Social Media Advertising: The Role of the Social Media Platform and

the Advertised Brand in Attitude Formation and Purchase Intention

Maria Madlberger

1 a

and Lisa Kraemmer

Department of Business and Management, Webster Vienna Private University, Praterstrasse 23, Vienna, Austria

Mediaplus Digital Serviceplan, Munich, Germany

Keywords: Social Media Advertising, Attitude, Purchase Intention, Consumer Behavior.

Abstract: Social media provide not only platforms for individual users for personal communication, but also serve as

media for the dissemination of promotional messages. Recently, the role of social media platforms as earned

media has been in focus, but paid advertising still plays a significant role in this respect. This study seeks to

deepen the understanding of consumer behavior in this context by addressing consumer attitude towards social

media advertising on two levels, i.e., general attitude towards advertising on a social media platform and

specific attitude towards an individual advertisement on the social media platform. The study proposes and

empirically tests a research model that shows a significant impact of platform enjoyment on general attitude

towards advertising as well as brand familiarity as an antecedent of specific attitude towards an advertisement

on the platform. Further, a significant impact of both levels of attitude on purchase intention could be shown.

The findings stress the importance of a clear conceptualization of consumer attitude on different levels and

highlight the relevance of paid advertising in social media.

1 INTRODUCTION

Social media have evolved from their initial idea of

enabling socializing and sharing content with others

to presenting interactive outlets for businesses and

consumers alike. Platforms such as Facebook,

YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter have not only

transformed the way Internet users are

communicating amongst each other but also how

marketing and advertising messages can effectively

be spread among highly relevant target groups. The

impact social media have within the realm of

consumer behavior ranges from emphasizing the

power of word-of mouth to strengthening business-

to-consumer relationships. A survey conducted by

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (2017) in which over

24,000 participants from 6 continents and 29

territories were analyzed, showed that 39 percent of

the participants state that social networks provide

their main inspiration for purchases. This highlights

the reach and effectiveness potentials of

contemporary social media marketing.

There are now over 50 million small businesses

using their own Facebook pages to connect with

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2850-0499

individual platform users and over 4 million of those

businesses pay for advertising on the platform

(Chaykowski, 2016). A study by DigitasLBi (2016)

found that 52 percent of online consumers were

influenced by Facebook to make online and offline

purchases. Social media have been identified as an

influential new element within the marketing

promotion mix (Mangold and Faulds, 2009).

In this setting, having timely knowledge about

specific factors that influence purchase intention

triggered by social media advertising is needed to

better understand and predict consumer behavior on

social media. Even if individual platforms may

undergo their life cycles and show constant or even

declining user numbers, social media advertising is

expected to continue its role as a key pillar in modern

Internet marketing.

Especially within the context of paid advertising

in social media, there are several indications of

relevant conceptualizations of key variables that

received little attention in research so far. In

particular, there is evidence from related domains in

two issues (Mehta, 2000; Celebi, 2015; Lukka and

James, 2014): First, there is an interplay between

social media platforms as the advertising medium and

100

Madlberger, M. and Kraemmer, L.

Social Media Advertising: The Role of the Social Media Platform and the Advertised Brand in Attitude Formation and Purchase Intention.

DOI: 10.5220/0008163801000109

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2019), pages 100-109

ISBN: 978-989-758-386-5

the advertised product or brand. Second, consumers’

simultaneous perception of the advertising medium

and the individual advertisement suggests the

existence of consumer attitude on different levels,

especially on the level of general attitude towards

advertising in the respective medium and specific

attitude towards the individual advertisement on this

medium. Both aspects have only partly been

investigated in the context of social media

advertising. In order to gain a deeper understanding

of this issue, the study at hand pursues the following

goals.

First, this study seeks to understand consumers’

attitude towards advertising on social media by

investigating consumer attitudes on different levels,

i.e., on the level of the social media platform and the

individual advertised product or brand. Research has

investigated consumer attitudes on different levels,

i.e., more general media-specific as well as individual

brand-specific attitudes. Second, the study intends to

examine how different factors that are relevant based

on marketing and information systems research

influence attitudes related to social media advertising.

