The Advantage of Hybrid Split Ads over Uninterrupted Ads and How to Augment It

"Split ads" involve presenting advertising information as two separate and distinct parts, such as when two short commercials for a given brand are separated by other television content. An emerging form of the split ad strategy combines a short ad in one medium with a second short ad that appears in a completely different medium. Two studies investigate the relative effectiveness of such " hybrid split ads". In particular, we explore a form of the hybrid split ad strategy that is gaining in popularity and that involves combining an ad in a traditional medium with an addendum ad on a web site. Results of Experiment 1 indicate that a hybrid split ad can produce more positive attitudes toward an advertised product than a traditional uninterrupted ad. This seems to occur, because the hybrid split ad focuses particular attention on information contained in its latter half. In Experiment 2, we further show that varying the difficulty with which the latter half of a hybrid split ad is accessed can enhance the amount of added weight given to information in its latter half and can thus further enhance attitudes.