Effect of Gen Y's Affective Attitudes Towards Facebook Marketing Communications in South Africa

Abstract

The ubiquitous role of technology in the lives of Generation (Gen) Y consumers is commonly recognized in scholarly circles, as well as the pervasive use of interactive and social media among younger consumers, which is significant for marketers from an advertising perspective. Widespread usage of social media such as Facebook is generating billions of dollars in advertising revenue, however, little is known about the attitudes of consumers towards advertising on this conduit in developing countries, especially in terms of the effect of various usage characteristics and demographic factors. This study investigates the influence of Facebook advertising on affective attitudes amongst Gen Y in South Africa (SA). The findings of the inquiry revealed a generally positive predisposition towards Facebook advertising vis‐à‐vis affective attitudes, which makes a noteworthy contribution to the limited social media research on hierarchy response theory in developing countries. This investigation should also assist companies and their brands to understand what makes Gen Y like and develop a preference for their products that are promoted on Facebook, as well as the impact of various usage and demographics variables, thereby abetting the development and implementation of more effective marketing communications on this vast digital interactive medium in South Africa.

YouTube marketing communication demographic and usage variables influence on Gen Y's cognitive attitudes in South Africa and Romania

“…The huge growth of mobile devices has contributed to the growth of YouTube (Smith, 2019;Stokes, 2017;YouTube, 2019), especially in developing countries. Therefore, the following hypothesis is investigated by this study (refer to Figure 1 Several other studies established that the number of years' experience have an impact Gen Y and Z's attitudes, but the findings differed these inquiries considered different social network sites (SNS) and younger cohorts, viz, Gen Z (Duffett, 2015a(Duffett, , 2015b(Duffett, , 2016a(Duffett, , 2016b(Duffett, , 2017. Hence, this research considers that following hypothesis (refer to Figure 1):…”

“…Several other studies established that the number of years' experience have an impact Gen Y and Z's attitudes, but the findings differed these inquiries considered different social network sites (SNS) and younger cohorts, viz, Gen Z (Duffett, , , , , ). Hence, this research considers that following hypothesis (refer to Figure ):H5 The influence of awareness on knowledge varies according to the number of years that Gen Y utilizes YouTube in SA and RO.…”

“…Other inquiries found reported varied findings in terms of the period of time spent viewing social media MC on different SNS channels and cohorts (Duffett, 2015a(Duffett, , 2015b(Duffett, , 2016a(Duffett, , 2016b(Duffett, , 2017. Li and Lo (2014), Balakrishnan and Manickavasagam (2016), and Chungviwatanant et al…”

Effect of YouTube Marketing Communication on Converting Brand Liking into Preference among Millennials Regarding Brands in General and Sustainable Offers in Particular. Evidence from South Africa and Romania

“…Thus, in order to develop the literature, this inquiry considers several YouTube usage factors. Due to the little research on YouTube usage factors employed as independent variables to explain affective (attitudinal) responses owing to YouTube marketing communication, the study builds on Duffett's research [77] by applying four usage factors (access; length of usage; log-on frequency; log-on duration) employed in the investigation of the impact of Facebook advertising on the South African Generation's Y affective attitudes, while the fifth usage factor (number of advertisements viewed on YouTube) was developed based on literature.…”

Influence of Facebook Commercial Communications on Generation Z's Attitudes in South Africa

“…The awareness and knowledge scales, were taken from Duffett (2015c). The liking and preference scales, which assessed affective attitudinal responses, were taken from Duffett (2015a). The intention-topurchase and purchase scales, which evaluated behavioural attitudinal responses, were taken from Duffett (2015b).…”