Interplay of content type and product type in the consumer response to native advertising on social media

Abstract

With the growth of consumer skepticism toward advertising, marketers have begun implementing native advertising. Drawing on the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), this study examines how content type interacts with product type to influence consumer responses toward native advertising (persuasion knowledge, brand attitude, and intention to click ‘like’) on Facebook. A 2(content type: informative versus entertaining)×2 (product type: utilitarian versus hedonic) between-subjects experimental study was conducted with a total of 155 college-attending Facebook users in South Korea. The results show that, for utilitarian products, informative content elicits more favorable consumer responses than entertaining content does. However, consumer responses are similar between informative and entertaining content for hedonic products. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that consumer persuasion knowledge mediates the interaction effects of content type and product type on consumer responses. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.