Advertising in video-on demand services, intrusive and irritating?

Nowadays, young Dutch people between the ages of 18 to 34 years are increasingly using video ondemand services and they are running away from television. Video on-demand services enable consumers to watch video content online at times that are most convenient for them. Advertisers can reach these consumers by making use of in-stream video advertisements. These advertisements are placed within online video content. In this research, it is investigated to what extent these in-stream video advertisements are perceived as intrusive and irritating. Furthermore, it is examined how the intrusiveness of in-stream video advertisements affects consumers’ behaviour via cognitions and attitudes. Therefore, the hierarchy-of-effects model has been used as a fundamental base. An online experiment was conducted in which a 2 (placement: pre-roll versus mid-roll) by 2 (length: long versus short) between-subjects design was used. Participants were recruited online by using e-mail and social media. This research showed that in-stream video advertisements are perceived as intrusive and irritating. Moreover, it appeared that consumers’ attitude towards the advertisement influenced their brand attitude and their brand attitude, in turn, significantly influenced their purchase intention. Companies should stay away from using mid-roll in-stream video advertisements and they must create appealing advertisements in order to get positive brand evaluations.