Effects of Watermark and Music on Mobile Message Advertisements Authors : Pei-Luen Patrick Rau, Duye Chen Source : International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 64 ,  no. 9, pp. 905-914, September 2006 Presenter : 洪聖翔 Date : 5/30/2007

Outline Introduction Hypotheses Experiment Results Conclusion

Introduction The mobile industry has moved from text messages to icons and picture messages. One of the important factors in the growth of mobile advertising has been if people will accept, or reject, advertising on their mobile devices.

Introduction The design of mobile advertisements should balance the support in users’ goals and the commercial goals. Purpose : to assess the impact of the advertising messages upon the users’ task performance and to investigate the effectiveness of two advertising forms, the watermark and music, on mobile message advertising.

Hypotheses Four hypotheses H1. For mobile device users, the effect of watermark on the mobile advertisement would be better with a less transparent watermark. H2. The mobile advertisements effect on mobile device users would be better with music than without music.

Hypotheses H3. The effect of mobile advertisement on mobile device users would be better with low volume music than with high volume music. H4. The effect of mobile advertisements on both vocal and instrumental music versions than just instrumental version music.

Experiment Experiment 1 : effects of watermark Participants: 48 volunteers (11 female and 37 male) are all undergraduate and graduate students with little or no prior knowledge about the tasks to be performed during the experiment. The participants’ age ranged from 19 to 26 years (mean=22.4, S.D.=1.38). The average time of using SMS (short messaging service) was 1.4 years.

Experiment Tasks : Types of information in the messages: travel and weather The participants firstly received a welcome page of the message box and were asked to find information by clicking hyperlinks to receive another three messages. Participants could only browse one message at the same time and they were allowed to move back to previous message.

Experiment During the browsing, two questions concerning each message were given. Participants should find the answers and write them down.

Experiment Apparatus and system : A H3630 iPAQ Personal Digital Assistant with a touch screen of 320*240 pixels was used for the experiment. Each participant was required to perform the tasks independently with no other participants present. The participants’ movements throughout the system were automatically recorded by a testing system. The transparency of the watermarks in the test system was determined using Photoshop 7.0.

Experiment Experimental design and variables :

Experiment The dependent variables : Performance time : total time taken to complete the required task. Advertisement recall : two questions for free recall and two questions for recognition. Attitude toward the advertisements : using four questions with a scale of 1(lowest attitude) to 7 (highest attitude). Attitude toward the brand

Given an advertisements brief practice session Experiment Procedure Given an advertisements recall test and two questionnaires Filled out a general information Given a mobile device and a brief practice session Performed the message browsing tasks

Experiment Experiment 2 : effects of music Participants: 50 volunteers (11 female and 39 male) The participants’ age ranged from 19 to 26 years (mean=22.5, S.D.=1.37). The average time of using SMS (short messaging service) was 1.4 years.

Experiment Task : The participants were asked to browse four received multimedia messages with each introducing one movie. The participants would hear the same song, ‘‘Against the Wind’’ when browsing the four messages.

Experiment Apparatus and system : Tools : Microsoft Embedded Visual Basic and Cool edit 2.0 Four multimedia messages : Bruce almighty, Finding Nemo, Father and Son and The Lizzie McGuire Movie The average sound levels were in the range from 52 to 64 dB.

Experiment The difference between the sound level of high volume and low volume music with only instrument version is about 6.67 dB. with both vocal and instrumental version is about 7.64 dB.

Experiment Experimental design and variables : The dependent variables was the music format with five levels: No music Vocal and instrumental version at high volume Vocal and instrumental version at low volume Instrumental version at high volume Instrumental version at low volume Experimental dependent variables: The performance time and advertisement recall

Results

Conclusion This study found that the watermark transparency was effective in mobile advertising. Music and vocal/instrumental music versions were effective in mobile advertisements.