, 2013). As brand image is about what associations consumers have to brands (Chandon, 2003), it can be related to price image as both of these concepts represent an overall evaluation of the company. This can also influence the consumers evaluation of the individual items offered by that company. However, unlike the company's brand image, which is a multidimensional construct comprising a variety of both price and nonprice aspects (Keller, 2012; Lindquist, 1974; Mazursky & Jacoby, 1986 cited by Hamilton & Chernev, 2013), price image is a unidimensional construct that reflects consumer perceptions of the overall level of prices at a given retailer (Hamilton & Chernev, 2013). The study defines a retailer’s price image as two types of factors: retailer-based factors, which managers can directly influence, and

(13)

consumer-based factors, which are particular to the individual buyers and which managers cannot directly influence. They further distinguish retailer-based factors that are directly related to price as well as nonprice factors used by consumers to draw inferences about a retailer's price image.

The study by Hamilton and Chernev (2013) presents five key price-related drivers of price image: the overall price level, the dispersion of prices, price dynamics, pricing policies, and price-based communications. The overall price level, or the average price, is represented by the retailer’s actual prices and not the consumer’s perception of those prices. This factor has been traditionally considered the key driver of price image (Feichtinger et al., 1988), whereby higher average prices are expected to result in a higher price image. As Feichtinger et al. (1988) finds in the study, not all items are equal in price image formation. Hamilton and Chernev’s (2013) study shows how the price image is determined by all the different aspects of the marketing-mix and is therefore an important part of the retailers’ strategic positioning. The study concludes that the price image is a company level strategic concern that requires centralized management oversight. This is reflecting the strategic importance and its holistic importance.

2.1.2 Pricing in the fashion industry

Marketing studies in the field of advertising blindness and awareness have been conducted in several fields with the exception of the fashion industry where the research studies instead have been related to the consumers self-confidence or comparison to fashion models. As Bertrandias and Goldsmith (2006) present in their study, the purpose of their research was to model the relationships between consumer needs for uniqueness and attention, to social comparison with fashion opinion leadership and fashion opinion seeking. The studies related to social comparison, fashion opinion leadership and fashion opinion seeking, can be related to the modern fashion opinion leaders: influencers (Casaló et al., 2018).

The study by Frisk & Chu (2017) states that fashion companies use price promotions as a strategy as a way to upsell. As the amount of clothing companies has increased, the competition for the market shares has caused the companies to become more aggressive in their marketing strategies and thus in their price promotions. When more companies have to share the market at lower prices, the volumes of clothes have to increase. Lower prices and higher volumes is the fast fashion strategy, but the study finds that the consumers have become more aware of trends and thus have no interest in retailers saving leftover clothes for the next or coming seasons (Frisk & Chu, 2017).

(14)

2.1.3 Dynamic pricing

It is hard for consumers to properly compare prices between retailers as the overwhelming number of individually priced stock keeping units, frequent price changes, special pricing, and non-overlapping assortments (Stassen et al., 1999) make a comprehensive assessment of prices at most stores almost impossible for the average consumer. This results in that customers use three to five key prices to form an overall impression of a store (D'Andrea et al., 2006). When retailers compete with each other for offering the lowest prices, they have identified Known Value Items (KVIs). These KVIs are products that are believed to affect the consumers price image of the store, resulting in aggressive pricing on these significant products, also referred to as “signpost items” (Anderson & Simester, 2009).

As the pricing of products change for different reasons, it can be argued that pricing for the most part is dynamic. By using coupons, discounts and price adjustments, the retailers can choose to employ various pricing strategies, either static prices or dynamic pricing that can change frequently or drastically (Hamilton & Chernev, 2013). The same study also discusses price-based communication. A way for the retailer to communicate to the consumer is through advertising, social media and public relations activities. They found that previous research had shown that the use of price advertising increases the consumers price sensitivity by encouraging them to focus more on prices while shopping.

2.2 Interior design

The interior design industry have many aspects to consider when making buying decisions, there needs to be considerations regarding budget, available space, time investment, disposal of currently useable items, match to existing furniture and lifestyle, according to Applied Research & Consulting LLC (1999) cited by Oh et al. (2004). Oh et al. (1999) also describe how consumers need to face similarly difficult decisions such as price, style, quality, and functionality due to the significant expense and long product life cycle of furniture. Furthermore, since the increase in e-commerce sites, many retailers have adapted to the growing market of online shoppers. According to Cole et al. (2003) retailers that sell clothes have seen an increase in sales due to the online market, but the growth of the furniture retailer’s e-commerce sites has been slower. They state that the reason for this might be the difficult decisions that consumers have to take but also that the retailers have to compensate for the lack of realistic trialability as well as the inconvenience and high costs of delivery and return processes.

