How Mobile Advertising Works: The Role of Trust in Improving Attitudes and Recall

ABSTRACT

How does trust affect consumer attitudes and recall in mobile advertising? This study explores this question by conducting a large-scale “pseudo” mobile advertising campaign in Japan. Two “real” brands (one durable and one nondurable good) of major Japanese manufacturers were used as study stimuli. Using a push messaging service, both a campaign message and a subsequent questionnaire for each brand were sent to 40,000 opt-in mobile users. Five primary constructs were examined: brand trust, mobile advertising trust, attitude toward brand, attitude toward mobile advertising, and mobile campaign recall. Findings suggest that a mobile campaign's recall largely depends on perceptions of both the medium and the advertised content, and that the effects of mobile advertising trust on attitude toward mobile advertising were stronger than those of other relationships. The path from attitude toward brand to mobile campaign recall was notably and statistically stronger for the durable good sample than for the nondurable good sample. Only in the durable good sample is attitude toward brand a mediating variable in linking attitude toward mobile advertising and mobile campaign recall. This study offers a basic but useful research framework for a mobile-based online survey.