Developing effective social media messages: Insights from an exploratory study of industry experts

As consumers are increasingly utilizing the social network and media platforms for prepurchase information, managers are confronted with producing effective social media messages that can favorably influence buyers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions towards brands. A qualitative, in‐depth, elite interview investigation with social media marketing experts was undertaken to develop awareness of the factors influencing the effectiveness of social media marketing. Adopting a thematic analysis approach, this study establishes the three overriding themes of interactivity, credibility, and infotainment as being valuable in determining how social media marketing can enhance brand performance. Attitude theory and the hierarchy‐of‐effects model is utilized to support understanding and explain the decision making of social media users in this context. Overall, this study provides managers with a thorough explanation of the effects of the identified core themes on social media attitudes and intentions. Implications for social media marketing theory and practice are presented based upon the depth and breadth of knowledge attained from the analysis of the expert interview data

Perceived informative intention in advertising and its attenuating effect on persuasion attribution among children

Although substantial research has been dedicated to children's understanding of advertising, the role of more diverse marketing purposes (attention capturing, product liking, and informative intentions) still has not been examined in relation to the activation of persuasion attribution among young consumers. Previous research has focused on one perceived advertising intention at a time, disregarding the complex nature of advertisements’ purposes and how these different perceived intentions relate to persuasion attribution. It is still unclear whether viewing advertising as a source of information reduces persuasion attribution and mitigates the attention capturing and product liking evaluations when children are exposed to commercial messages. This study shows that children's comprehension of attention capturing and product liking intentions relate to higher persuasion attribution. However, perceiving advertisements as a source of information attenuates the effects of product liking and attention capturing intentions on persuasion attribution in older children (10-11 and 12-13 years) who were expected to be more critical of advertising. No such effects were observed among younger children (8–9 years). The study highlights that advertisements are evaluated in a more complex manner by children than has been previously thought.Liudmila Tarabashkina, Pascale Quester, Olga Tarabashkin