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© Media Watch 7 (2) 244-255, 2016ISSN 0976-0911 e-ISSN 2249-8818DOI: 10.15655/mw/2016/v7i2/98729

Indian Consumers' Beliefs, Attitudes andBehavioural Responses towards Advertising onSocial Networking Sites

ARUN KUMAR & MRINALINI PANDEYIndian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India

Advertising is an important facet of marketing of a product or a company. Themarketers are using myriad ways to influence the consumers’ purchase behaviour.One of the latest trends is advertising on social networking sites. This study isan attempt to examine the beliefs, attitudes and responses towardsadvertisements on social networking sites. For this study, structuredquestionnaire was administered on a sample of 150 post-graduate students.Structural Equation Modeling was employed to analyze the factors andrelationships among them. The research revealed a positive impact ofinformativeness, entertainment, credibility and user-generated-content belieffactors on attitudes and behaviour of respondents. The findings also suggestedthat user-generated content had significant impact on attitude and behaviourresponses towards advertising on social networking sites. It was also foundthat attitude towards advertising on social networking sites played a mediatingrole between social media advertising beliefs and behavioural responses ofconsumers.

Keywords:   Social networking sites, advertising beliefs, attitudes, behaviours

Advertising is a promotional activity and a form of marketing communication that is usedto introduce, persuade and/or remind consumers about an offer. It is marketingcommunication strategy that is used to reach for targeting audience and affecting theirbehaviour. Advertising messages are delivered through various offline and online mediumlike print media, TV, Radio, online advertising and social media advertising. Before comingof digital era, marketing activities had been traditional. The emergence of digital era hasprompted various companies towards the digital marketing (Heinnonen & Michenson,2010). Rapid growth in digital sector and public exposure to social media have given newopportunities to marketers and advertisers to focus and target an emerging section ofvirtual society (Natarajan, Balakrishnan, Balasubramanian, & Manickavasagam, 2014).Social media usage has become a standard practice and symbiotic relationship with thesocial media users. Social media provides a direct point of contact with the products’brand whatever they use and they access (Neilson, Digital Consumer Report, 2014).

Social media advertising is defined as an online advertisement that incorporatesuser interaction that the consumer has agreed to display and be shared (InteractiveAdvertising Bureau, 2009, p.4). The resulting ad displays these interactions along with the

Correspondence to: Arun Kumar, Department of Management Studies, Indian School ofMines, Dhanbad-826 004, Jharkhand, India. E-mail: arun.vaisali@gmail.com

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users’ persona (picture and/or name) within the ad content (Interactive Advertising Bureau,2009, p.4). Interactive Advertising Bureau (2009) further described that customization,targeting, and social interaction are main components of advertising on social networkingsites (p.5). Global expenditure on social media advertising has reached dollar 23.68billion as on March 2015, which is 33.5 per cent increase from 2014 and it is expectedadvertisement expenditure on social media will reach dollar 35.98 billion by 2017 (e-marketer, 2015). At present India is the second largest Facebook users (social media users)and will become largest Facebook users by 2017 (e-marketer, 2015). This rapid growth ofadvertising on social media has given opportunities for advertisers that include the needfor examining the relationships among beliefs, attitudes and behavioural responses towardsadvertising on social networking site (Natarajan et al., 2014). Previous researchers haveshown that consumer attitudes towards social media advertising as a manifestation ofadvertising effectiveness (Haley, Staffaroni, J, & Fox, 1994; Ducoffe, 1996; Mehta, 2000;Wolin & Korgaonkar, 2002; Karson, McCloy, & Bonner, 2006; Wang & Sun, 2010a, 2010b;Wang & Sun, 2009; Taylor, Lewin, & Strutton, 2011; Mahmoud, 2012a,2012b; Kamal & Chu,2012b; Hassan, Hasnain, Malik, & Imran, 2013; Saxena & Khanna, 2013; Nevarez &Torres, 2015; Jung, Shim, Jin, & Khang, 2015).

Therefore, the proposed model in this study will explain the relationships amongbeliefs, attitudes and behavioural responses towards social media advertising and alsowould help companies and advertisers to develop conveniently advertising messages thatwould succeed in achieving the target customers more effectively in the Indian context.However, till now little research and practice has been done about social media advertisingin the Indian context as the research has been done largely in developed nations (Wang,Sun, 2010a, 2010b; Wang & Sun, 2009; Taylor, Lewin, & Srutton 2011; Nevarej & Torres,2015; Jung, Shim, Jin, & 2015). Therefore, the aim of present study is to explore therelationships among beliefs, attitudes, and behavioural responses towards social mediaadvertising in India.

