The impact of interactive advertising on consumer engagement, recall, and understanding: A scoping systematic review for informing regulatory science

Kristen Giombi; Catherine Viator; Juliana Hoover; Janice Tzeng; Helen W Sullivan; Amie C O'Donoghue; Brian G Southwell; Leila C Kahwati

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0263339

The impact of interactive advertising on consumer engagement, recall, and understanding: A scoping systematic review for informing regulatory science

PLoS One. 2022 Feb 3;17(2):e0263339. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0263339. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Kristen Giombi¹, Catherine Viator¹, Juliana Hoover¹, Janice Tzeng¹, Helen W Sullivan², Amie C O'Donoghue², Brian G Southwell¹, Leila C Kahwati¹

Affiliations

¹ RTI International, Research Triangle Park, Durham, NC, United States of America.
² Office of Prescription Drug Promotion, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, US Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States of America.

Abstract

We conducted a scoping systematic review with respect to how consumer engagement with interactive advertising is evaluated and if interactive features influence consumer recall, awareness, or comprehension of product claims and risk disclosures for informing regulatory science. MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Business Source Corporate, and SCOPUS were searched for original research published from 1997 through February 2021. Two reviewers independently screened titles/abstracts and full-text articles for inclusion. Outcomes were abstracted into a structured abstraction form. We included 32 studies overall. The types of interactive ads evaluated included website banner and pop up ads, search engine ads, interactive TV ads, advergames, product websites, digital magazine ads, and ads on social network sites. Twenty-three studies reported objective measures of engagement using observational analyses or laboratory-based experiments. In nine studies evaluating the association between different interactivity features and outcomes, the evidence was mixed on whether more interactivity improves or worsens recall and comprehension. Studies vary with respect to populations, designs, ads evaluated, and outcomes assessed.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
Systematic Review

MeSH terms

Advertising*
Community Participation*
Consumer Behavior*
Disclosure
Health Education / methods*
Humans
Mental Recall

Grants and funding

Funded through a contract from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to RTI International (Contract 75F40120A00017, Order Number 75F40120F19003). KG, CV, JH, JT, BS, LK are employees of RTI International. HS and AO are employees of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. HS and AO (employees of the sponsor) participated in the study design, decision to publish, and critically reviewed the manuscript prior to submission.