Understanding the Attitude of Generation Z Consumers Towards Advertising Avoidance on the Internet

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges faced by marketers today is to comprehend the reasons behind people’s avoidance towards advertisements worldwide, and how that can be managed. Although many researchers have explored the subject in both traditional and contemporary marketing communication mediums, there is no evidence of studies conducted in the context of Bangladeshi market, with specific concentration on Generation Z consumers. This generation constitutes a significant portion of the entire population in the country, indicating that a major share of current and potential customers belong to this age group. Intriguingly, even though they are characterized as highly tech-savvy customers, they are also more likely to avoid online advertisements, making the marketing efforts of organizations ineffective. Therefore, this study investigates the determinants that cause the Generation Z consumers in Bangladesh to avoid advertisements on the Internet. The collected data from 280 respondents were analyzed through descriptive statistics using SPSS.24, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structure equation modeling (SEM), which were performed with the help of AMOS.17 to eventually test the hypotheses developed for this study. The findings indicate goal impediment, privacy concern, ad clutter, and negative experiences are positively related to advertising avoidance online.

Keywords: advertising avoidance, goal impediment, privacy concern, ad clutter, negative experience, and generation-z consumers