Title: The Effects of Congruency in Online Advertising on Swedish Consumers

Subject: International Marketing, Master thesis, 15 ECTS

Author: Elvan Cintosun

Tutor: Erik Hunter

Keywords: Advertising, online advertising, banner, congruency, congruent,incongruent, recall, recognition, attitude towards the web page, attitude towards the brand.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how thematic congruence,between the online advertising and the web site, affects brandrecognition, brand recall and attitude towards the brand and web siteof Swedish consumers. In addition, the effect of gender differences onthematic congruence of Swedish consumers has been analyzed.

Method: To answer the purpose, a mixed method has been used, by collectingquantitative data from an experiment conducted on 90 participants, andqualitative data from a follow-up interview conducted on 18 respondents.

Conclusion: The study has shown that advertising congruency has effects on bothadvertising processing and advertisement effectiveness categories. Inaddition, the importance of gender differences in advertisingcongruency has been shown in this study.