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This research aims to investigate the role of consumer resistance (CR), display advertising context, appeal and type of exposure for the successful launch of a brand into a new market.

To accomplish this goal, two experiments manipulated the digital context of advertising (congruent vs. incongruent), the advertising appeal (emotional vs. informative) and the type of exposure (incidental vs. forced) using an energy drink brand. In Study 1, data were collected from 80 participants using eye-tracking and an online questionnaire. In Study 2, a total of 138 participants visited a website with the targeted display ad and responded to an online questionnaire.

Overall, the results of two studies show that the relationship between CR and display advertising effectiveness is moderated by the advertising context and advertising appeal in incidental exposure, whereas only the advertising context moderates this relationship in forced exposure when launching a brand into a new market. Moreover, the study illustrates the importance of collecting subjective and objective data in advancing the knowledge and understanding of interactive marketing communications such as display advertising.

The study is a novel attempt within the well-established realm of interactive marketing and, specifically, of digital advertising to examine the persuasive effects of display ad features such as the context, appeal and exposure on display ad effectiveness, considering consumers' predispositions such as resistance to change.

Anthropomorphized brands have been widely used as marketing communication tools to engage consumers on social media, especially on Twitter. Guided by the social exchange theory (SET) and the dialogic theory, this study aims to investigate how anthropomorphized brands leverage different communication strategies on Twitter and how these strategies are related to consumer engagement.

Supervised machine learning was used to identify the communication strategies (i.e. message types and dialogic principles) of 125,887 tweets from 21 brand characters. Some statistical analyses (e.g. frequency analysis, Chi-square analysis and Poisson regression analysis) were performed to explore the relationships between communication strategies and consumer engagement (i.e. retweets and replies).

The majority of anthropomorphized brands’ tweets belonged to the socioemotional category and the most adopted dialogic principles were generation of return visits and conservation of visitors. Consumers engaged more with socioemotional tweets as well as the tweets that adopted the principles of dialogic loop and conservation of visitors. There were clear relationships between message types and dialogic principles in anthropomorphized brands’ tweets, and certain dialogic principles were found to effectively improve consumer engagement with certain message types.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the communication strategies of anthropomorphized brand characters on Twitter using computational research methods. It not only provides brand managers a systematic review of how current anthropomorphized brands communicate with consumers on Twitter and what strategies work more effectively to trigger consumer engagement but also contributes to theory building in brand management by integrating the SET and the dialogic theory in brand anthropomorphism research.

The study aims to examine “Advertisement content likeability” and its relationships with consumers' purchase and sharing intentions.

Second-order factor analysis was applied. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to measure the moderating effects of technology adoption model, knowledge sharing and Internet maven traits on advertising content's virality.

Results indicate the dimensional structure of ad content likeability that is relevant in predicting consumers' sharing and purchase intentions. Furthermore, the moderating effects of technology acceptance factors (perceived usefulness and ease-of-use), knowledge sharing motives (altruism, reputation and expected reciprocal benefits) and senders' Internet maven characteristics were also found on “Ad content likeability” and “sharing intentions.”

The study expands the theoretical horizon of factors that significantly increase an advertisement's velocity to become more viral.

With the increasing dependence on market-based distribution of health-care resources in the USA, spending on health-care service advertisements directly targeting consumers has also increased. Previous research has shown that the ads fail to deliver information deemed essential by regulators. Nevertheless, the attitude of consumers toward health-care service advertising has been more positive than negative. The purpose of this study is to create a taxonomy of advertising information features to better describe the relationships between information features in the advertisements and consumer attitudes toward them.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with 128 health-care consumers in a western state in the USA.

Factor analysis generated seven groups of information features. Among them, information features about access, cost and quality of care were rated as most helpful, whereas providers’ clinical qualifications and communication were rated least helpful. The advertising attitude measure was validated to contain two subscales, one regarding health-care service advertising and the other regarding physicians who advertise. People who highly rated the consumerism features had more positive attitudes toward health-care service advertising and people who highly rated provider clinical qualification features had more negative attitudes toward advertising physicians.

