Sharing of branded viral advertisements by young consumers: the interplay between personality traits and ad appeal
ISSN: 0736-3761
Article publication date: 26 July 2019
Issue publication date: 9 September 2019
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the influence of Big Five Personality traits (i.e. openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism) on young consumers’ intentions to share branded viral video advertisements. Further, this study also demonstrates that the advertising appeal (informational versus emotional) used in the viral advertisement moderates the effects of specific personality traits on the sharing of viral ads.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual framework is proposed based on the Five-Factor Model of Personality (McCrae and John, 1992) and advertising effectiveness literature. Using experiments, responses from young consumers were collected and hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression and ANOVA.
Findings
Results reveal that the two personality traits, extraversion and openness to experiences, are positively associated with consumers’ viral ad sharing intentions, whereas conscientiousness, agreeableness and neuroticism are not. Moreover, individuals scoring high on openness and extraversion prefer sharing branded viral ads containing informational appeal vis-ã-vis those containing emotional appeals.
Originality/value
Studies decoding the factors behind the success of viral advertisements have more often focussed on the ad content rather than on personality dimensions of the ad sharers. This study bridges this gap by investigating the influence of Big Five Personality traits on young consumers’ intention to forward viral ads, in interaction with ad appeal. Young consumers represent key audience segments consuming and sharing viral content online, and hence, it is important to have a deeper understanding of this market segment.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. Authors are grateful to Siddhartha Sarkar, Sunny Arora, Tanuja Awasthi, Shruti Trehan, Preeti Virdi, Vartika Srivastava, Vishwas Raichur and Vartika Chaudhary for their support and useful comments.
Citation
Kulkarni, K.K., Kalro, A.D. and Sharma, D. (2019), "Sharing of branded viral advertisements by young consumers: the interplay between personality traits and ad appeal", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 846-857. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-11-2017-2428
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited