Attitude Toward the Ad’s Format (ATTA)

1. Abstract

The Attitude Toward the Ad’s Format (ATTA) scale is a specialized psychometric instrument developed by Kelli S. Burns and Richard J. Lutz in their seminal 2006 investigation into consumer reactions toward digital advertising modalities. While traditional consumer psychology and advertising research have historically treated the overall attitude toward the advertisement ($A_{ad}$) as an omnibus evaluative construct that collapses commercial message, creative execution, vehicle context, and visual delivery, the ATTA scale isolates the structural, technological, and sensory delivery system—the format itself—from message arguments and creative content. Comprising four bipolar 7-point semantic differential items (Bad/Good, Dislike/Like, Unfavorable/Favorable, Negative/Positive), the scale provides a concise, psychometrically robust, and unidimensional measurement of consumer affective and evaluative disposition toward visual, structural, and interactive presentations. In empirical validation studies across diverse online formats—including banner advertisements, floating ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitial pages, and large rectangular units—the ATTA scale demonstrated exceptional internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding .95 across experimental conditions. The instrument exhibits strong convergent and discriminant validity relative to message-specific attitudes, perceived intrusiveness, and subsequent behavioral intentions, establishing itself as a vital diagnostic tool for digital marketing researchers, media planners, interaction designers, and human-computer interaction (HCI) scholars seeking to disentangle format-induced cognitive friction or visual pleasure from core brand evaluations.

2. Keywords

Attitude Toward the Ad’s Format, ATTA, advertising format, digital advertising, attitude toward the ad, semantic differential, online consumer behavior, visual presentation, advertising clutter, intrusiveness

3. Authors

The Attitude Toward the Ad’s Format (ATTA) scale was designed and psychometrically evaluated by:

• Kelli S. Burns, Ph.D. — Associate Professor in the Zimmerman School of Advertising & Mass Communications at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States. Dr. Burns’s research focuses on digital media, consumer engagement in digital environments, social media advertising, and visual marketing communication.
• Richard J. Lutz, Ph.D. — J.C. Penney Professor of Marketing in the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States. Dr. Lutz is a distinguished fellow and past president of the Association for Consumer Research (ACR), globally recognized for his foundational contributions to attitude theory, consumer cognitive structure, and the original conceptualization of the Attitude Toward the Ad ($A_{ad}$) construct.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Attitude Toward the Ad’s Format (ATTA) scale is to isolate, operationalize, and quantify the specific affective and evaluative valence that an individual holds toward the structural and technological vehicle through which commercial communications are manifested. Historically, advertising research relied heavily on global assessments of attitude toward the ad ($A_{ad}$), defined by Lutz (1985) as a predisposition to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner to a particular advertising stimulus during a particular exposure occasion. However, with the explosive proliferation of the World Wide Web and dynamic digital media formats at the turn of the 21st century, advertising presentations diverged sharply from uniform static print pages and linear television broadcasts.

Web users began encountering advertisements delivered through an array of visual architectures: static banner displays, dynamic skyscrapers, intrusive pop-up windows, occlusive interstitial transitions, floating rich-media overlays, and embedded expanding media. Early digital marketing models often suffered from severe construct confounding because an experimental participant’s negative reaction to an annoying pop-up window or an intrusive floating animation was erroneously conflated with their evaluation of the brand message, product claims, or aesthetic imagery. Burns and Lutz (2006) observed that the communicative delivery vehicle carries its own psychological baggage, cognitive affordances, and disruptive properties independently of the message it transports.

The ATTA scale addresses this theoretical and practical measurement gap. In academic research, it allows behavioral scientists to untangle the multidimensional components of digital advertising response by positioning format evaluation as a crucial intermediate variable within structural models of persuasion. It enables scholars to examine how formal structural features—such as screen occlusion, user control, motion, audio onset, and interactive latency—directly influence format evaluation, and subsequently how format evaluation moderates or mediates the impact on brand attitudes ($A_b$) and purchase intentions ($PI$).

In applied contexts, marketing professionals, web designers, and UX/UI researchers employ the ATTA scale to benchmark consumer acceptance of novel interactive formats, test ad-tech innovations (such as native sponsored content, outstream video, or augmented reality web units), and minimize consumer reactance and ad-blocking behaviors. By quantifying consumer format tolerance, media planners can optimize ad placement strategies, striking an empirical balance between visual prominence and audience receptivity.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct captured by the ATTA scale is the consumer’s global evaluative judgment of the presentation architecture and visual structural mechanics of an advertisement. Rooted in classical social psychology, an attitude represents an enduring psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). In the ATTA construct, the attitudinal entity (attitude object) is explicitly defined not as the sponsoring brand, the depicted spokesperson, the copy, or the headline, but exclusively as the delivery modality.

