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• Published: 08 May 2024

Exploring the dynamics of consumer engagement in social media influencer marketing: from the self-determination theory perspective

• Chenyu Gu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6059-0573 1 &
• Qiuting Duan 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  11 , Article number:  587 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Business and management
• Cultural and media studies

Influencer advertising has emerged as an integral part of social media marketing. Within this realm, consumer engagement is a critical indicator for gauging the impact of influencer advertisements, as it encompasses the proactive involvement of consumers in spreading advertisements and creating value. Therefore, investigating the mechanisms behind consumer engagement holds significant relevance for formulating effective influencer advertising strategies. The current study, grounded in self-determination theory and employing a stimulus-organism-response framework, constructs a general model to assess the impact of influencer factors, advertisement information, and social factors on consumer engagement. Analyzing data from 522 samples using structural equation modeling, the findings reveal: (1) Social media influencers are effective at generating initial online traffic but have limited influence on deeper levels of consumer engagement, cautioning advertisers against overestimating their impact; (2) The essence of higher-level engagement lies in the ad information factor, affirming that in the new media era, content remains ‘king’; (3) Interpersonal factors should also be given importance, as influencing the surrounding social groups of consumers is one of the effective ways to enhance the impact of advertising. Theoretically, current research broadens the scope of both social media and advertising effectiveness studies, forming a bridge between influencer marketing and consumer engagement. Practically, the findings offer macro-level strategic insights for influencer marketing.

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Introduction.

Recent studies have highlighted an escalating aversion among audiences towards traditional online ads, leading to a diminishing effectiveness of traditional online advertising methods (Lou et al., 2019 ). In an effort to overcome these challenges, an increasing number of brands are turning to influencers as their spokespersons for advertising. Utilizing influencers not only capitalizes on their significant influence over their fan base but also allows for the dissemination of advertising messages in a more native and organic manner. Consequently, influencer-endorsed advertising has become a pivotal component and a growing trend in social media advertising (Gräve & Bartsch, 2022 ). Although the topic of influencer-endorsed advertising has garnered increasing attention from scholars, the field is still in its infancy, offering ample opportunities for in-depth research and exploration (Barta et al., 2023 ).

Presently, social media influencers—individuals with substantial follower bases—have emerged as the new vanguard in advertising (Hudders & Lou, 2023 ). Their tweets and videos possess the remarkable potential to sway the purchasing decisions of thousands if not millions. This influence largely hinges on consumer engagement behaviors, implying that the impact of advertising can proliferate throughout a consumer’s entire social network (Abbasi et al., 2023 ). Consequently, exploring ways to enhance consumer engagement is of paramount theoretical and practical significance for advertising effectiveness research (Xiao et al., 2023 ). This necessitates researchers to delve deeper into the exploration of the stimulating factors and psychological mechanisms influencing consumer engagement behaviors (Vander Schee et al., 2020 ), which is the gap this study seeks to address.

The Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework has been extensively applied in the study of consumer engagement behaviors (Tak & Gupta, 2021 ) and has been shown to integrate effectively with self-determination theory (Yang et al., 2019 ). Therefore, employing the S-O-R framework to investigate consumer engagement behaviors in the context of influencer advertising is considered a rational approach. The current study embarks on an in-depth analysis of the transformation process from three distinct dimensions. In the Stimulus (S) phase, we focus on how influencer factors, advertising message factors, and social influence factors act as external stimuli. This phase scrutinizes the external environment’s role in triggering consumer reactions. During the Organism (O) phase, the research explores the intrinsic psychological motivations affecting individual behavior as posited in self-determination theory. This includes the willingness for self-disclosure, the desire for innovation, and trust in advertising messages. The investigation in this phase aims to understand how these internal motivations shape consumer attitudes and perceptions in the context of influencer marketing. Finally, in the Response (R) phase, the study examines how these psychological factors influence consumer engagement behavior. This part of the research seeks to understand the transition from internal psychological states to actual consumer behavior, particularly how these states drive the consumers’ deep integration and interaction with the influencer content.

Despite the inherent limitations of cross-sectional analysis in capturing the full temporal dynamics of consumer engagement, this study seeks to unveil the dynamic interplay between consumers’ psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—and their varying engagement levels in social media influencer marketing, grounded in self-determination theory. Through this lens, by analyzing factors related to influencers, content, and social context, we aim to infer potential dynamic shifts in engagement behaviors as psychological needs evolve. This approach allows us to offer a snapshot of the complex, multi-dimensional nature of consumer engagement dynamics, providing valuable insights for both theoretical exploration and practical application in the constantly evolving domain of social media marketing. Moreover, the current study underscores the significance of adapting to the dynamic digital environment and highlights the evolving nature of consumer engagement in the realm of digital marketing.

Literature review

Stimulus-organism-response (s-o-r) model.

The Stimulus-Response (S-R) model, originating from behaviorist psychology and introduced by psychologist Watson ( 1917 ), posits that individual behaviors are directly induced by external environmental stimuli. However, this model overlooks internal personal factors, complicating the explanation of psychological states. Mehrabian and Russell ( 1974 ) expanded this by incorporating the individual’s cognitive component (organism) into the model, creating the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework. This model has become a crucial theoretical framework in consumer psychology as it interprets internal psychological cognitions as mediators between stimuli and responses. Integrating with psychological theories, the S-O-R model effectively analyzes and explains the significant impact of internal psychological factors on behavior (Koay et al., 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2021 ), and is extensively applied in investigating user behavior on social media platforms (Hewei & Youngsook, 2022 ). This study combines the S-O-R framework with self-determination theory to examine consumer engagement behaviors in the context of social media influencer advertising, a logic also supported by some studies (Yang et al., 2021 ).

Self-determination theory

Self-determination theory, proposed by Richard and Edward (2000), is a theoretical framework exploring human behavioral motivation and personality. The theory emphasizes motivational processes, positing that individual behaviors are developed based on factors satisfying their psychological needs. It suggests that individual behavioral tendencies are influenced by the needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy. Furthermore, self-determination theory, along with organic integration theory, indicates that individual behavioral tendencies are also affected by internal psychological motivations and external situational factors.

Self-determination theory has been validated by scholars in the study of online user behaviors. For example, Sweet applied the theory to the investigation of community building in online networks, analyzing knowledge-sharing behaviors among online community members (Sweet et al., 2020 ). Further literature review reveals the applicability of self-determination theory to consumer engagement behaviors, particularly in the context of influencer marketing advertisements. Firstly, self-determination theory is widely applied in studying the psychological motivations behind online behaviors, suggesting that the internal and external motivations outlined within the theory might also apply to exploring consumer behaviors in influencer marketing scenarios (Itani et al., 2022 ). Secondly, although research on consumer engagement in the social media influencer advertising context is still in its early stages, some studies have utilized SDT to explore behaviors such as information sharing and electronic word-of-mouth dissemination (Astuti & Hariyawan, 2021 ). These behaviors, which are part of the content contribution and creation dimensions of consumer engagement, may share similarities in the underlying psychological motivational mechanisms. Thus, this study will build upon these foundations to construct the Organism (O) component of the S-O-R model, integrating insights from SDT to further understand consumer engagement in influencer marketing.

Consumer engagement

Although scholars generally agree at a macro level to define consumer engagement as the creation of additional value by consumers or customers beyond purchasing products, the specific categorization of consumer engagement varies in different studies. For instance, Simon and Tossan interpret consumer engagement as a psychological willingness to interact with influencers (Simon & Tossan, 2018 ). However, such a broad definition lacks precision in describing various levels of engagement. Other scholars directly use tangible metrics on social media platforms, such as likes, saves, comments, and shares, to represent consumer engagement (Lee et al., 2018 ). While this quantitative approach is not flawed and can be highly effective in practical applications, it overlooks the content aspect of engagement, contradicting the “content is king” principle of advertising and marketing. We advocate for combining consumer engagement with the content aspect, as content engagement not only generates more traces of consumer online behavior (Oestreicher-Singer & Zalmanson, 2013 ) but, more importantly, content contribution and creation are central to social media advertising and marketing, going beyond mere content consumption (Qiu & Kumar, 2017 ). Meanwhile, we also need to emphasize that engagement is not a fixed state but a fluctuating process influenced by ongoing interactions between consumers and influencers, mediated by the evolving nature of social media platforms and the shifting sands of consumer preferences (Pradhan et al., 2023 ). Consumer engagement in digital environments undergoes continuous change, reflecting a journey rather than a destination (Viswanathan et al., 2017 ).

The current study adopts a widely accepted definition of consumer engagement from existing research, offering operational feasibility and aligning well with the research objectives of this paper. Consumer engagement behaviors in the context of this study encompass three dimensions: content consumption, content contribution, and content creation (Muntinga et al., 2011 ). These dimensions reflect a spectrum of digital engagement behaviors ranging from low to high levels (Schivinski et al., 2016 ). Specifically, content consumption on social media platforms represents a lower level of engagement, where consumers merely click and read the information but do not actively contribute or create user-generated content. Some studies consider this level of engagement as less significant for in-depth exploration because content consumption, compared to other forms, generates fewer visible traces of consumer behavior (Brodie et al., 2013 ). Even in a study by Qiu and Kumar, it was noted that the conversion rate of content consumption is low, contributing minimally to the success of social media marketing (Qiu & Kumar, 2017 ).

On the other hand, content contribution, especially content creation, is central to social media marketing. When consumers comment on influencer content or share information with their network nodes, it is termed content contribution, representing a medium level of online consumer engagement (Piehler et al., 2019 ). Furthermore, when consumers actively upload and post brand-related content on social media, this higher level of behavior is referred to as content creation. Content creation represents the highest level of consumer engagement (Cheung et al., 2021 ). Although medium and high levels of consumer engagement are more valuable for social media advertising and marketing, this exploratory study still retains the content consumption dimension of consumer engagement behaviors.

Theoretical framework

Internal organism factors: self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust.

In existing research based on self-determination theory that focuses on online behavior, competence, relatedness, and autonomy are commonly considered as internal factors influencing users’ online behaviors. However, this approach sometimes strays from the context of online consumption. Therefore, in studies related to online consumption, scholars often use self-disclosure willingness as an overt representation of autonomy, innovativeness as a representation of competence, and trust as a representation of relatedness (Mahmood et al., 2019 ).

The use of these overt variables can be logically explained as follows: According to self-determination theory, individuals with a higher level of self-determination are more likely to adopt compensatory mechanisms to facilitate behavior compared to those with lower self-determination (Wehmeyer, 1999 ). Self-disclosure, a voluntary act of sharing personal information with others, is considered a key behavior in the development of interpersonal relationships. In social environments, self-disclosure can effectively alleviate stress and build social connections, while also seeking societal validation of personal ideas (Altman & Taylor, 1973 ). Social networks, as para-social entities, possess the interactive attributes of real societies and are likely to exhibit similar mechanisms. In consumer contexts, personal disclosures can include voluntary sharing of product interests, consumption experiences, and future purchase intentions (Robertshaw & Marr, 2006 ). While material incentives can prompt personal information disclosure, many consumers disclose personal information online voluntarily, which can be traced back to an intrinsic need for autonomy (Stutzman et al., 2011 ). Thus, in this study, we consider the self-disclosure willingness as a representation of high autonomy.

Innovativeness refers to an individual’s internal level of seeking novelty and represents their personality and tendency for novelty (Okazaki, 2009 ). Often used in consumer research, innovative consumers are inclined to try new technologies and possess an intrinsic motivation to use new products. Previous studies have shown that consumers with high innovativeness are more likely to search for information on new products and share their experiences and expertise with others, reflecting a recognition of their own competence (Kaushik & Rahman, 2014 ). Therefore, in consumer contexts, innovativeness is often regarded as the competence dimension within the intrinsic factors of self-determination (Wang et al., 2016 ), with external motivations like information novelty enhancing this intrinsic motivation (Lee et al., 2015 ).

Trust refers to an individual’s willingness to rely on the opinions of others they believe in. From a social psychological perspective, trust indicates the willingness to assume the risk of being harmed by another party (McAllister, 1995 ). Widely applied in social media contexts for relational marketing, information trust has been proven to positively influence the exchange and dissemination of consumer information, representing a close and advanced relationship between consumers and businesses, brands, or advertising endorsers (Steinhoff et al., 2019 ). Consumers who trust brands or social media influencers are more willing to share information without fear of exploitation (Pop et al., 2022 ), making trust a commonly used representation of the relatedness dimension in self-determination within consumer contexts.

Construction of the path from organism to response: self-determination internal factors and consumer engagement behavior

Following the logic outlined above, the current study represents the internal factors of self-determination theory through three variables: self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust. Next, the study explores the association between these self-determination internal factors and consumer engagement behavior, thereby constructing the link between Organism (O) and Response (R).