Third, the study aims to predict whether the impact of

the attitude in social media advertising on different

levels shows varying impacts on a key variable in

consumer behavior research, i.e., purchase intention.

Hence, this study addresses the following research

questions:

1. How do specific influencing factors impact

consumers’ attitude within social media

advertising on different levels?

2. How do consumer attitudes within social media

on different levels impact purchase intention?

For this purpose, the study at hand develops and

empirically tests a research framework in this context.

Data collection is based on an online survey among

Austrian social media users. In doing so, the study

seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the

drivers of effectiveness of social media advertising by

identifying and evaluating the impact of platform and

advertisers’ brand-specific antecedents as well as the

in-depth examination of consumer attitudes on

different levels.

The paper is organized as follows: The following

section two provides a literature review on social

media advertising and the formation of consumer

attitudes. In section three, the proposed research

model and hypotheses are elaborated and presented.

The research methodology is detailed in section four,

followed by the presentation of the analysis results

obtained by PLS data analysis in section five. Section

six discusses research and managerial implications of

the study.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Social Media Advertising

Social media serve as Internet-based and

communication-exchange networks that allow users

to communicate with a large number of other people

simultaneously. This communication is not limited to

the private realm but also includes commercially

relevant communication such as online word-of-

mouth on products and companies. Hence, social

media impact consumer-to-consumer communication

but, as a new hybrid element in the promotion mix,

also largely influences company-to-consumer

communication (Mangold and Faulds, 2009). Social

media communication in dimensions of content,

timing, and frequency largely occurs outside the

direct control of marketers. This significantly limits

marketers’ control over the content disseminated

through social media, but simultaneously largely

increases the reach of messages spread across such

platforms. Hence, shaping consumer discussions and

impressions on social media platforms need to be

coordinated with companies’ overall mission,

message strategy, and performance goals. More

specifically, it is important to integrate social media

into companies’ promotional marketing mix by

applying networking platforms, blogs, or social

media tools in order to engage customers with the

companies’ advertisements, products, and services

(Mangold and Faulds, 2009).

Social media marketing can be used for online

marketing in three ways: as owned, paid, and earned

media (Burcher, 2012). Whereas owned media are

applied in the form of a corporate presence on the

social media platform (e.g., a Facebook page or

Instagram business account), paid and earned media

are achieving a higher reach among users who do not

actively visit the owned social media presence. Paid

media is applied by marketers which pay other

companies to provide a space to disseminate

promotional content for reaching their audience

(Burcher, 2012; Strauss and Frost, 2016). Examples

are display advertisements that appear on webpages,

paid search entries on search engines, or paid

advertisements and sponsored posts in social media.

The third category is earned media. In this category,

promotional content is not controlled by the marketer,

but Internet users who disseminate the content in

question. Earned media includes worth of mouth,

comments and shares, ratings, and generally any

content generated by people online, to mention some

(Strauss and Frost, 2016).

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101

Serving the purpose of socializing, social media

can be used by companies for their brands to connect

with potential customers. Social media marketing

helps brands generating greater exposure to

customers, increasing product traffic, building new

business partnerships, raising search engine rankings,

generating lead generation efforts, selling more

products and services, and reducing overall marketing

expenses (Neti, 2011).

Several studies point at the relevance of social

media as an earned medium by demonstrating the role

of user-generated content in social media (e.g., Lee et

al., 2018; Yoon et al. 2018). Within the context of

Facebook, research shows that user-generated

content, i.e., user comments on a brand’s social media

fan page, influences purchasing behavior to the same

extent as solely marketer-generated content. Further,

the more consumers are engaged in social media, the

more likely they are to spend money on the promoted

brand’s products or services (Goh et al., 2013). An

exploratory study on the role of trust in social media

revealed that users are more willing to engage with

marketer-created content if the promoted brand or

product is recommended by their trusted friends.