The construct encompasses several interrelated cognitive and affective facets:

• Affective Valence: The immediate, visceral feeling state evoked by the presentation style (e.g., feelings of pleasantness, enjoyment, irritation, or aversion elicited by how the ad manifests on screen).
• Cognitive Evaluation: The rational appraisal of the format’s appropriateness, visual harmony, usability, and technical performance within the media environment.
• Perceptual Non-Intrusiveness: An implicit assessment of whether the visual presentation respects the user’s perceptual field and cognitive goals versus forcibly interrupting attentional focus.

The ATTA scale is unidimensional, measuring a single continuum extending from extreme unfavorable/negative affective appraisals to extreme favorable/positive appraisals. For instance, when presented with an automated audio-video pop-up advertisement that covers page content, an individual’s evaluation reflects intense frustration with the format’s forced exposure, yielding a very low ATTA score (e.g., scoring 1s and 2s across “Bad,” “Dislike,” “Unfavorable,” and “Negative”). Conversely, when exposed to a non-intrusive, aesthetically integrated banner or a high-utility native interactive display that permits seamless interaction without obstructing task navigation, the individual forms a positive appraisal of the delivery format, resulting in elevated ATTA scores.

Importantly, the ATTA construct exists within a triadic hierarchy of advertising attitudes: (1) Attitude Toward Advertising in General ($A_g$), representing macroeconomic and societal beliefs; (2) Attitude Toward the Specific Ad ($A_{ad}$), representing the holistic creative execution; and (3) Attitude Toward the Ad’s Format (ATTA), representing the technical and visual delivery system. This structural segregation has proven essential for preventing measurement error in experiments evaluating novel human-computer interaction paradigms.

6. Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture underpinning the ATTA scale draws directly from dual-process persuasion theory, the structural theory of advertising attitudes, and cognitive capacity models of human-computer interaction.

Dual-Component and Structural Advertising Attitude Models

In the foundational advertising framework formulated by Lutz, MacKenzie, and Belch (1983) and further elaborated by MacKenzie and Lutz (1989), the attitude toward the ad ($A_{ad}$) is conceptualized as an affective mediator of brand attitude formation. MacKenzie and Lutz identified five central antecedents to $A_{ad}$: ad credibility, ad perceptions, attitude toward the advertiser, attitude toward advertising in general, and mood. When Burns and Lutz (2006) contextualized this framework within the evolving online media landscape, they identified that “ad perceptions” must be partitioned into content perceptions (the semantic information and creative copy) and format perceptions (the vehicle mechanics). By integrating the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of Petty and Cacioppo (1986), the format can act either as a peripheral cue (in low-involvement browsing) or as a focal source of distraction that interrupts central route processing of message arguments.

Limited Capacity Model of Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP)

Annie Lang’s (2000) Limited Capacity Model of Motivated Mediated Message Processing (LC4MP) provides critical theoretical grounding for why ad formats elicit strong attitudinal reactions. Humans possess finite cognitive resources for encoding, storage, and retrieval. Online environments are inherently task-oriented, requiring active user agency, cognitive navigation, and perceptual mapping. When an advertising format introduces sudden visual onsets, screen occlusion, or unexpected auditory stimuli (such as flashing pop-ups or expanding interstitials), it triggers an involuntary orienting response. If the format exhausts mental bandwidth required for the user’s primary goal, cognitive overload ensues, precipitating immediate negative affect toward the delivery mechanism. The ATTA scale operationalizes this psychological appraisal, capturing the resultant valence of the user’s interaction with the format.

Psychological Reactance Theory

Jack Brehm’s (1966) Psychological Reactance Theory posits that when an individual’s behavioral freedom is threatened or eliminated, an uncomfortable motivational state (reactance) is induced, driving the individual to restore the lost freedom. In digital contexts, invasive ad formats restrict user autonomy by hijacking cursor control, obscuring desired content, or enforcing waiting delays. Edwards, Li, and Lee (2002) demonstrated that perceived ad intrusiveness directly leads to irritation and avoidance. The ATTA scale serves as the evaluative summary judgment of this interaction: formats that provoke strong reactance register as deeply unfavorable, negative, and disliked.