Self-disclosure willingness and consumer engagement behavior

In the realm of social sciences, the concept of self-disclosure willingness has been thoroughly examined from diverse disciplinary perspectives, encompassing communication studies, sociology, and psychology. Viewing from the lens of social interaction dynamics, self-disclosure is acknowledged as a fundamental precondition for the initiation and development of online social relationships and interactive engagements (Luo & Hancock, 2020 ). It constitutes an indispensable component within the spectrum of interactive behaviors and the evolution of interpersonal connections. Voluntary self-disclosure is characterized by individuals divulging information about themselves, which typically remains unknown to others and is inaccessible through alternative sources. This concept aligns with the tenets of uncertainty reduction theory, which argues that during interpersonal engagements, individuals seek information about their counterparts as a means to mitigate uncertainties inherent in social interactions (Lee et al., 2008 ). Self-disclosure allows others to gain more personal information, thereby helping to reduce the uncertainty in interpersonal relationships. Such disclosure is voluntary rather than coerced, and this sharing of information can facilitate the development of relationships between individuals (Towner et al., 2022 ). Furthermore, individuals who actively engage in social media interactions (such as liking, sharing, and commenting on others’ content) often exhibit higher levels of self-disclosure (Chu et al., 2023 ); additional research indicates a positive correlation between self-disclosure and online engagement behaviors (Lee et al., 2023 ). Taking the context of the current study, the autonomous self-disclosure willingness can incline social media users to read advertising content more attentively and share information with others, and even create evaluative content. Therefore, this paper proposes the following research hypothesis:

H1a: The self-disclosure willingness is positively correlated with content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H1b: The self-disclosure willingness is positively correlated with content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H1c: The self-disclosure willingness is positively correlated with content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Innovativeness and consumer engagement behavior

Innovativeness represents an individual’s propensity to favor new technologies and the motivation to use new products, associated with the cognitive perception of one’s self-competence. Individuals with a need for self-competence recognition often exhibit higher innovativeness (Kelley & Alden, 2016 ). Existing research indicates that users with higher levels of innovativeness are more inclined to accept new product information and share their experiences and discoveries with others in their social networks (Yusuf & Busalim, 2018 ). Similarly, in the context of this study, individuals, as followers of influencers, signify an endorsement of the influencer. Driven by innovativeness, they may be more eager to actively receive information from influencers. If they find the information valuable, they are likely to share it and even engage in active content re-creation to meet their expectations of self-image. Therefore, this paper proposes the following research hypotheses:

H2a: The innovativeness of social media users is positively correlated with content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H2b: The innovativeness of social media users is positively correlated with content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H2c: The innovativeness of social media users is positively correlated with content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Information trust and consumer engagement

Trust refers to an individual’s willingness to rely on the statements and opinions of a target object (Moorman et al., 1993 ). Extensive research indicates that trust positively impacts information dissemination and content sharing in interpersonal communication environments (Majerczak & Strzelecki, 2022 ); when trust is established, individuals are more willing to share their resources and less suspicious of being exploited. Trust has also been shown to influence consumers’ participation in community building and content sharing on social media, demonstrating cross-cultural universality (Anaya-Sánchez et al., 2020 ).

Trust in influencer advertising information is also a key predictor of consumers’ information exchange online. With many social media users now operating under real-name policies, there is an increased inclination to trust information shared on social media over that posted by corporate accounts or anonymously. Additionally, as users’ social networks partially overlap with their real-life interpersonal networks, extensive research shows that more consumers increasingly rely on information posted and shared on social networks when making purchase decisions (Wang et al., 2016 ). This aligns with the effectiveness goals of influencer marketing advertisements and the characteristics of consumer engagement. Trust in the content posted by influencers is considered a manifestation of a strong relationship between fans and influencers, central to relationship marketing (Kim & Kim, 2021 ). Based on trust in the influencer, which then extends to trust in their content, people are more inclined to browse information posted by influencers, share this information with others, and even create their own content without fear of exploitation or negative consequences. Therefore, this paper proposes the following research hypotheses:

H3a: Information trust is positively correlated with content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H3b: Information trust is positively correlated with content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H3c: Information trust is positively correlated with content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Construction of the path from stimulus to organism: influencer factors, advertising information factors, social factors, and self-determination internal factors

Having established the logical connection from Organism (O) to Response (R), we further construct the influence path from Stimulus (S) to Organism (O). Revisiting the definition of influencer advertising in social media, companies, and brands leverage influencers on social media platforms to disseminate advertising content, utilizing the influencers’ relationships and influence over consumers for marketing purposes. In addition to consumer’s internal factors, elements such as companies, brands, influencers, and the advertisements themselves also impact consumer behavior. Although factors like the brand image perception of companies may influence consumer behavior, considering that in influencer marketing, companies and brands do not directly interact with consumers, this study prioritizes the dimensions of influencers and advertisements. Furthermore, the impact of social factors on individual cognition and behavior is significant, thus, the current study integrates influencers, advertisements, and social dimensions as the Stimulus (S) component.

Influencer factors: parasocial identification

Self-determination theory posits that relationships are one of the key motivators influencing individual behavior. In the context of social media research, users anticipate establishing a parasocial relationship with influencers, resembling real-life relationships. Hence, we consider the parasocial identification arising from users’ parasocial interactions with influencers as the relational motivator. Parasocial interaction refers to the one-sided personal relationship that individuals develop with media characters (Donald & Richard, 1956 ). During this process, individuals believe that the media character is directly communicating with them, creating a sense of positive intimacy (Giles, 2002 ). Over time, through repeated unilateral interactions with media characters, individuals develop a parasocial relationship, leading to parasocial identification. However, parasocial identification should not be directly equated with the concept of social identification in social identity theory. Social identification occurs when individuals psychologically de-individualize themselves, perceiving the characteristics of their social group as their own, upon identifying themselves as part of that group. In contrast, parasocial identification refers to the one-sided interactional identification with media characters (such as celebrities or influencers) over time (Chen et al., 2021 ). Particularly when individuals’ needs for interpersonal interaction are not met in their daily lives, they turn to parasocial interactions to fulfill these needs (Shan et al., 2020 ). Especially on social media, which is characterized by its high visibility and interactivity, users can easily develop a strong parasocial identification with the influencers they follow (Wei et al., 2022 ).

Parasocial identification and self-disclosure willingness

Theories like uncertainty reduction, personal construct, and social exchange are often applied to explain the emergence of parasocial identification. Social media, with its convenient and interactive modes of information dissemination, enables consumers to easily follow influencers on media platforms. They can perceive the personality of influencers through their online content, viewing them as familiar individuals or even friends. Once parasocial identification develops, this pleasurable experience can significantly influence consumers’ cognitions and thus their behavioral responses. Research has explored the impact of parasocial identification on consumer behavior. For instance, Bond et al. found that on Twitter, the intensity of users’ parasocial identification with influencers positively correlates with their continuous monitoring of these influencers’ activities (Bond, 2016 ). Analogous to real life, where we tend to pay more attention to our friends in our social networks, a similar phenomenon occurs in the relationship between consumers and brands. This type of parasocial identification not only makes consumers willing to follow brand pages but also more inclined to voluntarily provide personal information (Chen et al., 2021 ). Based on this logic, we speculate that a similar relationship may exist between social media influencers and their fans. Fans develop parasocial identification with influencers through social media interactions, making them more willing to disclose their information, opinions, and views in the comment sections of the influencers they follow, engaging in more frequent social interactions (Chung & Cho, 2017 ), even if the content at times may be brand or company-embedded marketing advertisements. In other words, in the presence of influencers with whom they have established parasocial relationships, they are more inclined to disclose personal information, thereby promoting consumer engagement behavior. Therefore, we propose the following research hypotheses:

H4: Parasocial identification is positively correlated with consumer self-disclosure willingness.

H4a: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of parasocial identification on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H4b: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of parasocial identification on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H4c: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of parasocial identification on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Parasocial identification and information trust

Information Trust refers to consumers’ willingness to trust the information contained in advertisements and to place themselves at risk. These risks include purchasing products inconsistent with the advertised information and the negative social consequences of erroneously spreading this information to others, leading to unpleasant consumption experiences (Minton, 2015 ). In advertising marketing, gaining consumers’ trust in advertising information is crucial. In the context of influencer marketing on social media, companies, and brands leverage the social connection between influencers and their fans. According to cognitive empathy theory, consumers project their trust in influencers onto the products endorsed, explaining the phenomenon of ‘loving the house for the crow on its roof.’ Research indicates that parasocial identification with influencers is a necessary condition for trust development. Consumers engage in parasocial interactions with influencers on social media, leading to parasocial identification (Jin et al., 2021 ). Consumers tend to reduce their cognitive load and simplify their decision-making processes, thus naturally adopting a positive attitude and trust towards advertising information disseminated by influencers with whom they have established parasocial identification. This forms the core logic behind the success of influencer marketing advertisements (Breves et al., 2021 ); furthermore, as mentioned earlier, because consumers trust these advertisements, they are also willing to share this information with friends and family and even engage in content re-creation. Therefore, we propose the following research hypotheses:

H5: Parasocial identification is positively correlated with information trust.

H5a: Information trust mediates the impact of parasocial identification on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H5b: Information trust mediates the impact of parasocial identification on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H5c: Information trust mediates the impact of parasocial identification on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Influencer factors: source credibility

Source credibility refers to the degree of trust consumers place in the influencer as a source, based on the influencer’s reliability and expertise. Numerous studies have validated the effectiveness of the endorsement effect in advertising (Schouten et al., 2021 ). The Source Credibility Model, proposed by the renowned American communication scholar Hovland and the “Yale School,” posits that in the process of information dissemination, the credibility of the source can influence the audience’s decision to accept the information. The credibility of the information is determined by two aspects of the source: reliability and expertise. Reliability refers to the audience’s trust in the “communicator’s objective and honest approach to providing information,” while expertise refers to the audience’s trust in the “communicator being perceived as an effective source of information” (Hovland et al., 1953 ). Hovland’s definitions reveal that the interpretation of source credibility is not about the inherent traits of the source itself but rather the audience’s perception of the source (Jang et al., 2021 ). This differs from trust and serves as a precursor to the development of trust. Specifically, reliability and expertise are based on the audience’s perception; thus, this aligns closely with the audience’s perception of influencers (Kim & Kim, 2021 ). This credibility is a cognitive statement about the source of information.

Source credibility and self-disclosure willingness

Some studies have confirmed the positive impact of an influencer’s self-disclosure on their credibility as a source (Leite & Baptista, 2022 ). However, few have explored the impact of an influencer’s credibility, as a source, on consumers’ self-disclosure willingness. Undoubtedly, an impact exists; self-disclosure is considered a method to attempt to increase intimacy with others (Leite et al., 2022 ). According to social exchange theory, people promote relationships through the exchange of information in interpersonal communication to gain benefits (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005 ). Credibility, deriving from an influencer’s expertise and reliability, means that a highly credible influencer may provide more valuable information to consumers. Therefore, based on the social exchange theory’s logic of reciprocal benefits, consumers might be more willing to disclose their information to trustworthy influencers, potentially even expanding social interactions through further consumer engagement behaviors. Thus, we propose the following research hypotheses:

H6: Source credibility is positively correlated with self-disclosure willingness.

H6a: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of Source credibility on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H6b: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of Source credibility on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H6c: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of Source credibility on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Source credibility and information trust

Based on the Source Credibility Model, the credibility of an endorser as an information source can significantly influence consumers’ acceptance of the information (Shan et al., 2020 ). Existing research has demonstrated the positive impact of source credibility on consumers. Djafarova, in a study based on Instagram, noted through in-depth interviews with 18 users that an influencer’s credibility significantly affects respondents’ trust in the information they post. This credibility is composed of expertise and relevance to consumers, and influencers on social media are considered more trustworthy than traditional celebrities (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017 ). Subsequently, Bao and colleagues validated in the Chinese consumer context, based on the ELM model and commitment-trust theory, that the credibility of brand pages on Weibo effectively fosters consumer trust in the brand, encouraging participation in marketing activities (Bao & Wang, 2021 ). Moreover, Hsieh et al. found that in e-commerce contexts, the credibility of the source is a significant factor influencing consumers’ trust in advertising information (Hsieh & Li, 2020 ). In summary, existing research has proven that the credibility of the source can promote consumer trust. Influencer credibility is a significant antecedent affecting consumers’ trust in the advertised content they publish. In brand communities, trust can foster consumer engagement behaviors (Habibi et al., 2014 ). Specifically, consumers are more likely to trust the advertising content published by influencers with higher credibility (more expertise and reliability), and as previously mentioned, consumer engagement behavior is more likely to occur. Based on this, the study proposes the following research hypotheses:

H7: Source credibility is positively correlated with information trust.

