“Moderating impact of billboard location and quality on the relationship between advertisement elements and its goals”

The study aims to detect the relative impact of the basic advertising elements on at- taining advertisement objectives. It also seeks to determine if the location and quality of billboards have an essential moderating impact on the effectiveness of advertising elements concerning their ability to achieve desired advertisement objectives in a developing country such as Jordan. A quantitative survey methodology and an online questionnaire were used to a conve- nient sample of 450 university students from different academic years and their family members and acquaintances in Amman, Jordan, to achieve the study goals. IBM SPSS version 25 and Smart PLS 3 were used to test the hypotheses. The study revealed a statistically significant impact (p ≤ 0.05) of three billboard advertising elements in achieving the goals of promoting advertisements, namely: headline (t = 3.483), color (t = 2.308), and the number of elements (t = 2.418). However, the study failed to prove the effectiveness of other two elements in achieving these objectives. The analysis did not confirm the effect of moderation of billboard locations and quality between in- dependent variables and billboard’s advertising objectives; however, the location of billboards (independent variable) directly affects the achievement of advertising ob- jectives. The study came up with a set of conclusions, the most important of which is that the billboard still has an important impact on customers’ purchasing behavior or power, regardless of the location and the quality of billboards as a moderator variable.


INTRODUCTION
Billboard advertisement refers to one type of (out of home) advertising that is considered one of the most common (Ang, 2014). It is estimated that spending on this type of billboard is approximately 55% of the total outdoor advertising budget (OAAA, 2014); spending in 2024 is anticipated to reach $54.13 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 5.1%, for the period from 2020 to 2024 (Globe Newswire, 2020). Meanwhile, the effectiveness of billboards has increased despite the dominance of electronic means (Lopez-Pumarejo & Bassell, 2009).
In the Jordanian capital of Amman, it is found that the dependency of advertisers on billboards is due to the control of small and medium-sized businesses with service nature. It is characterized by their weak financial resources and the localization of their businesses in specific geographical areas. In addition, their markets are regarded as overcrowding which leads to congestion in the streets. Finally, the increased use of mobile phones, the internet, and social networking sites at home has weakened the role of all advertising media that individuals used to receive at home or in the workplace (Al Adwan et al., 2021; Zamil et al., 2021;Al Adwan, 2019). However, at the same time, the importance of billboards has increased.
The availability of appropriate conditions for the use of billboard advertisements and the increased spending on them does not necessarily mean that billboard advertisements in Amman work with the required effectiveness and efficiency, and thus perform their important role and functions to the fullest. This was indicated by Suditu et al. (2016), who emphasized that the effectiveness of a billboard depends on what is communicated and how that communication is provided. Furthermore, when it is not based on scientific bases, spending on advertising is considered a curse on small and medium-sized businesses, especially in developing economies such as Jordan. Therefore, the search for an accurate measure of the effectiveness of billboards according to their specificity is deemed important. Moreover, it is necessary to determine the success of this type of advertising in achieving its objectives (Rosewarne, 2090). Otherwise, it is considered not only lost spending, but a loss of its necessary and important impact on the business of such companies. Therefore, in light of the previous discussion, this paper tries to answer the following question: What are the basic advertisement elements that may affect the effectiveness of achieving advertising objectives regarding quality and location as moderating factors?

LITERATURE REVIEW
The success of billboard advertising design is primarily related to understanding the characteristics and limitations of this advertising medium. The most important characteristic is that viewing the advertisement takes place in motion mode and the short time available for individuals to absorb and place the advertisement in a surrounding environment with many sensory stimuli (Celsi & Olson, 1988). Therefore, an advertiser's ability to succeed in meeting the goals of billboard advertising is primarily related to his ability to understand the specificity and limitations of billboard advertising. These features require unique methods for communicating advertising messages and a creative design approach (Lopez-Pumarejo & Bassell, 2009). It simultaneously requires careful selection of billboard locations and billboard quality checks. The main advertising elements are designed very efficiently and comprehensively complement and support each other. They form a complete, innovative, and unified image capable of attracting attention and maintaining the interest of passers-by and thus, effectively presenting a high advertising claim in a short time and from the farthest distance (Chan & Cheng, 2012;Till & Baack, 2005).