(15)

2.3 Advertising blindness

Advertising blindness, advertising avoidance or banner blindness, is a phenomenon where consumers “avoid” looking at advertising online. However, internet users have learned to partially avoid looking at online advertisements on web pages, establishing a phenomenon called “banner blindness”, a synonym to what this thesis refers to as advertising blindness (Kaspar et al. 2019).

Cho et al. (2004) study that why people avoid advertising on the internet, three latent variables of internet advertising avoidance were examined. The three variables examined were perceived goal impediment, perceived ad clutter, and prior negative experience. The study found that all three variables had an effect on advertising avoidance and that perceived goal impediment was found to be the most in explaining the reason behind advertising avoidance. The study suggests that ad avoidance may come as a result from advertising hindering the consumers web page viewing. Previous negative experiences with digital advertising can cause dissatisfaction and perceived lack of usefulness to click or engage with the advertising. As these negative experiences with Internet advertising increase, so does the avoidance of advertisements. This is hypothesized by the authors of the study as the higher the perceived goal impediment, the higher advertising avoidance on the Internet (Cho et al., 2004).

Baker and Lutz (2000) study presents that advertising is most effective when the content of the displayed advertisement and message matches the information the consumer seeks. The higher level of information adaptation will eliminate disruptive interruptions (Te'eni & Feldman, 2001). To get the attention and engage the promotions need to stand out (Li, & Xie, 2020), the advertising also has to be related to needs of the individual user (Kaspar et al. 2019).

2.4 Digital marketing strategy

The basic purpose of marketing is to connect companies with consumers by building a strong relationship to meet consumer expectations (Möslein-Tröppner et al., 2020). Effectively, marketing is an attempt to modify behaviour and stimulate demand (Smith, 1983). The effectiveness of traditional mass advertising, which is usually produced in identical messages for a non-specific review, has been questioned for a variety of reasons, such as increasing advertising movements (Rotfeld, 2006). According to Jin and Villegas (2007) companies are doubtful about how good mass communication and other traditional marketing methods really are, and because of that, they have an increased interest in other forms of advertising.

(16)

2.4.1 Customer loyalty

The fashion market has achieved market saturation and competition between companies has increased sharply (Möslein-Tröppner et al., 2020). As retail competition in consumer markets around the world continues to intensify, marketing strategists are seeking strategies that capture both consumer interest and consumer loyalty (Moore & Fairhurst, 2003). Customer loyalty, as defined by Johnson and Fornell (1991), is fundamental and therefore a concept for success in business operations. If consumers trust that the brand meets their needs, this facilitates their decision-making (Erdem & Swait, 1998). Thus, trust is a key factor to consider in brand success. The most important link is the company's marketing activity influences the consumer's thinking regarding the brand (Rajavi et al., 2019). According to Möslein-Tröppner et al. (2020) the customer loyalty is decreasing with the growth of companies, and instead there is an increase of price awareness and expectations from customers. Further they mean that satisfied customers will only remain loyal to the company if none of the competitors provide a better offering such as quality, price or service. Consumers have nowadays it easier to search for information about companies and what other companies offer. Establishing and maintaining a close relationship with customers to convert them into “patrons” is still an important strategic goal for many companies, as this results in lasting sales and profits and thus return on investment (Hogreve et al., 2017).

2.4.2 Digital marketing trifecta

According to Balachandran (1975), "one of the most challenging questions is how to determine the optimal marketing mix". One communication method is the use of the digital marketing trifecta of paid, owned and earned media (Lane Keller, 2016). The three aspects can be implemented both through traditional marketing platforms such as TV sets, but it is also highly relevant to modern digital marketing. Paid media can traditionally be defined as direct mail or TV advertising, while today it can be defined as native advertising, Pay Per Click and paying influencers or other opinion leaders to promote the company’s products. Owned media can be the retailers’ own web page, e-commerce page or social media pages. Both paid and owned media are the easiest for companies to control, and therefore the most used. With the rise of social media and digital marketing, earned media has become a vital part in marketing the company’s products and creating authenticity. Earned media can be defined as word-of-mouth, and that effect can be translated into the digital platforms as well (Lane Keller, 2016). With reviews from non-opinion leaders that do not have any follower

(17)

base or mentions, social shares or promotions that opinion leaders make without compensation, all increase the authenticity of the product and the brand image.