H7a: Information trust mediates the impact of source credibility on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H7b: Information trust mediates the impact of source credibility on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H7c: Information trust mediates the impact of source credibility on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Advertising information factors: informative value

Advertising value refers to “the relative utility value of advertising information to consumers and is a subjective evaluation by consumers.” In his research, Ducoffe pointed out that in the context of online advertising, the informative value of advertising is a significant component of advertising value (Ducoffe, 1995 ). Subsequent studies have proven that consumers’ perception of advertising value can effectively promote their behavioral response to advertisements (Van-Tien Dao et al., 2014 ). Informative value of advertising refers to “the information about products needed by consumers provided by the advertisement and its ability to enhance consumer purchase satisfaction.” From the perspective of information dissemination, valuable advertising information should help consumers make better purchasing decisions and reduce the effort spent searching for product information. The informational aspect of advertising has been proven to effectively influence consumers’ cognition and, in turn, their behavior (Haida & Rahim, 2015 ).

Informative value and innovativeness

As previously discussed, consumers’ innovativeness refers to their psychological trait of favoring new things. Studies have shown that consumers with high innovativeness prefer novel and valuable product information, as it satisfies their need for newness and information about new products, making it an important factor in social media advertising engagement (Shi, 2018 ). This paper also hypothesizes that advertisements with high informative value can activate consumers’ innovativeness, as the novelty of information is one of the measures of informative value (León et al., 2009 ). Acquiring valuable information can make individuals feel good about themselves and fulfill their perception of a “novel image.” According to social exchange theory, consumers can gain social capital in interpersonal interactions (such as social recognition) by sharing information about these new products they perceive as valuable. Therefore, the current study proposes the following research hypothesis:

H8: Informative value is positively correlated with innovativeness.

H8a: Innovativeness mediates the impact of informative value on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H8b: Innovativeness mediates the impact of informative value on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H8c: Innovativeness mediates the impact of informative value on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Informative value and information trust

Trust is a multi-layered concept explored across various disciplines, including communication, marketing, sociology, and psychology. For the purposes of this paper, a deep analysis of different levels of trust is not undertaken. Here, trust specifically refers to the trust in influencer advertising information within the context of social media marketing, denoting consumers’ belief in and reliance on the advertising information endorsed by influencers. Racherla et al. investigated the factors influencing consumers’ trust in online reviews, suggesting that information quality and value contribute to increasing trust (Racherla et al., 2012 ). Similarly, Luo and Yuan, in a study based on social media marketing, also confirmed that the value of advertising information posted on brand pages can foster consumer trust in the content (Lou & Yuan, 2019 ). Therefore, by analogy, this paper posits that the informative value of influencer-endorsed advertising can also promote consumer trust in that advertising information. The relationship between trust in advertising information and consumer engagement behavior has been discussed earlier. Thus, the current study proposes the following research hypotheses:

H9: Informative value is positively correlated with information trust.

H9a: Information trust mediates the impact of informative value on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H9b: Information trust mediates the impact of informative value on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H9c: Information trust mediates the impact of informative value on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Advertising information factors: ad targeting accuracy

Ad targeting accuracy refers to the degree of match between the substantive information contained in advertising content and consumer needs. Advertisements containing precise information often yield good advertising outcomes. In marketing practice, advertisers frequently use information technology to analyze the characteristics of different consumer groups in the target market and then target their advertisements accordingly to achieve precise dissemination and, consequently, effective advertising results. The utility of ad targeting accuracy has been confirmed by many studies. For instance, in the research by Qiu and Chen, using a modified UTAUT model, it was demonstrated that the accuracy of advertising effectively promotes consumer acceptance of advertisements in WeChat Moments (Qiu & Chen, 2018 ). Although some studies on targeted advertising also indicate that overly precise ads may raise concerns about personal privacy (Zhang et al., 2019 ), overall, the accuracy of advertising information is effective in enhancing advertising outcomes and is a key element in the success of targeted advertising.

Ad targeting accuracy and information trust

In influencer marketing advertisements, due to the special relationship recognition between consumers and influencers, the privacy concerns associated with ad targeting accuracy are alleviated (Vrontis et al., 2021 ). Meanwhile, the informative value brought by targeting accuracy is highlighted. More precise advertising content implies higher informative value and also signifies that the advertising content is more worthy of consumer trust (Della Vigna, Gentzkow, 2010 ). As previously discussed, people are more inclined to read and engage with advertising content they trust and recognize. Therefore, the current study proposes the following research hypotheses:

H10: Ad targeting accuracy is positively correlated with information trust.

H10a: Information trust mediates the impact of ad targeting accuracy on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H10b: Information trust mediates the impact of ad targeting accuracy on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H10c: Information trust mediates the impact of ad targeting accuracy on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Social factors: subjective norm

The Theory of Planned Behavior, proposed by Ajzen ( 1991 ), suggests that individuals’ actions are preceded by conscious choices and are underlain by plans. TPB has been widely used by scholars in studying personal online behaviors, these studies collectively validate the applicability of TPB in the context of social media for researching online behaviors (Huang, 2023 ). Additionally, the self-determination theory, which underpins this chapter’s research, also supports the notion that individuals’ behavioral decisions are based on internal cognitions, aligning with TPB’s assertions. Therefore, this paper intends to select subjective norms from TPB as a factor of social influence. Subjective norm refers to an individual’s perception of the expectations of significant others in their social relationships regarding their behavior. Empirical research in the consumption field has demonstrated the significant impact of subjective norms on individual psychological cognition (Yang & Jolly, 2009 ). A meta-analysis by Hagger, Chatzisarantis ( 2009 ) even highlighted the statistically significant association between subjective norms and self-determination factors. Consequently, this study further explores its application in the context of influencer marketing advertisements on social media.

Subjective norm and self-disclosure willingness

In numerous studies on social media privacy, subjective norms significantly influence an individual’s self-disclosure willingness. Wirth et al. ( 2019 ) based on the privacy calculus theory, surveyed 1,466 participants and found that personal self-disclosure on social media is influenced by the behavioral expectations of other significant reference groups around them. Their research confirmed that subjective norms positively influence self-disclosure of information and highlighted that individuals’ cognitions and behaviors cannot ignore social and environmental factors. Heirman et al. ( 2013 ) in an experiment with Instagram users, also noted that subjective norms could promote positive consumer behavioral responses. Specifically, when important family members and friends highly regard social media influencers as trustworthy, we may also be more inclined to disclose our information to influencers and share this information with our surrounding family and friends without fear of disapproval. In our subjective norms, this is considered a positive and valuable interactive behavior, leading us to exhibit engagement behaviors. Based on this logic, we propose the following research hypotheses:

H11: Subjective norms are positively correlated with self-disclosure willingness.

H11a: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of subjective norms on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H11b: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of subjective norms on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H11c: Self-disclosure willingness mediates the impact of subjective norms on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Subjective norm and information trust

Numerous studies have indicated that subjective norms significantly influence trust (Roh et al., 2022 ). This can be explained by reference group theory, suggesting people tend to minimize the effort expended in decision-making processes, often looking to the behaviors or attitudes of others as a point of reference; for instance, subjective norms can foster acceptance of technology by enhancing trust (Gupta et al., 2021 ). Analogously, if a consumer’s social network generally holds positive attitudes toward influencer advertising, they are also more likely to trust the endorsed advertisement information, as it conserves the extensive effort required in gathering product information (Chetioui et al., 2020 ). Therefore, this paper proposes the following research hypotheses:

H12: Subjective norms are positively correlated with information trust.

H12a: Information trust mediates the impact of subjective norms on content consumption in consumer engagement behavior.

H12b: Information trust mediates the impact of subjective norms on content contribution in consumer engagement behavior.

H12c: Information trust mediates the impact of subjective norms on content creation in consumer engagement behavior.

Conceptual model

In summary, based on the Stimulus (S)-Organism (O)-Response (R) framework, this study constructs the external stimulus factors (S) from three dimensions: influencer factors (parasocial identification, source credibility), advertising information factors (informative value, Ad targeting accuracy), and social influence factors (subjective norms). This is grounded in social capital theory and the theory of planned behavior. drawing on self-determination theory, the current study constructs the individual psychological factors (O) using self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust. Finally, the behavioral response (R) is constructed using consumer engagement, which includes content consumption, content contribution, and content creation, as illustrated in Fig. 1 .

Consumer engagement behavior impact model based on SOR framework.

Materials and methods

Participants and procedures.

The current study conducted a survey through the Wenjuanxing platform to collect data. Participants were recruited through social media platforms such as WeChat, Douyin, Weibo et al., as samples drawn from social media users better align with the research purpose of our research and ensure the validity of the sample. Before the survey commenced, all participants were explicitly informed about the purpose of this study, and it was made clear that volunteers could withdraw from the survey at any time. Initially, 600 questionnaires were collected, with 78 invalid responses excluded. The criteria for valid questionnaires were as follows: (1) Respondents must have answered “Yes” to the question, “Do you follow any influencers (internet celebrities) on social media platforms?” as samples not using social media or not following influencers do not meet the study’s objective, making this question a prerequisite for continuing the survey; (2) Respondents had to correctly answer two hidden screening questions within the questionnaire to ensure that they did not randomly select scores; (3) The total time taken to complete the questionnaire had to exceed one minute, ensuring that respondents had sufficient time to understand and thoughtfully answer each question; (4) Respondents were not allowed to choose the same score for eight consecutive questions. Ultimately, 522 valid questionnaires were obtained, with an effective rate of 87.00%, meeting the basic sample size requirements for research models (Gefen et al., 2011 ). Detailed demographic information of the study participants is presented in Table 1 .

Measurements

To ensure the validity and reliability of the data analysis results in this study, the measurement tools and scales used in this chapter were designed with reference to existing established research. The main variables in the survey questionnaire include parasocial identification, source credibility, informative value, ad targeting accuracy, subjective norms, self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, information trust, content consumption, content contribution, and content creation. The measurement scale for parasocial identification was adapted from the research of Schramm and Hartmann, comprising 6 items (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008 ). The source credibility scale was combined from the studies of Cheung et al. and Luo & Yuan’s research in the context of social media influencer marketing, including 4 items (Cheung et al., 2009 ; Lou & Yuan, 2019 ). The scale for informative value was modified based on Voss et al.‘s research, consisting of 4 items (Voss et al., 2003 ). The ad targeting accuracy scale was derived from the research by Qiu Aimei et al., 2018 ) including 3 items. The subjective norm scale was adapted from Ajzen’s original scale, comprising 3 items (Ajzen, 2002 ). The self-disclosure willingness scale was developed based on Chu and Kim’s research, including 3 items (Chu & Kim, 2011 ). The innovativeness scale was formulated following the study by Sun et al., comprising 4 items (Sun et al., 2006 ). The information trust scale was created in reference to Chu and Choi’s research, including 3 items (Chu & Choi, 2011 ). The scales for the three components of social media consumer engagement—content consumption, content contribution, and content creation—were sourced from the research by Buzeta et al., encompassing 8 items in total (Buzeta et al., 2020 ).

All scales were appropriately revised for the context of social media influencer marketing. To avoid issues with scoring neutral attitudes, a uniform Likert seven-point scale was used for each measurement item (ranging from 1 to 7, representing a spectrum from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’). After the overall design of the questionnaire was completed, a pre-test was conducted with 30 social media users to ensure that potential respondents could clearly understand the meaning of each question and that there were no obstacles to answering. This pre-test aimed to prevent any difficulties or misunderstandings in the questionnaire items. The final version of the questionnaire is presented in Table 2 .

Data analysis

Since the model framework of the current study is derived from theoretical deductions of existing research and, while logically constructed, does not originate from an existing research model, this study still falls under the category of exploratory research. According to the analysis suggestions of Hair and other scholars, in cases of exploratory research model frameworks, it is more appropriate to choose Smart PLS for Partial Least Squares Path Analysis (PLS) to conduct data analysis and testing of the research model (Hair et al., 2012 ).

Measurement of model

In this study, careful data collection and management resulted in no missing values in the dataset. This ensured the integrity and reliability of the subsequent data analysis. As shown in Table 3 , after deleting measurement items with factor loadings below 0.5, the final factor loadings of the measurement items in this study range from 0.730 to 0.964. This indicates that all measurement items meet the retention criteria. Additionally, the Cronbach’s α values of the latent variables range from 0.805 to 0.924, and all latent variables have Composite Reliability (CR) values greater than the acceptable value of 0.7, demonstrating that the scales of this study have passed the reliability test requirements (Hair et al., 2019 ). All latent variables in this study have Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values greater than the standard acceptance value of 0.5, indicating that the convergent validity of the variables also meets the standard (Fornell & Larcker, 1981 ). Furthermore, the results show that the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) values for each factor are below 10, indicating that there are no multicollinearity issues with the scales in this study (Hair, 2009 ).

