‘Are ad endorsements really annoying?’ The impact of advertising in short-form tourism videos on tourists’ information processing

Abstract

ABSTRACT Short-form tourism videos show high effectiveness in online destination marketing. However, some disruptive factors (i.e. embedded endorsement advertisements) diminish their marketing effectiveness by burdening the viewer’s cognitive processing and breaking one’s online interactive experience with the original tourism-related content in the video. Using a between-subjects online experimental design and 354 valid data from short-form video users, this study explored the effect of interruption by advertisements on the cognitive experience evoked by information stimuli from the perspective of information processing. This study also assessed the difference in short-form tourism video information processing between disturbed and undisturbed situations. In general, results revealed that the formation of destination-related mental imagery in short-form tourism videos is influenced by information processing fluency, and co-predicted both the attitudes and behavioural intentions of travel consumers. Meanwhile, the presence of advertising information in short-form videos notably obstructed users’ information processing fluency as well as the formation of mental imagery, and it also attenuated their destination visit intentions. This study provides a theoretical basis for the moderate interpretation of endorsement advertisements in short-form tourism videos and sheds light on insights related to tourism marketing strategies for short-form tourism videos for relevant practising practitioners.