Dual Mediation Hypothesis Research Articles

Brand celebrities: analysis of celebrity sponsorship posts on Facebook

The social media accounts of celebrities have inspired innovative ways for companies to promote their brands. One form of celebrity-related advertising is celebrity-sponsorship posts. These posts often come at a high cost for the advertiser while it remains unclear which content characteristics are expected to influence the effectiveness of these posts. This paper investigates the impacts of content characteristics of celebrity-sponsorship posts on Facebook on customer engagement. Structural equation modelling was used to assess the characteristics of 313 sponsored posts from 128 celebrities endorsing 154 brands. Drawing on the dual mediation hypothesis and using gratification theory, this study reveals that distinct content characteristics drive either attitudes towards the celebrity or attitudes towards the brand, revealing the double-edged nature of celebrity-sponsorship posts. The findings suggest that marketing managers should carefully design celebrity sponsorship posts by adjusting the balance between celebrity and brand emphasis. Otherwise, there might be a threat of either the brand being overshadowed by the celebrity, thus reducing brand attitude, or the brand 'capturing' the celebrity by - from a fan's perspective - being obviously recognised as plain advertising; as such, this effect can harm the attitude towards the celebrity and, consequently, reduces customer engagement.

Examining and Extending Advertising's Dual Mediation Hypothesis to a Branded Mobile Phone App

ABSTRACTAdvertising's dual mediation hypothesis (DMH) is an important model predicting the relationships among antecedent variables and advertising outcomes. The results of the study reported here extend this theory to a mobile phone branded app. Structural equation modeling with data collected from 277 Millennial participants showed that the DMH was the best-fitting model for explaining attitude toward the app among four competing models. Furthermore, an extended DMH, with an “intention to continue using the app” construct, was found to offer a superior fit over four other extended models and a better model than the traditional DMH.

Consumer social orientation-based personality and social media use: an exploration among young US consumers

This paper reports on a study that developed and tested a model of the link between certain social orientation-based personality traits and consumers' attitude toward online social networking and attitude toward marketers' social networking sites. The study also explored the subsequent influence of these attitudes on likelihood of recommending marketers' social networking sites. The study finds that interdependent self-construal directly and indirectly impacts the attitudinal and intention variables, while social sharing disposition and susceptibility to social networking influence vary in their direct and indirect impact. The study results also reaffirm the attitude-behavioural intentions link, as well as the dual mediation hypothesis, in online social networking attitudes.

Effectiveness of Indecent Language in Advertising on Young Adult Consumer Attitudes and Purchase Intent

This study applies both the Dual Mediation Hypothesis and Schema Congruity Theory to examine the effectiveness of mild controversial advertising executions on young adult consumer cognitions, affect, and behavior. Findings from this study suggest that advertisements featuring mild indecent language result in more positive advertisement attitudes, brand attitudes, and purchase intentions than when decent language is used. Young adult consumers also report more positive advertisement and brand attitudes, and a greater likelihood of purchase when they perceive the advertisement to be congruent with their existing schema, regardless of whether the execution is mildly controversial or noncontroversial in nature. The findings of this study are important to advertisers in the development of effective creative execution techniques.

Investigating the ripple effect in virtual communities: An example of Facebook Fan Pages

Integrating the uses and gratifications theory (U&G theory) with the dual mediation hypothesis (DMH), this research proposes and empirically tests a model aimed at understanding how a ripple effect, a phenomenon that causes marketing messages to diffuse more extensively due to the message receivers’ decisions to spreading the messages through their social networks, is created in virtual communities. A total of 599 Facebook (FB) Fan Page users in Taiwan were recruited and the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of our revised model showed that both perceived news entertainment and perceived news informativeness positively influenced the interestingness dimension of attitude toward the news, the hedonic dimension of attitude toward the FB Fan Page and the utilitarian dimension of attitude toward the FB Fan Page. The hedonic and utilitarian dimensions of attitude toward the FB Fan Page resulted in eWOM intentions (intention to give, pass and obtain information). The interestingness dimension of attitude toward the news plays an important mediating role in the proposed model. Based on the findings, implications and future research suggestions are provided.

