While benefit-based advertising appeals hold promise in encouraging charitable donations, there is no consensus on which beneficiary focus (self vs. other) is more persuasive. Through a meta-analytic review (k = 90) of experimental research, we found that overall, in charity advertising, self-benefit and other-benefit appeals did not differ significantly in their persuasiveness. That said, people's impression management motive was found to be a significant moderator such that when one's concerns of impression management were made more salient, they would find messages highlighting the benefit of donation to others (i.e. other-benefit appeal) more persuasive than those that highlight the benefit to oneself (i.e. self-benefit appeal). In contrast, in the case of an attenuated impression management motive, self-benefit appeals would outperform other-benefit appeals in generating positive persuasion outcomes. Other moderators, including cultural orientation, type of benefit to the giver, and donation type, did not alter the effects of benefit appeals on persuasion.

In-feed native posts represent a growing form of social media advertising in the highly competitive Chinese market. This study examines Chinese sportswear brands' use of native posts and celebrity endorsements for product promotion on Weibo. It conducted a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment (N = 232) to examine the effects of sponsorship disclosure (absent vs. present), endorser type (non-celebrity vs. celebrity), and brand credibility (low vs. high) on Chinese consumer responses. Results revealed that presenting a disclosure label (vs. no disclosure) did not lead to greater advertising recognition, and this recognition in turn had no significant negative effects on consumer responses. However, it was found that using celebrity endorsers in native posts led to greater purchase intentions than using non-celebrity endorsers. Meanwhile, brand credibility positively affected brand attitudes and purchase intentions. These findings suggest that celebrity endorsement and a strong brand reputation are favorable factors for brands to achieve their advertising objectives. These results contribute to the literature on Chinese social media advertising and offer practical implications for the sportswear industry.

Over the years, scholars have conducted a number of studies to examine the effectiveness of green messages in advertisements. But a gap in knowledge remains regarding how and to what extent such messages are effective in changing advertising and brand attitudes and purchase intentions. To fill the gap, we analyzed published experiment-based studies to investigate the persuasive impact of green messages in advertisements and developed a research model outlining the relationships between the key variables. Results of the meta-analysis suggested that overall, green ads had significant effects on ad attitudes, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. Such effects, however, varied across several moderating conditions. These results have both practical and theoretical implications.

The purpose of the present study is to explore how narrative political ads interact with other message strategies in affecting recipients' ad responses. To accomplish that, we conducted a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects experiment whereby participants viewed political ads manipulated by message format (non-narrative vs. narrative), message valence (negative vs. positive), and message focus (issue vs. character). Results suggested that narrative political ads elicited favorable advertising evaluations via increased transportation and reduced counterarguing. Moreover, when political ads attacked the competing candidate's character, the narrative message led to higher levels of empathy and lower levels of counterarguing than the non-narrative message. Reduced counterarguing was the mechanism through which favorable ad evaluations were generated. These findings have both theoretical and practical implications.

This chapter includes a study about narrative persuasion in the context of political advertising. The study examined mechanisms of narrative persuasion, including transportation, counterarguing, and three discrete emotions within 2018 senatorial and gubernatorial narrative video ads using a 2 (valence: support vs. attack) × 2 (length: 30-second vs. 60-second) factorial experiment. Results showed the discrete emotion of happiness served as a primary mediator between valence and transportation, and between valence and attitudinal variables (candidate and ad). A valence-by-length interaction also affected happiness and attitude toward the candidate.

Influencers are required to make disclosures while posting sponsored content on social media. This study examined what kind of disclosures are effective and how prominent disclosures interact with advertising knowledge and message involvement to affect the recognition of sponsored influencer posts on Instagram. It conducted an online experiment (N = 296) with a 2 (disclosure type: prominent vs. subtle) x 2 (advertising knowledge: enhanced vs. not enhanced) x 2 (message involvement: high vs. low) between-subjects factorial design. Results revealed that people with enhanced advertising knowledge or with high message involvement led to greater advertising recognition, regardless of the degree of disclosure prominence. While on the other hand, when people's knowledge of sponsored influencer content was not enhanced or when they were low in message involvement, the prominent disclosure was more effective than the subtle one in improving advertising recognition. Furthermore, recognizing sponsored content elicited resistance, which in turn led to less favourable attitude towards the brand. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings were discussed.

