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Due to the paucity of research examining message framing strategies and attention in anti-consumption advertisements, this study aims to determine whether there is a significant difference between the amount of attention paid towards positively and negatively framed advertisements.

A quasi-experimental study design was conducted with a sample of 56 participants using two different (negatively and positively framed) social marketing print advertisements aimed at encouraging a reduction in meat consumption. The research used eye-tracking to examine attention.

Findings indicate that the negatively framed advertisement elicited significantly higher levels of attention overall than the positively framed advertisement (p < 0.05). Additionally, participants paid significantly more attention to the headline in the negatively framed advertisement than to the headline in the positively framed advert (p < 0.05). Participants also paid significantly more attention to the tagline in the positively framed advertisement (p < 0.05).

This study provides evidence for the effectiveness of a negative social marketing framing strategy compared to a positive framing strategy – through the effects these strategies had on consumer attention. Positively and negatively framed advertisements produce different typologies of attention towards advertising elements or areas of interest. These findings provide social marketers important insights about message placement and effectiveness when considering whether to use a positively framed or negatively framed advertisement.

This paper refines the Digital Media–Arena (DMA) framework to address the diversity of stakeholders contributing to the production, (re)appropriation and (re)distribution of organisational messages in digital environments. It also presents a case analysis for the purpose of demonstrating the applicability of the revised conceptual framework to a critical situation.

Grounded in key public relations, corporate communication and strategic communication research, this study first extends the DMA framework by introducing six new forms of media-arenas. Next, the study takes a public sector perspective to analyse the revised framework against a critical situation involving the Finnish prime minister in summer 2022.

The application of the revised DMA framework to analyse the critical situation shows the importance of mapping and understanding diverse discourses across multi-arenas and their communication role in a rapidly unfolding scandal surrounding the prime minister of Finland. Findings also reveal the diversity of stakeholder voices forming their own versions of organisational messages and sometimes converging organisational messages within and across DMAs.

The DMA framework can offer practical suggestions to guide communicators to make strategic choices in what, where, how and with whom they can communicate.

The revised DMA framework contributes expanding the field's knowledge of the strategic communicative use of the digital environment in typically highly volatile and multi-vocal situations by offering instrumental understanding of the conflicting challenge between subjugating and liberating organisational messages across the digital spectrum.

The digital environment afforded by social networks has created an opportunity to understand more clearly the impact of social media native advertising on advertising processing outcomes. Thus, the current study integrates native advertising with engagement literature to compare engagement outcomes between feed and banner placements before analyzing engagement outcomes of sponsored social media posts by advertising objective. This work aims to contribute to advertising effectiveness literature arguing for the importance of engagement as a measure of effectiveness.

Facebook advertising data were collected from a convenience sample of 10 Facebook advertisers that accounted for roughly $414,000 in advertising spend. Panel data, which are also called longitudinal or cross-sectional time-series data, used 26 months of data from the 10 advertisers to measure relationships between native advertising exposure and digital consumer engagement with advertising by advertising objectives of brand awareness, link clicks, conversions, post-engagement and video views.

Exposure to native advertising was a strong predictor of advertising processing and consumption using the three variables of interest: clicks, comments and shares. Ads reaching consumers while natively consuming content in their feed resulted in statistically significant improvements in impressions and clicks when compared to banner ads. Exposure to native ads was significantly related to all engagement outcomes of interest, except for advertisers who chose post-engagement as their advertising objective.

The results suggest that for advertisers seeking clicks, post-engagement objectives should likely be avoided. For this group, impressions were not related to link clicks but were related to comments and shares. Native advertising placements in the feed, however, are generally more effective than banner ads on Facebook for advertisers seeking engagement.

This research is one of few studies to use longitudinal advertising data to explore engagement effects using real-world data collected from a diverse set of Facebook advertisers over a 26-month period. This study shows that interactive marketers using a social media feed to reach consumers can expect positive outcomes in advertising consumption, affective and cognitive processing and advocacy, but those outcomes may vary by advertising objective.

Given the uniqueness of the data set, the findings contribute to native advertising literature and to the literature on digital consumer engagement with advertising in social media. The study also provides empirical support for the efficacy of native advertising.

Hedonic value is commonly conceded as a determinant of behavioral intentions toward location-based advertising (LBA). However, the careful consideration of a mechanism behind hedonic motivation and its subsequent impact on continuance intention is inadequate. This study aims to explore the formation of hedonic value and its motivation for prolonged usage toward LBA.

