This document provides a literature review on advertising synergy between television, print, and web media. It discusses how combining multiple communication channels can create greater persuasive effects than individual channels alone. The document reviews concepts of advertising synergy and repetition. It also maps the characteristics of television, print, and web advertising based on prior research, finding they each have strengths for different objectives. The literature suggests synergy across media leads to greater attention, cognitive processing, and more positive thoughts toward advertised products than repetition in a single medium.

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Conference Paper
Managing the Power of Synergy:
An Exploration of the Combined Effects between Television,
Print and Web Advertising
Ms. Li Minyan Lyann
School of Communication, Hong Kong Baptist University
Add: RRS631, Ho Sin Hang Campus, Hong Kong Baptist University,
Waterloo Road, KLN, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 6206-3301
Email: 04415574@hkbu.edu.hk

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New media, predominantly the Internet, has apparently become an indispensable
source of information among members of our information society today. And partly
because of this trend, advertisers all over the world eye covetously at the expanding
opportunities provided by the webs, seeking more effective communication channels with
their target markets. Online advertising spending, including Web ads, is constantly on the
rise. Though not much substantial economic return was reported, people feel optimistic
about web ads, especially its power of synergy with Television and Print advertisements.
However, laboratory or field setting experiment testing the synergistic effect of Web
and Print advertising was scarce, not to mention comparing it to that of the synergy of
Web and TV advertising, which would be quite useful for professional media planning as
well as new media theory conceptualization. In light of this, the current study aimed to
investigate several issues concerning the synergy effects by an experiment design.
Literature review
Advertising synergy
The concept of synergy is not new for communication researchers and advertising
professionals. It is defined as “the interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their
combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effect” (American Heritage
College Dictionary 1997). As a matter of fact, advertisers frequently use multiple
communication tools (e.g., advertising, public relations, etc.) or channels (e.g., television,
press, the Web, etc.) within a single campaign at the ultimate goal of integrating multiple
communication vehicles to create the optimal persuasive effect (Chang & Thorson, 2004).

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Synergy is the fundamental concept of Integrated Marketing Communication. It
differs from simple repetition in that it is believed to bring in integrated increment rather
than just simple addition of different components. As Chang and Thorson (2004)
elaborated:
“An advertisement is usually viewed more than once. The effect resulting from
repeated exposure to the same advertisement is called the repetition effect and is assumed
to be the incremental effect of each additional advertising exposure. The effect resulting
from exposure to coordinated advertisement is called the synergy effect.”
As observed, advertising synergy could be operated into content level and medium
level. The former is usually seen within a single medium, using a series of ads with slight
difference in image, sound or stories, to convey a consistent persuasive message. While
the latter, going one step beyond, employs several media at a time for the same purpose.
TV, Print and Web ads
Conventional advertising, predominantly TV-commercials and print ads, still
dominates today’s advertising market. However, a diversity of new advertising formats
emerges. One major “threat” comes from the Internet, which advertising investment is
constantly seen to be on the rise (Janoschka, 2004). As Leong and his colleagues (1998)
suggested, “the phenomenal growth of consumers and businesses connected to the
Internet indicate a viable audience for advertising and promotional messages for many
companies”.
The Internet is the latest developed electronic mass medium of the 20th century.
With its decentralized, internationally operating network and multimedia functions, this

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new communication tool has soon captured the attention of provident advertisers and
became the 4th largest advertising medium (Janoschka, 2004). Some researchers
estimated that online advertising would begin to get surpluses this year, and the share of
advertising expenditure for webs would increase from 3.5% to 6.5% by the year 2009
(Ads4cn.com, 2005) , U.S. websites will see a triple in their advertising revenue.
There are various types of online advertising, including “emails, newsletters,
screensavers, e-sponsoring, asynchronous and synchronous chat groups, infomercials,
online games, and web sites” (Janoschka, 2004: 43). Provided the scope of the current
study, spotlight will be given to web ads, which encompass a variety of hypermedia
formats, such as “banners, buttons, and pop-up windows, etc.” (Janoschka, 2004: 43).
Similar to other types of advertisements, web ads are paid or unpaid form of
communication aim at informing the existence of a product or service and/or persuading
consumers to take actions. And Janoschka (2004: 49) found one major difference is that
web ads are hyperlinks in nature, which enable activation by their users. They not only
contain promotional messages on themselves which tries to attract consumers’ attention,
but also embedded with hyperlinks and then point to a much greater information pool,
such as the corporation’s website.
This inherent difference enables a lot of unique features of web ads. As Leong,
Huang and Stanners (1998) summarized in their study with advertisers, web ads were
perceived to be:
1). Excellent for conveying information and detail.
2). Cost-effective.
3). Rational and not effective in stimulating emotions.

