Effectiveness of “Eye-catch” for Reducing Viewers’ Sudden Feelings due to Appearance of Online Video Advertisement

Abstract

This research was focused on “Eye-catch” inserted just before online video advertisement and aimed to reveal the effectiveness of Eye-catch for reducing the viewers’ sudden feelings due to appearance of advertisements through an experiment. In the experiment, 16 participants were required to watch four different 5-7 minutes videos. Each video was composed of one of four kinds of games being played and one of four different video advertisements being inserted twice. The participants were also required to answer seven subjective items in the questionnaire to the insertion of the advertisement in the video after watching each video. The experiments were designed in a 2 x 2 within-subjects factorial design with independent variables: the twice inserted methods of the advertisement in the video (the settled or the derived from the number of comments) and the Eye-catch conditions (existence and absence). The results of the experiments revealed the effectiveness of Eye-catch for increasing viewers’ anticipation to advertisements appearing and reducing viewers’ sudden feelings due to appearance of advertisements regardless of the inserted methods of the advertisements. The results also suggested that the combination of Eye-catch and the inserted method derived from the number of comments could be effective for reducing viewers’ feelings of annoyance though it could not establish that the Eye-catch conditions have a statistically significant effect on them.