A sample of 486 mobile users was recruited to evaluate the research model using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results reveal that perceived utility and promotional offers are the strongest indicators of hedonic value. Moreover, social support and contextual convenience play an essential role in heightening hedonic value. Furthermore, the research lenses attempt to clarify the direct, indirect influences of hedonic value, irritation and perceived credibility on continuance intention.

The findings offer practitioners an understanding of how to improve hedonic value and continuance intention and develop effective LBA strategies in emerging markets.

This study narrows the gap of current literature by formulating a hedonic value-based continuance intention model based on uses and gratifications theory (UGT). Additionally, this work illuminates the insights into hedonic value toward LBA by identifying its motivations, including perceived utility, promotional offers, social support and contextual convenience.

Paid digital campaigning tools play an increasingly pivotal role in individual election campaigns worldwide. Extant literature often juxtaposes the equalization theory, which argues that these tools create a level playing field, and the normalization theory, which contends that strong and resource-rich politicians benefit most from digital tools. This article aims to inform this debate by looking at it from a campaign expenditure perspective beyond the Anglo-American bias of most research on the subject.

The authors use an original dataset on campaign expenditures and resources of 1,798 candidates running for 13 Belgian parties in the 2019 federal parliamentary election. Relying on multilevel statistical models, the authors link the candidates' digital campaign expenses to their incumbency status, which is expected to affect digital campaigning.

While earlier work on majoritarian cases often showed contradicting results, this study on the Belgian flexible-list proportional representation (PR) case provides strong support for the equalization theory by demonstrating that incumbents are not only less inclined to spend on digital tools than challengers, but also spend a smaller part of their budget on these tools.

This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the equalization versus normalization debate from a campaign expenditure perspective using a made to purpose dataset in a non-Anglo-American context.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-12-2021-0679

Message stream advertising (MSA) has become an increasingly popular option for advertising on mobile social media. However, MSA is often avoided by consumers, and this avoidance deserves more research attention. The purpose of this study is therefore to identify the underlying mechanism and key variables that affect consumer avoidance of MSA in the context of mobile social media.

A face-to-face survey was administered to current mobile users of WeChat (N = 438). Structural equation modeling was conducted to test the relationships in the research model.

Results revealed that mobile consumers employ mechanical avoidance methods (i.e. zipping, muting and zapping) against MSA. The findings also demonstrated that advertising intrusiveness (stimulus) is directly linked to negative emotions, perceived entertainment and sense of control (organism), which, in turn, relate to MSA avoidance (response).

The study contributes to the MSA avoidance literature by using the stimulus-organism-response model to deepen the understanding of consumers' MSA avoidance on mobile social media, and it suggests important managerial implications for advertising practitioners and platform operators.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether consumers are able to critically evaluate promotional content presented by a podcast host with whom they have a parasocial relationship, and how this interaction impacts the listeners’ behavioral intentions toward the advertised brand.

Using a blended theoretical foundation of Persuasion Knowledge Model and Parasocial Interaction theory, this between subjects’ experimental study examined the effects of a traditional advertisement versus a host-read promotional message for the same brand in a highly rated podcast among listeners who reported varying levels of a parasocial relationship (PSR) with the host.

Results from a moderated mediation analysis suggest that a PSR with the podcast host decreased evaluative persuasion knowledge about the promotional message presented, which indirectly enhanced respondents’ intention to seek more information about the promoted brand.

This study extends the limited research examining the effects of promotional messaging delivered by podcast hosts with whom audiences have a PSR, and how this interaction impacts the listeners’ behavioral intentions. Theoretical contributions and practical implications for podcast marketers are also discussed.

This study provides a framework to explain the attitude–intention gap in viewing advertisements in social networks. Going beyond the literal and evaluative inconsistency issues in measuring factors with theory of planned behavior (TPB), the authors propose and test a theoretical framework with possible moderators to the relationship between the attitude and behavioral intention.

Two surveys were conducted to test the theoretical framework, one with students and the other with working people in Hanoi, Vietnam. After testing measure reliabilities and validities, hypotheses were tested with regressions using SPSS.

