Post-adoption attitudes to advertising on the Internet

In the last few years, the use and relative effectiveness of internet advertising has been the focus of research attention in the advertising and marketing literatures. However, few studies to date have examined these issues from the practitioners' viewpoint. This study reports the results of an online survey of top executives in advertising, marketing, new media, and public relations agencies concerning the issue of internet advertising. Contrary to past studies, which have examined whether agencies have adopted the internet, the focus here is on the "post-adoption attitudes" of agency executives after the adoption process has taken place. The primary purpose of this study is to present and test two factors-relative advantage and complexity-that we believe are useful for predicting and, by extension, helping to explain why post-adoption attitudes toward the internet are generally low, particularly for executives of traditional advertising agencies. Our findings shed light on this issue by demonstrating that traditional advertising agencies lag behind other agency types when it comes to internet advertising expertise, profitability, staffing, ability to attract interactive clients, and overall understanding of the internet's value. The findings presented here should be considered preliminary until a larger, more representative sample can be surveyed.