The current study then further verified the discriminant validity of the variables, with specific results shown in Table 4 . The square roots of the average variance extracted (AVE) values for all variables (bolded on the diagonal) are greater than the Pearson correlation coefficients between the variables, indicating that the discriminant validity of the scales in this study meets the required standards (Fornell & Larcker, 1981 ). Additionally, a single-factor test method was employed to examine common method bias in the data. The first unrotated factor accounted for 29.71% of the variance, which is less than the critical threshold of 40%. Therefore, the study passed the test and did not exhibit serious common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003 ).

To ensure the robustness and appropriateness of our structural equation model, we also conducted a thorough evaluation of the model fit. Initially, through PLS Algorithm calculations, the R 2 values of each variable were greater than the standard acceptance value of 0.1, indicating good predictive accuracy of the model. Subsequently, Blindfolding calculations were performed, and the results showed that the Stone-Geisser Q 2 values of each variable were greater than 0, demonstrating that the model of this study effectively predicts the relationships between variables (Dijkstra & Henseler, 2015 ). In addition, through CFA, we also obtained some indicator values, specifically, χ 2 /df = 2.528 < 0.3, RMSEA = 0.059 < 0.06, SRMR = 0.055 < 0.08. Given its sensitivity to sample size, we primarily focused on the CFI, TLI, and NFI values, CFI = 0.953 > 0.9, TLI = 0.942 > 0.9, and NFI = 0.923 > 0.9 indicating a good fit. Additionally, RMSEA values below 0.06 and SRMR values below 0.08 were considered indicative of a good model fit. These indices collectively suggested that our model demonstrates a satisfactory fit with the data, thereby reinforcing the validity of our findings.

Research hypothesis testing

The current study employed a Bootstrapping test with a sample size of 5000 on the collected raw data to explore the coefficients and significance of the paths in the research model. The final test data results of this study’s model are presented in Table 5 .

The current study employs S-O-R model as the framework, grounded in theories such as self-determination theory and theory of planned behavior, to construct an influence model of consumer engagement behavior in the context of social media influencer marketing. It examines how influencer factors, advertisement information factors, and social influence factors affect consumer engagement behavior by impacting consumers’ psychological cognitions. Using structural equation modeling to analyze collected data ( N  = 522), it was found that self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust positively influence consumer engagement behavior, with innovativeness having the largest impact on higher levels of engagement. Influencer factors, advertisement information factors, and social factors serve as effective external stimuli, influencing psychological motivators and, consequently, consumer engagement behavior. The specific research results are illustrated in Fig. 2 .

Tested structural model of consumer engagement behavior.

The impact of psychological motivators on different levels of consumer engagement: self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust

The research analysis indicates that self-disclosure willingness and information trust are key drivers for content consumption (H1a, H2a validated). This aligns with previous findings that individuals with a higher willingness to disclose themselves show greater levels of engagement behavior (Chu et al., 2023 ); likewise, individuals who trust advertisement information are more inclined to engage with advertisement content (Kim, Kim, 2021 ). Moreover, our study finds that information trust has a stronger impact on content consumption, underscoring the importance of trust in the dissemination of advertisement information. However, no significant association was found between individual innovativeness and content consumption (H3a not validated).

Regarding the dimension of content contribution in consumer engagement, self-disclosure willingness, information trust, and innovativeness all positively impact it (H1b, H2b, and H3b all validated). This is consistent with earlier research findings that individuals with higher self-disclosure willingness are more likely to like, comment on, or share content posted by influencers on social media platforms (Towner et al., 2022 ); the conclusions of this paper also support that innovativeness is an important psychological driver for active participation in social media interactions (Kamboj & Sharma, 2023 ). However, at the level of consumer engagement in content contribution, while information trust also exerts a positive effect, its impact is the weakest, although information trust has the strongest impact on content consumption.

In social media advertising, the ideal outcome is the highest level of consumer engagement, i.e., content creation, meaning consumers actively join in brand content creation, seeing themselves as co-creators with the brand (Nadeem et al., 2021 ). Our findings reveal that self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust all positively influence content creation (H1c, H2c, and H3c all validated). The analysis found that similar to the impact on content contribution, innovativeness has the most significant effect on encouraging individual content creation, followed by self-disclosure willingness, with information trust having the least impact.

In summary, while some previous studies have shown that self-disclosure willingness, innovativeness, and information trust are important factors in promoting consumer engagement (Chu et al., 2023 ; Nadeem et al., 2021 ; Geng et al., 2021 ), this study goes further by integrating and comparing all three within the same research framework. It was found that to trigger higher levels of consumer engagement behavior, trust is not the most crucial psychological motivator; rather, the most effective method is to stimulate consumers’ innovativeness, thus complementing previous research. Subsequently, this study further explores the impact of different stimulus factors on various psychological motivators.

The influence of external stimulus factors on psychological motivators: influencer factors, advertisement information factors, and social factors

The current findings indicate that influencer factors, such as parasocial identification and source credibility, effectively enhance consumer engagement by influencing self-disclosure willingness and information trust. This aligns with prior research highlighting the significance of parasocial identification (Shan et al., 2020 ). Studies suggest parasocial identification positively impacts consumer engagement by boosting self-disclosure willingness and information trust (validated H4a, H4b, H4c, and H5a), but not content contribution or creation through information trust (H5b, H5c not validated). Source credibility’s influence on self-disclosure willingness was not significant (H6 not validated), thus negating the mediating effect of self-disclosure willingness (H6a, H6b, H6c not validated). Influencer credibility mainly affects engagement through information trust (H7a, H7b, H7c validated), supporting previous findings (Shan et al., 2020 ).

Advertisement factors (informative value and ad targeting accuracy) promote engagement through innovativeness and information trust. Informative value significantly impacts higher-level content contribution and creation through innovativeness (H8b, H8c validated), while ad targeting accuracy influences consumer engagement at all levels mainly through information trust (H10a, H10b, H10c validated).

Social factors (subjective norms) enhance self-disclosure willingness and information trust, consistent with previous research (Wirth et al., 2019 ; Gupta et al., 2021 ), and further promote consumer engagement across all levels (H11a, H11b, H11c, H12a, H12b, and H12c all validated).

In summary, influencer, advertisement, and social factors impact consumer engagement behavior by influencing psychological motivators, with influencer factors having the greatest effect on content consumption, advertisement content factors significantly raising higher-level consumer engagement through innovativeness, and social factors also influencing engagement through self-disclosure willingness and information trust.

Implication

From a theoretical perspective, current research presents a comprehensive model of consumer engagement within the context of influencer advertising on social media. This model not only expands the research horizon in the fields of social media influencer advertising and consumer engagement but also serves as a bridge between two crucial themes in new media advertising studies. Influencer advertising has become an integral part of social media advertising, and the construction of a macro model aids researchers in understanding consumer psychological processes and behavioral patterns. It also assists advertisers in formulating more effective strategies. Consumer engagement, focusing on the active role of consumers in disseminating information and the long-term impact on advertising effectiveness, aligns more closely with the advertising effectiveness measures in the new media context than traditional advertising metrics. However, the intersection of these two vital themes lacks comprehensive research and a universal model. This study constructs a model that elucidates the effects of various stimuli on consumer psychology and engagement behaviors, exploring the connections and mechanisms through different mediating pathways. By differentiating levels of engagement, the study offers more nuanced conclusions for diverse advertising objectives. Furthermore, this research validates the applicability of self-determination theory in the context of influencer advertising effectiveness. While this psychological theory has been utilized in communication behavior research, its effectiveness in the field of advertising requires further exploration. The current study introduces self-determination theory into the realm of influencer advertising and consumer engagement, thereby expanding its application in the field of advertising communication. It also responds to the call from the advertising and marketing academic community to incorporate more psychological theories to explain the ‘black box’ of consumer psychology. The inclusion of this theory re-emphasizes the people-centric approach of this research and highlights the primary role of individuals in advertising communication studies.

From a practical perspective, this study provides significant insights for adapting marketing strategies to the evolving media landscape and the empowered role of audiences. Firstly, in the face of changes in the communication environment and the empowerment of audience communication capabilities, traditional marketing approaches are becoming inadequate for new media advertising needs. Traditional advertising focuses on direct, point-to-point effects, whereas social media advertising aims for broader, point-to-mass communication, leveraging audience proactivity to facilitate the viral spread of content across online social networks. Secondly, for brands, the general influence model proposed in this study offers guidance for influencer advertising strategy. If the goal is to maximize reach and brand recognition with a substantial advertising budget, partnering with top influencers who have a large following can be an effective strategy. However, if the objective is to maximize cost-effectiveness with a limited budget by leveraging consumer initiative for secondary spread, the focus should be on designing advertising content that stimulates consumer creativity and willingness to innovate. Thirdly, influencers are advised to remain true to their followers. In influencer marketing, influencers attract advertisers through their influence over followers, converting this influence into commercial gain. This influence stems from the trust followers place in the influencer, thus influencers should maintain professional integrity and prioritize the quality of information they share, even when presented with advertising opportunities. Lastly, influencers should assert more control over their relationships with advertisers. In traditional advertising, companies and brands often exert significant control over the content. However, in the social media era, influencers should negotiate more creative freedom in their advertising partnerships, asserting a more equal relationship with advertisers. This approach ensures that content quality remains high, maintaining the trust influencers have built with their followers.

Limitations and future directions

while this study offers valuable insights into the dynamics of influencer marketing and consumer engagement on social media, several limitations should be acknowledged: Firstly, constrained by the research objectives and scope, this study’s proposed general impact model covers three dimensions: influencers, advertisement information, and social factors. However, these dimensions are not limited to the five variables discussed in this paper. Therefore, we call for future research to supplement and explore more crucial factors. Secondly, in the actual communication environment, there may be differences in the impact of communication effectiveness across various social media platforms. Thus, future research could also involve comparative studies and explorations between different social media platforms. Thirdly, the current study primarily examines the direct effects of various factors on consumer engagement. However, the potential interaction effects between these variables (e.g., how influencers’ credibility might interact with advertisement information quality) are not extensively explored. Future research could investigate these complex interrelationships for a more holistic understanding. Lastly, our study, being cross-sectional, offers preliminary insights into the complex and dynamic nature of engagement between social media influencers and consumers, yet it does not incorporate the temporal dimension. The diverse impacts of psychological needs on engagement behaviors hint at an underlying dynamism that merits further investigation. Future research should consider employing longitudinal designs to directly observe how these dynamics evolve over time.

The findings of the current study not only theoretically validate the applicability of self-determination theory in the field of social media influencer marketing advertising research but also broaden the scope of advertising effectiveness research from the perspective of consumer engagement. Moreover, the research framework offers strategic guidance and reference for influencer marketing strategies. The main conclusions of this study can be summarized as follows.

Innovativeness is the key factor in high-level consumer engagement behavior. Content contribution represents a higher level of consumer engagement compared to content consumption, as it not only requires consumers to dedicate attention to viewing advertising content but also to share this information across adjacent nodes within their social networks. This dissemination of information is a pivotal factor in the success of influencer marketing advertisements. Hence, companies and brands prioritize consumers’ content contribution over mere viewing of advertising content (Qiu & Kumar, 2017 ). Compared to content consumption and contribution, content creation is considered the highest level of consumer engagement, where consumers actively create and upload brand-related content, and it represents the most advanced outcome sought by enterprises and brands in advertising campaigns (Cheung et al., 2021 ). The current study posits that to pursue better outcomes in social media influencer advertising marketing, enhancing consumers’ willingness for self-disclosure, innovativeness, and trust in advertising information are effective strategies. However, the crux lies in leveraging the consumer’s subjective initiative, particularly in boosting their innovativeness. If the goal is simply to achieve content consumption rather than higher levels of consumer engagement, the focus should be on fostering trust in advertising information. There is no hierarchy in the efficacy of different strategies; they should align with varying marketing contexts and advertising objectives.

The greatest role of social media influencers lies in attracting online traffic. information trust is the core element driving content consumption, and influencer factors mainly affect consumer engagement behaviors through information trust. Therefore, this study suggests that the primary role of influencers in social media advertising is to attract online traffic, i.e., increase consumer behavior regarding ad content consumption (reducing avoidance of ad content), and help brands achieve the initial goal of making consumers “see and complete ads.” However, their impact on further high-level consumer engagement behaviors is limited. This mechanism serves as a reminder to advertisers not to overestimate the effects of influencers in marketing. Currently, top influencers command a significant portion of the ad budget, which could squeeze the budget for other aspects of advertising, potentially affecting the overall effectiveness of the campaign. Businesses and brands should consider deeper strategic implications when planning their advertising campaigns.