In general, the attitude was still found to have a positive relationship with the behavioral intention. However, the attitude–intention gap still exists as trust in social network was found to moderate the relationship between the attitude and intention with the working people sample while trust in brands advertised facilitate the relationship with the student sample. Interestingly, involvement was not found to moderate the relationship.

Several practical implications can be recommended. In general, the marketing strategy for managers is still to develop positive attitude by consumers toward viewing advertisements. However, personalization strategy should be taken with care in advertisement in social network. Providing consumers with perceived privacy control may help enhance the advertisement effectiveness. Finally, building trusts, on or off the social network, should be optimized to increase the users' intention to view advertisements in social network.

This research offers a new explanation for the attitude–intention inconsistency in general and for viewing advertisements in social networks in particular. Going beyond the measurement issues, the research suggests looking at the process under that the attitude can be formed and activated to impact on the intention. Moreover, mixed findings from two comparable samples provide nuanced insights for different groups of consumers.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-10-2021-0563.

Few studies illustrate how contextual effects (e.g. assimilation and contrast) in pay-per-click ad design may impact consumers' attitudes and purchase intention. To fill this research gap, the authors provide theoretical predictions and empirical evidence on how ad design may prompt an assimilation and/or a contrast effect that may influence consumers' attitudes toward the ad and the brand and purchase intention. They also investigate whether the impact of contextual effects on consumers' decisions depends on the level of vividness in the ad.

A 2 (vividness: dynamic motion vs. static page) × 2 (information design: assimilation vs. contrast) × 2 (aesthetic design: assimilation vs. contrast) between-subjects experimental design is used to examine the effects of vividness, information design and aesthetic design. Conditional process analysis is used to assess the mediating role of attitudes toward the ad and the brand in the relationship between contextual effects and purchase intention.

For dynamic ads (i.e. high vividness) but not for static ads (i.e. low vividness), combined information contrast and aesthetic contrast designs generate a more favorable attitude toward the brand and a higher purchase intention than do combined information assimilation and aesthetic assimilation designs. Notably, combined information contrast and aesthetic contrast designs have the strongest effects than any other combination of assimilation and contrast designs of information and aesthetics. Attitudes toward the ad and the brand are significant mediators between contextual factors and intention to purchase.

The study examines the effectiveness of online ads from a new theoretical angle based on the attributes of pay-per-click ads.

The results suggest that when advertisers decide to use dynamic ads, they should adopt a contrast design for both the ad information and its aesthetics.

This study fills a research gap in the contextual effects literature, including providing evidence of an underlying process in the relationship between certain contextual effects and purchase intent. It also extends previous findings of assimilation/contrast in information design to aesthetics design and advances the literature on vividness by examining a moderation effect of vividness.

This study aims to investigate how sports customers adopted over-the-top (OTT) services to consume sport content. Inspired by the technology acceptance model (TAM), the study aims to understand users' behavior when consuming sporting events and users' perceptions toward OTT services.

The participants of the study are Chinese sports consumers that use streaming services to watch live sport content. An online survey was distributed through HUPU Sports, a Chinese online communication community where sports fans can share opinions. To make sure all responses qualified to take part in the study, skip logic questions were added at the beginning of the questionnaire to ask participants to answer whether they used streaming services for watching sports. A total of 352 responses were received and there were 327 useable questionnaires.

The results revealed that viewing convenience, free of commercials and viewing quality were the main reasons impacting them to adopt OTT services. In terms of users' perceptions, paid users rated higher in perceived enjoyment, perceived value, perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use than nonpaid users. OTT users' fandom and PU could predict the time the users spent on using these services, while the users' fandom and perceived value are positively related to the money users spent on these services. In addition, this study also found that users' fandom, perceived value, content quality, and ease of use are positively associated with users' intention to continue to use the service.

The study is one of the first attempts to explore how sports audiences adopted OTT services to consume sport content and explore the audiences' perceptions toward OTT usage. Previous studies have already investigated how users adopted music streaming services (Fernandes and Guerra, 2019) and other online streaming services (Shin and Park, 2021), but little attention has been given to sports streaming services specifically. Therefore, the findings of the study fill the gap in the extant knowledge of sport consumers' behavior and provide more insights to their online behaviors. Moreover, the authors also contribute to the growing digital media literature by advancing our understanding perceptional differences between paid users and unpaid users. The streaming services literature has primarily focused on general users (Fernandes and Guerra, 2019), but the services neglect to understand the differences in between paid and unpaid users.