Online Video Contest Effects on Brand and Ad Attitudes

This research investigates how online video contests (OVCs) affect brand image, as measured by brand and advertisement attitudes. After conducting a pre-test to discover an appropriate product for the Generation Y target market, we ran an experiment examining OVCs, television, and magazine ad’s effects on multi-item measures of brand and advertisement attitudes. One hundred twenty-one subjects were randomly assigned to one of the three test conditions. The OVC significantly resulted in positive brand attitudes for the hedonic dimension such as feelings and attractiveness of the brand. For the more functional characteristics, OVCs did not influence brand attitudes. OVCs also produced positive advertising attitudes in terms of clarity, but other dimensions of advertising attitudes were unchanged.We also compared the OVC to the more traditional media of TV and magazines. OVCs produced more positive brand attitudes in terms of feelings than both TV and magazines. For the advertising attitude measure, OVCs produced significantly higher ratings than TV for feelings, attractiveness, and entertainment. There were no significant differences between OVCs and magazines for advertising attitudes.Our findings suggest that marketers can use OVCs effectively if the benefits of the product are hedonic in nature. Functional benefits may not prove as effective in enhancing OVC brand and ad attitudes. Marketers must determine their promotional goals before putting an OVC into practice.