Converting freemium customers from free to premium—the role of the perceived premium fit in the case of music as a service

Freemium seems to be a promising solution for content providers to earn money now that Web 2.0 users feel entitled to free services and content services like Spotify generally accept this concept. Providers using freemium offer their service in free basic and paid premium versions. To prompt users to pay, a free version has fewer functions. However, no studies have yet investigated whether limiting features is the best strategy for converting users into paying customers, and, if so, how many functional differences there should be between free and premium versions. Therefore, our study aims to measure whether a free service’s limitations impact the evaluation of free and premium versions. Drawing on the Dual Mediation Hypothesis and the Elaboration Likelihood Model, we examined 317 freemium users’ survey responses. Our results indicate that companies providing freemium services can increase the probability of user conversion by providing a strong functional fit between their free and premium services.

A Dual‐Process Motivational Model of Social and Economic Policy Attitudes

The dual process model (DPM) of ideology and prejudice suggests that right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) should differentially predict support for social versus economic policies. We test a differential prediction hypothesis in which support for social policies should be predicted by RWA, and support for economic policies should be predicted by SDO. We further test a dual mediation hypothesis suggesting that RWA and SDO differentially mediate the indirect effects of distinct combinations of personality traits and social worldviews on these policy attitudes. The hypothesized model provided a reasonable fit in a large New Zealand sample (N = 6,886). Policy attitudes thus consist of at least two dimensions: social versus economic. Individual differences in these attitudes are differentially predicted by RWA and SDO—in much the same way as generalized intergroup attitudes and prejudice.

Attitude Toward the Viral Ad: Expanding Traditional Advertising Models to Interactive Advertising

As a form of advertising, viral video (VV) advertising is distinct in that its communication medium is the social connections between individuals instead of formal media. After viewing VV advertising, people are engaged in two independent but interrelated processes, i.e., video sharing and embedded brand information processing. Previous research has not examined the interaction between the two processes. This study expands on the mediation of attitude toward the advertisement model proposed by MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch (1986). Experimental results from three viral video advertisements show that attitude toward the VV advertisement is the major factor affecting video sharing, but attitude toward the brand also has a significant impact on sharing activity. Affect transfer hypothesis (ATH) and its extended models are optimal in explaining viral video advertising, which is different from prior research on non-viral advertising that suggests dual mediation hypothesis as the optimal explanatory theory.

Hard-sell and Soft-sell Advertising Appeals with a 'Polysemic' Difference: A Purposeful Advertising Polysemy Perspective

In our study, the primary research goal is to compare and contrast the effectiveness of three advertising appeals and strategies (hard-sell, soft-sell, and polysemy) and the roles played by these different appeals in our global society. The research explores the concept of polysemy and the generation of idiosyncratic meanings along with hard-sell and soft-sell advertising appeals. It also investigates the impact of these appeals on the African-American target population. The research proposes and measures the 'Advertising Polysemy and Hard-Soft Sell' conceptual framework supported by classical conditioning theory, the dual mediation hypothesis framework, and the presence of primary affective reactions, leading to stronger ad-evoked feelings, ad and brand cognitions, ad and brand attitudes, and purchase intentions. The research presents marketing and societal implications of using advertising appeals and strategies with a special focus on African-American society.

Need For Cognition As A Moderator Of Affective And Cognitive Elements In Online Attitude Toward The Brand Formation

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt;">Previous research on the web using traditional attitude formation models – dual mediation hypothesis (DMH) and affect transfer hypothesis (AFH) – suggests that DMH holds only for those with high need for cognition. This study examines need for cognition (NFC) as a moderator of the individual contributions of affective and cognitive elements on attitude toward the brand in an online setting. Findings show that as need for cognition increases, the effect of the creative elements in the ad on attitude toward the brand formation is lessened. The opposite effect occurs for cognitive ad elements. Our results further suggest a significant interaction effect of NFC with attitude toward the advertisement.</span></p>

Do target and non-target ethnic group adolescents process advertisements differently?