7. Validity

The psychometric validity of the ATTA scale has been rigorously demonstrated across experimental, field, and replication settings within consumer psychology, digital marketing, and interactive systems literature.

Construct and Convergent Validity

Construct validity is evidenced by the scale’s alignment with established evaluative measures of advertising affect. In Burns and Lutz’s (2006) foundational study involving an experimental sample evaluating six distinct internet formats (pop-up, pop-under, floating ad, interstitial, banner, and large rectangle), the four semantic differential items demonstrated exceptionally high factor intercorrelations ($r > .88$, $p < .001$) and converged onto a single unrotated latent dimension that accounted for over 87% of the total variance across formats. Convergent validity is further supported by significant, robust correlations between ATTA and established global ad evaluation scales, such as Holbrook and Batra’s (1987) emotional response indices and MacKenzie and Lutz’s (1989) $A_{ad}$ scales.

Discriminant Validity

A crucial psychometric imperative during the scale’s development was demonstrating discriminant validity between the attitude toward the format (ATTA) and the attitude toward the ad’s content ($A_{content}$). Confirmatory factor analyses conducted by Burns and Lutz revealed that a two-factor model separating format attitudes from message attitudes provided a significantly superior fit ($\chi^2$ difference tests, $p < .001$) compared to a single-factor omnibus model. Furthermore, the average variance extracted (AVE) for the ATTA scale consistently exceeded .85, surpassing the squared correlations between ATTA and related constructs such as brand attitude ($A_b$), website attitude ($A_{site}$), and perceived intrusiveness, fulfilling the rigorous Fornell-Larcker criterion for discriminant distinctiveness.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

The ATTA scale demonstrates robust nomological validity within structural equation models of consumer behavior. It exhibits strong negative relationships with perceived intrusiveness (typically $r = -.60$ to $-.75$) and ad irritation, while demonstrating strong positive relationships with ad format acceptance, duration of voluntary ad exposure, and click-through intentions. Predictive validity is confirmed by the scale’s ability to forecast behavioral avoidance; lower ATTA scores predict higher likelihood of installing ad-blocking software, closing browser tabs prematurely, and experiencing banner blindness. Furthermore, multi-sample analyses have shown that the scale’s psychometric properties hold invariantly across mobile, tablet, and desktop display interfaces.

8. Reliability

The ATTA scale exhibits outstanding internal consistency reliability across repeated empirical evaluations. In the original validation experiments conducted by Burns and Lutz (2006), internal consistency was examined across six distinct advertising formats among a diverse sample of internet users. The resulting Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were exceptionally high and stable:

• Floating Advertisement: $\alpha = .96$
• Pop-Up Advertisement: $\alpha = .97$
• Pop-Under Advertisement: $\alpha = .96$
• Interstitial Page: $\alpha = .96$
• Traditional Banner: $\alpha = .95$
• Large Rectangle (Medium Rectangle / MPU): $\alpha = .96$

Subsequent independent studies in digital advertising, social media formats (e.g., in-feed native versus auto-playing story units), and mobile apps have reported Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability ($
ho_c$) values consistently ranging between .92 and .98. The four items display nearly identical corrected item-total correlations, all exceeding .85, indicating that removal of any single item does not enhance the scale’s overall reliability. Test-retest reliability across brief experimental delays (15 to 45 minutes) has yielded stability coefficients above $r = .86$, confirming that the instrument reliably captures stable evaluative states while remaining sensitive to genuine experimental manipulations of format design.

9. Factor Analysis

Extensive exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses validate the strictly unidimensional architecture of the ATTA instrument.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

In exploratory analyses using principal components analysis and maximum likelihood extraction with oblique and orthogonal rotations, the four semantic differential pairs consistently load onto a single dominant factor. Eigenvalues for the primary factor routinely exceed 3.45 (accounting for 86% to 92% of the total variance across experimental samples), with the second eigenvalue dropping well below 0.35, adhering decisively to the Kaiser criterion and Cattell’s scree test for unidimensionality. Factor loadings for each individual item are remarkably strong:

• Bad / Good: Factor loading $lambda = .91 – .95$
• Dislike / Like: Factor loading $lambda = .93 – .96$
• Unfavorable / Favorable: Factor loading $lambda = .92 – .96$
• Negative / Positive: Factor loading $lambda = .92 – .95$