Essential advertisement elements
The headline on the billboard advertisement is considered one of the leading and important el-ements (Belch & Belch, 2004;Pieters et al., 2010;Ang, 2041). It should be written in large and clear handwriting using a few words written in a creative and effective way that attracts attention and can be understood in the shortest time possible. A viewer of the billboard has only 6 seconds on average to perceive the advertisement and integrate with the rest of the advertisement elements; especially the image conveys the idea of the advertisement. In this regard, Grigaliūnaitė et al. (2016) concluded that consumers better perceive the ad with a large font title. On the other hand, Tian and Pan (2015) concluded that it became more noticeable only when the written portion is short and brief enough. In addition, the ad can be understood quickly, easy to remember, and potentially stimulates interest and generate a desire to buy.
The billboards usually contain bold colors because they will be more visible from long distances. The contrast of colors on the billboard helps improve the readability of the advertisement. Thus, colors should be bright, have a saturated contrast, and be high and attractive (Pieters et al., 2010;Zhang et al., 2009). At the same time, one should not over-diversify the use of colors and limit to only a group of colors that serve the design of the advertisement. Designers should invest the strong influence of color on individuals' emotional and mental feelings to make others remember the brand in the billboard advertisement (Panigyrakis Cheng and Chan (2014) found that color clearly affects consumers' attention to billboards. In addition, Balkafl et al. (2005) and Hussain and Nizamani (2011) concluded that color in billboard ad design significantly attracts consumers' attention to the billboard and their perception of the ad. Panigyrakis and Kyrousi (2010) found the relative order of colors in terms of their effect on improving memory implicitly. At the same time,  and Donthu et al. (1993) found that the strong and contrasting colors in advertising play a significant role in the success of billboard advertisement and lead to better brand memory.
Billboard advertisement has to tell a story about a company using thought-provoking images and very few words to accompany the pictures. Picture/Drawing in billboard advertisement could attract attention and maintain interest in viewing the remaining elements of the advertisement (Negm & Tantawi, 2015). Also, the picture can create the first enjoyable experience for the consumer and might be the reason why consumers often buy a product based on experience. Further, Sharma et al. (2012) found that the erotic picture of motives and instincts in advertising influences attitude, interest, and attention. Negm and Tantawi (2015) and Hussain and Nizamani (2011) found that the images in the advertisement affect consumers' perception, increasing their recall and enhancing attitude toward the advertising, and affecting behavioral intentions.
On the other hand, Grigaliūnaitė et al. (2016) concluded that consumers better perceive advertising in which visual elements are dominated. Pieters et al. (2010) and Pieters and Wedel (2004) found that the effect of visual objects on advertising plays a significant role in attracting attention to advertising, but that does not mean selling. Cook (2001) concluded that a picture attracts consumers before the headline and helps provide hidden verbal information. Kayode (2015) said that the entire burden of getting potential customers' attention and getting them to read the copy rests on the headline without the image.
The words of the advertisement should be limited, clear, understandable, and attractive to the billboard as to the color, size, and thickness of the letters . The separations between the words also should be appropriate to graphic design criteria (Balkafl et al., 2005) with the ability to be perceived as far away as possible. On the other hand, the type of letters should be narrowly defined, easy to read, and understandable to be read from the farthest possible distance. In addition, the typed words are mainly related to the nature of the product and the targeted audience (Balkafl et al., 2005). It is also concluded that letters and words within the design of the billboard advertisement have a great influence on attracting consumers' attention and their awareness of this advertisement. On the contrary, Donthu et al. (1993) argued that the fewer words on the billboard, the better.  also found that the typeface should be well spaced and legible.
It is asserted that any element that does not add value to the rest of the advertisement elements should be deleted, especially in the billboard advertisement. There is no time to move between the elements of the advertisement beyond the capacity of the human being to absorb the advertisement at the required speed (Nyarko et al., 2015). That is why necessary elements of the advertisement should be linked and integrated to help the viewer's eye move from one element to another in a planned way. This can increase the ability to attract attention and maintain interest to continue examining all these elements (Sharma et al., 2012). Therefore, Balkafl et al. (2005) stressed the effective use of white spaces within the billboard to determine which elements should be highlighted. For example, Grigaliūnaitė et al. (2016) concluded that the billboard containing many elements would be perceived better. This contradicts the aforementioned rule and interpretation of this result as those billboards are intended in crowded, slow-moving markets for pedestrians. However, Pilelienė and Grigaliūnaitė (2016) concluded that the complexity of the advertising layout negatively influences the visual attention to the brand in the printed advertisement.