Valuing Advertising Information Factors, Content Remains King. Our study posits that in the social media influencer marketing context, the key to enhancing consumer contribution and creation of advertising content lies primarily in the advertising information factors. In other words, while content consumption is important, advertisers should objectively assess the role influencers play in advertising. In the era of social media, content remains ‘king’ in advertising. This view indirectly echoes the points made in the previous paragraph: influencers effectively perform initial ‘online traffic generation’ tasks in social media, but this role should not be overly romanticized or exaggerated. Whether it’s companies, brands, or influencers, providing consumers with advertisements rich in informational value is crucial to achieving better advertising outcomes and potentially converting consumers into stakeholders.

Subjective norm is an unignorable social influence factor. Social media is characterized by its network structure of information dissemination, where a node’s information is visible to adjacent nodes. For instance, if user A likes a piece of content C from influencer I, A’s follower B, who may not follow influencer I, can still see content C via user A’s page. The aim of marketing in the social media era is to influence a node and then spread the information to adjacent nodes, either secondarily or multiple times (Kumar & Panda, 2020 ). According to the Theory of Planned Behavior, an individual’s actions are influenced by significant others in their lives, such as family and friends. Previous studies have proven the effectiveness of the Theory of Planned Behavior in influencing attitudes toward social media advertising (Ranjbarian et al., 2012 ). Current research further confirms that subjective norms also influence consumer engagement behaviors in influencer marketing on social media. Therefore, in advertising practice, brands should not only focus on individual consumers but also invest efforts in groups that can influence consumer decisions. Changing consumer behavior in the era of social media marketing doesn’t solely rely on the company’s efforts.

As communication technology advances, media platforms will further empower individual communicative capabilities, moving beyond the era of the “magic bullet” theory. The distinction between being a recipient and a transmitter of information is increasingly blurred. In an era where everyone is both an audience and an influencer, research confined to the role of the ‘recipient’ falls short of addressing the dynamics of ‘transmission’. Future research in marketing and advertising should thus focus more on the power of individual transmission. Furthermore, as Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the extension of man.” The evolution of media technology remains human-centric. Accordingly, future marketing research, while paying heed to media transformations, should emphasize the centrality of the ‘human’ element.

Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available due to privacy issues. Making the full data set publicly available could potentially breach the privacy that was promised to participants when they agreed to take part, and may breach the ethics approval for the study. The data are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the participants of this study. The participants were all informed about the purpose and content of the study and voluntarily agreed to participate. The participants were able to stop participating at any time without penalty. Funding for this study was provided by Minjiang University Research Start-up Funds (No. 324-32404314).

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Conceptualization: CG; methodology: CG and QD; software: CG and QD; validation: CG; formal analysis: CG and QD; investigation: CG and QD; resources: CG; data curation: CG and QD; writing—original draft preparation: CG; writing—review and editing: CG; visualization: CG; project administration: CG. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Gu, C., Duan, Q. Exploring the dynamics of consumer engagement in social media influencer marketing: from the self-determination theory perspective. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 11 , 587 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03127-w

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Impact of online advertisement on customer satisfaction with the mediating effect of brand knowledge.

• 1 Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business Administration Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia
• 2 Institute of Banking and Finance, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan
• 3 Department of Business Administration, National College of Business Administration and Economics (NCBA&E), Lahore, Pakistan

The purpose of this article is to explain how online advertising affects customer satisfaction through the mediation of brand knowledge. The sample size of this survey is based on 100 participants in the Multan region. This study collects data by conducting various unstructured interviews. In this study, we used a qualitative data acquisition technique. The results show that online advertising does not have a significant impact on customer satisfaction. However, when brand knowledge is included as a parameter, the correlation between online advertising and customer satisfaction increases. Online advertising is a new advertising tool used by most organizations. This manuscript helps practitioners choose better tools for online promotion and uses a variety of recognition techniques to improve their brand knowledge. It has been known through this study, that building customer confidence in product quality is a very effective approach in front of business owners, as brand reputation enhances customer satisfaction. This study is unique in that previous studies considered elements of brand knowledge as parameters and ignored to find a direct relationship between online advertising and customer satisfaction. This study highlights key points that will help emerging researchers critically analyze such aspects in future studies.

Introduction

There is a growing need for knowledge and information regarding the online purchasing behavior of consumers due to radical change in e-commerce, which is also known as electronic commerce ( Bhakar et al., 2019 ). In the current era, it becomes a dynamic concept of how organizations manage their customer relationships and what kind of marketing strategy should be adopted for the customer ( Ahmad et al., 2022 ). Nowadays, the internet is not only used for information purposes but also as a platform for buying and selling goods and services between the buyer and seller ( Danish et al., 2016 ). To survive in this highly diverse market, it becomes essential for organizations to adopt different marketing tools through the internet to attract their customers. The preference level of the customer is continuously changing due to the higher technological influence on their living pattern ( Islam and Rahman, 2017 ). Being a seller, it becomes crucial to consider the importance of technology in their operating, marketing, and sales department ( Gul et al., 2022 ). Thus, in the current digital era, online shopping has become a fascinating variable for the management and entrepreneurs to gain market share and customer satisfaction in the competitor’s market and also to secure the future of a company ( Nwokah and Ngirika, 2017 ). Some researchers also depicted that the perfect knowledge regarding customer preference data plays an important role in creating a direct and long-term relationship with them. Thus, most multinationals and SMEs worked on making online advertisements to attract many customers in a short period ( Mehmood and Sabeeh, 2018 ).

According to the survey results, most of the customers are not only searching the products on the internet for purchasing but most of them are interested to gain some important information about the specific products ( Rabeea Fatima et al., 2019 ). Unfortunately, most products advertised on social media, differ from their actual look. There are many scamming advertisements on social media that negatively affects the reputation of the company ( Rabeea Fatima et al., 2019 ). Also, it affects badly the confidence level of the customers and, as a result, a high dissatisfaction level exists among the consumers regarding online buying and fake advertisements ( Ismail and Alawamleh, 2017 ). People usually purchase goods or services online and enter their personal information on web sites, which increases the numbers of cyber crimes ( Ismail and Alawamleh, 2017 ).

This manuscript is informative to investigate the impact of an online advertisement about the products and services on the satisfaction level of the customer, where a sustainable brand knowledge (i.e., perception level of a customer about the brand) plays a mediating role between these two variables ( Kim et al., 2017 ). In Pakistan, consumers shift their behavior toward e-commerce because of the technological influence on their daily transactions ( Danish et al., 2016 ). In this manuscript, we specifically highlight the satisfaction level of Pakistani customers with online advertisements and evaluate how sustainable knowledge about the brands plays an important role in keeping the satisfaction level of the customer regarding the company’s operation. No previous study exists to critically evaluate the relationship between online advertisement and customer satisfaction, which enhanced the validity of this research work ( Srivastava and Chopra, 2016 ). Ultimately, the study will help customers and consumers in assisting them in online purchase decisions and the corporate sector in formulating their marketing strategies. The current study also helps the practitioners to choose the better tools for an online advertisement and also increase the brand knowledge by using different awareness techniques. This manuscript also fulfills the gap in the previous related literature regarding online advertisement’s impact on customer satisfaction and the role of sustainable brand knowledge on their relationship.

Literature Review

Previously, no study was majorly conducted by scholars to comprehend the impact of an online advertisement on the satisfaction level of the customer, by considering sustainable brand knowledge as a mediator. To justify this research, some similar research made by the previous scholars is discussed below, which will enhance the authenticity and reliability of this research.

Online Advertisement and Customer Satisfaction

Many researchers have worked to elaborate on the direct relationship between online advertisement and customer satisfaction levels. According to Hanif and Asgher (2018) , an online advertisement depicts that now, the majority of the advertisements are occurring through the internet by using different platforms, like Email, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Daraz.com , and other advertisement supporting websites ( Hanif and Asgher, 2018 ). According to them, an online advertisement is one of the most significant marketing tools in today’s digital world, even though most organizations do not think of capturing the market share without advertisement. They stated that in the current era, the style of marketing research is becoming modernized because of the impact of upgraded communication technology on the advertisement factor which adds value to the buyer’s choice ( Hanif et al., 2018a ). The effect of knowledge management and entrepreneurial orientation on organization performance.

The histrionic increases the scope and diversity of online advertisement than conformist one. In stated businesses are extensively using such virtual advertisements to promote versatile products and services. Mediating Role of Supply Chain Integration and Intrapreneurship between Information Technology Infrastructure and Firm Performance in the Iranian Pistachio Industry. They concluded this one is hard for an advertiser to maintain the effectiveness of online advertisements to get a positive reaction from consumers ( Ahmad and Gul, 2021 ; Bukhari et al., 2021b ).

According to Nazli et al. (2018) , the growth of media and communication networks has altered the business landscape of advertising, so now an online advertisement becomes an essential approach to increase the profit margin of a company ( Nazli et al., 2018 ). Advertising properties, such as the design, quality, duration, or location of an advertisement, can affect the effectiveness of such ads. The scholars concluded that such an attractive source of marketing helps a company to maintain its position in the market.

According to the researchers (2017), e-commerce promised a “perfect” arrival in the market by introducing product and price comparison websites, the so-called shopping robots ( Phillips et al., 2017 ). They stated that technology is about to achieve what economists could only undertake in the past: “near-perfect information.” Nunan et al. (2018) stated that customer satisfaction is an accumulated attitude based on his or her experiences. They stated that there must be a feeling of a customer that can be gauged directly. Customer satisfaction is directly related to a firm’s profitability. Customers may be satisfied by different factors, e.g., product design, product advertisement, etc. ( Nunan et al., 2018 ). These researchers point out the three obstacles to online shopping namely failure to buy, security, and service fear hindrances. At the end of their critical analysis, they concluded that more and more people have to shop online or indeed provide information to web providers for access to information ( Ali et al., 2021 ; Gul et al., 2021b ).

In Ghazali et al. (2016) stated that a deprived account of the online customer experience is based on a 24% loss in annual online revenue, more than $50 billion losses in the United States, and a £14 billion lost in the United Kingdom each year ( Ghazali et al., 2016 ). According to them, a basic strategic aim for many firms is to upgrade the customer’s experience level and the perception level regarding the company’s products and services will ultimately affect the firm’s profitability. For this purpose, customer satisfaction is a crucial factor in any firm’s existence.

Brand Knowledge

In 2019, research was conducted based on critically evaluating the importance of brand knowledge and its importance in enhancing the brand image in the customer market. According to Anusha (2019) , brand knowledge is a newly introduced term, which refers to the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of a customer regarding the brand and its operating activities. According to the researcher, one of the most important objectives of product and brand management is to build a powerful brand and its loyalty factor within a customer market. This research concluded that strong brand results in greater income streams, both in short term and long term ( Gul et al., 2021a ).

Scholars conducted another research to evaluate the two major types of brand knowledge: brand awareness and image. According to Von Wallpach and Kreuzer (2019) , two dimensions of brand knowledge have been previously examined in marketing research. The first one is brand awareness and the second one is the brand image. According to them, brand awareness is defined as the strong point of product bulge in memory, i.e., how easy it is for the customer to recall that brand ( Bukhari et al., 2021a ). They have a point of view that brand recall is the most common way to measure brand awareness. They stated that comprising many brand knowledge and behavioral variables, using one product category like “candy bars,” plays an important role in strengthening a customer’s and company’s relationship. In 2019, the researchers started support for a two-factor solution: one factor represented the unassisted recall ( Cheung et al., 2019 ). They stated that the brand image creates a strong, favorable, and unique brand reputation in the mind of the customers and other stakeholders.

In 2020, after conducting critical qualitative research on this factor, the researchers concluded that the perceived quality, positive attitude, and overall profitability ratio in a company are generated due to enhancing the standard of marketing and sales channels ( Cheung et al., 2020 ). The influence of perceived social media marketing elements on consumer–brand engagement and brand knowledge. They stated that many of the brand factors acknowledged as diverse facets of brand parity by other scholars (for instance, apparent quality, character, and organizational associations) may be fit into the overall classification of brand image and its abrupt effects. Another researcher examined the moderating effect of brand knowledge definitely to the two variables (brand awareness and brand image) ( Suki, 2016 ).

