| Abstract: | With a ‘split ad’, information is presented as two distinct parts, such as when two short commercials for a given brand are separated by other television content. Two studies are presented in this paper which demonstrate the advantages of an emerging form of the split ad strategy, which is termed the ‘hybrid split ad’ technique. Using this approach, a message typically begins in a traditional medium and then concludes at a website. In Experiment 1, the hybrid split ad technique is shown to enhance attitudes towards an advertised product by increasing the perceived importance of favourable attributes provided at the website. Experiment 2 replicates this finding and also addresses an issue of managerial importance, namely, how to motivate consumers to pursue the second (web‐based) portion of the ad. Offering consumers an incentive at the website is useful in this regard, provided that the incentive is small enough not to undermine the positive effects of the hybrid split ad. |