Figure 1: The digital marketing trifecta first adapted by Katz (2018)

2.5 Social media

The emerge of communication technologies, which have been developed in parallel with the increase of the growth of the internet, has served as platforms that facilitate interaction with and among consumers, which enables the formation of brand groups in social networks (Zaglia, 2013). Social media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of the Web 2.0 that enable the creation and exchange of user-generated content (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). It is both a form of entertainment and a platform for consumers to exchange experiences and preferences with reference to brands (Araujo & Neijens, 2012). Consumers are increasingly using social media platforms to interact with the companies they love and are customers of, as well as with other consumers who may be interested in the same companies (Hausman et al., 2014). Through the brand pages and accounts on the different platforms, companies can have activities and content related to the brand or the core product that the consumer's activity takes part in (Tsimonis et al., 2020). Relationships between companies and consumers through the establishment of brand pages on the platforms allow companies to develop direct relationships with their fans (Martins & Patricio, 2013). However, many companies

(18)

fail to use their brand pages effectively to achieve marketing goals, mainly because they do not fully understand the mechanisms of consumer participation in brand pages (lbid.). In order for a long-term consumer brand relationship to be developed and maintained, consumers must perceive the relationship as valuable enough to remain.

2.5.1 Online opinion leaders

The widespread use of social media by both individuals and organizations has created opportunities to blend frontiers between the two spaces, where individuals can act as online brand representatives for organizations (Sihi & Lawson, 2018). In the consumer decision-making process, reviews from other Internet users are a type of electronic mouth (Lee et al., 2008). Another important source for electronic word-of-mouth is derived from opinion leaders (Shi & Wojnicki, 2014). Meaningful leaders are individuals who can influence the thoughts, attitudes, or behaviours of other people, leading them to act in a certain way with a certain frequency (Rogers, 1983). The use of online opinion leaders is something that many companies implement in their marketing. Online opinion leaders share information for a variety of personal reasons. These reasons may be that they enjoy the status and positive attention that a large social media following can achieve and also that they are paid or compensated by the brands they promote (Lin et al., 2018). It is common for consumers to rely on opinion leaders, as an opinion leader is likely to educate themselves on the product to be marketed, thus creating confidence for their followers in a form of conviction (Kuksov & Liao, 2019). Through these, companies can reach their target group by choosing the right leader to work with. Since the followers are already following the opinion leader, the followers will take part of the advertisements shown.As the number of people on social media platforms with a large follower base has increased, consumers active on those platforms have grown accustomed to the fact that paid advertising, like collaborations and sponsored posts, often appear in the social media feed.

2.5.2 Perceived quality of advertising on companies’ digital platforms

When companies promote themselves on their own profiles, studies have shown that using an image in advertising instead of only a text post, can help the post stand out and, as a result, attract more attention. In addition to attention, image content can also directly affect engagement by improving the perceived quality of a post (Li & Xie, 2020). In Li and Xie’s (2020) study, photos taken by amateurs were compared to photos taken by professional photographers. The results of the study showed that high quality images lead to more engagement and attention and that the presence effect is more than the relationship between image content and engagement.

(19)

2.5.3 Information overload in social media

The increase of advertising, collaborations and at the same time, the use of social media has resulted in users being exposed to information overload (Li, & Xie, 2020). A study conducted on people in ages 16–36 about overload in social media, stated 74 percent of the respondents object to being targeted by marketers in their social media feeds, and 56 percent of the respondents stated that they reduced or terminated their use of specific social media sites due to advertising in their feeds (Harris Poll, 2016 cited by Bright & Logan, 2018). In a study by Bright and Logan (2018) conducted on 518 social media users, it was found that users feel annoyed and tired of all the advertising. It was also found that the more a person relies on social media to stay informed, the more likely the individual will experience fatigue on social media. When users are feeling fatigued of all the advertising they come across on the platforms, it becomes a higher risk that the users will ignore and not give attention to the advertising. Finally, the results of the study showed that when respondents had a positive attitude to the brand that they followed they are more likely to have a positive attitude towards their social media advertising.

