Sharing Without Caring

Consumers used to accept commercials on television as a mandatory interruption of what they were watching. On the Internet, however, many advertisements can be avoided if the viewer wants to. Consequently, viral commercials emerged that are meant to entertain the viewer instead of interrupting them. Viral commercials are intended to be an online destination for the viewer, something they can enjoy and share online with peers. However, it is unclear whether this type of advertising is effective at all, let alone whether it is more effective than traditional, television advertising. Therefore, this study compared consumer responses to viral and traditional commercials. Additionally, this study researched possible differences in consumer responses from generation X, the generation that grew up with television, and generation Y, the generation that grew up with the Internet. The research question that was used to study this was ‘How does a viral commercial influence brand awareness, brand knowledge, brand liking, brand preference, brand conviction, commercial liking and the willingness to share differently than a traditional commercial does for consumers from generation X and generation Y in the Netherlands? To answer this research question, an online experiment was conducted using a 2 (generation X and generation Y) by 3 (viral, traditional, and control conditions) between-subjects design. The survey was completed by 185 respondents, equally divided over the six conditions of which two watched a viral commercial, two watched a traditional commercial, and two served as control conditions. Surprisingly, it was found that brand knowledge decreases after viewing a commercial, and more so after watching a viral commercial than a traditional commercial. Also, within the viral commercial condition, brand knowledge decreases more for generation Y than generation X. In line with the expectations, the results showed that viral commercials increase commercial liking and the willingness to share more than traditional commercials, and that the level of commercial liking has a positive influence on the willingness to share a commercial. The results generally showed little differences between the effectiveness of viral and traditional commercials, as well as little differences between the consumer responses of generation X and generation Y. Thus, it can be concluded that when it comes to viral commercials, consumers do share, but consumer behavior responses show that they do not really care.