Typology of Internet advertising young audience

Introduction: Advertising is one of the important tools of companies used to send their advertising messages to target audience. With the expansion of the Internet and social media, companies had to bring their activities to these media to easily reach a large audience at a lower cost. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the Internet as a means of reaching the audience, especially to target the audience that spends a lot of time on the Internet every day. Z generation refers to the generation that was born from 1995 to 2012 and is different from previous generations in many ways. In fact, they have different preferences and have been raised in an environment surrounded by technology. This is the main reason for the generation's dependence on the Internet. They also use their smartphones for an average of 9 hours a day, and, for this reason, the Z generation has been chosen as the target population. It spends a significant amount of time on the Internet and performs many of its tasks on it, including watching movies, training, shopping, etc. This generation also has a strong influence on their family preferences, which makes them an important target for businesses. Also, companies spend a lot of money on advertising every year. So, it is very important to identify the factors affecting the effectiveness of advertising to achieve their goals in addition to spending appropriate money. The purpose of this study is to identify the types of internet advertising audience in the Z generation based on the Q method.
Methodology: The current research is applied in terms of its purpose, exploratory in terms of its nature, and qualitative and quantitative in terms of data collection and analysis. The Q method was chosen as a combined method for the present research. The Q method is a method used when there are different views on the subject under study, and the human mind is involved in it. The main purpose of this method is to identify subjective patterns. In other words, in addition to identifying people's perceptions and opinions, it categorizes people into groups based on their different perceptions. As mentioned earlier, the Q method is a combined method. The qualitative part of this study was conducted through literature review and semi-structured interviews with 12 people from the Z generation and eight experts from the advertising field. At the end of this section, 36 indicators were identified as Q expressions. Then, through judgmental sampling, 17 people from the Z generation were selected for Q sorting. The quantitative part of this research was conducted through Q analysis, so the data obtained from the Q sorting stage were analyzed by SPSS 20.
Results and discussion: According to the results of the Q analysis of this research, five subjective patterns were identified as the patterns for the effective indicators of Internet advertising for the Z generation. In the first subjective pattern, "providing appropriate information" and "customer confidence in maintaining information" were identified as the most important indicators. Also, "celebrity endorsement" and "use of encouraging words" were identified as the least important indicators. In the second subjective pattern, "providing appropriate information" and "using encouraging words" were identified as the most important indicators, while "titles and text font" and "Minimal website design" were the least important indicators. In the third subjective pattern, "celebrity endorsement" and "giving rewards" were identified as the most important indicators, and "using encouraging words" and "use of cartoon characters" were identified as the least important indicators. In the fourth subjective pattern, "Creativity in storytelling" and "Using viral music on the Internet" were the most important indicators, but "Sameness in action and expression" and "Placing advertisements at the top of the website" were identified as the least important indicators. In the fifth subjective pattern, "showing the expected experience of consumption" and "endorsement by a famous person" were the most important indicators, while "using a female voice to explain" and "using cartoon characters" were identified as the least important ones.
Conclusion: The aim of this study is to identify the types of internet advertising audience in the Z generation. For this reason, the Q method was chosen to identify subjective patterns. Through Q analysis, five subjective patterns were identified, including Rationalists, Prize Seekers, Emotionalists, Innovators, and Empiricists. In order to achieve maximum effectiveness in advertising for the Z generation, companies must consider the most important indicators in each subjective pattern. Finally, regarding each subjective pattern, suggestions are made for advertisers and companies that target the Z generation.