Literature Review and Hypothesis

Beliefs

Beliefs are conceptualized as specific statements or predictions describing the attributesor consequences of event or object (Wyer & Albarracin, 2005; Wang & Sun, 2010a, 2010b).Mahmoud (2012a) described that beliefs regarding online advertising as all knowledgethat people perceive as correct for online advertising. Beliefs regarding online advertisingare cognitive predictors of attitude towards online advertising (Wang & Sun, 2009; Lei, &Toncar, 2009). One’s belief towards advertising is a multidimensional construct (Wang &Sun, 2009). Bauer and Greyser (1968) analyzed two belief factors. These are economic andsocial factor. Pollay and Mittal (1993) described four socio-economical factors and threepersonal utility factors. Consumers perceive that advertising as good source of productinformation (Ju-Pak, 1999). Previous studies pointed that there was strong relationshipbetween product informational belief and consumer attitude towards online advertisement(Ducoffe, 1996; Wolin, Korgaonkar, & Lund, 2003; Wang, Sun, 2009; Wang & Sun, 2010a,2010b; Lei, Toncar, 2009).

Social media advertising is interactive in nature. It gives pleasure, enjoyment toconsumers. Social media advertising has numerous multimedia integrated functions thatare amusement-oriented (Watson, Akselsen, & Pitt, 1998). Similarly previous studies

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showed that there was a strong relationship between entertainment and attitude towardsadvertising on social media (Wolin et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2009; Taylor, Lewin & Strutton,2011; Nevarez & Torres, 2015; Jung, Shim, Jin, & Khang, 2015). Repetition of advertising onsocial media gives irritation. Irritation comes when consumers feel discomfort in watchingadvertising on social media due to certain reason (Saxena & Khanna, 2013). This reasonmay be personal or social. A personal reason may be distraction while focusing onparticular task on social media (Saxena & Khanna, 2013).

Irritation is one of belief factors towards advertising on social media (Li, Edwardsand Lee, 2000; Bauer and Greyser, 1968; Reed, 1999). Advertisements on social media sitesare more trustworthy when information given by advertisers on social media could beaccurate and reliable (Dao, Nhat, Cheng & Chen, 2014). So credibility is also belief factortowards advertising on social media. The primary reason for using social media is tocommunicate or networking with others. User-generated-contents (UGC) are blogs,comments, likes, recommendations, etc made by social media users. According to Neilson’sAdvertising Reports, 92 per cent of social media users around the world trust earnedmedia, such as blogs, comments, likes, recommendations from friends and family (Neilsen,2012). Iyengar, Han and Gupta (2009) examined that user-generated-contents or peerInfluences make a great impact on users’ purchase decision in the context of social media.

Attitudes

Runyon and Stewart (2002) defined attitudes as “a learned predispositions to response ina consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given subject”. Attitudesare thought of object- evaluation association (Fazio, 1989). Thus attitudes can beunderstood as two-node semantic network. First node is representation of object andsecond node is evaluation of that object (Fabrigar, MacDonald, & Wegener, 2005). There islink between the two nodes associated with strength related to attitude (Fabrigar et al.,2005). In the case of digital media advertising, Mahmoud (2012a) described attitudes as apredisposition to like or dislike advertising messages on social media.

Behaviour Responses

Behavioural responses towards advertising on social media are actions that social mediausers take after viewing an advertisement on social media. These actions may be visitinghome page advertisement or social impression advertisement on social media for obtainingmore knowledge about the products or brands. In the case of online advertising, behaviouralresponses are expressed as “clicking on advertisements” and “leaving the page showingthe advertisements” on social media (Wolin et al., 2002; Wang & Sun, 2010a, 2010b;Mahmoud, 2013).

Advertising on Social Media: Attitude and Behaviour

Previous studies have pointed out that consumer beliefs contribute to make positive attitudetowards advertising (Ducoffe, 1996). Consumers’ responses follow a hierarchy of effects-sequence of cognitive, affective and behavioural responses (Lavidge & Stiener, 1961; Kamal& Chu, 2012; Palda, 1966). In the cognitive phase consumers develop awareness andknowledge. In the second phase such as affective phase, consumers develop their liking,convictions and preferences. In the last phase as behavioural responses, consumers enact

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their purchase. In respect to social media advertising, research has supported for positiveassociation between beliefs and attitudes towards advertising on social networking sites.Beliefs play a major role in predicting consumers’ attitudes towards social mediaadvertising (Wolin et al., 2002; Yang, 2003; Wang & Sun, 2010a, 2010b; Li-Ming, Wing &Hussain, 2013; Kamal, Chu, 2012b).

