Social Media Advertising Features that Enhance Consumers’ Positive Responses to Ads

Abstract

Drawing on advertising value theory, this study examines the effects of advertising features, including informativeness, entertainment, interactivity, advertisement (ad) relevance, and creativity, on customer attitudes toward ads on social networking sites, as well as their sequential influence on customer responses (brand attitude, interest, and awareness and purchase intent). Structural equation modeling was employed to test the theoretical framework based on 383 responses from an online survey on Facebook. The results indicated that informativeness, interactivity, creativity, and ad relevance are important predictors of ad attitude, whereas entertainment does not influence it. Furthermore, the findings indicate that ad attitude improves customer response variables. Moreover, the findings confirm the mediating role of ad attitude in the associations between all social media advertising features and customer response variables, except for entertainment.