| Abstract Over 5.5 billion people own mobile phones worldwide, and 2 billion mobile phone users have smartphones. In Puerto Rico, 84% of the residents own mobile phones, and almost 70% of mobile phone owners use smartphones. Due to high penetration and the interactive capabilities of mobile phones, marketers have invested billions of dollars in short message service-based mobile advertising to attract mobile users worldwide; however, consumers have demonstrated low acceptance of and disappointing response rates toward mobile advertising. While college students consider mobile phones to be personal technology devices, they perceive mobile advertising as intrusive. The specific problem involved the need for marketers to understand the variables that influence consumers' mobile advertising acceptance. The purpose of this nonexperimental, correlational study conducted using a sample of college students at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico Metropolitan Campus was to examine the relationship between the independent variables, or drivers, of utility, context, control, sacrifice, and trust and the dependent variable of consumer acceptance of mobile advertising to determine if these variables significantly influence advertising investment in Puerto Rico. The researcher used a two-part questionnaire and received 270 completed surveys from college students between 21 and 34 years old who were mobile phone users. The bivariate correlation coefficients yielded positive correlations between the dependent variable and context (r = .355, p <.01), trust (r = .306, p < .01) and utility (r = .155, p = .011). A negative correlation occurred between sacrifice (r = -.265, p < .01) and consumer acceptance of mobile advertising. Control ( r = -.099, p = .105) demonstrated no significant correlation with consumer acceptance of mobile advertising. The stepwise regression model showed the five drivers explained 29.4% of the variance for consumer acceptance of mobile advertising. Marketers should focus on promoting contextual information and trust to produce effective mobile campaigns and improve returns on advertising investments. Further studies should evaluate mobile phone using college students enrolled in other universities, the relations between mobile marketing efforts and Puerto Rico's consumerism culture, and the potential to influence consumers' perceptions utility and control, and the impact mobile platforms have on consumer acceptance of mobile advertising. |