This study made methodological improvements in health-care service advertising research that would be crucial for its theoretical development. It also shed light on consumer characteristics and perceptions about information features that could influence their attitudes toward health-care service advertising.

Do digital technologies of early 21st century capitalism promote or reduce consumer sovereignty? This chapter addresses this question by examining John Kenneth Galbraith’s critique of consumer sovereignty during the post-war period of industrial society and looks at the insights he provides to understand the impact of platform capitalism on consumer sovereignty today. This chapter has the following sections: (1) I review the main postulates of Galbraith’s theory; (2) I highlight the main differences between traditional advertising and online behavioral advertising; (3) I explain how online behavioral advertisement strengthens Galbraith’s dependence effect and revised sequence theories; (4) I then discuss normative challenges raised by digital platform corporations to individual sovereignty; and (5) finally, I argue that platform capitalism is a mature form of Galbraith’s “new industrial state.”

The purpose of this study is to understand the individualism/collectivism and masculine/feminine cultural aspects presented in the endorsement content made and shared by digital influencers on Instagram.

The authors conducted a cross-cultural qualitative study, collecting endorsement posts published by six fitness mega-influencers from Brazil and the USA. A total of 147 posts were assessed through the semiotic analysis of still images.

The authors identified that, in collectivist and feminine cultures, endorsements focus on the emotional competence of the digital influencer and the content aims at interaction, whereas in individualistic and masculine cultures, the posts highlight the informational competence of the influencer and the content focuses on the endorser's self-promotion.

This study examined only two of the Hofstede's six cultural dimensions, limiting its scope. However, this study established a model that shows that the appeal of content posted by the influencer depends on individualism–collectivism dimension and the post symbolism is a result of the masculinity–femininity dimension. This study also identified the spectrum of appeal in messages and the role of advertising in building the influencer's narrative.

The authors identified cultural traits as an important criterion of congruence when choosing a brand endorser and as an element that impacts the marketing communication strategy in a social media environment. Therefore, this study suggests that organizations consider the influencer's culture as a criterion for choosing endorsers, which will guide the digital content strategy suited to the campaign's target audience.

This study emphasizes the illusory effectiveness of the internet in the search for convergence, establishing that the digital environment still requires socialization that brings feelings of cultural engagement, especially through new social actors arising from virtual media. Still on the social side, this study suggests the reflection of the economic characteristics of a country together with its cultural dimensions.

This study fills a research gap from previous studies that provide empirical evidence on the impacts of cultural differences on social media behaviors. This research adds the impact of the influencer in this virtual environment to restructure the communication and information model, mold it according to the culture, acting as indicators of social transformation resulting from technological advances. This research still innovates by proposing a new methodological approach for semiotic analysis in digital media.

Social media networks make their services freely available to all users. Users pay for the service received with the time and attention taken by the advertisements. This chapter argues that social media platforms are a unique form of monopoly driven by “the more the merrier” effect (i.e., network effects) in users' consumption. These monopolies exercise market power, not by charging higher prices to users but by “tying” larger amounts of advertising to their content. Traditional antitrust instruments designed to address excessive pricing and reduced output by monopolies need to be reframed to tame the attention economy problems in the social media industry. This chapter discusses five antitrust instruments grouped in three categories: structural, behavioral, and market-based remedies. Market-based solutions are the least explored in the literature, despite being the most promising instruments to lower the attention costs imposed on users, while preserving the economies of scope in production and the network effects in consumption, and possibly maintaining free access to social media, as we know it today.

This research investigates how consumers who are most active on Facebook during the day vs in the evening differ, differ in their ad consumption, and how advertising effects vary as a function of a key moderator: gender.

Using a survey of 281 people, the research identifies Facebook users who are more intensely using mobile social media during the day versus in the evening, and measures five Facebook mobile advertising outcomes: brand and product recall, clicking on ads, acting on ads and purchases.

