Snapping and chatting away: Consumer motivations for and outcomes of interacting with Snapchat AR ad lens

Snapchat AR ad lens is one of the highly engaging and interactive ads among the plethora of social media advertising formats. Applying the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and social media advertising engagement (SMAE) framework, two survey studies were conducted to enhance our understanding of consumers’ motivations for interacting with this unique Snapchat ad format and its subsequent effects. With the use of exploratory research, Study 1 uncovered consumers’ motivations to interact with the Snapchat AR ad lens: entertainment, aesthetics, uniqueness, curiosity, brand fan, and social interaction. Furthermore, Study 2 cemented consumers’ disclosed motivations as antecedents of attitudinal perceptions of the Snapchat AR ad lens and examined its resultant outcomes: ad engagement and purchase motivation. The results revealed that the majority of motivations had a positive effect on Snapchatters’ attitude toward the AR ad lens, which directly affected continuous ad engagement and indirectly affected purchase motivation through ad engagement. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed for scholars and practitioners.     

Segmenting consumers based on social media advertising perceptions: How does purchase intention differ across segments?

Digitalization, personalization and globalization shape how companies contact and communicate with their consumers who have different needs and wants. In these highly competitive heterogeneous markets, it becomes crucial to reach consumers in an easy, low-cost and more targeted manner. Social media advertising is one of the effective ways of attracting potential customers, retaining attention of current customers and influencing them through persuasive content. Despite its plentiful and obvious advantages, the variation among consumers’ responses to social media advertising remains as a major challenge. Hence, this study aims to identify different consumer segments based on the social media advertising features, discover differences in their individual traits, and examine variation among those segments in terms of the factors that predict their purchase intentions. By utilizing cluster analysis, consumers are segmented according to their perceptions regarding social media advertising features: perceived relevance, performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, informativeness, and interactiveness. It is revealed that consumers are grouped under three segments, namely: “susceptible”, “dispassionate”, and “impervious”. It is found that there are statistically significant differences among these segments in terms of being easily persuaded, impulse buying tendency, self-confidence, and social network proneness in which consumers in “susceptible” segment are more easily persuaded, have high level of self-confidence, have more impulse buying tendency, and are more prone to social networks when compared to other groups. It is also discovered that there are differences among these segments in terms of the factors that determine their purchase intentions for the products presented in social media advertising. The purchase intention of consumers in “susceptible” segment for products exhibited in social media advertising, is determined by perceived relevance, ease of being persuaded, self-confidence and social network proneness. On the other hand, the purchase intention of consumers in the “dispassionate” segment is shaped by informativeness, ease of being persuaded, and social network proneness. Finally, the purchase intention of consumers in “impervious” segment is influenced by hedonic motivation, perceived relevance, impulse buying tendency, and ease of being persuaded. Nevertheless, when the whole sample is considered, it is observed that consumers’ purchase intentions for the products and services presented in social media advertising are influenced by the following factors: perceived relevance, performance expectancy, informativeness, impulse buying tendency, ease of being persuaded, and social network proneness. Understanding differences across segments can help companies design, manage and convey their social media advertising campaigns to their target audience in a convincing, timely, effective, and efficient way, which in turn, let them gain competitive advantage in highly volatile and dynamic markets.     

Elucidating the determinants of purchase intention toward social shopping sites: A comparative study of Taiwan and Japan

As the market potential of social shopping is increased by social networking sites (SNSs), the social shopping research can be interesting and valuable for social shopping firms to clearly understand the determinants affecting consumers’ purchase intention toward social shopping sites (SSSs). The objectives of this study are to examine consumers’ purchase intention toward a target SSS in different countries and to understand these differences from a cross-cultural perspective. In order to explore the cross-cultural differences in consumers’ purchase intention toward a target SSS, we propose an analytic framework that consists of website quality (i.e. system, information, and service quality) and relationship quality (i.e. satisfaction, commitment, and trust) that the SSS provides. To identify the determinants of purchase intention of SSS, large-scale online surveys were conducted in Taiwan and Japan simultaneously with the same questionnaire. Results show that perceptions of the two types of quality for a target SSS are significantly different between Taiwan and Japan, and effects of the quality types on the degree of purchase intention derived from the SSS also vary across the two countries. This paper ends with a discussion and limitations of the study results, as well as future research directions.     

The interactive mobile social media advertising: An imminent approach to advertise tourism products and services?

Marketing tourism products traditionally were confined to conventional advertising tools. With the enhancement of mobile technologies and the emergence of social networking sites, a new platform of advertising has emerged. Mobile social media advertising refers to the use of social networking sites on mobile devices to advertise tourism products and services. However, many tourism organizations are skeptical, particularly if tourists are ready to accept this new form of advertising. Therefore, this study proposes an integrated framework that consists of Mobile Technology Acceptance Model, personal factors (i.e., mobile self-efficacy and technology self-efficacy), and Interactivity Theory to understand consumers’ intention to adopt mobile social media advertising in receiving tourism-related advertisements. 459 valid data were analyzed by the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling technique. Surprisingly, most structural paths are consistent with past literatures except for the relationship between personal factors and intention. This study has valuable contributions to academicians, practitioners, and society.     

