A first step in unraveling synced advertising effectiveness

Technological developments and the rise of mobile devices have made it possible to deliver personalized messages to consumers based on their concurrent media usages in real time; this is known as synced advertising. Synced advertising is argued to be an effective personalized advertising strategy in a multi-media environment that will result in more positive brand attitudes compared to those arising from exposure to non-synced advertising. The aim of this research was to examine the effect of synced advertising on brand attitudes. An online experiment (N = 119) and a lab experiment (N = 107) showed that synced advertising resulted in more positive brand attitudes than when users had no exposure to the brand. However, we did not find any differences in brand attitudes depending on having a tablet ad shown before, simultaneous to, or after a TV commercial for the same brand. Thus, the results show that synchronizing ads with a short delay is as effective as synchronizing ads in real time.