Billboard location and quality
The location of the billboard plays a vital role in light of two aspects. The first is the good location (regarding the size of the billboard), which has a fundamental role in attracting attention to the billboard itself and its ability to be noticed by pas-sers (Wilson & Casper, 2016;Wilson & Till, 2011). The second is the ability to absorb the advertisement (Helmer, 2016). Hence, location is crucial in ad awareness within the time available while people are moving. Thus, advertising elements of high quality can distort the viewer's ability to perceive the ad correctly if the billboards are located in places where the confusing elements are present (Tucker et al., 2005;Wilson & Till, 2012). Accordingly, the location of the billboard should play an important role in isolating the billboard from the elements of interference that can hinder it for the longest possible time to be visible.
It is worth mentioning that the advertiser's ability to use creativity -associated with some studied ambiguity -in the billboard is non-existent due to insufficient time for the viewer to decode that advertising message and to be easier to understand by their targeted audience (Iqbal & Batool, 2016). On the other hand, when the billboard is placed correctly according to the targeted market for advertisers, its viewership is more significant, and advertisers can target the customers who want to reach them (Lopez-Pumarejo & Bassell, 2009). For example, Iqbal and Batool (2016) concluded that the positioning of the billboard has a significant impact on the purchasing behavior of customers. Bhargava and Donthu (1999) indicated that the location of exposure influences the sales' response to billboards. Hussain and Nizamani (2011) found that the locations selected matter in gaining the customers' attention.
Considering quality, the advertiser must consider different types and shapes of billboards that vary in terms of their physical characteristics (e.g., shape and size) before designing the advertisement and its various elements. Consequently, any ad design that does not fit with the nature and specificity of the type of billboard hinders the ability of that design to realize the planned effect. Moreover, the quality of the billboard in terms of physical aspect may be reflected negatively or positively on the ability of the ad design to have the planned effect. In this regard, Ephron (2004) described outdoor advertising as a unique case in which the medium is the message that allows the advertiser to invest this creativity in designing the ad. In this context,  confirmed that billboards can have a great potential for attracting attention due to their physical size and creativity.
Although printing is the last step before the billboard is displayed, the entire implementation process that includes printing and its quality must be considered to achieve a clear vision of the billboard advertisement. Likewise, when choosing between the types of billboard shape, one must consider the weather, lighting sources, and the area where the billboard will be located since they affect the visibility of the advertisement. The correct utilization of the appropriate lighting in terms of its quality and intensity has a significant impact on the visibility of the advertisement by showing the true colors of the billboard.

Billboard advertisement objectives
Billboard's advertisement is characterized by its influence to achieve its objectives, some of which are shared with various other advertising media, and others are distinguished from the rest of the media. The most important issue is represented in the ad ability to introduce new goods, remind the audience of the product, and create awareness of the brand in the local markets. It also urges consumers to purchase in places close to billboard advertising.
It is asserted that to evaluate the effectiveness of the billboard advertisement fully and objectively, it must be measured by its ability to achieve a set of its most critical main objectives. From the customer's point of view, it is the best assessment of the feasibility of spending on advertising. Several studies focused on measuring the effectiveness of advertising through its impact on consumers' behavior (attracting attention or remembering the advertisement and recalling it). Moreover, several research papers studied the influence of billboard ads on purchasing, loyalty, or their influence on the brand. However, no study is found that highlight the effectiveness of the advertisement in terms of its familiarity with most of the advertising objectives of the billboard in this study.