2.6 Online advertising

The effectiveness of traditional mass advertising, which is usually produced in identical messages for a non-specific review, has been questioned for a variety of reasons, such as increasing advertising movements (Rotfeld, 2006). Online advertising became the world’s biggest advertising medium in 2017, accounting for 37.6 percent of total advertising expenditures, and it is expected to grow to 44.6 percent in 2020 (Harms et al., 2019). The consumer tendency to avoid banner advertising and the declining click-through-rate (CTR), led advertisers to include other advertising formats in their campaigns (Cho & Cheon, 2004). In online advertising, the fastest-growing subcategory is display advertising, including banners and social media (Zenith Optimedia, 2018 cited by Harms et al., 2019).

There is some evidence that women are more invested in the shopping experience and thus more likely to spend more time browsing online (Passyn et al., 2011). Wolin and Korgaonkar’s (2003) study concluded that women are more likely than men to visit shopping sites. This means that women can visit several different shopping sites on different occasions, which creates a risk that companies can be forgotten among all the companies that the women visit. Thereby it is important for companies to be visible even when the women are not on the website.

(20)

The term e-lifestyle is described in a study by Koshksaray et al. (2015) as a user on the internet, employing it for different reasons, from information search to building and developing social networks. From this, divergent characteristics form different lifestyles. According to Koshksaray et al. (2015) has many studies indicated that e-lifestyle is an important variable that influences the consumers ways of interacting with the internet for various activities or goals. Why there is a need of classifying the different lifestyles is described in the study by Koshksaray et al. (2015); for one, it is to help advertisers target appropriate consumers and design a more efficient internet advertisement, also, awareness of the different lifestyles enables the advertisers to perceive differences in attitudes of users. The information gathered from the users is used for the company to stay relevant and engaging with its target audience as well as helping them plan and present more purposeful advertising.

2.6.1 Emotional messages

Emotional messages are often used in the hope that the consumer notices the advertisement but also to strengthen the relationship between the brand and the consumer (Rossiter & Bellman, 2012). In a study conducted by Pechmann and Stewart (1990) it was found that emotional advertisements are more likely to be remembered. The study also suggests that emotional advertisements and the advertisements with greater emotional imagery wear out slower than advertisements without emotional persuasion. Ambler et al. (2000) described that emotional involvement is an integral part of all response to advertising, and thus an important part of consumer decision-making. Chandy et al. (2001) study showed the effects of advertising on sales across multiple creatives and found that emotional advertisements are more effective in mature markets and argument-based appeals are more effective in newer markets. A study by Drake (2017) conducted on 181 women gave the result that advertisements that used different female empowerment topics gave significantly higher positive attitudes towards the advertisements and brands, compared to non-female empowerment advertisements. The positive relationship between attitudes to an advertisement and attitudes towards a brand, strengthens the consumer's image of the brand (MacKenzie et al., 1986).

2.6.2 Banner design

The main aim with online banners is to get the user to click on the banner advertisement and be redirected to the advertiser’s webpage (Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2019). The size of the digital advertisement on a web page has been shown to have different effects. Larger advertisements can be associated with more attention and

(21)

response (Baltas, 2003) it can also create better memory for products and are more likely to be remembered compared to smaller advertisements (Chandon et al., 2003 cited by Bruce et al., 2017). A study by Dréze and Hussherr (2003) found that there is no significant effect of advertisement size on engagement. Furthermore, they mean that the user learns to avoid viewing advertisements, even though the advertisements can affect them through their peripheral vision (Dréze and Hussherr 2003 cited by Bruce et al., 2017).

One way retailers have created their banners is by animating them. This has its roots in motion effect theory which claims that human beings tend to quickly direct their attention toward moving objects and process the relevant information because they regard moving objects in their peripheral vision as either threats or opportunities (Reeves & Nass, 1996). Even though a moving advertisement would in theory garner more attention, it is not always the case as different users pay different amount of attention to the same advertisements.

Banner advertisements can attract attention by using animation and users can identify and better recall animated banner advertisements than still banner advertisements (Li & Bukovac, 1999). In a study by Bruce et al. (2017) it was found that animated advertisements had significantly higher transmission effects, thus affecting engagement for a longer duration than static advertisements, in all advertising formats and among both targeted and repointed consumers. The study's results also showed that among animated formats, price advertisements were more effective than product advertisements. Finally, they concluded that all of the retailer's advertisements (all formats and messages) targeted to women were more effective, which they suggest is because female shoppers are largely more willing to engage.