In 2018, a study on online advertisement and customer satisfaction depicted that brands used different advertisement channels to attract their customer as well as to satisfy their needs and desires ( Hanif et al., 2018b ). Nowadays, it is impossible to capture market share and satisfy their customer without advertisement. For this purpose, brands used different media for advertisement, and in today’s world, online advertisements through social media and other websites, etc., are very popular to deliver products to their customers ( Hanif et al., 2017 ). Finally, they concluded that brand knowledge is also a very important factor that mediates the relationship between online advertisement and customer satisfaction because the individual’s perceptions and feelings about their brand matter a lot in customer satisfaction.

Brand Knowledge Strengthens the Relationship Between Online Advertisement and Customer Satisfaction

In 2017, studies were conducted by researchers to critically evaluate the importance of the co-creational factor of the brand in strengthening the relationship between the online brand’s communities and customer satisfaction ( Hajli et al., 2017 ). According to them, a positive perception regarding the company’s products and services in the targeted customer market plays an important role in creating the long-term sustainability of a company in the customer market. In their business research market, they concluded that a positive word of mouth and an understanding of the company’s operation play an important role to gain a competitive advantage in the highly competitive market.

In another related research article ( Gul et al., 2020a , b ), scholars majorly worked to critically evaluate the importance of the productive brand knowledge in the development of customer perception level regarding the company’s products and services ( Cheung et al., 2020 ). The influence of perceived social media marketing elements on consumer–brand engagement and brand knowledge. They concluded that such knowledge, which developed through some experiences, boosts the confidence level of the customers to use the services and products of a brand. According to the researchers, it is an easy way to strengthen a good relationship between the company and its targeted customers ( Adarsha et al., 2021 ; Irfan, 2021 ).

Based on the synthesized review of literature, previous studies do not have a consensus on finding regarding the relationship among said variables and the significance of an online advertisement on customer satisfaction. Although some studies address the same topic, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, none of the studies considers the same issue by incorporating the mediating effect of brand knowledge, especially in a developing market context; hence, this area is still under-researched. Therefore, this study intends to fill this gap by conducting unstructured interviews to examine the impact of an online advertisement on customer satisfaction.

Materials and Methods

To understand the impact of online advertisements on customer satisfaction and sustainable brand knowledge, which mediates the relationship between the independent variable (IV) and dependent variable (DV), different unstructured interviews and other observations based on secondary data were collected. The questionnaire used by Teo, T with others in their research article is used for this analysis ( Teo et al., 2018 ). Responses were collected through formal and informal but unstructured interviews, observations, and directly asked questions to respondents.

The population of this research was based on households, students, officers, hoteliers, and other related people. The sample was based on 100 individuals, who were chosen from several areas of the Multan region. For this purpose, questions were asked to exactly understand the impact of an online advertisement on their satisfaction and also about their knowledge regarding brands’ advertisements and online shopping sites where they purchased some goods. All this data collection is based on formal or informal interviews and other online secondary information. Each interview was held for only 20–25 min to better understand the participant’s perception level regarding online advertisements. As discussed earlier, the interview format is highly unstructured.

This qualitative technique is more effective for this research analysis because the base of this research was focused on critically evaluating the psychological and behavioral approach of the targeted audience of any companies in the current era ( Gul and Khilji, 2021 ). So, for that purpose, firstly we distributed questionnaires to the respondent, but the response rate is not good and the collected data are full of errors as people show less interest in filling the questionnaires. Also, some questions are not properly interpreted by respondents. In that research survey, 100 responses were collected and from which 60 responses were understandable, so the response rate was 60%. Questions about demographic variables such as age and gender are considered controlling variables.

This study used a cross-sectional data collection method because all responses were collected at once. Convenient sampling is also used for data collection. Data were analyzed through personal interpretations and analytical models. It is an effective research method for critically inspecting and evaluating the cognitive characteristic of a common person regarding the importance of such an online advertisement in the Pakistan market.

Conceptual Framework of the Study

By reviewing the literature and critically evaluating the relationship between these variables, we have developed the following major hypothesis of this research work:

H1: Online advertisements have a significant impact on customer satisfaction.

H2: Brand knowledge has a significant and positive impact on customer satisfaction.

H3: Brand knowledge strengthens the relationship between online advertisement and customer satisfaction.

Results and Discussion

This survey analysis uses several elements in this survey interview and analysis process. Some of the important questions for respondents are listed in Appendix . The questions in these surveys asked demographic information such as age and gender-related data queried to respondents and considered control variables. Main theme, principal nodes, and child nodes are given in Table 1 . In addition, respondents were asked a variety of questions related to elements of online advertising, customer satisfaction, and sustainable brand knowledge to understand the customer’s perspective on online advertising. For example, whether online advertising primarily follows the customer’s decisions and what kind of advertising the customer prefers. According to survey data, most corporate customers are impressed with the online data presented by the organization. This is a constructive approach to critically understanding the level of customer similarity and preference by establishing a feedback-based relationship with the customer. As mentioned earlier, this analysis uses a qualitative approach to critically assess the customer’s level of perception of the hypothesis of choice.

Table 1. Main theme, principal nodes, and child nodes.

These are the questions asked from the respondents through unstructured interviews and observed the behavior of consumers online.

Respondents’ Results

Consider the variables of online surfing. Here, we asked the respondents three questions that explain their general attitude toward online surfing. Respondents have different views on this factor, so most respondents say they spend a lot of time browsing ads for their products and services. This behavior is the same whether the brand is known to the customer or not. The results show that customers often spend a lot of time browsing products and services for more detailed information. As one respondent said:

“Buying products online is an important issue, so we spend a lot of time finding more information, whether we know a particular brand or not.”

Another respondent said that:

“When I see the online advertisement of the known brand, I am certain that the product is not of poor quality.”

It simply means that it is available on the online site and has a good product quality guarantee known to the customer. The second general brand knowledge is used to determine the impact of brand knowledge on customer satisfaction. Questions about this factor determine a customer’s choice, so customers are convinced that the best way to buy is to browse ads for their well-known brands. After searching for the product or service that best suits their needs, they purchased the product. The survey questions focused primarily on the level of customer awareness of advertising. According to the results, most people searched for different brands and preferred only those brands whose features and prices directly matched the desired value.

The final question of this factor is primarily based on whether a well-known brand delivered the product to the customer as shown in the online advertisement. The consequences of this factor go in the same direction. This shows that general brand knowledge about a product or service is of little concern when deciding to buy online. In Pakistan, people do not like to buy online because of the potential risk of loss. Because the response rate is neutral, well-known brands do not encourage customers to buy online products, but they guarantee that the products are of high quality.

One respondent answered that “There is too much lose…” By:

“If you blindly buy a product without reading the entire description or review, you are already using that particular brand of a product and you can get the high-quality product as shown in the picture. I do not think so … It’s impossible.”

It represents the customer’s attitude toward online advertising and online purchases. That is, customers buy online products from well-known brands rather than unfamiliar brands. According to the result data, brand knowledge plays an important role in building long-term relationships with customers. According to the respondents, they prefer to buy products and services of this brand that have a good reputation in the consumer market. This is to increase the customer’s confidence in purchasing the product. This is a useful resource for critically assessing the direct impact of a company’s positive reputation on the customer market.

As with the third element, they were asked about people’s interest in displaying online ads. Whether to consider online advertising as a source of information and not purchase products or services? The overall response to this factor was informative, as people do not like to shop online, but it also focuses on seeing online advertising for informational purposes. Most respondents say they frequently check emails sent by different brands to evaluate the brand and its product offerings. As one respondent said:

“It is interesting to see a colorful advertisement not only when I bought that product; but yes, for the sake of information, maybe in future I want to buy these types of products.”

Another said:

“It is a pleasurable activity to see product advertisements and check your junk mails full of advertisements when you have nothing to do.”

This shows that people are not very interested in buying online but are interested in online advertising for informational purposes. The above two answers and other related answers show that most customers prefer to get a lot of relevant information about products offered through online sources. According to them, most buyers only bought products that meet their needs and desires at a reasonable price, and the Internet is an easy and reliable source for them to get relevant information about their products and services.

Finally, customer satisfaction factors were critically discussed in interviews that ask respondents seven questions. This element asks about the price of online purchases, and the quality of products purchased on online sites, and asks questions related to respondents. This was an important source of critical information about the importance of online advertising for customer satisfaction in the market. Most of them have a neutral response to this factor, and some of them have a positive response to such a satisfaction factor. As one respondent said:

“There are times when the online shopping experience is good and times when it is bad, but I think that items ordered from cheap online sites must have a more unpleasant experience than high-priced items.”

According to the answers, the response rate of participants to a company’s products and services may deviate from the average position. By interpreting the data, we can know that prices can also be a factor in influencing customer satisfaction when purchasing online products. The reason is that price factors add some value to a company’s products, especially for price-sensitive customers. In the market, most customers prefer products that are very reasonably priced compared to other products. Considering demographic factors such as age and gender as control variables makes it very easy to access an individual’s behavioral approach. Most Multan-Pakistan online customers prefer to buy products and services that have a good reputation in the market. The market for Multan is considerably lower than in other cities in Pakistan such as Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, and Faisalabad. But now, with the penetration of technology in the region, many educated people prefer to get relevant information about a particular product or service of the brand. Brand knowledge and reputation in the customer market play an important role in maintaining the position in the customer market.

The customers are completely unsatisfied or dissatisfied with the online purchase. Everyone shared their level of awareness, understanding, and experience. It shows the diversity of Multan’s customer market, as most people simply visit the brand’s online site to get relevant information about products, services, prices, features, and other relevant information. The reason is that people have different economic standards and most of them are online brands ( Badar and Irfan, 2018 ; Ali and Zafar, 2021 ). Due to the low interest of people in such online promotions, the target markets in the region are only attracted through electronic and print media. After critically evaluating all the responses from the target audience, the majority of Multani’s customers are fascinated by their fruitful and engaging knowledge of each brand and its services. As in the region, only these brands make a profit by not only leveraging online marketing sources but also working on electronic, printing, and other digital media sources to generate positive awareness and word of mouth in their target markets ( Zhang et al., 2013 ). Overall, online advertising does not have a big impact on customer satisfaction, but brand knowledge does.

The responses weaken the first hypothesis of this research that an online advertisement does not have a significant impact on customer satisfaction. But, their collected data justified the second hypothesis that brand knowledge has a significant and positive impact on the customer satisfaction level. The reason is that the word of mouth regarding the operating activities of any brand creates some knowledge and confidence level among the targeted customers regarding the company’s product and services ( Irfan and Khar, 2021 ; Irfan and Shahid, 2021 ). Also, the above research data justified the third hypothesis of this research that brand knowledge plays a major role in strengthening the relationship between online advertisement and the customer satisfaction level ( Zhu et al., 2021 ). The reason is that such brand knowledge-based mediating factors help the customer create some positive and negative perceptions regarding the brand’s products and services ( Zhang et al., 2012 ). In most cases, such brand knowledge is usually developed when the customer gets some experience regarding the brand. According to the respondent, only those customers who will reuse the services of online shopping have some good experience and have some surety and reliability of their brand services.

After critically assessing the impact of online advertising on client customer satisfaction by conducting qualitative research, brand knowledge plays an important role in improving a company’s performance level in the competitor’s market. Analytical results show that this is an era of information technology, and online advertising and online purchases play a key role in maintaining a company’s outstanding reputation in the customer and competitor markets over the long term. In this article, we concluded that online advertising has a direct impact on customer satisfaction because brand knowledge acts as an intermediary.

Online advertising does not significantly affect customer satisfaction with online purchases. However, customers who have positive knowledge of the brand for a particular product have a high level of customer satisfaction in the market. People tend to view online advertising as an important source of information, not for sale or purchase purposes. From this, we can conclude that brand knowledge, positive or negative, has a significant impact on customer satisfaction with the company. This factor also further enhances the interaction between online advertising and customer satisfaction. Otherwise, online advertising will not have a significant impact on customer satisfaction and brand awareness. This is an important study for critically assessing customer behavior by considering the importance of brand knowledge as a key parameter.

