Facebook versus television: advertising value perceptions among females

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to compare female students' perceptions of the value of advertising on social network sites (SNSs) to their perceptions of the value of television advertising. Design/methodology/approach -An online questionnaire was fielded among students from three major universities in the USA, as well as SNSs (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter). The final sample (n ¼ 259) was comprised of female students who had used social media and television during the past month. The authors developed two structural equation models using Amos 18 statistical software. Findings -The analysis indicated that Ducoffe's Ad Value model does not provide a good fit for assessing advertising value in social media or television. While Irritation was a factor in assessing Attitude toward advertising, the respondents assessed ad value on the basis of Entertainment (higher for social media) and Informativeness (higher for television). Research limitations/implications -In examining the relative importance of each component of Ducoffe's model, it is clear that Entertainment and Informativeness play key roles in assessing advertising value for both traditional (television) and non-traditional media (SNSs). While Irritation did not play a significant role in value assessment, it was found to directly impact attitude towards advertising, a critical juncture in the consumer purchase cycle. Practical implications -If practitioners seek to interact via SNSs with young female consumers they should focus on providing entertaining content in a format that makes brand engagement seamless while not impeding goals. Originality/value -This initial investigation provides the impetus for future research about consumers' perceptions of advertising value across all SNSs, in comparison to their traditional counterparts.

The influence of Facebook advertising on cognitive attitudes amid Generation Y

“…The findings also substantiate that Facebook advertising yields similar cognitive attitudes compared to Internet advertising in developed countries [10,65,70]. Additionally, it can be theorized that the results of this study were similar to the outcomes of other SNS investigations, which have been conducted in developed countries, thus confirming corresponding cognitive attitudes between emerging nations (such as SA) and first world nations [31,38,39,50,66]. Bolton et al [8] hypothesized that globalization could result in a rise of homogeneousness owing to the Generation Y cohort's SNS usage, but the veracity of this postulation was in doubt because of the relatively poor information technology access, resources and infrastructure that is evident in emerging countries such as SA.…”

“…Bolton et al [8] hypothesized that globalization could result in a rise of homogeneousness owing to the Generation Y cohort's SNS usage, but the veracity of this postulation was in doubt because of the relatively poor information technology access, resources and infrastructure that is evident in emerging countries such as SA. Several of the aforementioned inquiries that were implemented in the US and Europe similarly examined Generation Y [31,38,50], thereby demonstrating that South African Generation Y cohort members have similar cognitive attitudes to their international counterparts, which confirms Bolton et al's [8] supposition to be accurate. Thus, this study has made significant additions to advance cohort, attitudinal and SNA research in a developing country.…”

“…A number of studies have identified Generation Y as the main users of online digital and online technological gadgets and innovations such as SNS and mobile applications and, consequently, a target market for online marketers [16,30,38,49,61]. Furthermore, several studies have revealed that students are the primary users of SNS [32,51,52,57], and are hence exposed to advertising on SNS such as Facebook.…”

“…Research on SNA is still in its exploratory stage, especially in developing countries such as SA. A majority of studies that have investigated various aspects of SNA have been conducted in Europe and the United States (US) [3,4,30,31,38,39,50,66], while the fastest growing SNS audiences are in emerging regions such as Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, where SNS use may differ significantly [22]. Consequently, this study aims to provide insights into Facebook advertising's impact from a SA perspective, where a quarter of the population can be categorized into Generation Y cohort [58].…”

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

“…A number of studies have considered gender's influence on different SNA with varying results (Agrawal & Jaliwani, 2013;Logan et al, 2013;Walter, 2014;Mansour, 2016). However, few have considered the influence of gender on FCC among Generation Z.…”