Social media marketing: Who is watching the watchers?

The ready access to and availability of social media has opened up a wealth of data that marketers are leveraging for strategic insight and digital marketing. Yet there is a lack of professional norms regarding the use of social media in marketing and a gap in understanding consumers’ comfort with marketers’ use of their social media data. This study analyzes a census-balanced sample of online adults (n = 751) to identify consumers’ perceptions of using social media data for marketing purposes. The research finds that consumers’ perceived risks and benefits of using social media have a relationship with their comfort with marketers using their publicly available social media data. The research extends the applicability of communication privacy management theory to social media and introduces marketing comfort—a new construct of high importance for future marketing research. Marketing comfort refers to an individual's comfort with the use of information posted publicly on social media for targeted advertising, customer relations, and opinion mining. In the context of the construct development, we find that targeted advertising is the strongest contributing component to marketing comfort, relative to the other two dimensions: opinion mining and customer relations. By understanding what drives consumer comfort with this emerging marketing practice, the research proposes strategies for marketers that can support and mitigate consumers’ concerns so that consumers can maintain trust in marketers’ digital practices.     

Social Consumer Neuroscience: Neurophysiological Measures of Advertising Effectiveness in a Social Context

The application of neurophysiological methods to study the effects of advertising on consumer purchase behavior has seen an enormous growth in recent years. However, little is known about the role social settings have on shaping the human brain during the processing of advertising stimuli. To address this issue, we first review previous key findings of neuroscience research on advertising effectiveness. Next, we discuss traditional advertising research into the effects social context has on the way consumers experience advertising messages and explain why marketers, who aim to predict advertising effectiveness, should place participants in social settings, in addition to the traditional ways of studying consumer brain responses to advertising in social isolation. This article contributes to the literature by offering advertising researchers a series of research agendas on the key indicators of advertising effectiveness (attention, emotion, memory, and preference). It aims to improve understanding of the impact social context has on consumers' neurophysiological responses to advertising messages.     

Convergence across American and Korean young adults: socialisation variables indicate the verdict is still out

A study was undertaken to examine consumer socialisation variables among Korean and American young adults. Many studies have been undertaken that focus on American consumers and the consumer socialisation process, but very few cross-cultural studies exist on this topic. However, efforts are increasing to suggest that consumers are converging on a global scale and research is needed to adequately assess the reality of these claims. Specifically the research explored Korean and American consumers’ media use patterns and the believed importance of different agents (media and interpersonal) for consumption-related information. The study also examined the relative importance of social structural variables on consumers’ perceived influences of key socialisation agents. Results indicate that American and Korean consumers are quite similar in how they allocate their time across media. Both groups spent the most time with television and the internet. However, differences were evident in the perceived importance of information sources, as well as the influence of socialisation agents when making purchase decisions. These differences do call into question the ability of standardised advertising campaigns and the ability to present one strategy to a unified global target market. Implications for advertisers and consumer researchers are provided.     

Cross-cultural advertising communication: Visual imagery, brand familiarity, and brand recall

The focus of this paper is to address the issue of visual imagery in cross-cultural consumer research. The authors investigate the relationship between visual imagery, brand familiarity, and brand claim recall in two distinct cultural environments — the U.S. and Russia. The paper consists of two studies that explored imagery potency from the point of view of memory-evoking effects. The results suggest that image-intensive tools generate different returns depending on the level of brand familiarity and cultural media. The research findings may be of interest to marketing scholars studying cross-cultural consumer behavior as well as to practitioners operating in international advertising and global brand building.     

Gender stereotypes in advertising: a review of current research

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the historical context of gender stereotypes in advertising and then examine the scholarship related to gender stereotypes. Gender portrayals in advertising have been examined extensively in the last five decades and still remain an important topic. Changing role structure in the family and in the labor force has brought significant variation in both male and female roles and subsequently how it is reflected in advertising. It has been noted that there is a culture lag. Sexes for a long period of time were depicted in advertising in more traditional roles. Women were presented in an inferior manner relative to their potential and capabilities, while at the same the data indicated a shift towards more positive role portrayals. The changing role of men is the area that has seen the greatest interest in the past few years. Men are depicted in advertising in ‘softer’ roles, while interacting with their children. Men are also shown in more egalitarian roles. The paper finally attempts to outline the future research direction of gender portrayals in advertising. First, research should focus on examining gender portrayals in online platforms, and find ways to modify current coding schemes to digital formats. Second, companies and the media are beginning to pay attention to a once largely ignored segment the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) consumer. Third, recent advertising has focused on the ‘empowered’ women called femvertising.     

