A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Media Context on Ad Attitudes

Abstract: The role of media context in advertising engagement has been the subject of interest for advertisers and media practitioners over the past 50 years. However, there remains a lack of understanding and clarity on the relationship between media context and ad effectiveness. To unify previous literature and provide a bigger picture of the relationship, this study meta-analytically examined the relationships between media context and consumers’ attitudes toward the ad/brand/product (ad attitudes hereafter) as one of the ad effectiveness outcome measures. A total of 31 years of researchfindings (i.e., 75 studies) were synthesized. Overall, media context and ad attitudes were moderately and positively correlated, but the effect differed by study characteristics and specific media context as well as types of ad attitudes. The findings suggest that different media contexts leverage consumers’ ad attitudes differently. This implies the need for academic researchers to continue to research this area and for practitioners to pay close attention to media contexts in media decisions.