Response to Advertising Delivered by Voice Assistants: The Mediating Role of Persuasion Knowledge, Perceived Control, Social Presence, and Privacy Concerns

Abstract

More than 40% of Americans used a voice assistant (VA) this year to aid them with a host of tasks, including purchasing nearly $20B in products and services. Voice-assisted advertising is forecasted to grow exponentially over the next decade, but research examining how various promotional messages delivered by a VA impact consumers’ attitudes and purchase behaviors is limited. Guided by the computers are social actors paradigm and integrating tenets from the persuasion knowledge model, social presence theory, and psychological reactance theory, this experimental study examines how VA users’ privacy concerns, situational persuasion knowledge, and perceived control of the interaction along with the social presence of the VA work in concert to influence VA users’ purchase intentions when presented with personalized promotional messaging in response to their requests. Findings across shopping list and search query contexts and between brand-integrated responses and responses that incorporated a traditional commercial indicate that situational persuasion knowledge and a sense of the VA’s social presence combined to positively mediate a promotional message’s ability to incite purchase intentions. However, perceived control and social presence combined to negatively mediate a promotional message’s influence on purchase intentions. Theoretical and practical implications for researchers and advertisers are discussed in detail.