You’ve got email! A study about attitudes toward email advertising, based on the components cognition, affection and behavior

Abstract: Sending email is a very common activity among Swedish consumers nowadays. Email advertising has become a big part of the email usage - both permission-based and unwanted. The purpose of this study was to identify Swedish consumers’ total attitude towards permission- based email advertising, based on the three components cognition, affection and behavior. After identifying the attitude, correlation between the components was examined. The result was used to try Prensky’s generation theory regarding digital natives and digital immigrants, to investigate if it can be useful in the subject email advertising. A quantitative method was used, by publishing a survey on Facebook, which got totally 187 useful responses. The result showed an overall negative attitude and a high correlation between cognition and affection. A medium high correlation between cognition and behavior, and affection and behavior was found. The results partly showed a difference between digital natives and digital immigrants attitude towards email advertising. In the survey a division of four age groups, instead of two, was made. Results from the four groups showed a mix of positive and negative responses, which indicates that Prensky’s generation theory is too general, and cannot be used within email advertising.