The Effect of Honey-Spots on The Consumers’ Responsiveness Towards Mobile Advertisement

This paper aims to investigate the impact of context on the consumers’ responsiveness towards Location-Based Advertisement (LBA) on mobile devices. Based on existing theories and models, we show in a real-life scenario that the receiving context is crucial for the effectiveness of LBA. Our scenario promotes the idea of choosing a more distant location with a more suitable receiv-ing context to increase positive factors (e.g. perceived relevance) while simultaneously reducing negative factors (e.g. perceived intrusiveness) which both ultimately affect the consumers’ ad responsiveness. We conclude that an ideal location (or receiving context) to trigger mobile ads does not necessarily need to be in the immediate proximity to the offer. We call these locations with a particularly high level of ad responsiveness “honey-spot”. To provide empirical evidence for the importance of the receiving context, we conducted a field experiment among 110 stu-dents for five weeks. Our results support the idea of honey-spots and show a significant impact on the perception of ads. Further, by increasing the spatial distance, we can keep positive fac-tors intact and simultaneously reduce disturbing factors. Our findings contradict the predomi-nant view in previous research that distance is the most important factor for the effectiveness of LBA