Within this context, a trust hierarchy exists –

recommendations from real-life friends enjoy the

highest degree of trust, followed by recommendations

from users who are only known from the Internet, but

not in person. The lowest level of trust is attributed to

recommendations on the brand’s website generated

by individuals who are unknown to the users (Harris

and Dennis, 2011).

2.2 Drivers of Purchase Intention

based on Social Media Advertising

Commercial messages and promotional content play

a crucial role in the content created and disseminated

on social media. A study on 15 specific activities on

social media shows that all kinds of social media

activities, i.e., information processing, entertainment

activities, and social connection, can be related to

consumers’ perception of products. Within

information processing, such activities entail retrieval

of product information, collection of factual

information, sharing information and experiences,

acquiring knowledge from user-generated content

etc. Entertainment activities include relaxation or

escape activities, following other consumer’s

discussions, self-expression, managing one’s self-

image activities, etc. Social connection activities

contain sharing of content with others, experiencing

new issues, feelings of belonging and bonding, or

being up-to-date concerning events and happenings.

All of the activities identified in the study are often

revolving around the ideas of consumption and

consumer input so that companies need to design and

adapt their social media marketing strategies

accordingly (Heinonen, 2011).

Attitude towards the social media platform plays

a relevant role in purchasing behavior. Users’ attitude

towards using a social media platform as a tool to

make purchases is driven by several factors, i.e.,

usefulness perception of recommendations and

suggestions (made either by the marketer or other

platform users), users’ perception of platform

enjoyment when searching for information on

products and brands, and users’ perceived ease of use

of the platform. Among those factors, perceived

platform enjoyment has a direct impact on purchase

intention. As a result, the social media platform has

the ability to motivate users to obtain product

information. The more users like the network they

find advertisements on the more likely they are to

purchase the items that are advertised there (Pietro

and Pantano, 2012). In the light of an increasing role

of customer empowerment and privacy protection

(e.g., as strengthened by the European Union’s

General Data Protection Regulation), research shows

that need for new friends on social media, need for

social self-portrayal, but also need for data privacy

increase social media usage intensity and the

acceptance of personalized social media

advertisements (Wirtz et. al., 2017).

Research on purchasing behavior related to social

media shows that advertising value plays a key role

(Hamouda, 2018). Factors such as interactivity,

perceived relevance, hedonic motivation,

performance expectancy, and informativeness are

significant drivers of purchase intention based on

social media advertising (Alalwan, 2018). Research

on the role of recommendations in social media

shows that social media previews of products can

stimulate actual online purchases. In this context,

consumers prefer to purchase either very high-priced

or very low-priced items as well as generally social

media platforms that operate on a quick time schedule

to make purchases (Forbes and Vespoli, 2013).

The influence of behavioral attitudes towards

social media platforms can not only influence

attitudes towards advertised content on the platform

but also shows an impact on purchase intention.

Within the context of Facebook, a survey-based study

shows that advertising has a positive attitudinal

influence on purchase intention and actual purchases

amongst Millennials. Within this context, advertising

on Facebook shows the largest impact on users’

intention to purchase if they spend two or more hours

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at a time on the platform. The larger exposure gives

the users more time to interact with advertisements on

the platform, hence there are more opportunities to

form positive attitudes towards the advertisements

and ultimately increase willingness to purchase the

advertised products or services (Duffett, 2015).

Another key driver of purchase intention on social

media is brand awareness, conceptualized as how

strongly a brand is present in consumers’ minds

(Hutter et al., 2013). The more users are engaged with

the marketer’s brand, the more likely they are to make

repeat purchases from that brand. Further, the higher

users’ awareness, the more they are willing to

communicate this awareness with others. In contrast,

dissatisfaction or annoyance with a brand negatively

impacts purchase intention on social media platforms

(Hutter et al., 2013).

2.3 General versus Specific Attitudes

towards Advertising on Social

Media

The effectiveness of advertising is strongly associated

with consumer attitudes. Since advertisements are

always bound to the media they appear in, consumer

attitudes toward the medium influence attitudes

towards individual advertisements on this medium.