Analyzing consumer online group buying motivations: An interpretive structural modeling approach

Given the enormous growth and significant impact of group buying on the Internet business marketplace, understanding factors motivating consumer online group buying (OGB) behavior becomes critical for both researchers and practitioners. However, prior studies have provided insufficient understanding of the motivations underlying consumer OGB. This study intends to explore the factors motivating consumer OGB using a qualitative approach based on Uses and Gratifications (U&G) theory, and to build a hierarchical model based on these motivations. The laddering interview technique was used to collect data from 58 online group buyers. A context-specific hierarchical motive model was developed using Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM), based on the 17 motivations identified. As a timely topic using a novel approach to explore consumer OGB motivations, this study contributes to motivation theory and helps practitioners involved in OGB businesses to better plan and design strategies to attract potential new consumers and retain their current consumers.     

Facilitation of consumer loyalty toward branded applications: The dual-route perspective

Although many brands develop mobile applications (apps) to build relationships with consumers, most branded apps fail to retain consumers’ loyalty. This study examines the facilitation of consumer loyalty toward branded apps (continuance intention, in-app purchase intention, and word-of-mouth intention) from the dual-route perspective. One route is the affective (relationship) route, where brand benefits (functional benefits, experiential benefits, symbolic benefits, and monetary benefits) drive parasocial interactions between consumers and the brand, which, in turn, influences branded app loyalty. The other route is the utility route, where system characteristics (system quality and information quality) affect perceived usefulness, which, in turn, facilitates branded app loyalty. An online survey was conducted, and the research model was empirically tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings support the dual-route perspective according to which both affective and utilitarian paths facilitate branded app loyalty. The key theoretical contribution of this study is that it moves beyond the utilitarian path and finds the affective (relationship) path to give a more complete picture of the facilitation of consumer loyalty in the branded app context. A strategy is provided to suggest to practitioners how to design branded apps to facilitate consumer loyalty.     

Mobile application driven consumer engagement

The growing popularity of mobile technologies and applications, lead many companies to develop relations with consumers through mobile applications. Therefore, it is important to understand how to design applications based on consumer preferences. This research seeks to understand which features of mobile applications stimulate consumer engagement and lead to continuous use of mobile applications. This study used an online questionnaire to collect data from 246 respondents. The data was analyzed making use of Structural Equations Modeling (SEM). The results indicate that perception of such features as design solutions and information quality will result in higher engagement leading to continuous usage of mobile applications. Moreover, consumer engagement positively influenced users’ intention to continuous usage of mobile applications. Inconsistent with expectation, consumer interaction and functionality features are not found to be positively related to consumer engagement with mobile applications.     

Factors influencing intention to donate via social network site (SNS): From Asian’s perspective

This study examined whether external factors, which are charity project, charity organization, Internet technology features and social network site (SNS) features influence people’s general attitude towards online donation and their intention to donate via SNS. An online survey was conducted based on the framework of factors influencing the intention to donate via SNS that was adapted from the literature review. Data from 258 respondents were used for analysis. Structural equation modelling was used to test the research model and hypotheses. The results indicated that the Internet technology features factor significantly contributes in influencing people’s general attitude towards online donation, and general attitude positively influences people’s intention to donate via SNSs. The full mediation effect of the general attitude towards online donation on the relationship between Internet technology features and intention to donate via SNS was found. However, charity project, charity organization, and SNS features were not significant factors in influencing people’s intention to donate via SNSs. The sample was limited to some Asian countries (preliminary Malaysia and South Korea). Thus, the results cannot be generalized to other countries. The findings suggest that non-profit organizations should focus on how to deal with the Internet issues, especially pertaining to security and privacy. Therefore, a mechanism for gaining donors’ trust to use the Internet, particularly in doing online transaction must be considered.     

Factors influencing the adoption of mobile commerce applications in Cameroon

As smartphone penetration continues to double in Sub-Saharan Africa, many businesses are looking into this channel for conducting their business activities. In Cameroon, all the top e-commerce giants have deployed smartphone applications to facilitate m-commerce activities. However, little is known about the factors that influence m-commerce adoption in the country. As such, this study had as objective to determine the key factors that influence consumer’s adoption of m-commerce applications in Cameroon. Using data from 372 respondents, a modified version of the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) was validated in the Cameroon context. The findings showed that social influence, facilitating conditions, hedonic motivations, perceived risk and perceived trust were significant predictors of the behavioural intention to adopt m-commerce applications. Also, the results showed that consumers who had a high intention to adopt m-commerce were more likely to recommend the technology to others. For researchers, the study depicts the relevance of extending existing technology acceptance models like the UTUAT2 with appropriate factors in different technological and geographical context. For practitioners, the study identifies customer-specific and environmental factors that m-commerce providers in Cameroon and other regions with similar characteristics could consider when designing and implementing strategies for attracting consumers to use their m-commerce applications.     

