Attitude as determinant of mobile advertising reception, and the moderating effect of control facilities

Mobile advertisement has emerged as one of the most popular applications in mobile commerce. It is explored to generate value to its providers and customers as tailored wireless information services. However, in spite of the increasing number of companies, investing in mobile advertising campaigns, there is a yet, little academic research on this topic and the implications of this new media for advertising not yet understood in Sri Lanka. This research attempt to help in bridging this gap; it investigates the relationship between attitude of Sri Lankan towards mobile advertising and the acceptance of the new medium as a promotional mix, and the moderator effect of control facilities between attitude and acceptance. Hypotheses form the basis for this research and are empirically tested by means of regression models. The empirical results (n=838), identify, that there is positive attitude towards mobile advertising exists among Sri Lankan mobile phone users, and it reveals a positive relationship between attitude and acceptance of mobile advertising as an innovative promotional mix. Control facilities play a moderator role between the attitude and the acceptance of mobile advertisement. In order to accept the best use of mobile advertising and induce consumers to behave positively, control facilities should be taken into consideration. Therefore it is necessary for researchers to design and effective system capable of recommending control facilities to the customer, when they receive advertising on their mobile phones.