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4). Effective in precipitating action.
5). Effective for both short- and long-term promotional objectives.
6). Less effective for changing and maintaining attitudes.
Two conceptual maps may further contribute to our understanding of the
characteristics among TV, print and web as advertising media.
First is Hoffman and Novak’s (1996) conceptual typology based on objective
characteristics (Figure1) of 35 media. The horizontal axis differentiates impersonal from
personal communication media, while the vertical axis differentiates dynamic from static
media. Findings showed that traditional mass media, such as TV and print resided in the
upper left and lower left quadrants, whereas interpersonal media mainly take up the upper
and lower right quadrants. New media occupied largely intermediate positions, “in
agreement with Reardon and Rogers (1988), who view new interactive media as
combining properties of mass (impersonal) and face-to-face (personal) communication
channels.”
The three media to be investigated in the current study, namely, TV, print and web
were all found to be mass-targeted (impersonal) media which package their information
for a large group of people. Yet they serve different functions. As Hoffman and Novak
(1996) explained, broadcast media provide relatively short-term exposure with low
information content, print media provide relatively long-term exposure with high
information content, whereas advertising strategy on the web can responsible for both
short-term (decision of which link to select next) and long-term (detail information
reading) exposure.

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Web incorporates texts, images, audio and sometimes, video contents as well. It
stands in the central part of the media map, corresponding to a very important strategic
interpretation that it should be included into the marketing mix and serve as
complementary ad carriers to the two conventional but predominant media.
Figure1
Second is Calisir (2003)’s typology developed on the basis of subjective perceptions.
After examining how Turkey young consumers perceive the web as an advertising media
in relation to eight traditional media on 15 constructs elicited from subjects, an
enlightening map were plotted, with Reliable/Deceiving and Public-focus/Individual-
focus as the two categorizing dimensions (Figure2).

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The map indicated that web ads are perceived to be more individual-focused and
less reliable, and that is relatively far away from the location of TV and Print (press and
magazine). As Calisir (2003) pointed out himself, web ads would be a threat to point of
purchase and direct mail, but a complement to TV and print. In other words, advertisers
may use web ads to replace some of the functions of point of purchase and direct mail,
but not TV and print.
Other researches (Chang & Thorson, 2004; Brackett & Carr, 2000) further
suggested that: Television contains both intensely moving images and sounds that are
effective attention-getting devices; print media are useful to provide detail information
and to build up distinct brand image; whereas webs, with the interactive nature, could
engage consumers and encourage them to be active in the marketing communication
process.
Figure2

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Synergy and Information Processing
Past researches found that advertising synergy across media is effective in that
multiple sources will result in higher attention, higher cognitive processing, higher
perceived message credibility, and more positive thoughts toward the products from
consumers, while compared with repeating the same massage at the same number of
times, and in the same medium (Chang & Thorson, 2004; Putrevu & Lord, 2003).
Chang and Thorson (2004) addressed their findings in the television-web experiment
under the guidance of elaboration likelihood model (ELM). According to ELM, people in
high elaboration likelihood condition, will be motivated to scrutinize an argument.
He/she will thus be attentive to message arguments and change attitude via a central route
to persuasion, which means, the merit of the message itself is the main criterion for
attitude change. Whereas in the low elaboration likelihood condition, a person will be
attentive to peripheral cues such as source credibility and his/her attitude will change via
a peripheral route to persuasion.
As they argued, television-web synergy provided a more stimulating environment
that lead to more cognitive processing by the participants than the TV repetition
condition. Experiment results revealed that synergy did produce an effect that was
superior to the repetitive ad condition. Yet those effects were found only on the cognitive
processing level. In other word, TV-web synergy had relatively little impact on
consumers’ attitudes toward the brand (affective state) and purchase intention (conative
state).
ResearchQuestions and Hypotheses