The results show that women who are using social media more intensely during the day are more likely to use Facebook to seek information, hence, Facebook mobile ads tend to be more effective for these users compared to those in the evening.

This contributes to the literature by analyzing how the time of day affects social media behavior in relation to mobile advertising effectiveness, and broadening the scope of mobile advertising effectiveness research from other than just clicks on ads to include measures like brand and product recall.

By analyzing the effectiveness of mobile advertising on social media as a function of the time of day, advertisers can be more targeted in their media buys, and so better use their social media budgets, i.e. advertising is more effective for women who use social media (Facebook) more intensely during the day than for those who use social media more intensely in the evening as the former tend to seek more information than the latter.

This research extends media ecology theory by drawing on circadian rhythm research to provide a first demonstration of how the time of day relates to different uses of mobile social media, which in turn relate to social media mobile advertising consumption.

While research on social media advertising has been steadily increasing, little has been explored on how users consume ads when they engage with social media at different periods along the day. This paper extends media ecology theory by investigating time of day, drawing on the circadian rhythm literature, and how it relates to social media usage.

This study aims to examine the impact of social advertising (informative, entertainment, credibility, ease of use, privacy and contents) on the buying behavior of Muslim consumers toward the fashion clothing brands during the Holy Month of Ramadan along with the moderating role of brand image. Precisely, it focuses on the marketing techniques and strategies in social advertising to enhance buying behavior.

Using the convenience sampling technique, data was collected from 304 Muslim consumers during the Holy Month of Ramadan. Questionnaires were self-administered, and data was analyzed via Smart partial least square structural equation modeling.

Social advertising (informative, entertainment, credibility, privacy, ease of use, contents) and brand image have a positive relationship with the buying behavior of Muslim consumers toward the fashion clothing brands during the Holy Month of Ramadan, while the brand image has nonmoderating effects. Furthermore, social advertising has a positive and significant relationship with the brand image.

This study is only limited to fashion clothing brands in the Malaysian Muslim community and is based only on the few dimensions of the theory of reasoned action and technology acceptance model (TAM).

Results clarified the impact of social advertising and brand image on the buying behavior of Muslim consumers toward the fashion clothing brands during the Holy Month of Ramadan and the moderating role of brand image in achieving the business objectives.

This study has evaluated the effects of social advertising and brand image in enhancing the buying behavior of Muslim consumers during the Holy Month of Ramadan toward the fashion clothing brands along with the moderating role of brand image based on the theory of reasoned action and TAM model. Precisely, this study examined the unique characteristics of social advertising and the relative importance of informative, entertainment, credibility, ease of use, privacy and content in enhancing the buying behavior of Muslim consumers during the Holy Month of Ramadan, where consumers are emotionally involved in buying fashion clothing brands due to Eid al Fitr celebration.

The main purpose of this study is to contribute to the literature concerned with improving the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility (CSR) advertising by considering how such ads are pre-tested.

Two similar video ads were produced: one using an informative appeal and the other using an emotional appeal. The latter appeal is more widely used by practitioners. Each ad was designed to promote the CSR credentials of the same (fictitious) company. A web-based experiment (n = 244) was used to test both using two types of measure: first attitude towards the company (such as its image) and second the feelings evoked by the ad.

As predicted from theory, the ads promoted similar evaluations of the company but the evaluations measured by evoked feelings differed significantly. The information-based ad evoked more positive emotions, less negative emotions and more positive attitudes toward the ad. If the ads had been pretested using only measures of evoked feelings, the more emotive treatment would have been rejected.

The study shows why CSR ads should be pretested and why such tests should include multiple measures. It also illustrates how informative CSR video ads can be better received but how both informative and emotional appeals can be used when communicating a company's CSR.

There is little research relevant to the pretesting of ads designed to communicate a company's CSR. Signaling theory can help explain why comparable (CSR) video ads can be evaluated as similar in their effect on company related evaluations.