Limitations and Future Directions

There are still some caveats with this survey as it is a productive survey aimed at clarifying the factors behind customer intrusion. The first is based on demographic variables such as income level, education level, religion, marital status, mortality rate, average family size, birth rate, the average age at marriage, and occupation. These control factors were not considered due to time limitations. Second, this survey was based on Multani’s customer perceptions of online advertising. There was no comparison or contrast presented to customer awareness in other developed regions. The future direction of the researchers is to critically assess the current market conditions in the region and assess the behavioral approaches of different customers in different regions of Pakistan and in other countries.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in this study are included in the article/ Supplementary Material , further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Author Contributions

AS designed the analysis. MI collected the data. AO performed the analysis. HZ contributed analysis tools. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.919656/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords : online advertisement, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, Pakistan, social media marketing

Citation: Salameh AA, Ijaz M, Omar AB and Zia ul Haq HM (2022) Impact of Online Advertisement on Customer Satisfaction With the Mediating Effect of Brand Knowledge. Front. Psychol. 13:919656. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.919656

Received: 13 April 2022; Accepted: 11 May 2022; Published: 01 July 2022.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2022 Salameh, Ijaz, Omar and Zia ul Haq. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Mahrukh Ijaz, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Advertising Effectiveness

By Peter J. Danaher

The internet has enabled many business developments, but it has turned media allocation and planning on its head. In traditional mass media like television, advertisers can purchase a commercial slot and expect large audiences.

However, many of those reached are not interested in the advertised product or service, so a large percentage of those exposed to advertising do not respond to the message. In digital advertising, websites containing specialized content (e.g., model airplanes) allow advertisers to display their products to loyal and attentive audiences. In the social media space, Facebook delivers ad content to ideal target audiences by examining the web activity of users and their networks. Paid search advertising sends firms customers who are already “in the market” for their products, as indicated by their keyword use.

Over the past 15 years, television channels have grown in number. But the more significant change has been the exponential growth in websites supporting themselves with advertising, not to mention the rapid uptake of paid search advertising.

Advertisers have moved to new digital media outlets not only because of their ability to target customers, but also their lower cost compared to traditional media. Furthermore, digital media allows firms to connect ad exposures and search clicks to downstream sales, a feature Danaher and Dagger (2013) suggest eludes traditional media. Sethuraman, Tellis, and Briesch (2011) show the most convincing way for firms to demonstrate advertising’s effectiveness is by linking the effort to sales. In turn, researchers can use two methods to assess advertising effectiveness: field experiments and econometric models.

Field Experiments

Targeting and retargeting customers who are more likely to respond to offers, an increasingly common practice, makes advertising appear more effective than it is. Lambrecht and Tucker (2013) , in an award-winning Journal of Marketing Research paper, reported a comparison of advertising response between customers exposed to standard banner ads and retargeted banner ads showed the ads displaying products previously viewed were six times more effective at generating sales. However, the consumers receiving retargeted ads had already demonstrated product predilection. The researchers therefore randomly assigned consumers to a treatment group seeing retargeted, product-specific ads and a control seeing generic product category ads. They found the retargeted ads were less effective than the generic ads, as the customers were in different stages of the purchase funnel, and while retargeted ads work well near purchase, they are not effective for the larger group of customers embarking on their search.

The use of field experiments to determine ad effectiveness has subsequently blossomed, with studies using “ghost ads” on Google ( Johnson, Lewis, and Nubbemeyer 2017 ) and Facebook ( Gordon et al 2019) to create randomized control groups. For example, Sahni (2016) used a field experiment to show digital ads for one restaurant increased sales at competing restaurants offering similar cuisine.

In every case, these field experiments have shown that advertising effects are often difficult to detect. For example, the study of Facebook ads by Gordon and colleagues (2019) examined 15 campaigns and found that only eight produced a statistically significant lift in sales.

Econometric Models

The studies by Johnson, Lewis, and Nubbemeyer and Gordon and colleagues also highlight the challenges of designing an experiment to assess digital ad effectiveness. Individual customers use the internet in different ways, and providers deliver digital ads via unique online auction processes. Econometric models therefore provide a versatile approach to gauging advertising effectiveness. And while field experiment studies have been limited to examining one medium at a time, econometric models allow researchers to compare effectiveness across several media.

Researchers can use econometric models to examine time series data, such as weekly or monthly advertising and sales records. Dinner, van Heerde, and Neslin (2014) studied traditional and digital advertising’s effects on in-store and online sales for an upscale clothing retailer across 103 weeks. The retailer made about 85% of its sales in-store, and the researchers examined three media: traditional (i.e., total spend on newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and billboards), online banner advertising, and paid search. They found online display and paid search were more effective than traditional advertising. Although firms might expect digital advertising to influence only online sales, the researchers found it also influenced in-store sales.

Researchers can also use econometric models to examine single-source data linking individual-level ad exposure to sales, the strategy employed by Danaher and Dagger in 2013. They examined 10 media types employed by a large retailer: television, radio, newspaper, magazines, online display ads, paid search, social media, catalogs, direct mail, and email. The researchers found traditional media and paid search effectively generated sales, while online display and social media advertising did not.

Multimedia, Multichannel, and Multibrand Advertising

Danaher and colleagues (2020) also used single-source data but extended it to multiple retailer-brands, two purchase channels, and three media (email, catalogs, and paid search). They collected the data from a North American specialty retailer selling mostly apparel, where 80% of sales were in-store. The parent retailer owned three relatively distinct brands operating independently. They collected customer data in a combined database, giving them information on sales for each retailer-brand over a two-year period.

The researchers found emails and catalogs from one retailer-brand negatively influenced competing retailer-brands in the category. Paid search influenced only the focal retailer-brand. However, competitor catalogs often positively influenced focal retailer-brand sales among omni-channel customers. The researchers also segmented customers by retailer-brand and channel usage, revealing customers shopping across multiple retailer-brands and both purchase channels were the most responsive group to multimedia advertising.

In the contemporary business environment of ever-increasing media channels but static advertising budgets, firms must be able to measure advertising effectiveness. Many businesses have shifted their advertising expenditure toward digital media, but multiple studies show traditional media remain effective.

How do marketing managers decide what is best for their companies? Digital media firms like Google and Facebook offer in-house field experiment methods of examining advertising effectiveness. For multimedia studies, analysts can apply econometric models in any setting where time series or single-source data are available.

Peter Danaher is Professor of Marketing and Econometrics and Department Chair at Monash Business School in Melbourne, Australia. He was recently appointed a co-editor of the Journal of Marketing Research .

Danaher, Peter J. (2021), “Advertising Effectiveness,” Impact at JMR , (January), Available at: https://www.ama.org/2021/01/26/advertising-effectiveness/

Danaher, Peter J., and Tracey S. Dagger (2013), “Comparing the Relative Effectiveness of Advertising Channels: A Case Study of a Multimedia Blitz Campaign,” Journal of Marketing Research , 50(4): 517-534. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.12.0241

Danaher, Peter J., Tracey S. Danaher, Michael S. Smith, and Ruben Laoizo-Maya (2020), “Advertising Effectiveness for Multiple Retailer-Brands in a Multimedia and Multichannel Environment,” Journal of Marketing Research , 57(3): 445-467. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022243720910104

Dinner, Isaac, Harald J. van Heerde, and Scott A. Neslin (2014), “Driving Online and Offline Sales: The Cross-channel Effects of Traditional, Online Display, and Paid Search Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research , 51(5): 527-545. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0466

Gordon, Brett R., Florian Zettelmeyer, Neha Bhargava, and Dan Chapsky (2019), “A Comparison of Approaches to Advertising Measurement: Evidence from Big Field Experiments at Facebook,” Marketing Science , 38(2): 193-225. https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2018.1135

Johnson, Garrett A., Randall A. Lewis, and Elmar I. Nubbemeyer (2017), “Ghost Ads: Improving the Economics of Measuring Online Ad Effectiveness,”  Journal of Marketing Research , 54(6): 867-84. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.15.0297

Lambrecht, Anja, and Catherine Tucker (2013), “When Does Retargeting Work? Information Specificity in Online Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research , 50 (October): 561-576. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.11.0503

Sahni, Navdeep S. (2016), “Advertising Spillovers: Evidence from Online Field Experiments and Implications for Returns on Advertising,” Journal of Marketing Research , 53(4): 459-78. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmr.14.0274

Sethuraman, Raj, Gerard J Tellis, and Richard A. Briesch (2011), “How Well Does Advertising Work? Generalizations from Meta-Analysis of Brand Advertising Elasticities,” Journal of Marketing Research , 48 (June): 457-471. https://doi.org/10.1509/jmkr.48.3.457

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• http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3760-7896 David B Menkes 1 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8671-915X Barbara Mintzes 2 ,
• http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5120-8029 Joel Lexchin 3
• 1 Psychological Medicine , University of Auckland , Hamilton , New Zealand
• 2 University of Sydney , Sydney , New South Wales , Australia
• 3 School of Health Policy and Management , York University , Toronto , Ontario , Canada
• Correspondence to Associate Professor David B Menkes, Psychological Medicine, University of Auckland, Hamilton, New Zealand; david.menkes{at}auckland.ac.nz

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2023-112622

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• prescription drugs
• conflict of interest
• delivery of health care
• drug-related side effects and adverse reactions

The USA and New Zealand (NZ) are the only high-income countries that allow unrestricted direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medicines, including both the name of the drug and its indications. Many other countries allow companies to conduct unbranded ‘disease-oriented’ advertising, which falls outside the scope of pharmaceutical advertising regulations (see Table 1 ).

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Regulation of direct-to-consumer promotion of prescription medicines

DTCA is effective in promoting prescription of branded, usually expensive medicines and represents a key marketing strategy of the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in the USA, with prescription drug and associated disease awareness advertising accounting for US$6.5 billion, or 22% of the US$30 billion spent on promotion in 2016. 1 Because of its effectiveness, companies have lobbied to extend DTCA to other countries, including the European Union. Thus far, these efforts have been successfully resisted by medical associations and health authorities concerned about various harms associated with practice. The exception is Canada, which introduced partial (reminder advertising) DTCA in 2001, in response to industry pressure.

Although most studies of DTCA focus on high-income countries, there is evidence the practice also occurs in low-income and middle-income countries, even when technically prohibited. For example, Sri Lankan newspapers carried an advertisement in August 2000 on the health effects of obesity, financed by Roche but co-sponsored by the Sri Lanka Medical Association. Consumers responding to the provided phone contact were given information about orlistat, a prescription-only antiobesity drug, and encouraged to ask their doctors about it. Further information sent to respondents discussed orlistat but scarcely mentioned non-drug weight reduction measures. 2 In Turkey, following widespread advertising of the prescription-only smoking cessation drug bupropion, the drug’s license was suspended for 3 months in 2002. 3 These authors also called attention to the marketing agenda implicit in drug company-sponsored lipid and bone density screening programmes as well as enhanced risks of DTCA harm related to low education levels and poor enforcement of prescription-only status of medicines in Turkey and other developing countries.

The nearly universal worldwide prohibition of full DTCA is regarded as a health protection measure, especially for newly marketed drugs. In a survey of 109 new drugs approved in the USA during 2015–2017, a median of 467 patients were exposed to the drugs in each pre-market pivotal trial, 4 too few to discover infrequent but significant adverse effects. More generally, drug-related harms are a common, often preventable cause of emergency department visits and hospitalisations, underpinning the rationale to treat prescription medicines differently from over the counter and other consumer products, including how they are advertised.

DTCA works by directly affecting the doctor–patient relationship, inducing consumers to seek medicines requiring a prescription. Impacts on the clinical encounter include time taken to discuss the target condition, which may or may not warrant medical intervention, and the advertised remedy, which may or may not reflect best practice. DTCA may also encourage patients to self-diagnose or to misinterpret their symptoms, contributing to often unnecessary diagnostic testing and the twin risks of overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Allowing for the potential advantages of prompting patients’ presentation of previously unreported symptoms and discussion of therapeutic alternatives, doctors generally regard DTCA as an unwelcome distraction from clinical work; professional bodies 5 6 and consumer groups 7 have voiced strong opposition to the practice.

Accumulating evidence indicates that DTCA affects prescribing behaviour, generally in unhelpful ways. For example, studies have shown that DTCA leads to unnecessary, lower quality, inappropriate and sometimes harmful prescribing. 8 In a study in Sacramento and Vancouver, doctors issued prescriptions more often to patients requesting DTCA drugs (OR: 16.9; 95% CI: 7.5 to 38.2), as compared with patients who did not request a medication, and doctors were more often ambivalent about treatment choices. 9 Despite their reservations about DTCA, doctors under pressure may find it easier to accede to requests for advertised prescriptions as this can curtail difficult and potentially protracted conversations with patients.

Unrestricted DTCA has developed in the USA and NZ since the 1990s in the absence of new legislation, by virtue of not being specifically banned, unlike its prohibited status in in other high-income countries ( Table 1 ). This has recently changed. As part of its new Therapeutics Bill, the NZ Labour government in July 2023 formalised the law allowing DTCA to continue, a move that surprised many based on the Party’s historical opposition and undertakings since 2003 to ban the practice. Government officials appeared to base this ‘change of heart’ decision on several key claims, each of which can be challenged based on research evidence. 10

Claim 1: the existing combination of government monitoring and industry self-regulation of DTCA is adequate

This claim is manifestly false. The present arrangement is unable to ensure that ads contain accurate information on either benefits or harms of medicines, or on how advertised products compare to other available treatment options, including lifestyle modification. In NZ, as in the USA, rofecoxib (Vioxx) was heavily advertised to the public long after the Merck’s in-house data and a later clinical trial showed increased cardiovascular mortality; 11 NZ Vioxx ads included no hint of this harm and ran for another 4 years until worldwide withdrawal of the drug.

