Психологическое влияние интернет-рекламы на взрослых

Advertisement plays an important role in the life of a modern man. Students are a special group, the distinctive features of which include an increased consumer activity in relation to new and fashionable products, a wide range of needs, a tendency to spontaneous shopping, and an entertaining nature of consumption. The use of psychological methods allows advertisers and promoters to open new opportunities to meet the customer needs as well as to touch the emotional side of the consumer.

Online advertisement is a form of marketing and advertisement, which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers [6]. Advertisement methods differ depending on the medium used. Newspaper commercials mainly focus on the theme and place; radio advertisement tends to appeal to words and sound; TV ads concentrate on the emotions they create, while the Internet commercials focus on colors and visuals.

Therefore, a banner , for instance, contains a short text or graphics to promote a product or service. Pop-up ads appear in a new window, when the user opens or closes a web page. A floating ad , or an overlay ad , is a type of rich media advertisement that appears superimposed over the requested website's content. Another type of online advertisement is called an interstitial ad , which opens in its own browser window when the user clicks a link to a new web page [6].

Online advertisers often use cookies, which are unique identifiers of specific computers, to decide which advertisement to choose for a particular consumer [1]. Apart from that, video advertisement is most effective because it can reflect the history of the product; it is much more interesting than the text or image, as it attracts the attention of consumers more.

What helps advertisers to make online advertisement more effective? Advertisers use strong messages and visuals with vivid colors to capture the consumers' interest. Once the customer’s attention is captured, the next step is to help consumers make associations. Certain companies use a certain color to promote certain products or brands. Company logos and symbols have a strong associative value. The association should be made in such a fashion that it is retained in the consumers' minds for a long time.

Lithuanian researchers Jakštienė S., Susnienė D., Narbutas V. conclude that advertisement affects the client through the cognitive aspect, since a person perceives the advertised information through feelings, perception, attention, memory, reasoning and language. The studies have shown that the respondents are mainly affected by psychological (emotional) aspect of the advertisement [2].

A study by Shandana Zafar has revealed that young consumers in Pakistan show positive behavior towards ads n social media [9, C. 7-10]. The researcher established that to target young consumers social media can be used as an effective medium of advertisement. According to Mehta, a positive attitude of consumers toward social network advertisements can help consumers to recall the products or brands and influence their behavior [5, C. 67-72].

Wang and Sun have studied Romanian population and concluded that Americans prefer to shop online, whereas Romanians only like to click ads, which highlights the Romanian’s attitude towards online ads [7, C. 333-344]. The study reveals that the users’ positive attitude towards advertisements in social media has a positive effect on their behavior change.

Psychological factors such as thinking, feeling, and intuition are directly correlated with online advertisement. As consumers respond to the stimuli surrounding them, emotions arise. Their reactions manifest as physiological changes that they experience as feelings. Many studies have shown that people rely on emotions much more than on information [8, C. 12-17]. Emotions affect our decision to buy much more than the content of advertisement suggests.

Repeated advertisement messages affect consumer behavior. This repetition serves as a reminder to the consumer: the consumer suddenly begins to think about the product while shopping and decides to buy it as if it were on his to-do list [4, C. 41-56].

Psychological aspects, whether cognitive, emotional or behavioral, play a most important role. Visual representation of advertisement is the easiest way to obtain relevant information, as perceiving visual information requires less energy. At least one visual aspect in the ad should affect the customer subconsciously. It can be color, character, photo or text design. It is noted that the more realistic the illustration, the more effective the ad [1].

According to D. Jokubauskas, if the ad causes feelings not only directly related to it, but also additional ones (both positive and negative), we can say that the advertiser is successful, and this will affect the client's decision. Modern clients choose information very carefully, as well as the ads that seem to be interesting and attract their attention [3].

How does online advertisement affect Russian students? Based on the current research findings, we have developed the following hypothesis: online advertisement affects the behavior of adults more than any other type of advertisement.

Materials and Methods

This study involved 40 students from Russia aged from 18 to 25 years old. Using a questionnaire "The impact of online advertisement on students", which consists of 11 multiple-choice questions (Table 1), we conducted an online survey, which was completely anonymous.

Table 1. Questionnaire " The impact of online advertisement on students "

Results and conclusions

The results of the study showed that 85% of the surveyed students come across advertisement on the Internet more often than on any other media. The data obtained showed that 65% of the respondents have a neutral attitude to online advertisement. However, 35% of the interviewees reported that they have installed Adblock. According to the results obtained, online advertisement that appears in browsers after viewing a product, irritates 60% of the surveyed students. Most of the interviewees (97.5%) confessed that they tend to skip online advertisement.

It is noteworthy that when the respondents (40%) decide to buy a product, online advertisement does effect them, which confirms the fact that advertisement can affect the choice of a product. The analysis of the results showed that 57.5% of the respondents believe that they often remember online ad slogans. In other words, in the future they serve as a reminder to buy a product, as they suddenly remember advertisement and involuntarily choose to buy a product. Moreover, when browsing online advertisement, 87.5% of the interviewees experience particular emotions or have memories, which proves that it affects the psychological, cognitive and emotional aspects of the consciousness of the customers.

Nevertheless, 85% of the respondents reported that online advertisement does not dictate their lifestyle, which means that they think they pay no attention to what online advertisement says. Similarly, 57,5% of the interviewees noted that they partially trust online advertisement, whereas 40% of the interviewees refuse to trust it.

Thus, the study confirmed that online advertisement has a psychological impact on students. Many respondents are annoyed by advertisement, they hurry to turn it off, or set an ad blocking program. At the same time, online advertisement can partially influence the choice of goods. Advertisement mainly affects the mind of adults through different emotions or slogans.