The Exposure Effect of Unclicked Banner Advertisements

Very low click-through rates (CTR) raise serious questions about the effectiveness of banner advertisements. However, we believe that the effect of a banner ad is not limited by clicks. Banner ad information itself can be processed by the audience. We propose that the exposure effect of a banner ad exists even when the banner is not clicked. The results of our experiments strongly support this effect. Analyses also revealed that a non-clicked banner ad can create as strong of an exposure effect as clicked banner ads. Also, audiences that are able to recall the existence of the banner ad on a web page develop stronger implicit memory than those who cannot. Researchers are invited to re-test these interesting findings in various cultures with differing levels of Internet penetration and experience.