Design Techniques of Ambient Media Advertisements and Message Comprehension

摘要

Ambient media advertising is an innovative outdoor advertising format. This type of advertising typically involves placing unexpected advertisements in unusual locations to draw the attention of consumers and leave a memorable impression on consumers. Ambient media advertisements are often integrated into daily surroundings, and these novel advertisements make consumers' daily lives more fun and creative. Unexpected ambient media advertisements draw consumers' attention, provoke their positive attitudes toward the advertisement, and increase purchase intentions and revenues. Ambient media advertisements that attract people's attention often employ unique media to convey messages, and different presentation designs are applied to incorporate novel and unpredictable factors in the visual display to stimulate the audiences' interests in advertisement messages. For this study, 238 advertisement samples were acquired from the website Bored Panda Ambient Media. After experts eliminated similar samples, a total of 190 ambient media advertisement samples were adopted for this research. By analyzing these samples, five design techniques (i.e., metaphor, similes, allegory, metonymy, and analogy) and three media (i.e., site media, reproducing media, and mechanical media) were identified, and a total of 15 ambient media advertisement sample combinations were obtained. The differences in the message comprehension level were then determined among these samples. The results are as follows: (1) Among various media with all design techniques, site media resulted in the highest message comprehension. (2) Among all design techniques under various media, the technique of metaphor resulted in the highest message comprehension. (3) Regarding the effect of media and design technique interactions, the combination of metaphor and site media resulted in the highest message comprehension.