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Social psychologists have long held that multiple sources contribute a lot to the
perceived credibility of an argument (Chang and Torson, 2004). According to ELM,
multiple sources will lead to more cognitive processing by the consumers. Chang and
Thorson (2004) provided empirical support by comparing TV-web synergy with TV-TV
repetition. When applied to the current study, the scope of investigation is expanded. In
addition, two product categories are to be included and compared so as to see if the
synergy effects vary across durable and non-durable products.
H1: TV-web, TV-print, and print-web conditions will result in more ad recall from
consumers compared with TV-TV condition with the same number of exposures.
No past effort was devoted to compare the synergistic effects between TV-web and
print-web conditions. Given the different characteristics of the three media, TV is the
most “attention-getting” (Chang & Thorson, 2004). As such, H1 is further posited as:
H1a: TV-web condition will result in more ad recall from consumers compared with
Print-web condition with the same number of exposures.
Q1: Will the synergy effects in each condition concerning ad recall vary across
durable and non-durable products?
As for the message credibility issue, I posit that:
H2: TV-web, TV-print, and print-web conditions will result in more perceived
message credibility compared with TV-TV condition with the same number of exposures.
Q2: Will the synergy effect in each condition concerning message credibility vary
across durable and non-durable products?

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TV-web was believed to have little influence on the affective and conative states of
consumers (Chang & Thorson, 2004). Yet it was still insufficient to know about the
synergy effect on people’s attitudes and behaviors. Since multiple sources are speculated
to have greater message credibility, it is logical to posit that multiple sources will lead to
significantly more attitudinal change and purchase intention.
H3: TV-web, TV-print and print-web conditions will result in significantly more
positive attitude toward the brands than the TV-TV condition with the same number of ad
exposure.
Q3: Will the synergy effect in each condition concerning attitude toward the brands
vary across durable and non-durable products?
H4: TV-web, TV-print and print-web conditions will result in significantly higher
purchase intention toward the brands.
Q4: Will the synergy effect in each condition concerning purchase intention vary
across durable and non-durable products?
Methodology
An experiment was conducted to test the hypotheses posited above. The design was
a 4 (media conditions; a between-subject factor) X 2 (product category; a within-subject
factor) mixed design. The four media exposure conditions are (1) TT (two exposures to
the target TV-commercials); (2) TP (one exposure to the target TV-commercials and one
exposure to the target print ads); (3) TW (one exposure to the target TV-commercials and
one exposure to the target web ads); (4) PW (one exposure to the target print ads and one
exposure to the web ads).

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Pretest
In order to rule out the influence of prior knowledge on people’s information
processing and message elaboration, ads with unfamiliar brands were selected as target
treatment for the present study. Six brands with TV-commercials and print ads were
downloaded from Admango (an advertisement database) and were then rated by 6
undergraduate students recruited from an advertising course. The rating criteria were the
degree of familiarity with the ad and the brand on a 4-point scale (1=never heard of;
4=know it very well). One durable brand and one non-durable brand with the lowest
familiarity rate were then selected. As a result, a pair of kitchenware ads (target ad1) and
a pair of soda ads (target ad2) were chosen as target ads, with ad and brand familiarity as
low as 1 respectively. Another 4 pairs of ads were also used as filters. Different
categories, namely, optical wear, bank service, public announcement, and a food brand
were chosen to avoid the competition effect. Two web ads of the treatment brands were
then designed according to the TV-commercials and print ads.
Participants
Sixty-four students (24 male and 24 female) from undergraduate and graduate
classes were recruited. The age range of them was from 22 to 31 with a mean age of 24.8.
When the quota of gender for each condition was fixed, participants were randomly
assigned into the 4 treatment groups.
Procedure
The venue of the experiment was a hostel computer room with 6 computers. Before
the experiment, participants were told that they are doing an evaluation of the other

