Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how matching an ad’s empty space color specifically to that of the advertised product’s color (instead of leaving it white) impacts consumers’ product buying impulse. It tests two competing hypotheses, where the salience explanation proposes a positive effect of empty space–product color matching on product buying impulse, while the contrast account predicts an opposite effect.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was gathered from US-based MTurk panelists under three experimentally designed studies. The proposed effects were tested across multiple product categories, colors and online advertising formats. Qualitative responses from experienced marketing executives were also assessed for managerial insights.

Findings

Across all studies, findings reveal that using a product-colored (vs white) empty space in an ad increases consumers’ product buying impulse, favoring the salience rather the contrast explanation. Increased ad salience owing to an enhanced exposure to product color (an important sensory aspect), in turn improving the product’s hedonic appeal work as serial processes explaining this effect.

Originality/value

This research is not only the first to investigate the effects of using colored empty space (where limited prior research has only focused on white empty space), but also the first to study its impact on impulse buying intentions. Counter to prior advertising research which suggests using greater contrast by using white empty space to achieve positive effects, this research empirically tests and finds that using a product-colored empty ad space instead has a positive impact on product buying impulse.

中文翻译：

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将空的广告空间颜色与特色产品的颜色进行匹配对消费者购买冲动的影响

目的

本文的目的是研究广告的空白空间颜色与广告产品的颜色（而不是使其保持白色）的匹配方式如何影响消费者的产品购买冲动。它检验了两个相互竞争的假设，显着性解释提出了空白空间-产品颜色匹配对产品购买冲动的积极影响，而对比说明则预测了相反的影响。

设计/方法/方法

数据来自美国的MTurk小组成员，是根据三项实验设计的研究收集的。建议的效果已在多种产品类别，颜色和在线广告格式中进行了测试。还评估了经验丰富的营销主管的定性答复，以获取管理方面的见解。

发现

在所有研究中，研究结果表明，在广告中使用产品颜色（相对于白色）的空白空间会增加消费者的产品购买冲动，偏向于突出而不是对比说明。由于增加了对产品颜色的暴露（重要的感官方面），因此提高了广告显着性，从而改善了产品的享乐主义吸引力，因为可以通过串行过程来解释这种效果。

创意/价值

这项研究不仅是第一个研究使用有色空白空间（在有限的先前研究仅集中于白色空白空间的影响）方面的研究，而且还是第一个研究其对冲动购买意图的影响的研究。与先前的广告研究相反，该研究表明通过使用白色空白空间来获得积极效果来使用更大的对比度，该研究进行了经验测试，发现使用带有颜色的空白广告空间反而会对产品购买冲动产生积极影响。