Attitude towards social media is particularly

driven by factors that are known from information

systems research. Key drivers are perceived ease of

platform use, usefulness, enjoyment, social influence,

and drama. Ease of use is the degree to which a user

perceives the platform to be free from effort on

his/her part. Usefulness denotes the degree of which

the platform improves certain tasks for the user.

Platform enjoyment relates to the affective expression

of joy and entertainment on social media. Social

influence relates to the perception of engagement of

users with others via the platform. Finally, drama

summarizes the extent to which users evaluate social

media postings to be spectacular. Among these

factors and unlike in other findings on attitudes

towards information systems, platform enjoyment

shows the largest impact on attitude (Curran and

Lennon, 2011).

Within a more specific context, also a distinction

between consumer attitudes towards advertising on

the medium in general as well as individual

advertisements has to be made (Mehta, 2000). Such

attitudes can be positively or negatively influenced by

factors surrounding the medium or the advertisement

and finally result in an increase or decrease of

willingness to purchase.

Research in the context of offline print media

shows the paramount role of this understanding of

attitude. Survey participants who were exposed to

magazine advertisements content expressed positive

(e.g., feeling of being kept up-to-date by ads) and

negative (e.g., mistrust about truthfulness of claims

made in ads, annoyance) attitudes towards advertising

on the medium in question. Individual effectiveness

measures on advertisements, such as intrusiveness,

recall, or persuasion, are related to these attitudes

(Mehta, 2000).

These effects could also be shown in research on

online advertising. Contrasting attitude towards

advertising on the Internet with attitude towards

advertising on a specific social media platform

reveals that both are connected and can provide users

with a sense of belonging and an interpersonal utility,

turning users’ perception of advertisements on the

social media platform more positive (Celebi, 2015).

On an even more specific level, research on

drivers of engagement has shown that users’

engagement with a social medium drives engagement

with advertising on this medium. This is due to the

specific experience users make on different social

media (Voorveld et al., 2018). There is also an

evidence that attitudes towards advertising on a social

media platform in general are associated with

attitudes towards individual advertisements on this

platform.

Consumers can be largely divided into three

groups in respect of their overall attitude towards

advertising on social media (Lukka and James, 2014):

individuals who are clearly negative about social

media advertising, individuals who are neutral, and

individuals who show positive attitudes towards

social media advertisements and their likelihood to

engage with them.

Besides these general attitudes, specific

perceptions of individual advertisements are

distinguished. First, perceived reasonableness of an

advertisement refers to how an ad is understood by

users. This variable generally influences individuals’

evaluation of advertisements (Haberland and Dacin,

1992). Second, perceived disruptiveness of an

advertisement denotes the degree to which an ad is

seen as distracting from the intended usage of the

platform. Disruptiveness has turned out to have little

impact on the overall attitude towards social media

ads (Lukka and James, 2014). On the other hand,

several studies show that a related construct,

intrusiveness, does negatively impact attitude

towards the respective individual advertisement (Lin

et al, 2002; Mehta, 2000, Haberland and Dacin,

1992). Third, there is perceived personalization of an

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103

ad that impacts attitude towards the advertisement but

also the general attitude towards advertising on the

social media platform. Lastly, also the familiarity

with the marketing companies or brands is associated

with the formation of general attitude towards social

media platform advertising (Lukka and James, 2014).

The latter finding is consistent with insights into the

role of brand awareness for the formation of attitudes

towards online advertisements (Ha and Perks, 2005).

3 RESEARCH MODEL

The proposed research model investigates

antecedents of purchasing behavior on the basis of

advertising on social media platforms and particularly

addresses attitudes towards social media advertising

in general as well as specific attitude towards an

individual advertisement. Figure 1 displays the

research model as well as the hypotheses.

Figure 1: Research model.

Following the notion of Lukka and James (2014),

Celebi (2015), and Duffett (2015), we distinguish

between two attitudinal constructs: Attitude towards

advertisements on the social media platform in

general (AAG) and specific attitude towards an

individual advertisement on the social media platform

(AAS). Overall attitude towards advertising can be

described as “a learned predisposition to respond in

the consistently favorable or unfavorable manner to

advertising in general” (Lutz, 1985). On the other

hand, we define attitude towards the specific ad as the

users’ predisposition towards one individual

advertisement that is displayed on the particular

social media platform.

