Abstract

This research investigated perils of consumers’ skepticism towards online advertising and the remedial role of Islamic advertising ethics in overcoming the perils. To test the proposed hypotheses, data were collected from 291 university students in three lags. Results indicate that all three ad characteristics predicated skepticism towards online advertising. It was also found that skepticism towards online advertising mediated the relationship between all three ad characteristics and the ad avoidance behaviour. An important finding came from the role of Islamic advertising ethics. It was found that Islamic advertising ethics moderated the relationship between skepticism towards online advertising and ad avoidance such that higher the Islamic advertising ethics, weaker the relationship between skepticism towards online advertising and ad avoidance. The study offers originality by extending the applicability of Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) paradigm to the domain of skepticism towards online advertising and is one of the first studies to empirically investigate the role of Islamic advertising ethics in overcoming perils of skepticism.

Keywords

Online Advertising, Consumers’ Skepticism, Islamic Advertising Ethics.