Typology of consumers' attitude towards in-app advertisements on smartphones

Introduction: Advertisers are interested in the emergence of new marketing channels, including online and Internet-based platforms, and they consider it as an opportunity to increase brand awareness and run advertising campaigns. The attitude toward advertisements has always been the subject of researchers' attention. As the results indicate, in recent years, the general attitude towards advertisements has become negative. Nevertheless, researchers in different countries have reached different results. As a result, the attitude towards mobile advertising should be scrutinized. Also, conducting research and presenting literature from studies native to Iran will be useful for preparing and relying on mobile advertising.
Methodology: In this research, the Q methodology has been used to identify customers' attitudes toward mobile ads. The statistical population of the study was people in Tehran who had set up three free apps on their smartphones. The sampling method was convenience sampling. The data obtained from the participation of 32 people were analyzed using the Q factor analysis by the SPSS 22.0 software. The Q method is known as the link between qualitative and quantitative methods. Following the steps of the Q method, after determining the subject with the title of customer attitude towards advertising and reviewing the literature on the subject, the discourse space was evaluated and summarized. In addition to evaluating research articles and the literature (second-hand sources), professors in the field of marketing and advertising were consulted (first-hand sources). Finally, i36 Q expressions were created. The reliability of the Q classes was evaluated by test-retest. After the creation of a Q table, three participants completed the table again. The correlation between the responses was 0.812. This number indicates the reliability of the Q expressions.
Results and discussion: Threatening as the first attitude type: Based on the obtained results, terms 7, 21, 28, 26, 22 and 2 were positive views, and 34, 20, 30, 25, 17 and 10 were the negative views of this group members. The members had a negative overall attitude toward in-app advertising. The people in this category believed that in-app ads are likely to be malware, and opening them will risk the security of phones. They install spy applications on phones automatically, which is a threat to the performance of the mobile phone.
Entertaining as the second attitude type: Based on the obtained results, terms 22, 26, 11, 16, 6 and 8 were positive views, and 9, 1, 4, 7, 2 and 10 were the negative views of this group members, so the members had a positive overall attitude towards in-app advertising. The people in this category believed that in-app advertising shows users amazing offers that are often entertaining. They are credible, visually attractive, and informative. Privacy in these advertisements is important to them. However, they felt that the possibility of lying, spying, and hacking is low, and ultimately they are not annoying.
Annoying as the third attitude type: Based on the obtained results, terms 10, 14, 33, 31, 9 and 26 were positive views, and 27, 32, 6, 16, 8 and 11 were the negative views of this group members, so the members had a negative overall attitude towards in-app advertising. The people in this category believed that in-app ads are annoying, do not consider user privacy, and must be removed immediately. Moreover, they are time-consuming. These people would not allow the app creators to show ads as a cost of using free apps, and they would not enjoy entertainment and trust information in such ads.
Misleading as the fourth attitude: Based on the obtained results, terms 5, 6, 13, 16, 19 and 18 were positive views and 8, 20, 9, 11, 17 and 36 were the negative views of this group members. The members had a negative or neutral overall attitude. They believed that in-app ads are liars, and link to inappropriate sites. They also believed that, although ads are visually attractive and exciting, they are doubtful. This group also does not want to see ads to access free apps and does not find these advertisements entertaining, informative, and valuable. However, they did not feel so annoyed by these ads, and they just skipped them.
Conclusion: According to the classification of the attitude of Iranian users towards in-app advertising of smartphones, the following suggestions are provided for the successful implementation of advertising campaigns on mobile applications:
1) Ask for permission before showing ads.
2) Stop showing more ads after the user closes an ad.
3) Show ads in the form of entertainment or game to make them more likely to be opened.
4) Use beautiful but real (believable) graphic images and avoid 18+ images that create a sense of threat in the mind of the audience.
5) Ads should be related to the installed program or similar applications, and unrelated ads should be avoided.
6) Offer ads only on applications whose owners are careful in showing related ads; otherwise, the audience will group your advertisement with some inappropriate ads.
7) Ads should be small and closeable because the compulsion to see, hear and play an ad will gradually reduce the value of the brand in the eyes of the customers.
8) If advertisements offer gifts or discounts, you must be committed to it and avoid fraudulent advertisements.
9) Although personalization and the use of artificial intelligence are recommended, revealing detailed information about customers like marital status, age, place of residence, etc. leads to a feeling of fear and threat, and he will uninstall the application.
10) Being entertaining is more effective than being informative. As a result, it is suggested to pay attention to being attractive in a way the customers like.
11) Advertising campaigns should try to choose related applications as their ad channel. Mass advertisement is not going to work.
Finally, researchers are suggested to investigate the difference between the generations of respondents and their attitudes towards other advertisement channels. It will also be interesting to conduct research that categorizes the paradigms of attitude towards advertisements in Iran.