Drawing on the findings obtained by Curran and

Lennon (2011) and Pietro and Pantano (2012) we

consider the role of perceived platform enjoyment.

Users’ experience of enjoyment of social media

platforms can show a significant impact on attitude

towards stimuli shown on the platform (Curran and

Lennon, 2011). The more enjoyable a platform is to

the users, the more likely they are to appreciate

advertising on this platform (Pietro and Pantano,

2012). Hence it can be assumed that platform

enjoyment has a positive influence on the two forms

of attitude relating to social media advertising, i.e.,

general attitude towards advertising on the platform

and specific attitude towards the shown

advertisement. Therefore, we propose the following

hypotheses:

H1: Perceived platform enjoyment positively impacts

general attitude towards advertisements on the social

media platform.

H2: Perceived platform enjoyment positively impacts

specific attitude towards the individual advertisement

on the social media platform.

As research on social media advertising has

shown repeatedly, users’ relation with the advertised

brand plays a key role in attitude formation (Lukka

and James, 2014). High brand familiarity can increase

the positive experience with the brand and also trust

in it, (Ha and Perks, 2005), ultimately positively

affecting attitude. Since brand familiarity is

specifically addressing the advertised brand, we

hypothesize a positive impact of this factor on the

specific attitude towards the individual

advertisement, but not on general attitude towards

advertisements on the social media platform.

H3: Brand familiarity positively impacts specific

attitude towards the individual advertisement on the

social media platform.

Research that identified the distinction between

general attitude towards advertising on a medium and

specific attitude towards an individual advertisement

(e.g., Mehta, 2000; Celebi, 2015; Lukka and James,

2014) has shown that these two constructs are,

although different, related to each other. Hence, we

propose that there is also a relationship between these

two variables. Concluding logically from the

temporal sequence we propose that this relationship

comes in a form that the more general construct,

general attitude towards advertising on the medium,

impacts the specific attitude towards the individual ad

and therefore hypothesize:

H4: General attitude towards advertisements on the

social media platform has a positive impact on

specific attitude towards the individual advertisement

on the social media platform.

The entire premise of the marketing mix,

including the element of social media marketing

(Mangold and Faulds, 2009) is ultimately influencing

consumer behavior in a way that the advertised

product is purchased. Following the widespread

theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1985; Ajzen,

1989), we contend (1) that purchase intention is a

strong antecedent and therefore an appropriate proxy

for actual purchasing behavior and (2) that both forms

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of attitude show a considerable impact on purchase

intention. This impact has also been shown in the

context of social media (Duffet, 2015; Yang, 2012).

We therefore suggest the following hypotheses:

H5: General attitude towards advertisements on the

social media platform has a positive impact on

purchase intention.

H6: Specific attitude towards the individual

advertisement on the social media platform positively

impacts purchase intention.

4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

4.1 Instrument Development

The constructs that were applied in the study (PE, BF,

AAG, AAS, PI) were all adapted from existing multi-

item scales published in the literature (see Table 1).

All items were measured on a five-point Likert scale

with 1 representing “Strongly Disagree” and 5

representing “Strongly Agree”. To establish a clear

context with a concrete scenario, respondents were

requested to consider Facebook as the relevant social

media platform. In addition, they were shown a

screenshot of a real Facebook advertisement that was

posted by a well-known consumer goods brand.

Perceived platform enjoyment was measured

using three items adapted from Curran and Lennon

(2011). Brand familiarity was captured using three

items adapted from Ha and Perks (2005). General

attitude towards advertisements on the social media

platform was measured with two items from Mehta

(2000). Specific attitude towards the individual

advertisement on the social media platform was

measured using two items adapted from Celebi

(2015). Finally, purchase intention was measured

with three items adapted from Duffett (2015).

