Abstract
Purpose – This study set out to measure the perceived Advertising Value of Twitter ads on a large sample of Mexican Millennials. Design/methodology/approach – An online survey was used to collect data among 630 university students. The hypothesized antecedents of Advertising Value were Informativeness, Entertainment, Irritation and Credibility. The model was estimated using Partial Least Squares. Findings – Results indicate Informativeness and Entertainment were the strongest predictors, with Credibility in third place. In addition, Credibility displayed gender effects: it was significant for female respondents but not for males. Irritation failed to reach statistical significance in most subsamples, suggesting Twitter ads are more acceptable to Millennials than other advertising formats. Originality/value – Millennials tend to dismiss traditional advertising formats. At the same time they are heavy users of Social Networking Sites. This research provides the first empirical estimation of the Ducoffe model of Advertising Value in the microblogging service Twitter, and the first application of this robust model of web advertising to a Latin American sample. Our results have important implications for both regional and global brands targeting Millennials.
Highlights
Despite being ranked among the top destinations on the Internet, Social Networking sites (SNS) often struggle to generate revenues commensurate to their large operating costs
We found that perceived Informativeness, Entertainment and Credibility significantly influence perceptions of Advertising Value and Attitudes toward advertising in the Twitter platform
Four of our six research hypotheses were supported in all samples, one was supported in the full sample and some subsamples, and only one hypothesis received limited support
Summary
Despite being ranked among the top destinations on the Internet, Social Networking sites (SNS) often struggle to generate revenues commensurate to their large operating costs. The advertising model, which includes text and banner ads, affiliate ads, and sponsorships, is the most commonly used by SNS (Enders et al, 2008; Nogueira-Cortimiglia, Ghezzi, & Renga, 2011). This model depends on a large user base, with monthly active users as the key metric, because most advertisers will require several million unique visitors to consider a particular SNS as a feasible option to invest their advertising budgets. Twitter users in the region are mostly teenagers and young adults, which suggest Twitter advertising would be an attractive option for brands targeting Millennials. Our findings are relevant to global and regional brands targeting young consumers in Latin America
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