This study involved a 2 (image type: funny meme vs. serious image) × 2 (level of bandwagon cues: high vs. low) between-subjects online experiment (N = 258). Statistical results showed that using Internet memes was more effective than using serious images in the setting of brand-related Twitter posts. Specifically, when this study's participants perceived the deployed meme to be humorous, they evidenced positive attitudes toward the post and greater intention to share the post on social media. Furthermore, bandwagon cues were found to moderate the meme effect on persuasion through perceived humor. Participants' humor perception was enhanced when exposed to a meme post featuring a large number of replies, retweets, and likes (i.e., a high level of bandwagon cues). An unexpected outcome that emerged from the data was that funny memes had a negative impact on brand recall through humor perception. This study's exploration of funny memes as humor stimuli within the context of social media adds to the literature on humor communications in marketing, as well as illustrates the importance of bandwagon effects for humor persuasion.

The use of narrative text in health messaging has been ubiquitous. With the popularity of promoting public health on social media, it becomes critical to investigate what visual images should be used to maximize the impact of narrative health-related posts. This study focused on messages designed to communicate the breast cancer risk associated with alcohol use. We conducted a 2 (text: narrative vs. non-narrative) x 2 (visuals: exemplar vs. non-exemplar) between-subjects online experiment (N = 299). Our results showed that narrative (vs. non-narrative) text led to greater attention, stronger negative emotions, and higher intentions to seek information about alcohol use and cancer among female drinkers. The visual exemplar (vs. non-exemplar) also produced higher intentions to seek information and reduce alcohol use. More importantly, including a visual exemplar (vs. non-exemplar) significantly increased negative emotions and subsequently behavioral intentions when the text was a narrative, but the visual content did not make a difference when the text was a non-narrative. The results of this study show the importance of adding a relevant visual exemplar to narrative text, such as a photo of the character, to improve message effectiveness.

Carousel advertisements (ads) on social media provide consumers with the opportunity to scroll left and right when reading an ad’s content. Such an interactive advertising format has great potential to elevate consumers’ interactive and engagement experience with ads, which might be further linked with increased advertising effectiveness. The present study sets out to explore the efficacy of carousel advertising for communicating public health issues by considering both media-specific (i.e., noncarousel versus carousel) and message-specific (i.e., statistics versus narrative) characteristics. Through two experiments, we found reading carousel ads increased participants’ control perception, which was positively associated with their message engagement and then favorable ad-related outcomes. Yet, contrary to predictions, the narrative-based carousel ad was found to be no more interactive or engaging than the statistics-based one in affecting perceptual and attitudinal outcomes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for interactive advertising research.

This study investigates the role of media in shaping human papilloma virus vaccination intentions in mainland China by applying both communication and marketing-focused theoretical frameworks in order to better understand ways to increase vaccine uptake across young men and women in China. An online survey (N=359) revealed direct effects of online information consumption on perceived scarcity of the vaccine, as well as an indirect effect via perceived influence of media on others. Scarcity perceptions, in turn, predicted vaccine attitudes and behavioral intentions. Additionally, gender differences emerged in the data. Compared with women, men?s intent to be vaccinated were not high, even if they realized the vaccine shortage. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

PurposeSponsored social media content is one of the advertising strategies that companies implement so that ads appear as native to the delivery platform without making consumers feel that they are directly targeted. Hence, the current study examines whether prominently featuring corporate information on social media ads affects how consumers perceive them. It also investigates whether an ad's evaluation metrics on Twitter (e.g. number of likes/comments) influence its persuasiveness and consumers' behavioral intentions towards the sponsoring company. Underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms through which sponsored content operates are also investigated.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (corporate credibility: low vs high) by 2 (bandwagon cues: low vs high) between-subjects experiment was conducted.FindingsThe findings showed that corporate credibility and bandwagon cues can influence social media ad effectiveness. Sponsored content from high-credibility companies – evoked more favorable attitudes and behavioral intentions – is perceived as less intrusive, and elicits less anger than equivalent posts from low-credibility companies. Furthermore, it was found that bandwagon cues work via different pathways. For high-credibility corporations, a high number of bandwagon cues improved ad persuasiveness by mitigating consumers' anger towards intrusive sponsored content. Conversely, for low-credibility corporations high bandwagon cues enhanced ad persuasiveness, and this triggered more positive attitudes towards it.Originality/valueThis paper is the first to test corporate credibility and bandwagon effects in social media ads, while also exploring consumers' cognitive and affective responses to sponsored content. Implications for how companies with varying popularity levels should promote products on social media are discussed.

This case study examines how editors select stories for a Chinese-language publication’s WeChat public account. Results of a content analysis between May and August 2014 indicate that editors do not strictly rely on established news values to select WeChat stories. News categories better predict story decisions. Furthermore, news-category priorities identified in interviews with editors closely match what readers want to see.