The study is dedicated to understand the effects of Internet banner ad and the users’ perceptions. A lab experiment was used to study the effects of language, product involvement, shape of ad, and type of ad. The subjects were college students in Ecuador. Each experimental website contained a banner ad. The ad was for either a high-involvement product (a smartphone) or a low-involvement product (a news magazine). The type of ad (display ad with photograph vs. text-only, Google-style search ad), shape of ad (horizontal vs. vertical ad), and language of the ad (English vs. Spanish) varied for each type of website. The high-involvement product was seen as significantly more appealing than the low-involvement product, regardless of the type of ad. An interaction suggested that the high-involvement product was seen as somewhat more appealing if advertised with display ads rather than text-only ads; the low-involvement product was slightly more appealing if advertised with text-only ads. Both products – but especially the high-involvement product – attracted higher ratings if advertised with Spanish-language ads rather than English ads. Finally, products were seen as somewhat more appealing if advertised on ‘congruent’ websites, where the advertised product was similar to the theme of the website (e.g., a smartphone that plays videos advertised on a video website; a news magazine advertised on a newspaper website).