2.6.3 Native advertising

As customers have learned to avoid advertising banners in their subconscious, it has become increasingly common for companies to use in-feed native advertisements to work around advertising blindness. Native advertising means that companies design the advertisements in a way that the advertisement blends into their context; this mainly occurs on news pages, social media platforms and on search engines. The advertisement blends in so much that it is difficult for the visitor to see the difference between the original content of the website and the advertisements. By allowing the advertisement to appear as for example a news story, marketers can reduce consumer advertising avoidance (An, Kerr et al., 2019). It can start a kind of conflict between the brand advertiser and the news publisher (Aribarg & Schwartz, 2019). The advertiser has a balance between advertisement clicks and brand recognition, while the

(22)

publisher wants a balance between advertisement publishing and their platforms’ authenticity. Native advertising makes promises to publishers because they can charge advertisers more for native advertising content than for display advertisements (Cho et al., 2004).

This is the marketer’s purpose with native advertising, to design an advertisement similar to the website’s content to make it easy to mistake as a non-advertisement and to make visitors click on it (Aribarg & Schwartz 2019). Following the Swedish marketing laws, the website must label advertisement in a clear way so that the visitor can understand that it is advertising (SFS 2008:486). But even if the advertisement is labelled, it can sometimes not be clear enough. When native advertisements are not clearly labelled as advertising, it is highly likely that consumers regard them as impartial information rather than partial information on behalf of advertisers (An, Kang et al., 2019). Lazauskas (2014) cited by An and Kerr et al. (2019) found in a study conducted on 542 people that 67 percent of respondents felt deceived after discovering that native advertisements that looked like news had actually been written by an advertiser. When the information or source of information does not match their original beliefs, consumers feel manipulated, which negatively affects persuasion effects (Lunardo & Mbengue, 2013), thus counteracting the intended purpose of the message (Friestad & Wright, 1994). An and Kerr et al. (2019)also highlights in their study the importance of making people immediately aware that native advertising is actually advertising. In the study, they also found that the cost of appearing manipulative is great in terms of attitude towards the brand and the intention to share or purchase from a particular retailer. Aribarg and Schwartz (2019) showed the same results in their study, they conducted a study with 1299 people that compared consumers responses to display advertisements versus in-feed native advertisements. The findings were that when consumers see native advertisements along with editorial content, consumers may feel deceived, and such a negative feeling can diminish trust and readers' confidence. They also mean that a display advertisement leads to more visual attention, brand recognition, and trustworthiness for the website than native advertising. The findings of the study show that it was a higher click-through rate for native ads, because it better resembles the surrounding editorial content. But when consumers see native advertisements along with editorial content, consumers may feel deceived, and such a negative feeling can diminish trust and readers' confidence. It means that a display advertisement leads to more visual attention, brand recognition, and trustworthiness for the website than native advertising.

(23)

2.6.4 Personalised advertising

Personalised advertising is defined as advertising that is created for an individual using information about the individual, either personally-identifying information such as one’s e-mail address, name or residence and personal information such as shopping history (Yu & Cude, 2009). The information is based on their personal data collected cookies from online histories (Brinson et al., 2018). The main purpose of personalization is to create a match between the person and the sender by a message, which is usually the result of an increase in the personal relevance (Kalyanaraman & Sundar, 2006). It also allows advertising blindness to be avoided as there is a greater chance of catching the customer when the advertisement shows something that the person is interested in. On the other hand, Lambrecht and Tucker (2013) study found that advertising content that specifically reflects the product consumers viewed earlier is, in general, not effective. Bruce et al., (2017) study showed that personalised advertising with a price incentive were more effective to get attention. Because personalised messages contain self-relevant information, consumers motivation to process such information will be increased (Updegraff et al., 2007 cited by Li et al., 2019).

Processing of self-relevant information and self-awareness is regarded as different from processing objective information (Kircher et al., 2000 cited by Tam & Ho, 2006). Self-reference effect causes information associated with the user to process messages related to oneself in a different way. The attention spontaneously becomes diverted to descriptions or messages that are strongly associated with the self (Bargh, 1982). It is often used in e-mails, in which the message greets the user by name and refers to previous experience within the company. It is also displayed as a recommended item in the e-mail labelled as "personal recommendations" or "unique offers to you.", based on what the user has looked at previously on the company's website. It can be perceived as a persuasion strategy (Li et al., 2019), by the consumer being reminded of the product even when the consumer visits other websites and thus creates an increased need for it. Many companies work with Google Ads, which is making Google search engine generated side banners of related items in real-time based on keywords and web page visits by the users (Tam & Ho, 2006). Through Google Ads, companies "compete" to appear first on the search engines’ website to the consumer after the consumer has visited various websites (Google, 2020). Therefore, the advertisement in those cases may change frequently depending on how often the person visits websites that work with Google Ads.

