Do males and females think in the same way? An empirical investigation on the gender differences in Web advertising evaluation

Informativeness and entertainment are regarded as two types of advertising value that can influence consumers' attitudes toward Web advertising. Despite of many studies on these two factors, there are two research gaps in extant literature. First, the effects of informativeness and entertainment on attitude are considered separately, yet their interaction effect is neglected. Second, the role of individual characteristics (e.g., gender) in the advertising evaluation process is far from clear. To address these two issues, a laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate the interaction effect between informativeness and entertainment, and also the moderating role of gender. The results indicate that informativeness can help form a more positive attitude for males than for females, and entertainment can lead to a more positive attitude for females than for males. It is also found that there is a three-way interaction among informativeness, entertainment, and gender. More specifically, the interaction effect between informativeness and entertainment is significant for females, but insignificant for males. Results, research contributions, and limitations are discussed, and implications for future studies are suggested. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.