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor analytic investigations evaluating the measurement model across varying digital modalities indicate outstanding fit indices. In standard structural equations testing one-factor configurations for the four indicators, typical model fit indices demonstrate near-perfect alignment with observed covariance matrices:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): $.995 – 1.000$
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $.990 – .999$
• Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI): $.991 – .998$
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): $.028 – .054$ (with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .075)
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): $.011 – .019$

Multi-group CFA testing has repeatedly confirmed metric and scalar measurement invariance across gender, age cohorts, and diverse technological display environments (e.g., mobile vs. desktop displays), verifying that differences in mean ATTA scores reflect genuine differences in latent format evaluations rather than measurement artifacts.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The ATTA is a self-report semantic differential scale that can be seamlessly embedded into online surveys, post-exposure experimental questionnaires, and laboratory testing software.

• Test Type: Psychometric rating scale (Semantic Differential).
• Format: Bipolar adjective pairs presented along a horizontal continuum.
• Number of Items: 4 bipolar items.
• Response Scale: 7-point semantic differential scale (ranging from 1 = most negative adjective anchor to 7 = most positive adjective anchor).
• Administration Time: Approximately 30 to 60 seconds.
• Target Population: Consumers, internet users, media audiences, and experimental participants exposed to digital, print, or interactive advertising formats.
• Scoring Rules: Each item is scored on an integer scale from 1 (negative pole) to 7 (positive pole). A composite ATTA index is calculated either as an unweighted arithmetic mean:
  $$\text{ATTA} = \frac{\sum_{i=1}^{4} \text{Item}_i}{4}$$
  or as a summed total score ranging from 4 to 28. Higher composite scores directly reflect a more favorable, positive, and liked attitude toward the advertising format. No reverse scoring is necessary when items are arrayed with the negative anchor on the left (coded 1) and the positive anchor on the right (coded 7).

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Year of Publication: 2006 (Burns & Lutz, Journal of Advertising).
• Access and Permissions: The ATTA scale was published in an academic, peer-reviewed journal for scholarly and scientific dissemination. It is in the public domain for non-commercial academic research and instructional purposes, provided appropriate attribution and scholarly citation are given to the original authors (Burns & Lutz, 2006).
• Commercial Licensing / Fees: Commercial enterprises, market research agencies, and proprietary testing platforms wishing to incorporate the instrument into proprietary commercial software suites should consult the copyright policies of the American Academy of Advertising (Taylor & Francis) regarding published material from the Journal of Advertising. No user fees are assessed for independent university research.

12. References

• Brehm, J. W. (1966). A theory of psychological reactance. Academic Press.
• Burns, K. S., & Lutz, R. J. (2006). The function of format: Consumer responses to six on-line advertising formats. Journal of Advertising, 35(1), 53–63. https://doi.org/10.2753/JOA0091-3367350104
• Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
• Edwards, S. M., Li, H., & Lee, J.-H. (2002). Forced exposure and psychological reactance: Antecedents and consequences of the perceived intrusiveness of pop-up ads. Journal of Advertising, 31(3), 83–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2002.10673678
• Holbrook, M. B., & Batra, R. (1987). Assessing the role of emotions as mediators of consumer responses to advertising. Journal of Consumer Research, 14(3), 404–420. https://doi.org/10.1086/209123
• Lang, A. (2000). The limited capacity model of mediated message processing. Journal of Communication, 50(1), 46–70. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2000.tb02833.x
• Lutz, R. J. (1985). Affective and cognitive antecedents of attitude toward the ad: A conceptual framework. In L. F. Alwitt & A. A. Mitchell (Eds.), Psychological processes and advertising effects: Theory, research, and application (pp. 45–63). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Lutz, R. J., MacKenzie, S. B., & Belch, G. E. (1983). Attitude toward the ad as a mediator of sales presentation effectiveness: Field investigation. In R. P. Bagozzi & A. M. Tybout (Eds.), Advances in Consumer Research (Vol. 10, pp. 532–539). Association for Consumer Research.
• MacKenzie, S. B., & Lutz, R. J. (1989). An empirical examination of the structural antecedents of attitude toward the ad in an advertising pretesting context. Journal of Marketing, 53(2), 48–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224298905300204
• Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 19, 123–205. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60214-2

13. Items of the Scale