Ad skepticisms: Antecedents and consequences

Abstract

C H R O N I C L E A B S T R A C TEngaging customer is the burning issue for companies especially the service sector, either online or offline. Minimizing the customer disengagement is the same like reducing dissatisfaction or churn. Customer disengagement may be caused by many factors, ad skepticism is one of them; ad skepticism has two main antecedents personality variable and consumption/influencing variables. This research explores the relationship of ad skepticism with customer disengagement through personality variables which are cynicism, reactance and self-esteem. The unit of analysis is the telecom and banking industry of Pakistan which is foreseeing an era of virtual currency and both are customer oriented industries. Only offline disengagement is researched and data is collected from the Business centers of telecom and banking branches dealing with virtual currency in Pakistan. Hypothetical model is given after digging the relevant literature; model is tested through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Eight hypotheses were purposed from the connections of model, all hypotheses are accepted except the cynicism positive effect on social ad skepticism. This can be due to commonality of social and charity in Pakistani society, Muslims consider charity as a pious act and they do not think for cynic behavior in charity or social related works. The results manifest that customers in telecom industry are having ad skepticism and that is becoming the cause of their disengagement. Further, social ad skepticism has more impact on the customer disengagement than the general ad skepticism. While the reactance has more effect on general ad skepticism than other antecedents and cynicism has the lowest impact on social ad skepticism than other antecedents.

Exploring customer engagement valences in the social services

“…The term disengagement was briefly introduced into the marketing literature by Dwyer et al (1987) who conceptualise it as a dissolution of a buyer-seller relationship, capable of occurring at any time throughout the exchange. Since Dwyer’s (1987) initial discussion, the services marketing literature have mostly ignored disengaged customers who do not display overtly negative cues, but who are emotionally, cognitively and behaviourally “absent” from the relationship (Khuhro et al , 2017; Maslowska et al , 2016; Hamzelu et al , 2017). Yet, research by Chebat et al (2005) suggests that up to two-thirds of dissatisfied customers fall into a disengaged segment, who take no action against a service provider in the wake of service failures.…”

“…Yet, research by Chebat et al (2005) suggests that up to two-thirds of dissatisfied customers fall into a disengaged segment, who take no action against a service provider in the wake of service failures. According to Khuhro et al (2017) this “inaction” can take a physical, cognitive and emotional form. Customers can refuse to interact with a service by ignoring the provider and becoming emotionally “estranged” from the brand entirely (Khuhro et al , 2017; Quintal et al , 2012).…”

“…According to Khuhro et al (2017) this “inaction” can take a physical, cognitive and emotional form. Customers can refuse to interact with a service by ignoring the provider and becoming emotionally “estranged” from the brand entirely (Khuhro et al , 2017; Quintal et al , 2012). Subsequently, disengaged customers can be “silent killers” who refuse to complain directly to service organisations and instead allow conditions to worsen in a dissatisfactory relationship (Hamzelu et al , 2017).…”

How are ad scepticism levels of young consumers shaped? Testing with simultaneous quantile regression analysis

“…Cynical consumers react severely to ads that they consider dishonest, unethical and unreliable. This is because consumers intend to attain the desired ends by using the product or service, achieving the goal or experiencing failure (Khuhro, Khan, Humayon, & Khuhro, 2017). If they face a failure, then they would develop a cynical attitude towards the marketing agent and its claims (Campbell & Kirmani, 2000).…”

Antecedents of Social Media Advertising Avoidance: An Empirical Study in Pawnbroking Industry

“…The relationship between ad skepticism and ad avoidance was kept investigating in 2017 with the studies of Loureiro and Khuhro et al; however, there is a conflict in this research. Khuhro et al (2017) compared the influence of traditional advertising skepticism and online advertising skepticism on customer disengagement. While traditional advertising skepticism had a medium impact on customer avoidance, online advertising skepticism had a giant impact on customer advertising avoidance.…”