Research on ethnic advertisements has identified attitudinal differences between target and non-target groups. However, investigators have largely failed to explain the reasons behind these differences. Accordingly, this study examines the process by which target and non-target group adolescents build attitudes towards ethnically focused advertisements. The Elaboration Likelihood Model and Dual Mediation Hypothesis models are used as theoretical and operational frameworks. This study uses a modified DMH model that incorporates ethnic identity strength and self-reference as important antecedents of ad attitude and ad cognition in the context of ethnic advertising. The data are analysed with the help of structural equation modelling procedures. The results suggest that non-target ethnic group adolescents generally process advertisements in a peripheral manner, whereas target ethnic group adolescents tend to engage in both central and peripheral processing. More importantly, for both majority and minority groups, the strength of subjects’ ethnic identity and self-reference impact their response to ethnic advertisements when the advertisement is compatible with their ethnic background.

Explaining website effectiveness: The hedonic–utilitarian dual mediation hypothesis

In this study, we propose and test a conceptual model, representing the hedonic–utilitarian dual mediation hypothesis, in which both cognition and emotions are combined to help understand individual behavior in an online environment. Beyond what cognitive models offer, our results show that both cognitive and emotional responses play a key role in communication through websites and that the hedonic–utilitarian dual mediation hypothesis is the best fitting model in comparison with the four alternatives tested. Moreover, attitude is treated as a bi-dimensional construct made up of a hedonic and a utilitarian component. Based on this, an additional contribution concerns the correspondence that exists between consumer cognition and the utilitarian dimension of attitude, as well as the emotions expressed by subjects and the hedonic dimension of attitude. The relative importance of each dimension of attitudes can provide marketers in e-commerce settings with insights about whether to introduce more emotional appeals or more cognitive stimuli when communicating through their websites.

Reexamining and extending the dual mediation hypothesis in an on‐line advertising context

AbstractThe relationship between attitude toward the advertisement (Aad) and intentions to buy (Ib) is a controversial one. The present research examines the potential for a direct relationship between Aad and Ib within an on‐line advertising context, substituting Asite (attitude toward the Web site) for Aad. The article replicates previous findings with respect to the four competing Aad models they tested. The article then predicts and finds a significant Asite → Ib path based on an opportunity and motivation perspective. In terms of opportunity, Web sites contain nonproduct information that is independent of traditional measures of brand attitude (Ab), such as security, ease of use, transactional capabilities, which are likely to affect Ib. Further, on‐line consumers are motivated to process this information when they visit a Web site because they cannot directly examine the products they are considering. Evidence for the opportunity and motivation perspective is provided by the decomposition of Asite into its claim and non‐claim components and assessment of the Asite → Ib path across levels of motivation to process. Implications for on‐line advertisers are discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

A Revised Model of Advertising Processing: Extending the Dual Mediation Hypothesis

Abstract While the Dual Mediation Hypothesis Model has proven to be a useful explanatory tool in understanding consumers' ad processing tendencies, its usefulness may be enhanced by considering a number of important extensions. The present study extends the original model by expressly considering many of the model components in multidimensional terms as well as examining their relationships in both high and low advertising message involvement contexts. Findings provide support for the extended models. Practical and theoretical implications of the findings are discussed.

The Mediating Role of Attitude toward the Ad: Some Additional Evidence

MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch have enhanced our understanding of the mediating role of attitude toward the ad (AAd). The current study replicates and extends the structural equation tests of the four competing models they presented. Two independent datasets are used to examine the role of processing involvement. Consistent with the earlier findings, the dual mediation hypothesis model provides the “best” fit of the data in both experiments. However, the hypothesized causal path between brand cognitions and brand attitudes that emerges for each of the datasets conflicts with the earlier findings. Contrary to expectations, processing involvement does not produce substantial differences in the specification or strength of the causal paths.

The Role of Attitude toward the Ad as a Mediator of Advertising Effectiveness: A Test of Competing Explanations

Attitude toward the ad (Aad) has been postulated to be a causal mediating variable in the process through which advertising influences brand attitudes and purchase intentions. Previous conceptual and empirical research on this topic has suggested four alternative models of the relationships between brand-related cognitive, affective, and conative responses and ad-related cognitive and affective responses. The authors describe a structural equations analysis of these four models, utilizing two data sets generated within a commercial pretest setting. The results suggest that a dual mediation hypothesis, which postulates that Aad influences brand attitude both directly and indirectly through its effect on brand cognitions, is superior to the other three models under the particular set of conditions in the pretest setting.