Some beliefs factors for predicting attitude towards social media advertising likeInformativeness (Shavitt et al., 1998; Zhou, Bao, 2012; Usman et al., 2010; Eze, & Lee, 2012;Zabadi et al., 2012; Saxena, Khanna, 2013; Mahmoud, 2012b; Mir, 2012), Entertainment(Shavitt, Lowrey, & Haefner 1998; Zhou Bao, 2012; Usman et al., 2010; Eze & Lee, 2012;Zabadi et al., 2012; Mahmoud, 2012b; Mir 2012; Saxena & Khanna, 2013), Irritation (Zabadiet al., 2012; Mahmoud, 2012b; Saxena & Khanna, 2013), Credibility (Koehn 2001; Wang etal., 2009; Wang 2003; Sun 2010a, 2010b; Dao et al., 2014), and User-generated contentsor Peer influences (Iyengar, Hans & Gupta, 2009; Dao et al., 2014) are found to be moresignificant for predicting attitudes towards advertising on social media than other belieffactors.

Figure 1: Conceptual model

Lavidge and Steiner (1961) concluded that consumers’ attitudes are antecedentsof consumers’ responses towards advertising and their behavioral responses. Mehta (2000)stated from his study that there is positive relationship between attitude and behaviouralresponse towards online advertising. Consumers with positive attitudes towardsadvertising had a higher likelihood for purchase intention (Mehta, 2000). Kargaonkar &Wolin (2002) analyzed that attitudes towards online advertising positively affected tobehavioural responses. According to Jaeming Jung (2015) there is significant impact ofattitude towards advertising for visiting to home page ad on social media. Based on aboveliterature the researchers develop the following hypothesis.

H1: Beliefs about social media advertising will positively influence attitude towards it.

H2: Attitude will fully mediate the relationship between beliefs and behavioral responsestowards social media advertising.

Research Methods

Procedure and Sampling : Quantitative research was adopted for collecting and analyzingdata for this research. Non-Probability sampling was applied on a population of 150 post-graduate students studied Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad in India. The reason behindchoosing college students because they access social media sites frequently and they aremore likely to be exposed advertising by social media.

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Measurement: To measure consumers’ beliefs, attitudes and behavioural responsestowards advertising on social media 23 item scale was adopted from previous research(David & Taylor, 2011; Kamal, 2012; Jaeming Jung, 2015; Dao et al., 2014). To measureresponses Likert-point scale was used (a seven-point scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagreeto 7 strongly Agree). Factor analysis was used to determine different factors related tobeliefs and attitudes towards advertising on social media. Following factors were extractedfrom Factor analysis (Table 1). Measures of this study are validated in Indian context(Table 4). Cronback alpha was used to check for reliability test of item scales. Cronbackalpha is used to check the internal consistency of item scales (Table3).

Demographic Description: Table 2 displays, research respondents consist of 73.33 percent male and 26.67 per cent female. The majority of research respondents belong to malecategory with age ranging between 20 to 30 years.

Testing of Hypothesis

To test the hypothesis, statistical method of structural equation modeling was applied.Analysis of moment structure version 20 was used for predicting relationship amongdifferent factors in the study. To assess the goodness of fit the following parameters wereanalyzed:(i) Root mean square residual (Hu, Bentler, 1990); (ii) Normed fit index (Bentler, Bonett,1980); (iii) Root mean square residual approximation (Browne, cudeck, 1993); and (iv)

Table 1. Factor analysis

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Comparative fit index (Bentler, 1990). The value of goodness of fit index (Table 6) showsthat the data is fit for this model. The value of Normed fit index is higher than 0.9 (NFI=0.97),the Comparative fit index value is higher than 0.9 (CFA=0.98), the Root mean square residualvalue is less than 0.05 (RMR=0.034), and the Root mean square error of approximationvalue is less than 0.08 (RMSEA=0.035). Thus it is concluded that this model is good fit forthe data. Table 5 indicates that all indirect effects are significant.

Table 2. Demographic description

Table 3. Reliability test

Information directly influences the attitude towards advertising on social media.Information positively influences attitude towards social media advertising(estimate=0.155, p-value < 0.01). Entertainment (estimate=0.34, p-value < 0.01), credibility(estimate=0.27, P-value < 0.01), and User-generated content or peer-influence(estimate=0.36, p-value < 0.01) positively affect to attitude towards social mediaadvertising. Irritation (estimate=-0.27, p-value < 0.01) negatively influences attitude towardssocial media advertising. Hence Hypothesis (H1) is supported

Irritation positively influence social media users’ responses of not visiting tohome page ad on social media (estimate=0.43, p-value < 0.01). User-generated-content orpeer-influence positively impacts social media users’ responses of visiting home page adon social media for getting further information concerning advertised products or services(estimate=0.45, p-value < 0.01). From the value Table 5, it is concluded that attitude is amediating factor between social media advertising beliefs and behavior responses. HenceHypothesis (H2) is supported.