(24)

2.6.5 Personal integrity

Different studies in consumers' perspectives has shown that the majority have been negative towards the data collection and personalized advertising. Turow et al. (2009) writes that personal advertisements can cause concern about ownership. The more niche advertising becomes, the more it can be perceived as intrusive on personal integrity (Aguirre et al., 2015). In Yu and Cude’s (2009) study with 231 people showed that personalized advertising generated more negative than positive effects among the respondents. The results suggested that all marketers should think through the conceivable negative effects of personalized advertising before applying it.

2.7 Psychological effects of advertising

Avoidance of advertising on the Internet can be observed in three types of avoidance; cognitive, affective, and behavioural avoidance (Koshksaray et al., 2015). The cognition part is what the person has in mind when the advertisement shows, is created through past experiences with the brand in the advertisement, and it shows how likely it is that the person will behave in a certain way. For example, the more negative associations with advertisements, the more risk of a cognitive avoidance response, while the affective part is the person's feelings for the brand, which is influenced by the emotional state the person is in when the advertisement is seen. MacKenzie et al. (1986) stated in their study that when a consumer sees an advertisement, emotions (affection) and judgments (cognition) are created by the advertisement. This then gives an idea and an attitude to the advertisement and thus also to the company behind the advertising.

2.7.1 Deliberate avoidance of advertising online

When consumers use the internet, they are more likely to be goal-oriented and internet advertisements can then be perceived as intrusive. The advertisements can create a disruption for the consumer which can result in unwanted results such as negative attitudes and deliberate avoidance of advertisements (Krugman, 1983 cited by Cho et al., 2004). The negative attitudes and advertising avoidance can also arise in users when the number of advertisements on the internet or the perception that the internet is exclusively an advertising medium occurs. According to Brinson et al. 2018 the use of Ad Blocking programs which filters out advertisements on the web pages has increased during the recent years, which becomes a high cost for companies as they are paying for advertisement space on web pages at the same time as many users filter it out, without companies being able to measure how many they are.

(25)

2.8 Visual attention

Pilelienė and Grigaliūnaitė (2016) is of the opinion that in order for advertising to be regarded as effective, it is not enough to only attract attention. Furthermore, the study believes that brand recall and recognition, attitudes to advertising and brand must also be evaluated. Since most of our actions are guided by our needs and desires, an effective appeal is a compelling promise to satisfy those needs. Dichter (1949) states that the effectiveness of an advertisement depends on the psychological results it provides in the readers' minds.

According to Clement (2007), there is an ongoing discussion as to whether visual attention is a top-down process or an experience driven bottom-up process. The study continues to describe that in a historical context, visual attention can be described with words like where, what, or how. Clement (2007) cites a theory by Helmholtz (1925) that describes humans as inherently curious and interested, thus concentrating their sight on where they can find something new or interesting. This theory stands in contrast to the theory by James (1890), who described visual attention as connected to imagination or thoughts. The theory presented by James (1890) focused on what people were searching for, and visual attention relating to expectation or identity of the target. Both theories are target and feature-driven which indicate that visual attention is related to the environment and triggered by clues in the visual field. Based on these theories, Gibson (1941) introduced a high-level feature driven visual search; the intention of seeing. He described visual attention as closely connected to action or how people react to visual attention.

The human ear can according to Neisser and Becklen (1975) sort out sounds and concentrate on a single voice, and a similar effect is observed with visual attention, indicating that people are able to switch fast between two visual stimuli but are extremely bad at monitoring two or more scenes at the same time. Furthermore, the research done on visual attention, like these studies presented, are performed in the field of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), for example grocery stores, and the examples presented can be difficult to relate to the topic of interior design. Some of the conclusions that researchers have drawn in the FMCG industry is that visual attention is related to objects and not location (Willingham, 2003), which according to Neisser (1976) proves that design objects (packaging design) lead visual attention from one scene to the other. Another example that Yantis (1998) and Hoffman (1998) present is that new objects with distinct basic visual features that occur in the sight field will attract attention independent of which search strategy people use. They refer to that packaging in the FMCG sector that contains distinct visual basic features such

(26)

as distinct shape, colour, orientation, contrast or size will attract consumers’ visual attention and influence people's reaction and buying behaviour regardless of their specific brand preferences. However, it is not revealed in these studies how this visual attention fits into classic buying behaviour theory or how these would relate to the interior design industry.

