Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media

© 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to marketing communications literature by exploring consumer responses to covert advertising (CA) in a social media context. Design/methodology/approach: The persuasion knowledge model was used to explore the i...

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Main Authors: Göbel, F., Meyer, A., Ramaseshan, Balasubramani, Bartsch, S.
Format: Journal Article
Published: Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2017
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/55199
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author Göbel, F.
Meyer, A.
Ramaseshan, Balasubramani
Bartsch, S.
author_facet Göbel, F.
Meyer, A.
Ramaseshan, Balasubramani
Bartsch, S.
author_sort Göbel, F.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description © 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to marketing communications literature by exploring consumer responses to covert advertising (CA) in a social media context. Design/methodology/approach: The persuasion knowledge model was used to explore the impact of CA on brand evaluations. A factorial design experiment was conducted in a social media context (YouTube). Findings: The results of the study show that triggering knowledge about CA changes the way consumers respond to unfamiliar brands that use such tactics. This implies that for unfamiliar brands, with future development of persuasion knowledge, CA in social media will not only be ineffective but also detrimental with damaging effects on the brand. Research limitations/implications: An important contribution of this study lies in the application of the persuasion knowledge model to social media context. Practical implications: The results indicate that firms should desist from covert product and brand communications in social media contexts, and instead employ disclosed brand communications. Originality/value: Given that the effects of CA have not been investigated in an online context, this study makes a unique contribution to brand communications research by providing valuable insights and better understanding of the effects of CA in social media, specifically YouTube.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-551992017-09-13T16:10:06Z Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media Göbel, F. Meyer, A. Ramaseshan, Balasubramani Bartsch, S. © 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to marketing communications literature by exploring consumer responses to covert advertising (CA) in a social media context. Design/methodology/approach: The persuasion knowledge model was used to explore the impact of CA on brand evaluations. A factorial design experiment was conducted in a social media context (YouTube). Findings: The results of the study show that triggering knowledge about CA changes the way consumers respond to unfamiliar brands that use such tactics. This implies that for unfamiliar brands, with future development of persuasion knowledge, CA in social media will not only be ineffective but also detrimental with damaging effects on the brand. Research limitations/implications: An important contribution of this study lies in the application of the persuasion knowledge model to social media context. Practical implications: The results indicate that firms should desist from covert product and brand communications in social media contexts, and instead employ disclosed brand communications. Originality/value: Given that the effects of CA have not been investigated in an online context, this study makes a unique contribution to brand communications research by providing valuable insights and better understanding of the effects of CA in social media, specifically YouTube. 2017 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/55199 10.1108/MIP-11-2016-0212 Emerald Group Publishing Limited restricted
spellingShingle Göbel, F.
Meyer, A.
Ramaseshan, Balasubramani
Bartsch, S.
Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
title Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
title_full Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
title_fullStr Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
title_full_unstemmed Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
title_short Consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
title_sort consumer responses to covert advertising in social media
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/55199