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students’ job on news production; they could leave at any time and their answers would
be kept in the strictest confidence.
A total of 8 news stories and 6 ads were shown in each condition. News stories were
included for the purpose of creating a natural viewing atmosphere. The 8 TV news stories
were done by students major in Broadcast Journalism. And the print stories and web
stories were revised versions of the video news clips.
To make the conditions equal, the two target ads were avoided to put in the most
prominent positions. In the TV setting, they were put in the second and the forth rather
than the first or the last, so as to avoid “halo effect”. In the print setting, they were
cropped in relatively the same size and embedded in the middle of the texts, avoiding
places such as above the headings or on the bottom of the page. In the web setting, all ads
were designed as banners and placed in the index page.
In each condition, participants were asked to read or watch the contents in their
usual manner and in either order as they want. Print materials and webs were required to
at least browse until the stop page appeared.
Questionnaires were answered after all stimuli were viewed. The time between the
last exposure to the target ads and questionnaire completion was the same for all
conditions.
The experiment took about 15 to 20 minutes to complete, when the participants were
finished they were thanked and dismissed.
Measures
Measures were ordered in a way that would minimize carryover and contamination
effects (Chang & Thorson, 2004). The specific measurement order was as follows: aided

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ad recall, perceived ad credibility, attitudes toward the brand, attitudes toward the product
category, purchase intention, manipulation check (i.e., prior knowledge of the ad and the
brand), weekly media consumption, and demographic information.
Aided ad recall
Logos of the two target brand were provided and one statement, “I could remember
this ad” were asked to be indicated on a four point Likert-type scale, with one equaling
“strongly disagree” and four equaling “strongly agree”.
Perceived ad credibility
To assess the perceived credibility of the ad, a three-item, four-point semantic
deferential scale (i.e. not at all reliable/reliable, not at all credible/credible, not at all
believable/believable) was adopted in reference to Chang and Thorson’s (2004) study.
(Cronbach’s alpha= .81 for target ad1 and .94 for target ad2, respectively).
Attitudes toward the brands
To estimate the attitudes toward the brand, a three-item, four-point semantic
deferential scale (i.e. not at all favorable/ favorable, poor quality/high quality,
unappealing/appealing) were adopted in reference to Chang and Thorson’s (2004) study.
(Cronbach’s alpha= .75 for target ad1 and .78 for target ad2, respectively).
Attitudes toward the product category (the Covariate)
Chang and Thorson’s (2004) study showed that attitude toward the product category
were affected by attitudes toward the product category as a whole. Participants were
asked to describe their general attitudes toward kitchenware and soda along a three-item,
4-point semantic deferential scale (i.e. bad/good, not interested/interested, not

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appealing/appealing). (Cronbach’s alpha= .88 for target ad1 and .90 for target ad2,
respectively).
Purchase intention
To determine respondents intentions to purchase the product, a statement, “I would
like to buy the German kitchenware/ Cube soda if I need this kind of product” was asked
to indicate on a 4-point Likert-type scale, with one equaling “strongly disagree” and four
equaling “strongly agree”.
Weekly media consumption
Weekly consumption on TV, print, and web were asked and indicated by the exact
hours by participants.
Demographic information
At the end of the questionnaire, each participant’s gender, age, and weekly
disposable income/allowance were asked.
Results
Preliminary analysis
Demographic information in each condition
Treatment Age Weeklydisposableincome/allowance
Manipulation check
Among the 64 participants in this study, 92.2% reported that they didn’t know the
kitchenware brand (target 1) before, and 96.9% reported that they didn’t know the soda
brand (target 2) before.
Evaluation of covariate

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The variables of attitudes toward product (kitchenware and soda) were not found to
correlate with the dependent variables.
Primary analysis
Repeated measure ANOVA test for each of the 4 dependent variables was
performed with media exposure conditions and product categories as the independent
variables.
Ad recall
H1 was supported. ANOVA test showed that people in the multiple-source (MS)
conditions (i.e. TW, TP, PW) did report higher brand recall than the repetitive condition
(i.e. TT). F(3,60)=8.61, p<.05. Ad recall results in relation with exposure conditions were
consistent for bother durable and non-durable products. However, statistics also showed
that people tended to have more ad recall for durable product than non-durable product,
F(1,60)=7.83. For the durable product, F(3, 60)=7.20, p<.05, multiple comparison further
showed that TP>TT, mean difference=.69, p<.05; TW>TT, mean difference=.75, p<.05;
PW>TT, mean difference=1.13, p<.05. For the non-durable product, F(3,60)=4.3, p<.05,
multiple comparison further showed that TP>TT, mean difference=.1.00, p<.05; TW>TT,
mean difference=.75, p<.05; PW>TT, mean difference=.63, p<.05.
H1a was rejected. The two exposure condition, i.e. TW and PW, do not have
significant differences.
Message credibility
H2 were not supported. ANOVA test showed no significant difference between the
4 exposure conditions in terms of perceived message credibility.