Advertising in social media: a review of empirical evidence

This article presents an up-to-date review of academic and empirical research on advertising in social media. Two international databases from business and communication studies were searched, identifying 51 relevant studies. The findings of the identified studies were organized by seven emerging themes: use of advertising in social media, attitudes about and exposure to advertising, targeting, user-generated content in advertising, electronic word-of-mouth in advertising, consumer-generated advertising, and further advertising effects. Besides researched topics and major results, year of publication, journal, theoretical framework, research method, sample, measured constructs, and way of analysis were examined regarding each article. The review concludes by providing an agenda for future research.     

Effect of the use of social media in trust,loyalty and purchase intention in physical stores

This research evaluates the effect of the use of social media on consumer trust, loyalty and purchase intention in physical stores. We used six constructs in a structural model: a consumer’s use of social media, company-generated communication in social media, user-generated communication on social media, trust, loyalty and purchase intention. We considered 406 valid respondents in the analysis. The results suggest that the use of social media, company and user-generated communication positively affects trust of the physical store. Trust, in turn, has a direct positive effect on consumer loyalty to the store, and both trust and loyalty have positive impacts on a consumer’s purchase intention. We note the impact of the use of social media on purchase intention in physical stores, through the building of trust and loyalty with the store, as a fundamental element in the definition and implementation of a successful marketing strategy by high street retailers.     

Knowledge Flows Between Advertising and Other Disciplines: A Social Exchange Perspective

Knowledge flows between advertising and other academic disciplines are examined to identify the structure of scientific knowledge, the extent of social exchange and the scientific status of the field. Bibliometric analysis is used to identify who is citing our research and who we cited. Cocitation patterns for the leading advertising journals (Journal of Advertising [JA], Journal of Advertising Research [JAR], International Journal of Advertising [IJA], Journal of Interactive Advertising [JIA], and Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising [JCIRA]) and the top 50 citing and cited journals with citation relationships from 2005 to 2014 were examined. Findings revealed that advertising is citing advertising scholarship the most, followed by marketing, consumer research, psychology, and communication. This suggests a “maturing field” where scholars look within the discipline's body of knowledge. In turn, advertising research is cited by advertising, marketing, business (general), communication, and psychology. The overall citing-to-cited ratio suggests that advertising is more a “receiver” than “provider” of knowledge to other disciplines; however, there is variation across the advertising journals. The positioning of advertising journals in the larger disciplinary framework shows close relationships to consumer research and interactive communication. The most common focus among the top-cited articles is digital media, with few articles focusing on traditional advertising. The implications of our findings for the field of advertising are discussed.     

Encoding Advertisements: The Creative Perspective

The role of advertising within consumer culture as an ideological force has received much attention within academic studies in the advertising and marketing disciplines, and has also been the subject of inquiry and debate in related fields within sociology and cultural studies. While many of these works approach the role of advertising in society through textual analysis of advertisements and consumer interpretations of advertising meaning, surprisingly fewer studies have approached the subject from the perspective of the producers of advertising, particularly within the advertising and marketing disciplines. This paper examines how advertisements are encoded with meanings by advertising "creatives" by exploring the practices and processes in which these cultural practitioners engage. A discourse analysis of ethnographic interviews conducted with copywriters and art directors within an Irish advertising agency forms the empirical material for this inquiry. Four central interpretative repertoires are developed from these interview texts which provide insights into the pivotal work of advertising practitioners as cultural intermediaries within consumer culture.     