Attitudes fully mediate the relationships between social media ad beliefs ofInformativeness (p-value < 0.01), irritation (p-value < 0.01), credibility (p-value < 0.01) ,entertainment (p-value < 0.01), and the visiting to home page ad on social media, andpartially mediate the relationship between user-generated content or peer- influence (p-value < 0.01) and the visiting on home page ad on social media.

Attitudes fully mediate the relationship between social media ad beliefs ofinformativeness (p-value < 0.05), entertainment (p-value < 0.05) , User- generated- contentor peer-influence (p-value < 0.05) and the not visiting to home page ad on social media,and partially mediate the relationship between irritation (p- value < 0.05) and the notvisiting home page ad on social media(Figure 2).

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Table 4. Measures used

Table 5. Mediation effect confirmation and indirect effect significance

** P < 0.01; * P< 0.05

When confirmatory factor analysis is used, it is important to establish convergent anddiscriminant validity for validity and reliability for each construct. The following measureswere used to check for validity and reliability for constructs (Hair, Black, W., Babin.,Anderson, R.E., & Tatham, 2010).

(i) For reliability:- composite reliability should be greater than 0.7 (CR > 0.7)(ii) For convergent validity:- Average variance extracted should be greater than 0.5

(AVE > 0.5).

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Figure 2. Path model

Table 7. Convergent and discriminate validity

Table 6. Structural model result

(iii) For discriminate validity:- maximum shared variance (MSV) should be less thanaverage variance extracted (AVE) (MSV < AVE), and average shared variance (ASV)should be less than AVE (ASV < AVE). All four measures for discriminate validityand reliability fulfill criteria. Each construct fulfill the criteria. From Table 7, itis observed that all common criteria are fulfilled by four measures for validityand reliability.

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Discussion

This study explores the Indian consumers’ perceive beliefs about social media advertisingas a multi-dimension construct (i.e, entertainment, informativness, credibility, irritation,and user-generated-content or peer-influence), and attitude as one-dimension construct.All the belief factors affect to attitude towards social media advertising and subsequentlyattitude affect to behavioral responses. But major finding of this research is that user-generated-content or peer-influence affect attitude towards social media advertising morethan other belief factors. The results also show that there is direct effect of user-generatedcontent or peer-influence on behavioral responses towards social media advertising. Socialmedia users interact or communicate to each other on social media. They post or likecomments on social media. So user-generated content or peer-influence is important factorfor making positive attitude and behavioral responses towards social media advertising(Iyengar, Han, and Gupta, 2009; Dao et al., 2014). Direct relationship between user-generated-content or peer-influence and visiting the home page ad on social media provides a majorcontribution to current literature demonstrating that beliefs might be directly linked tobehavioral responses. Research finding also shows that there is direct effect of irritationon Indian social media users’ behavioral responses towards social media advertising.Descriptive statistics and inter-correlation among factors is given in Table 8.

Attitudes towards advertising on social media is found to mediate fully therelationship between some belief factors (informativeness, irritation and credibility) andthe behavioral responses of visiting the home page ad on social media (Wolin et al., 2002;Zhou & Bao, 2002; Wang, Sun 2010a, 2010b; Kamal & Chu 2012b; Koehn, 2001; Dao et al.,2014). Results also show that there is partially mediation relationship between user-generated-content or peer-influence and visiting the home page ad on social media. Thefinding suggests that Indian consumers with positive belief about social media advertisingform positive attitude and consequently enhance the possibilities of visiting to home pagead on social media. Moreover, Indian consumers who like social media advertising likevisiting to home page ad on social media. Even those ads are influenced by peer or not. Theresearch finding also explores that attitudes towards social media advertising mediatesfully the relationship between beliefs (informativeness, credibility and user-generatedcontent or peer-influence) and not visiting to social media advertisement (Wolin et al.,2002; Zhou & Bao, 2002; Wang, Sun 2010a, 2010b; Kamal & Chu 2012b; Koehn, 2001; Daoet al., 2014). Present study also finds that attitude towards advertising on social media

Table 8. Descriptive statistics and inter-correlation

** p<0.01;*p<0.05

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mediates partially the relationship between irritation and not visiting home pageadvertisement on social media. If Indian consumers have positive attitude towards socialmedia advertising, there is less possibility of not visiting home page advertisement onsocial media. Moreover, Indian consumers with favorable attitude towards social mediaadvertising will not visit the home page advertisement on social media, even if they findsocial media advertising is irritating or not.

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Arun Kumar is a doctoral student in the Department of Management Studies at IndianSchool of Mines, Dhanbad, India.

Dr. Mrinalini Pandey is an assistant professor in the Département of Management Studiesat Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, India. Her area of research intrest are celibrityendorsement, consumer perceptions of advertisement.