How Can Web Advertising Influence Male and Female Beliefs?

This paper reviews the application of ELM to understand how men and women differ in their evaluation of information content and the visual presentation used in web advertising. It verifies the ELM by examining several variables influencing consumers' beliefs of web ads. These variables include (a) advertising appeals (rational/emotional), (b) personal and product involvement (high/low), (c) the gender (female/male). A survey of 591 Internet users investigated by which a 2×2×2 ANOVA between-subjects experimental design is used to guide the research design and the systematic analysis procedure. The result of this finding is that in high-involvement situations, people are more likely to click a Web ad with a rational advertising appeal contrast than an ad with an emotional advertising appeal. Also we find that a rational advertising appeal ad contrast than an emotional advertising one is evaluated more favorably by males than females. Managerial implications for the user of these ad execution cues are discussed and future research avenues are proposed.