Attitudes toward advertising in Brunei Darussalam

Attitudes toward advertising is an established construct in marketing. The construct has been researched mostly using the attitude theory and has been of interest to both marketing academicians and practitioners. Attitudes toward advertising have been researched with different frameworks, in different markets and for advertising in different media. However, there is limited research on consumers’ attitudes toward advertising in Asian markets. In particular, there is no study so far on attitudes toward advertising in Brunei Darussalam, an affluent but less populous South East Asian market. This paper investigates attitudes toward advertising, antecedents to attitudes toward advertising and consequent behaviors in Brunei. The framework proposed by Pollay and Mittal (1993), later further by Wolin et al. (2002) is used in this paper. Responses from the consumer surveys were analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). It was found that most of the belief factors in Pollay and Mittal framework influenced attitudes toward advertising among Bruneian consumers. Overall positive attitudes toward advertising were observed, which in turn influenced advertising-related behaviors. The significance of these traits is explained based on the distinctive socio-economic environment as well as the advertising landscape of Brunei Darussalam. Understanding consumers’ attitudes toward advertising and ensuing behaviors for previously unexplored markets shall be an important initiation in improving the quality as well as productivity of advertising.