The medium is not the message: Advertising effectiveness and content evaluation in print and on the web

Some have argued that traditional principles of mass media advertising do n ot apply on the web. We present an empirical study that contradicts this as sertion. Our findings suggest that advertisers need not take full advantage of the enhanced capabilities of the medium to produce effective web advert ising. Given equal opportunity for exposure to the target audience, the sam e advertisements were equally effective in print and on the web. However, f or promotional material that consumers would not classify as advertising, e valuations were lower when the material was presented on the web. We propos e a plausible explanation for this apparent paradox.