Contextual advertising in games: Impacts of game context on a player’s memory and evaluation of brands in video games

Contextual advertising is growing in digital marketing communication. Previous research on traditional media has shown that the surrounding context affects advertising effectiveness. Similarly, the context in a game may influence a player’s processing of brands advertised in that game. To examine the effects of contextual advertising in games, the present article affords two independent experiments investigating how positive and negative game contexts influence players’ memories and attitudes with respect to brands advertised via billboards in games. Drawing from literature on the limited capacity model, the authors demonstrate that positive and negative game contexts decrease brand memory since they require a high level of cognitive effort. The authors also find that varying a game context influence the perception of brands advertised in the game via the contextual priming mechanism and that positive contexts generate more positive brand attitudes than negative or neutral contexts. The findings have important implications for consumer researchers and marketers, as they indicate how contexts in games can be utilized to establish brand awareness and increase positive brand perceptions in contextual advertising using games.     

消费社会语境下的广告文化批判

消费社会是以商品的大规模消费为特征的社会,从消费社会的角度来看,广告文化具备符号化、视觉化、时尚化和鼓励炫耀性消费的特征。在消费社会,广告通过建构商品符号意义,强化、误导目标受众的身份认同,刺激消费者的欲望,来助推消费心理,夸大其对心理满足的功能。它深深地受到商品逻辑的制约,反过来以商品逻辑瓦解原有的社会价值结构和秩序,并在与媒介的同谋中,广泛而持续地干扰媒介传播,刺激着消费社会以及社会文化的负面发展。     

Modeling consumer engagement on social networking sites: Roles of attitudinal and motivational factors

This paper reports on a study that seeks to assess an extended typology of consumer social networking engagement behaviors. Drawing on uses and gratifications theory, this study assesses consumer engagement with social media, where consumer engagement incorporates consumer responses to marketing communications. The paper argues that certain motivations for social media use serve as antecedents to general attitudes toward social networking sites, which subsequently affects attitudes toward marketers' social networking sites. These attitudes then influence subsequent consumer engagement behaviors. The results show that social facilitation motivation, participating and socializing motivation, and information motivation positively influence consumers' general attitudes toward social networking sites, which had a strong effect on their attitude toward marketers' social networking sites. The relationship between attitudes toward social networking sites and engagement with social networking sites was mediated by attitudes toward marketers’ social networking sites also mediated. The current study brings together the online advertising perspective and the consumer motivation/gratifications perspective of using social media in branding and marketing into a conceptual model that holds up to empirical testing. The paper ends with a discussion of some limitations of the study and proposes avenues for future research.     

Negative Consequences of Storytelling in Native Advertising

Native advertising and storytelling are both increasingly popular advertising strategies. This research explores the effectiveness of storytelling in a native advertising context on social media. While most research recommends the use of stories as a way to build trust and relationships with consumers, the current research suggests that in the form of native ads on social media, narratives may be less effective when compared to informational native ads. Two studies find that even when advertising cues such as disclosure labels and brand presence are prominently located, consumers are less likely to recognize the advertising nature of narrative native ads when compared to informational native ads. Lower levels of advertising recognition are associated with increased perceptions of manipulative intentions by the advertiser, which has a negative influence on consumers' attitudes toward the ad. The findings suggest that native ads that clearly communicate their advertising nature through cues such as an informational execution, high brand presence, and prominent disclosure labeling are more effective than a narrative execution style.     

Predicting Consumer Avoidance of Native Advertising on Social Networking Sites: A Survey of Facebook Users

Abstract

As a result of constant efforts to improve consumers’ online advertising experiences, native advertising has started to gain popularity on social networking sites (SNSs). This survey study examined antecedents of avoidance of native advertising on SNSs and the moderating role of consumer skepticism toward native advertising. Our findings suggest perceived intrusiveness and perceived informative and entertainment advertising value as major antecedents of consumer advertising avoidance. Additionally, the number of brands that consumers are following on SNSs and negative communication among peers on SNSs were found to be factors affecting native advertising avoidance. Finally, consumer skepticism toward native advertising was found to be an important moderating variable in the mechanism of advertising avoidance on SNSs.     