4.2 Data Collection and Sample

Description

The research model has been tested on data that has

been collected through an online, self-administered,

anonymous questionnaire implemented with the

online survey tool Qualtrics. The geographic focus of

the study is Austria and filter questions ensured that

respondents were using Facebook as a social media

platform as well as able to recognize the advertised

brand used in the survey.

In total, 211 questionnaires were completed. After

removal of 26 questionnaires that contained

incomplete answers 185 questionnaires were used for

further analysis. The sample shows the following

structure: The gender distribution in the sample is

46.7 percent males and 53.3 percent females. 70.7

percent are younger than 25 years, 9.4 percent are

between 25 and 35 years, 5.5 percent are between 36

and 42 years, and 14.4 percent are 43 years or older.

When it comes to highest completed level of

education research participants mostly indicated high

school (55.2 percent), followed by participants that

completed a bachelor’s degree (26.5 percent),

participants that completed a Master’s degree (11.1

percent), and participants that had completed

education on the PhD level (3.3 percent). 3.9 percent

of participants indicated “Other” as their highest level

of completed education. In terms of experience with

Facebook usage, 4.4 percent of participants indicated

that they have been using Facebook for 3 years or

less, 19.9 percent for 3 to 6 years, 60.2 percent for 6

to 9 years, and 15.5 percent for more than 9 years.

5 RESULTS

5.1 Measurement Model

The research model has been tested by means of a

Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. The used

analysis software is SmartPLS (Ringle et al., 2005).

The test of the measurement model consists of

analyzing the consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha), the

convergent and the discriminant validity. Table 1

shows the Cronbach’s Alpha and AVE values of the

variables.

Table 1: Reliability measures of variables.

Variable

Number

of items

Cronbach’s

Alpha

AVE

Platform

enjoyment (PE)

.896

.826

Brand

familiarity (BF)

.764

.678

General attitude

towards

advertising on

the social media

platform (AAG)

.739

.850

Specific attitude

towards the

individual ad on

the social media

platform (AAS)

.758

.805

Purchase

intention (PI)

.910

.847

The Cronbach’s Alpha values all exceed the

recommended value of 0.7 (Nunnally, 1978).

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105

Convergent validity is satisfactory if the average

variance extracted (AVE) is higher than 0.5 (Fornell

and Larcker, 1981). Also, this condition is met for all

variables. Table 2 displays the numbers concerning

discriminant validity.

Table 2: Correlation matrix.

AAG

AAS

.909

.147

.823

AAG

.502

.143

.922

AAS

.189

.551

.293

.897

.029

.462

.441

.651

.920

In Table 2, the correlations of the variables are

shown. The numbers on the diagonal in italics are the

square roots of the AVE. For adequate discriminant

validity, these values should exceed the interconstruct

correlations. This condition is met for all constructs.

Further, the loadings of the individual items on the

corresponding variables are well above the

recommended value of 0.5 for appropriate

discriminant validity. They range between 0.809 and

0.936. Thus, overall the measurement model is highly

satisfactory.

5.2 Hypotheses Tests

The test of the structural model comprises the path

coefficients, the R-square values of dependent

variables as well as the p-values. The p-values have

been computed by bootstrapping with 100 cases and

500 samples. The R-square values are the following:

.252 for AAG, .351 for AAS, and .493 for PI. Table 3

shows the results of the PLS analysis along with the

p-values of the path coefficients.

Table 3: PLS analysis results.

Hypothesis

Hypothesized

impact

Path

coefficient

value

PE -> AAG

.502

***

PE -> AAS

.004

n.s.

BF -> AAS

.520

***

AAG -> AAS

.217

AAG -> PI

.274

AAS -> PI

.571

***

p-values: *** < .001, ** < .01, * < .05, n.s. not

significant

As the results of the PLS analysis show, five out

of six hypotheses are supported by data. Platform

enjoyment shows a high positive impact on general

advertising attitude, supporting H1. In contrast, with

a path coefficient close to zero, platform enjoyment

does not show any impact on specific attitude towards

the shown ad, hence H2 is rejected. The impact of

brand familiarity on specific attitude towards the ad

is large and highly significant, hence H3 is supported.

