The Antecedents of Consumers’ Negative Attitudes Toward SMS Advertising: A Theoretical Framework and Empirical Study

Abstract

Short message service (SMS) advertising refers to the transmission of advertising via mobile phones in the form of text-based messages (Haghirian, Madlberger, and Tanuskova 2005). Recent marketing research indicates that investigations on consumers’ attitudes toward SMS advertising are limited, and empirical examination of antecedents that negatively influence attitudes toward SMS advertising is even scarcer. As a consequence of this lack of knowledge, current practices of mobile advertising might be ineffective. This research examines irritation, privacy concerns, and intrusiveness perception as main factors that provoke a negative attitude toward SMS advertising. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), the analyzed data show that privacy concerns affects perceived intrusiveness on mobile phones, which subsequently causes consumers’ irritation. Finally, irritation has a major negative effect on attitudes toward SMS advertising.