Claim 2: prescribing and drug expenditure triggered by DTCA may be beneficial

Claim 3: people from disadvantaged communities are more likely to seek medical care because of dtca.

While this assertion may have merit, a NZ study found that those relying on DTCA for health information had less healthy lifestyles, suggesting that this reliance may contribute to poor lifestyle and treatment choices, 14 potentially aggravating disadvantage. Evidence that DTCA leads to less cost-effective treatment 15 also raises concerns about impacts on patients vulnerable to cost pressures.

Claim 4: by providing patients with information, DTCA facilitates communication with doctors

While a well-informed public is to be encouraged, this argument is undermined by evidence of the poor quality and misleading information typical of DTCA, irrespective of whether it comes from broadcast, print or online advertising. 16 For example, an analysis of 61 ads televised during prime time in the USA in 2016 found few (16%) with educational content regarding risk factors, contrasting with almost universal (94%) emotional appeals linking the advertised medicine to recreation and other positive experiences. 17 Only 7% discussed lifestyle change as an adjunct to medicine use, none as an alternative. Another recent analysis of the 81 most heavily advertised drugs in the USA found that only 20 (24.6%) were rated as having high therapeutic value. 18

In conclusion, the commercial success of DTCA has ensured vigorous efforts by industry to defend, develop and extend the practice. Indeed, the role of industry lobbyists has been implicated in the NZ government’s 2023 decision to formally legalise DTCA. 10 Nonetheless, available evidence indicates that banning DTCA would help to contain health expenditure and to promote population health by reducing overdiagnosis, overtreatment and iatrogenic harm.

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Patient consent for publication.

Not applicable.

Ethics approval

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X @davidmenkes

Contributors All authors jointly conceived the project and contributed to the analysis. DM drafted the manuscript. All authors edited and approved the final version.

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests David Menkes is a paid member of the Mental Health Advisory Committee, PHARMAC, New Zealand Government. He was paid by Atai Life Sciences for sessional supervision of a Phase One trial of dimethyltryptamine, a psychedelic drug, in healthy volunteers (2022). He is a coinvestigator in two clinical trials, neither of which is industry funded, both commencing in 2023: MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in terminal illness (charity funded); Low dose LSD in adult major depression (Health Research Council funded). Barbara Mintzes has acted as a paid expert witness for Health Canada in a legal case involving marketing of an unapproved drug product. Between 2019 and 2023, Joel Lexchin received payments for a writing brief on the role of promotion in generating prescriptions for a legal firm. He is a member of the Board of Canadian Doctors for Medicare. He receives royalties from University of Toronto Press and James Lorimer & Co. Ltd. for books he has written. He is participating in research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Provenance and peer review Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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As the healthcare industry continues to get more competitive, practices must delicately balance providing high-quality patient care with expanding their reach to attract new patients. Skillfully managing a high volume of inbound calls is a vital component of meeting this challenge. That is where leveraging a comprehensive call tracking service can become a game changer. With a robust call tracking solution in place, healthcare practices can better manage patient opportunities and optimize their marketing efforts to attract and retain new patients. Amidst the evolving healthcare landscape, practices are realizing the transformative potential of call tracking, and how it offers valuable insights into marketing tactics.

Explore three ways call tracking can refine marketing strategies and empower practices to gain a clear understanding of which ad sources are driving revenue for their organization.

Effective marketing is essential for practices striving to grow their patient community. Ineffective marketing could result in misplaced marketing dollars and stagnant growth. Call tracking, particularly when integrated with tools like Google Analytics, provides comprehensive data on patient interactions and campaign performance. By pushing various call types into Google Analytics platform, alongside website conversion metrics, healthcare practices can pinpoint which referring source, keyword, or digital campaign is driving the most phone inquiries. Armed with this information, providers can make informed decisions and optimize their marketing efforts. Missing such insights could mean overlooking avenues for growth and expansion within your target market.

Amidst the daily demands of managing patient appointments and administrative tasks, finding effective ways to attract new patients can feel like an uphill battle. Fortunately, in addition to integrated insights, another crucial aspect of call tracking lies in its ability to provide in-depth outcomes based on source reporting. Call tracking software offers detailed analytics on where calls originated from, whether from online advertisements, social media campaigns, mail campaigns, search engine results, or other sources. Furthermore, comprehensive call tracking allows providers to not only see how many calls are generated from a given source, but also the outcome of those calls. This degree of transparency allows practices to precisely measure the effectiveness of each marketing avenue in driving legitimate patient inquiries. Understanding the specific sources that lead to patient inquiries enables practices to tailor their marketing messages, accordingly, ensuring a more targeted and effective outreach.

For healthcare practices with limited resources, gaining insight into the success of marketing tactics can be challenging. Fortunately, call tracking offers a unique solution by offering tracking lines, which assign distinct phone numbers to various marketing or advertising initiatives for seamless tracking of incoming calls. For example, a dental clinic could allocate two sperate tracking lines for a new patient mailer with a discounted offer and another for a Facebook Ad targeting new patients interested in teeth whitening. With unlimited tracking lines, your practice can determine which marketing strategies generated the most calls and whether staff successfully converted those calls into booked appointments. This granular data not only provides clarity into the effectiveness of different marketing strategies but also allows healthcare practices to maximize their marketing budget efficiently.

Incorporating call tracking with Call Box can empower any healthcare practice to overcome limited marketing insight, refine marketing strategies, and deliver exceptional care. Are you ready to take the first step toward elevating your practice's marketing efforts by exploring the benefits of call tracking? Learn more about how Call Box can help your practice Own the Phone HERE .

Apple faces backlash for 'destructive' iPad ad featuring machine crushing books and instruments

Apple, a company famous in large part for its effective and stylish marketing, crushed it with its newest ad — literally, but not metaphorically.

To promote its new, ultra-thin iPads, the tech giant on Tuesday released an ad in which an industrial press crushes an array of creative objects to birth a new iPad.

The iPad Pro ad features some of art’s greatest tools — books, paint cans, statues, musical instruments including a piano, an old-model TV, an arcade game machine — getting pulverized into oblivion to the cheery tune of Sonny & Cher’s “All I Ever Need Is You.”

"Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create," Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on X on Tuesday in a post with video of the commercial.

Though the company is usually praised for its clever marketing, many people on social media were quick to criticize the commercial, calling it “ destructive ” and saying it is “crushing symbols of human creativity and cultural achievements to appeal to pro creators.”

A spokesperson for Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday regarding the backlash.

Cook's post on X had amassed 19.3 million views as of Wednesday. Much of the engagement came from replies and reposts with commentary from users, some who went as far as telling Apple it should pull the ad and recut it .

“This ad is (unintentional) perfect metaphor for today’s creative dark age: compress organic instruments, joyful/imperfect machines, tangible art, our entire physical reality into a soulless, postmodern, read-only device a multi-trillion $ corporation controls what you do with,” Adam Singer, the vice president of marketing at advertising technology company AdQuick, posted on X .

"Can’t believe Apple ran such an out of touch commercial that treats devices Steve Jobs would have cherished as trash," Eric Newcomer, who runs a tech-focused newsletter and events company, also posted on X .

One X user said the new ad is a "bookend" to the ad the company released in 1984 to unveil its first Macintosh computer. In that commercial, a woman dressed in bright orange shorts runs through an eerie scene out of George Orwell’s “1984” depicting rows of people dressed in gray watching propaganda on a screen. She throws an ax to break the screen, seemingly freeing them from their trance.

“1984: Monochome, conformist, industrial world exploded by colourful, vibrant human,” the user wrote. “2024: Colourful, vibrant humanity is crushed by monochrome, conformist industrial press.”

Apple remains a tech behemoth. While it has faced some challenges around declining iPhone sales , it remains among the most profitable companies in the world .

But it has faced some questions about where it's headed. The company's newest product, the Apple Vision Pro, has underperformed the company's expectations .

The new iPads, released Tuesday , feature a new Apple chip and a new display in addition to their extreme thinness. iPad sales make up a small part of the company's overall revenue .

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More From Forbes

7 strategies for turning your hobby into a profitable online business.

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Although you can turn many hobbies into a business idea, some are better than others at being ... [+] monetized.

When turned into a business, hobbies can be very profitable if you follow effective selling and marketing strategies.

While monetizing your pastime activities won’t immediately replace your day job’s income, it is still a great way to generate extra funds that can alleviate your financial burdens and possibly even grow into one of your most lucrative income streams.

How To Turn Your Hobby Into An Online Business

This article covers several strategies for turning your hobby into a profitable online business.

1. Identify Market Demand

Although you can turn many hobbies into a business idea, some are better than others at being monetized.

So, if you’re interested in generating income from your passion or interest, conduct market research to determine whether there’s enough demand for your services or products.

There are various ways to identify market demand. The most effective ones include spying on your competitors, identifying your target customers and their purchasing capacity, and checking the current market trends.

As you undertake this step, you should also start thinking about how you can differentiate the goods and services you’ll offer from the competition to better gauge whether there’s room for you to remain profitable in your niche.

Fallout Dethroned In Amazon Prime Video s Top 10 List By A New Offering

Google chrome gets second emergency update in a week as new exploit confirmed, metallica makes history with their new no 1 single, 2. determine your business model.

At this stage, you’d want to decide exactly how you plan to run your business. Consider whether you’ll offer finished products, online courses to teach your skill, or services to help others needing your expertise.

Creating a solid business model will help you better visualize your goals and follow the next strategies on this list.

3. Decide How To Fund Your Business

One of the best advantages of turning your hobby into a business is that you likely already have the equipment or tools necessary to create the items or execute the services you want to offer in your business, allowing you to minimize startup costs.

However, since operating a business involves more than just creating the actual offerings, you’ll likely still need funds to cover marketing, online store fees, and other operational expenses.

That said, you must have a clear plan of where you’ll get the funding for your business.Depending on factors such as your current financial standing or how soon you plan to launch your business, you may consider funding it yourself, applying for loans, or seeking other funding alternatives.

4. Build Your Brand

Because eCommerce is a highly saturated industry, you must find ways to differentiate your business from the competition.

One effective way to do this is to establish a brand, not just any store. Establish a strong brand identity by creating a unique name, consistent visuals, and a compelling brand story for your business. Then, ensure that your chosen branding is consistent throughout your online store, product packaging, and marketing materials.

Branding makes your business memorable and creates a professional identity, often encouraging customers to buy or repurchase from your store.

5. Use Social Media To Its Full Potential

Even if you set up an online store in a marketplace that reaches hundreds of millions of people annually, very few people will pay attention to your business unless you promote it effectively.

So, when turning your hobby into a moneymaking venture, always use social media to its full potential .

Apart from traditional marketing strategies, such as paid advertisements and affiliate marketing, you should also consider organic routes of spreading the word, such as telling your friends and local community.The more avenues you have to reach people through social media, the better the chances of generating sales.

6. Set Up An Online Store

Once you've decided exactly which products to sell, how to fund your business, and the focus of your branding, set up an online store on existing marketplaces or your own website.

Ensure that your online store is fully polished with high-quality product listings, layout, and imagery before you release it to the public so that it makes a solid first impression.

7. Use Content Marketing To Monetize Your Hobby

Implement content marketing strategies, such as creating and sharing videos, images, and articles that resonate with your target market.

This approach ensures your brand remains at the forefront of customers' minds, making them more likely to turn to you when they need or desire your products and services.

Remember, content marketing isn’t about directly advertising your offerings but rather providing helpful information that boosts your store's authority and trustworthiness. So, ensure your content is relatable to your audience.

Pitfalls To Watch For When Turning Your Hobby Into A Business

Only some succeed in turning their hobbies into a business. While this outcome has multiple reasons, let's discuss two of the most common pitfalls.

Not Doing Your Research

Whether you're still assessing the feasibility of your business idea , planning your branding, or marketing your products, only proceed after in-depth research. The market constantly changes, so what succeeds depends on numerous factors.

Inadequate Marketing

Digital Commerce 360 estimates there are almost 14 million eCommerce websites in the United States alone, highlighting the intense competition in the online space. If you don’t market enough, it’ll be challenging to get your store noticed. The fewer people who visit your store, the less likely you’ll generate sales.

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