Also, the impact of general attitude towards

advertising on specific attitude towards the ad and

therefore H4 is supported by data although this

impact is the smallest in the model. Further, general

and specific attitudes are significant drivers of

purchase intention, hence H5 and H6 are both

supported by data. Here, the impact of specific

attitude towards the ad is considerably stronger than

the one of general attitude towards advertising on the

social media platform.

We controlled for a possible impact of socio-

demographic variables and included gender, age,

education, and Facebook experience as control

variables. This analysis did not show any significant

impact of these variables on the outcome of the

hypothesis tests.

6 DISCUSSION

The hypothesis tests show that the proposed research

model is largely supported by the data. Except for one

hypothesis, all hypothesized impacts are statistically

significant at a 95 percent significance level or higher.

The role of the antecedents, perceived platform

enjoyment and brand familiarity, could both be

demonstrated in this study. This finding is consistent

with the research done by Pietro and Pantano (2012)

who contend that the more enjoyable a platform is to

the users the more likely the users are to appreciate

the platforms’ advertising. Like that study, the study

at hand supports this finding within the context of

general attitude towards advertising on the social

media platform. Brand familiarity and its positive

impact on specific attitude towards the individual

advertisement on Facebook shows to be consistent

with the findings in the study by Ha and Perks (2005)

which has shown that high familiarity with a brand

results in a more positive experience with the brand

that ultimately can result in a more positive attitude

towards its advertisements.

Also, the supported impact of general attitude

towards advertising on the social media platform on

the specific ad is consistent with prior research within

and outside the social media context (Mehta 2000;

Celebi 2015; Lukka and James, 2014). This result

does not only point at the importance to distinguish

between these two types of attitude, but also the

relevant relationship between them. As a result, a

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separate consideration of attitude towards advertising

on these two levels is important for a proper

understanding of consumer behavior related to social

media advertising and its impact on purchase

intention.

The two forms of attitude in respect of social

media advertising also show a significant yet different

impact on purchase intention which is consistent with

the findings obtained by Duffet (2015) and Yang

(2012). Whereas specific attitude towards the

individual ad shows the strongest path coefficient

throughout the model, the impact of general attitude

towards advertising on the social media platform is

considerably lower. Together, these factors explain

more than 49 percent of the variance in purchase

intention, as shown by the R square value. The

different strengths of impact stress the notion that

general and specific attitudes on social media

advertising are conceptually different and exert their

impact on purchase intention in different ways.

The only hypothesis that could not be supported

by data is H2 that proposed an impact of platform

enjoyment on specific attitude towards the

advertisement. There are several possible

explanations for this impact not to be significant.

First, platform enjoyment and specific attitude are

related to two different stakeholders from the user’s

perspective (i.e., social media platform and advertised

brand) and it appears that users evaluate both

independently from each other. Second, although a

direct impact in this context does not exist, there is a

mediated impact via general attitude towards

advertising on the social media platform. Hence,

users’ formation of attitudes follows a kind of

sequence from more platform-related issues to more

brand-related ones. Lastly, the inconsistent outcome

of the two hypotheses tests stresses the conceptual

difference between general and specific attitude in the

context of social media advertising.

From a research perspective, the study at hand

provides the following insights that contribute to a

better understanding of consumer behavior on social

media advertising. First, the central idea of attitude

towards advertising on various levels could clearly be

demonstrated by the significant paths of impact that

involve these variables. Like identified in other

studies within and outside social media advertising, a

more specific conceptualization of attitude is key to

fully understand consumer behavior in this context.

The role of attitude towards the medium can affect

user behavior in various ways, as research on

engagement has shown (Voorveld et al., 2018).

Hence, spillover effects of attitude towards

advertising on a social media platform on attitude

towards specific advertisements should be considered

a key factor in research on social media advertising.