AIMS AND HYPOTHESES
This study aims to investigate the impact of the essential or basic elements of the billboard advertisement on its effectiveness. In addition, it critically assesses whether introducing billboard quality and location as moderating variables on the relationship between the independent variable (ads basic elements) and the dependent variable (billboard ads effectiveness).
Several studies were carried out seeking to analyze the feasibility and effectiveness of spending on advertising by identifying several internal or external factors that have a direct impact, from their perspective, on the effectiveness of advertising on billboards. However, this study proposes a model that involves all basic elements that are integrated to achieve the effectiveness of the advertisement and according to the privacy of the advertisement on the billboards (independent variables). Furthermore, taking into account variables that may hinder or help in the delivery of that influence (modified variables), this paper measures the effectiveness of the advertisement through a more specific and objective scale (billboard's advertisement objectives). In general, this was highlighted in previous studies, which gives a complete and plain image to measure the effectiveness of billboards more accurately.
Therefore, the main aim of the proposed research model is to find out an inclusive measure that focuses on all essential factors and any external factors that may enhance or hinder the effect of those factors on the dependent variable scale that determines the effectiveness of the advertisement accurately. After the review of literature related to the effectiveness of advertising in Jordan and the world, it was found that some papers tried to focus on one or some individual factors that determine the effectiveness of advertising from the viewpoint of each researcher separately. It was found that there is no consensus on these factors among researchers. For example, Hussain and Nizamani (2011) examined the impact of the size, color, location, celebrity, and images of the billboard advertisement on its ability to attract customers' attention. However, Iqbal and Batool (2016) examined the impact of billboard location, words, product recognition, simple, easy, understandable message, and uniqueness on consumer buying behavior.
Nonetheless, Akhtar (2019)  In line with these peripheral factors (modified variables), no study adopts these two variables as Similarly, there is a lack of literature that measures the effectiveness of the advertisement based on an evaluation of the ability of the billboards to achieve most of their goals altogether, which can effectively measure the success or failure of any advertisement.
In light of the previous discussion, a dependent variable was adopted to collect most of the advertising objectives of the billboard. They are characterized by their ability to achieve and express in depth the extent of the success of the advertisement to achieve the desired effect. It is the best evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of spending on advertising, as types of printed and audio-visual advertising. Moreover, it is easier for respondents to evaluate more accurately. According to the previous discussion, the following hypotheses are proposed: H1: There is a statistically significant impact of the headline of the billboard advertisement on achieving billboard advertisement objectives.
H2: There is a statistically significant impact of the color of the billboard advertisement on achieving billboard advertisement objectives.
H3: There is a statistically significant impact of the picture/images of the billboard advertisement on achieving billboard advertisement objectives.
H4: There is a statistically significant impact of the words and letters in the billboard advertisement on achieving billboard advertisement objectives.
H5: There is a statistically significant impact of the moderation of billboard advertisement elements on achieving billboard advertisement objectives.
H6: Billboard locations moderate the positive relationship between headline, color, images, words, and the number of billboard advertisement elements and achieving billboard advertisement objectives.
H7: Billboard quality moderates the positive relationship between headline, color, images, words, and the number of billboard advertisement elements and achieving billboard advertisement objectives.

METHODS
The descriptive and analytical approach was applied in this study, taking into account the theoretical framework and previous studies. It was based on collecting data using a questionnaire that included many items related to the study variables. The data were analyzed statistically to test the validity of the hypotheses.