When I feel invaded,I will avoid it: The effect of advertising invasiveness on consumers’ avoidance of social media advertising

As companies increasingly use social media as the platform for promoting their products and services, it is critical for consumers to be receptive to social media advertising (SMA). However, consumers may feel invaded when viewing SMA. The literature on advertising invasiveness has focused primarily on consumers’ attention invasiveness (i.e., the interruption of their attention). We argue that such a focus is limited, and we propose space invasiveness as an additional dimension for understanding advertising invasiveness in social media. Data were collected from Chinese consumers, and the results show that space invasiveness had a stronger effect than attention invasiveness did on advertising irritation, and that irritation in turn led to advertising avoidance. Furthermore, psychological ownership moderated the relationship between social influence and space invasiveness. This study provides important guidelines for practitioners to reduce advertising avoidance in social media.     

Introduction to the Special Thematic Symposium on the Ethics of Controversial Online Advertising

The field of marketing and consumer ethics has evolved considerably over the past 20 years, yet research on specific areas of advertising ethics remains limited. This limitation persists despite developments in digital technologies, and the impact they have had on advertising practice generally and online advertising more specifically. Online media are becoming increasingly populated by advertising content, as consumers continuously navigate ever-evolving mediascapes. Thus, there is a need to examine the ethical issues associated with the use of controversial advertising online, as well as consumers’ responses to such ads. This special thematic symposium addresses this literature gap, which is at the intersection of consumer ethics, e-marketing, and controversial advertising. The two papers in the special thematic symposium present new research in this area, along with some initial ethical implications as well as potential for future research.     

Observing viewers’ self-reported and neurophysiological responses to message appeal in social media advertisements

PurposeMarketing research mainly uses self-reported method to record respondents' perceptions of creativity, and while self-reported method has its own merits, there exists some critique, particularly in terms of its ability to adequately capture the influence of message appeal on creativity. This paper studies how viewers’ responses to message appeals in social media advertisement compare in terms of self-reported responses versus responses taken through a neurophysiological method of Electroencephalograph (EEG).MethodologyTwo social media advertisements are displayed through a laboratory experiment to 17 subjects observing the subjects' neurophysiological reactions as well as their self-reported responses with regard to the commercials’ emotional, informational, and brand-related content.FindingsResults show that neurophysiological method offers unique details about emotional appeal, which the self-reported method fails to reflect. Furthermore, the neurophysiological measure identifies differences across the two target commercials in the emotional content part, which again are not identified through the self-reported method.OriginalityThis paper advances advertising research in social media literature by comparing content evaluation within advertisement through neurophysiological and self-reported measure. These findings have implications for marketers to use and measure message appeals in advertisement on social media to influence consumer response.     

How ‘social’ are social media? A cross-cultural comparison of online and offline purchase decision influences

Traditional word of mouth (WOM) involves personal communications among family, friends, and others. Today, social media sites like Facebook offer the possibility of electronic word of mouth (eWOM), a mediated form of WOM. Little is known about the best way for marketers to use social media. Even less is known about international differences in consumer usage of social media and how eWOM influences consumer decision-making. This study helps address that research gap and uses cultural dimensions to compare the use of social media and other information sources for consumer decision-making across 50 countries. The results indicate that the use of information sources that influence online purchase decisions strongly varies by culture. For example, relationship-oriented collectivists rely to a greater extent than individualists on social media, which are an alternative for interpersonal WOM communication. Interestingly culture affects the influence of social media on purchases differently than the influence of traditional WOM through family or friends. Furthermore, there are major differences in online complaint behavior by country, due to cultural variations.     

The effects of ad heuristic and systematic cues on consumer brand awareness and purchase intention: Investigating the bias effect of heuristic information processing

With growing numbers of digital users, social media advertising becomes a vital marketing channel for attracting and sustaining consumers. Drawing on the heuristic-systematic model, this research investigates the effects of advertisement systematic cues including ad informativeness and ad persuasiveness, and ad heuristic cue which is ad poster category on the consumer brand awareness, and the sequential effect on consumer purchase intention. An experimental design featuring two categories of ad poster, namely, firm and influencer, is created for empirical evidence collection. Results show that ad informativeness and ad persuasiveness contribute to greater consumer brand awareness and purchase intention. The poster category can positively bias the influence of ad informativeness, and firm poster outperforms the influencer poster when controlling the advertisement content the same. The findings demonstrate the co-occurrence of heuristic and systematic information processing in the social media advertising context. This research deepens current understanding of social media advertising and provides practical implications for marketers to capitalize on different ad posters according to advertisement informativeness and persuasiveness feature.