Second, the overall explanatory power of the PLS

model, shown by the high R square values, stresses

the relevance of social media advertising. Overall,

especially the specific attitude towards the

advertisement shows a large impact on purchase

intention, calling for stronger attention of research on

the effectiveness of paid advertising on social media

in contrast to earned media. In particular, this finding

challenges the wide-spread assumption that paid

advertisements play a minor role in purchase

intention. In contrast, the findings support the notion

that owned, paid, and earned media in social media

marketing (Strauss and Frost, 2016) supplement each

other. Third, two relevant antecedents of attitude

could be identified in this study, i.e., platform

enjoyment and brand familiarity. Like the two forms

of attitude, these two independent variables highlight

the relevance of users’ perception of the social media

platform (platform enjoyment) as well as the

relevance of the advertised brand (brand familiarity).

Therefore, this study confirms the notion of an impact

not only of consumer perceptions of the advertised

product on purchase intention, but also perceptions of

the social media platform as the advertising medium.

The study also offers several managerial

implications. The findings show that social media

advertising can largely contribute to impacting

consumers’ purchasing behavior and therefore is a

powerful promotional tool that should not be

underestimated. In the current debate that largely

relates to earned media communication, especially in

social media, paid advertising still has its key place in

the promotional mix. From a brand management

perspective, the findings show that a high brand

familiarity can positively influence the overall

likelihood of purchase intention due to advertising,

hence stronger brands will most likely be at an

advantage compared to less popular brands. As a

result, especially companies whose brands are well-

known and established are recommended to make use

of social media advertising to reach social media-

affine target groups. The role of platform enjoyment,

on the other hand, is an important implication for the

choice of social media platforms and at the same time

may offer an opportunity to less-known brands to

increase awareness by exploiting the entertainment

potential of social media. Finally, users’ preferences

and attitudes towards social media platforms are

subject to changes. For example, the increasing

popularity of Instagram goes hand in hand with a

decrease of Facebook especially among Millennials

and younger generations. Therefore, marketers are

Social Media Advertising: The Role of the Social Media Platform and the Advertised Brand in Attitude Formation and Purchase Intention

107

recommended to constantly monitor their target

groups’ activities on different social media in order to

regularly choose those platforms that allow for the

highest possible effectiveness of their advertising

campaigns.

7 CONCLUSION

The research model that is grounded in extant

research on attitude towards advertising has turned

out to be largely supported by empirical data. The

study identified platform enjoyment and brand

familiarity as antecedents in social media advertising

that are driving two types of attitude – general attitude

towards advertising on the social media platform and

specific attitude towards the individual

advertisement. Further, both types of attitude show a

positive and overall strong impact on purchase

intention which supports the notion that paid

advertising on social media can still be very effective.

Like any research, this study has several

limitations that need to be considered when

interpreting the findings. The first issue is the

relatively low sample size of 185 completed

questionnaires. While this sample size is sufficiently

large to conduct the PLS analysis, it limits the

generalizability of results and therefore only allows to

draw preliminary conclusions from the data. Second,

the structure of the sample is not representative of

Austria’s population that uses social media. The

sample overrepresents younger social media users

and underrepresents mid-aged ones. Further, the

respondents’ genders are not fully balanced in the

collected data. Like in many online surveys, the data

may also be affected by a self-selection bias due to

the online survey design. Another limitation of the

study is the focus on one specific social media

platform, Facebook, as well as one specific brand

used as a stimulus. Whereas Facebook is still by far

the most widely-used social media platform, it does

not necessarily allow to draw conclusions for other

social media platforms.

The study allows for further research in this

direction that should consider a larger range of

variables stemming from different established

theoretical bases, such as the stimulus-organism-

response (S-O-R) theory or models that consider

different stages in the purchase decision process.

Further, possible impacts of the involved product

categories as well as users’ personality traits should

be considered for further inclusion in a research

model. Although we did not find any significant

differences between socio-demographic groups,

future research should consider a possible impact of

these variables based on a sample that covers a

broader socio-demographic range. The study at hand

provides initial insights into the specific role of

attitude on different levels in social media advertising

and therefore hopes to contribute to a more in-depth

understanding of paid media effectiveness in social

media advertising.

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