2.8.1 Eye tracking technology

Advertising blindness can be studied in different ways. Eye tracking technology can sometimes be used such as in the study by Hervet et al. (2011) where it was examined if and how consumers on the internet avoided advertisements. The results from this research shows that people look at advertisements at least one time but that it is the memory of the advertising that the study found interesting. The study found that congruent advertisements were remembered better than incongruent advertisements, despite the fact that the congruence between the advertisement and the editorial content had no effect on the consumers fixation duration on the advertisement.

A second study also did research on how consumers remember advertisements using eye tracking technology (Lee & Ahn, 2012). It is described how retailers spending on advertisements have gone up, even though the CTR has gone down, and it is stated in the study that the effectiveness of banner advertisements has been questioned. The researchers mean that this implies that retailers see banner advertisements as other types of advertisements, as in the banner advertisements give the retailer exposure, but no direct, immediate response. The researchers bring up the important topic of attention, if the consumers give no attention to the advertisements, the consumers might not memorize it. They therefore state that it would be more beneficial to study the attention the advertisements get instead of exposure when estimating the advertisements effectiveness.

The results of the study found that static advertisements that did not have an animation held the user’s attention better than the advertisements that used animation. The reasoning for this, they found by using eye tracking is that the user is avoiding moving objects when they are looking at other static content, and that moving objects would interfere with their goal and thus be irrelevant. They also found that because of the users limited cognitive capacity, animation in banner advertisements negatively affects the relationship between attention (total fixation duration) and memory. The study concludes that although more than half the participants could not recognize the advertised brand, the banner advertisements imprinted unconsciously caused attitudinal changes. The study states that the mere exposure effect with frequent eye

(27)

fixation improved participants’ attitude toward the advertised brand, whereas longer average fixation duration had a negative effect on attitude (Lee & Ahn, 2012).

2.9 Conceptual framework

As the presented theory shows, there is a wide variety of research done on marketing and the psychological effects of advertising. It is furthermore understood that advertising blindness as a phenomenon is a current and important research topic in several industries, that has been left out of the discussion but is surely an important factor that the growing interior design industry should consider.

It has been researched how consumers experience pricing and price strategies, both common practices and between luxury fashion and fast fashion. As consumers have learned how advertising might reach them, they tend to try and avoid engaging with the advertising. This has led to it becoming increasingly common for companies to use different strategies to get around advertising blindness. There are psychological aspects behind the consumers attention rate when being exposed to the increasing amount of advertisements that are present in society due to an increase of sales seasons and discounts, both personalized and on social media by fashion opinion leaders. A common method used in researching visual attention is to use an eye tracking device to monitor how consumers navigate a page, both what they see, what they do not see, what they have their attention on and later measure and the consumers attitudes and feelings connected to the advertisements.

There is research of how retailers strategize their marketing and pricing in the fast fashion industry, but a lack of specific research on how the retailers actively adapt their marketing strategies to cope with the phenomenon advertising blindness. As the phenomenon of advertising blindness is not predicted by any research of decreasing, and sales seasons, personalized promotion and social media marketing is increasing, it would seem relevant to research what retailers are doing to adapt to this competitive climate.

(28)

(29)

3 Methodology

The methodology section of this chapter will cover the research paradigm, research approach, research design and finally, research strategy. The method part of the chapter will, in detail, discuss the chosen method for data collection, sampling and analysis. Finally, the chapter will discuss the trustworthiness of this thesis and the ethical and sustainability considerations.

3.1 Ontology

Within the ontological aspects, the two main categories are objectivism and constructionism. Constructionism means that social phenomena are not only created through social interplay but is also continuously revised. Is also means that researchers descriptions of the social reality are comprised by constructions (Bryman & Bell, 2017). As constructionism portrays social reality as a constantly changing attribute that is connected to the individual’s creation and constructing ability, this aspect works well with the qualitative strategy that this thesis uses.

3.2 Epistemology

Of the epistemological aspect’s positivism, realism and interpretivism, the interpretivism approach is what Bryman and Bell (2017) finds suits a research characterized by semi-structured interviews. This approach fits the chosen research method, as this thesis will base the result of the perceptions and interpretations from the data collected through interviews. Therefore, the epistemological assumptions support the interpretivist paradigm (Saunders et al., 2016).