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Perceived message credibility in relation with exposure condition was consistent for
both durable and non-durable products. However, people tended to indicate higher
perceived message credibility for durable product than non-durable product,
F(1,60)=10.00, p<.05.
Attitudes toward the brands
No significant difference on the durable brand was found between multiple sources
conditions and TV-TV repetition conditions.
However, there were significant differences on TV-web condition and print-web
condition. TT>TW, mean difference for durable product was .56, p<.05; mean difference
for non-durable product was 1.04, p<.05.
Purchase intention
H4 was not supported.
Significant differences on purchase intention for durable product were found
between conditions of TT and TP, TW. TP>TT, mean difference=.63, p<.05; TW>TT,
mean difference=1.00, p<.05. No significant result was found between TT and PW in this
situation.
Significant difference on purchase intention for durable product were found between
conditions of TW and PW, TW>PW, mean difference=.81, p<.05.
Significant differences on purchase intention for non-durable product were found
between conditions of TT and TW, PW. TW>TT, mean difference=.63, p<.05. TT>PW,
mean difference=.69, P<.05. TP>PW, mean difference=.94, p<.05.
Discussion

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Primary analysis supported the hypothesis that multiple sources conditions did
produce high ad recall, regardless of product category. This may mainly due to the
complementary characteristic of different media. As mentioned before, TV is good at
attention getting, print is good at conveying image and detailed information, while web,
operated as the schema of human brain, is effective in engaging people once attracted
their attention.
As for the other dependent variables, such as perceived message credibility, attitudes
towards the brand, and purchase intention, no consistent and significant result were found
to fully support the hypotheses. The finding that perceived message credibility didn’t
vary significantly across synergy conditions and repetitive condition contrary to the past
researches, such as that of Chang and Thorson’s. One reason may due to the limited
exposure of ads which lead to insufficient processing by participants; another may
because of the participant themselves, who are predominately college students that hold
skeptical stands towards advertising messages. Yet, another possible explanation is that
synergy effects are more guaranteed when operationalized on both content level and
media level, which means a mix of consistent copies with slightly differences. Because
ads used in the study were designed to have a consistent outlook in three media, people
who saw them can easily identify them as messages from the same advertiser, which is
certainly not good for improving message credibility.
Limitations

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First is the participants of the current study were all college students who have much
higher internet consumption than the other media. They were used to the way webs were
and might thus be more sensitive to the web contents, rather than the other media.
Second is due to the equipment limit and participant number, print and print
combination, as well as web and web combination were not examined, leaving a gap to
fill by future researches.
Reference:
Brackett, L. K. and Carr, B. N.(2001). Cyberspaces advertising vs. other media:
Consumers vs. mature student attitudes. Journal of Advertising Research, 41(5),
pp.23-32.
Chang, Y. and Thorson, E. (2004). Television and web advertising synergies. Journal of
Advertising 33(2), pp.75-84.
Calisir, F (2003). Web advertising v.s. other media: young consumers’ view. Internet
Research 13(5), pp.356-363.
Leong, E. K. F., Huang X. L., and Stannners, P. J. (1998). Comparing the effectiveness of
the web site with traditional media. Journal f Advertising Research, 38(5), pp.44-
49.
Putrevu, S. and Lord, K. R.(2003). Processing internet communications: A motivation,
opportunity, and ability framework. Journal of Current Issues and Research in
Advertising, 25(1), p46.
Database: www.admango.com
Other resources: Ads4cn.com: http://www.ads4cn.com/ads4cn/netad/30679049.htm

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