Advertising Design and Perceived Credibility of Online News

Abstract

Many newspaper and other informational websites continue to use interstitial, or pop-up, advertising even though this form of advertising often annoys users and is known in other contexts to drive away users. However, there is a gap in scholarly research about the impact of advertising and its design on the perceived credibility of online news. In this study, 26 participants took part in an eye tracking study where they read 3 news articles on the same subject that used two different styles of advertising to evaluate whether the use of interstitial advertising would impact the perceived credibility of the articles. Using Likert scales and a questionnaire, participants were asked to rate the credibility of each story they read and to rank them in order from most credible to least credible. They were also asked to describe any advertising they saw. Following the study, they took part in a semi-structured interview to explore their responses. While not statistically significant, quantitative results in the study suggest that inline advertising had the most negative impact on participants’ perception of the news articles, even though most users preferred inline advertising to interstitial advertising. Further analysis of the eye tracking and qualitative data suggests that persistence and increased cognitive load while reading are likely the cause of this phenomenon. Additional qualitative data suggests that users are most likely to use advertising design as a surface credibility heuristic only when more substantial criteria for evaluating information are exhausted or not available.