Population, sample, and tools
The population of the study consisted of all students (and their family members or acquaintances) of the College of Business at Al-Ahliyya Amman University. After the approval of the Student Affairs Department, it was found that Al-Ahliyya Amman University students reside in different areas in Amman, which is a small city.
The study was conducted using the quantitative methodology and the empirical support for the hypotheses. The empirical analysis was carried out using a survey on the data collected from 450 students (and their family members or acquaintances) who answered the questionnaire published on the university's website for one week on June 5, 2021. It is a facilitated sample that gives students who are interested and willing to answer the questions the complete freedom to give their answers objectively. Considering the accuracy aspect, 74 question-naires were not considered since they were invalid for analysis, and only 376 questionnaires were analyzed (83.5%).
The study tool is a questionnaire that consists of four main sections to achieve research objectives. 450 questionnaires were collected, and 376 questionnaires were analyzed; 56.9% were males and 43.1% females. 77.7% of the respondents are aged 18 -23 years, and 16.5% are aged 29-24. An overwhelming number of the respondents have bachelor's degrees -343 (91.2%), and those with a diploma or less are 25 (6.6%), and 6 (1.6%) are higher degree holders (Table 1).
IBM SPSS version 25 and Smart PLS 3 were applied on the collected data to conduct structural equation modeling (SEM) for diagnosing not only the measurement model but also the structure of the variables. SEM investigates the relationship between dependent and independent variables concurrently and provides statistical procedures to deal with research models (Hair et al., 2006). In addition, SEM was chosen because it is convenient for investigating a research model with a moderation relationship where another method like regression cannot cover such a relationship (Raykov & Traynor, 2016). Discriminant validity through correlation coefficients between research variables ranged from 0.456 to 0.794. This increased the confidence in the discriminant validity as Kline (2005) noted that correlation coefficients that are less than 0.80 suggest evidence of discriminant validity. Table 3 summarizes the result of the correlation test.  The previous findings reveal discriminant and convergent validity for the proposed model. It indicates that the paper can move ahead with further analysis. Accordingly, the bootstrapping method was conducted to test the research hypotheses.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Against this framework, this study tries to provide more understanding concerning the relationship among these variables. The results are presented in Tables 4 and 5 and Figure 1.
The analysis result reveals that three advertisement elements (headline, color, and a number of billboard advertisement elements) significantly impact advertisement objectives. In detail, the results show that headline of the billboard advertisement as an advertisement element has a significant impact on advertisement objectives (t = 3.483, p ≤ 0.05). Thus, H1 is supported. This is consistent with Hussain and Nizamani (2011)     One explanation for the above-unexpected result might be that most billboards in Amman revolve around advertisements for services sectors (banks, telecommunications companies, restaurants, and hotels). On the one hand, their topic focuses on getting people's attention about a new service or new offers or prizes. Therefore, the most important element is the title, as well as the colors related to the words compared to the background color, which helps in reading the title from a suitable distance. Moreover, the use of colors indicates the personality of the brand/ service company. In addition, it has an essential role in attracting attention to the advertisement from the farthest distance through which it is seen on the billboard. As for the advertisement number of elements, they are important so as not to confuse them in understanding the news-letter's content to be delivered and what the advertised company is.
Finally, the analysis fails to confirm the moderation impact of billboard locations and quality between headline, color, images, words, and the number of billboard advertisement elements and advertisement objectives. However, the location of the billboard (when studied as an independent variable) directly affects the achievement of advertising objectives.
This study set out to investigate a conceptual model of the mechanism through which the advertising effectiveness of billboards is affected by the moderating effect of billboard location and quality. It is the first study to investigate such a mechanism. The results confirm the relevance of the research hypotheses and the literature that guided their formulation. Theoretically, this paper has sought to enhance the nuanced understanding of the advertising effectiveness of billboards. The research results shed light on both the theory and practice of billboards advertising. Specifically, the analysis revealed some basic independent advertising elements that play important roles influencing the effectiveness of billboard advertising and achieving its objectives, namely, the headline, color, and the number of billboard advertising elements.
On the other hand, the other main independent elements, namely words/letters and picture/images did not have any statistically significant effect on achieving advertising objectives. As for the answer to the second part of the purpose of this paper, the analysis revealed that the two variables modifying the relationship between the elements of advertising and the effectiveness of the advertisement that no statistically significant effects were found. However, the location of the billboard as an independent variable impacts the objectives of the advertisement.

CONCLUSION
The study emphasizes the need for advertisers in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to focus on improving the wording of the billboard advertisement headline by successfully communicating the advertisement claim in the fewest number of words and in a creative and readable manner from the farthest possible distance. The study also emphasized the importance of the colors used because of their strong impact on the knowledge of the advertiser's brand. In addition, it helps draw attention to the headline of the advertisement and enhances the ability to read and understand it from the farthest possible distance. Furthermore, the study also emphasized the importance of not confusing the billboard viewers with many advertising elements, but rather placing only the number needed to focus their attention on the content of the message displayed in the advertisement title, taking into consideration the short time available to absorb the advertisement, especially when many other confusing elements surround the billboards. Finally, advertisers should also focus heavily on the location of the billboard as it is placed in the right place, which allows the viewers to pay attention to the advertisement and give them enough time to absorb the content. All this would help increase the effectiveness of advertising by creating the desired effect and achieving its goals.
It is recommended that future studies focus on applying the proposed study model in different working environments and conditions than those in the Jordanian capital, Amman. It is necessary to discover the advertising elements that most affect the effectiveness of advertising. Furthermore, it is interesting to find whether the location and quality of the billboard modify the impact of the basic advertising elements on the effectiveness of advertising.