Gender Differences in the Perception of Motivations for Consumer’s Online Brand-Related Activities and Their Impacts on Instagram

Abstract

The paper assessed the issue of gender differences in the perception of individual types of COBRAs (Consumers' Online Brand Related Activities) and the associated motivations (information, entertainment, social interaction, and remuneration) for these activities on the social network Instagram. The paper analyzed data gathered from questionnaires (a sample of 401 respondents) that had been spread online via computer-assisted web interviewing. Gender differences were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test. Seven research hypotheses were formulated concerning the literature review and the current state of research in this area. Based on the results, it could be stated that four of them are statistically significant. Specifically, the study observed gender differences in the perception of three of the four analyzed motivations as latent variables. The study verified gender differences in the perception of the issue in the case of information motives, motives of entertainment, and motives of social interaction. Still, the motive of remuneration did not show sufficient statistical significance. In the case of the three analyzed consumers' online brand-related activities as latent variables, the authors observed only one case of statistical significance of the gender difference in the case of consumption activity, while neither contributing nor creating as activities showed statistical significance. At the level of manifest variables, the paper observed two cases of statistical significance of the factors related to the contributing activity. However, that was insufficient to confirm this activity's significance as a latent variable. A significance level of 0.05 was proposed. The findings were presented in the context of existing research with a pointed future direction of the research in this area, which lies mainly in extending the analysis to other social networking platforms, other markets, and a narrower demographic perspective in the sample for a deeper understanding of the phenomena studied.