3.3 Deductive approach

The research approach explains the relationship between the theory and the empirical data, and there are three different ways of conducting scientific research: deduction, induction, and abduction (Bryman & Bell, 2017). Deductive research is based on existing knowledge and theories, which are then translated into hypothesis and later subject to empirical observations and data collection (Bryman & Bell, 2017). When conducting deductive research, it is required that the theoretical framework is operationalized, in order to demonstrate how it can be empirically tested (Merton, 1967). A deductive approach is associated with less risk, as the conclusions drawn from such research derive from a logical process based on a general set of known premises (Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2010; Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). Although this

(30)

approach is associated with less risk, Alvesson and Sköldberg (2009) argue that the deductive approach lacks 27 explanatory elements, and thus can be considered as flat. An inductive approach derives from empirical evidence, whilst a deductive approach derives from theoretical perspectives. Through an inductive approach, conclusions are drawn from empirical observations based on a number of single cases of which patterns have been established (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). Thus, the process begins with observations and gathering of data of an occurrence or a phenomenon which result in theoretical improvement, as the findings are incorporated back into existing knowledge (Bryman & Bell, 2017). What is important to note is that with important empirical findings made with an inductive approach, the theoretical importance is sometimes not clearly defined. Therefore, the inductive approach is generally associated with qualitative research and the deductive with quantitative research. However, the conclusions drawn from inductive research implies a general truth and can therefore be associated with uncertainty regarding the study’s validity. The abductive approach combines parts of the deductive and inductive approaches but aims to eliminate the limitations of the deductive and inductive positions (Bryman & Bell, 2017). Abductive logic is based on the pragmatic viewpoint that when a researcher encounters a phenomenon that cannot be explained by existing theory and instead tries to find the “best” explanation among competing explanations and interpretations (Mantere & Ketokivi, 2013). Other researchers such as Alvesson and Kärreman (2007) find that researchers should be open to the possibility to be surprised by data other than using it to confirm their own preconceived notions.

This thesis derives from theoretical frameworks rather than empirical findings; thus, the deductive approach suits the aims of this research. Up to now, there has not been much research into the area of advertising blindness in the Swedish retail industry. Therefore, gathering existing knowledge of the subject and later observing patterns and gathering empirical data from marketing managers in the retailing industry would guide this thesis to relevant theories. Through observing the increase of realizations and the loss of attention consumers give to advertisements, the deductive approach is fitting to investigate how retail companies adapt their marketing strategy to cope with the effects of advertising blindness.

3.4 Qualitative research

The qualitative research methods can be described as adaptable depending on how things evolve over time, and that it focuses on the connections between the participants behaviour in social situations. In contrast to the quantitative research methods, that can be described as often presenting a static image of the social reality, with emphasis on

(31)

the relationship between variables and the differences and relations between events over time that usually only shows in a mechanical way (Bryman & Bell 2017). Even though both methods are interested in data, the qualitative method will give better results that can be evaluated in a more holistic way in this bachelor thesis. Bryman (2011) also states that a qualitative research method, in contrast with a quantitative research method, does not have the intention to generalise a whole population but to generalise theories, which is applicable to our research.

For this thesis, the aim is to get a deeper understanding of the topic of advertising blindness and provide insight with empirical data from a case company in the thesis’ specified industry. The qualitative research method of semi-structured research will work in favour for the aims of this thesis as questions that can give broader and deeper answers can provide a more thorough view of the industry strategies.

3.5 Data collection

The framework of how the thesis will be conducted is through primary data and secondary sources. As qualitative research data encompasses several differentiating methods, researchers such as Bryman and Burgess (1999) find it hard to pinpoint exactly what qualitative research is and is not. As the qualitative data collection is inductive in nature, the process of adhering theories to primary data is something that has been in the process of making more transparent (Bryman & Bell, 2017).

3.5.1 Primary data

The primary data obtained from the qualitative research design is in the form of semi-structured interviews which gives a comprehensive understanding of what strategies the different companies implement and how they tailor them to cope with advertising blindness. Data collection through interviews tend to represent the majority of the data collected in qualitative research (Merriam, 2009). The responses from the interviews are then coded and further divided into the main themes, in order to give clarity and structure to the interview results and allow for making further comparisons and descriptions.

3.5.2 Secondary sources

There are several reasons, especially for students, to regard secondary sources as a possible alternative to primary data collection, according to Bryman and Bell (2017). Information the researcher collects from previous research is called secondary data, which means that the researcher does not collect data directly from the source of

The phenomenon of advertising blindness: A qualitative case study of how a Swedish interior design company tailor their e-commerce marketing strategies to cope with the phenomenon of advertising blindness