Consumer preferences of attributes of mobile payment services in South Korea

The widespread diffusion of mobile devices has led to a new method of value transfer that retains the features of mobile devices: mobile payments. Many researchers have investigated consumers’ responses to mobile payment services, which is a key indicator of the success of a service, and have examined determinants of consumer adoption. Although many studies have addressed consumer adoption of mobile payment services, only the general and abstract factors affecting adoption (e.g., perceived usefulness) have been intensively investigated. However, these studies have rarely examined the idiosyncratic and concrete aspects of mobile payment services. To improve our understanding of why consumers adopt certain mobile payment services, this study investigated consumers’ evaluations of the explicit attributes of the services. Three hundred seventy-three consumers of mobile payment services participated in an online conjoint survey. Their preference structure was generated from a conjoint analysis including five service attributes (mobile payment platform, assurance policy, mileage program, authentication method, and affiliated stores), which were identified through a literature review and focus group discussion. The results showed that an assurance policy is the most critical factor influencing consumers’ choices, and a mileage program is considered to be as imperative as the platform. We also compared the findings by two consumer clusters (safety seekers vs. platform adherers), which were classified by preference. Because this study examines concrete and specific attributes of mobile payment services beyond abstract and general adoption factors, it provides insights into consumers’ actual adoption of services.     

Facebook as a second screen: An influence on sport consumer satisfaction and behavioral intention

Little research has examined the use of social media as people watch live sporting telecasts—an activity that has been referred to as the second screen phenomenon. The paper proposes and tests a second screen consumer engagement model that captures the actions of Facebook users (N = 299) while watching a live sport telecast. Findings highlight the direct and indirect effect of social camaraderie, subjective norm, fan emotion and purposive needs on sport consumers’ satisfaction and behavioral intention. The behavioral intention of consumers when using Facebook as a second screen was associated with the increased likelihood of using the platform to purchase team products, make recommendations and investigate sponsors. The proposed model contributes to the emerging literature highlighting the increasing importance of social media as an interactive support channel when people watch live telecasts. The findings have practical implications for managers by providing insights and understanding of consumers when watching telecast sport. Although tested with Thai English Premier League fans, the findings will have relevance across different sports and other business sectors.     

Extending the theory of planned behavior: A study of lifestyles,contextual factors,mobile viewing habits,TV content interest,and intention to adopt mobile TV

This study applied the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to explain the intentions of Hong Kong consumers to adopt mobile TV and their interests in its content. Using a probability sample of 644 respondents, this study not only demonstrated the robustness of TPB in explaining consumer behavior but also showed that channel deficiency, mobile viewing habits (which were moderated by perceived behavioral control), and content interest could significantly influence consumers’ intentions to adopt mobile TV services. Although lifestyle types were not found a significant predictor of behavioral intention, it had strong effect on content interests in mobile TV. Limitations and practical implications are provided.     

A comparative study of KakaoStory and Facebook: Focusing on use patterns and use motives

Before global SNS services, such as Facebook and Twitter, were introduced in Korea, Cyworld monopolized the Korean SNS market. However, Cyworld was left behind because it maintained a closed system, which no longer satisfied users. KakaoTalk, a popular Korean mobile messaging application has allowed the messenger itself to become a platform for various services including SNS. KakaoStory began as a photo-based SNS service; by integrating with KakaoTalk’s profile pictures, it has become the most popular SNS in Korea. This study focuses on the usage patterns of SNS users to analyze how KakaoStory became one of the most popular SNSs in Korea. In particular, we have examined the differences in usage patterns between KakaoStory and Facebook, and the primary reasons why Korean users select one of these two social networking sites instead of the other. We conducted an exploratory comparison between KakaoStory and Facebook, specifically focusing on the usage patterns and motivations of both sets of users. We also analyzed how the different usage motivations linked to these two social media networks have influenced usage patterns.     

Domain-specific innovativeness and new product adoption: A case of wearable devices

Wearable technology has recently started gaining mass market attention, but the actual adoption of the technology is not up to expectations. The current study examines the effects of consumers’ domain-specific innovativeness (DSI) on the adoption of wearable technology. In this study, consumer DSI is first conceptualized to have two dimensions namely, product-possessing innovativeness (PPI) and information-possessing innovativeness (IPI). The effects of PPI and IPI on perceived attributes of wearable technology (relative advantage, social image, aesthetics, and novelty) are then examined, which influence purchase intention. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on a survey data from young consumers. Structural equation modeling was employed to evaluate the proposed research model. Results demonstrate that 1) the DSI construct must be examined in the two dimensions so that it can properly measure the nature and characteristics of DSI, 2) IPI plays an important role, having a positive effect on all four perceived attributes of IT innovations, 3) PPI has a positive effect on perceived social image and perceived novelty, and finally 4) all perceived attributes of IT innovations have a positive effect on consumers’ purchase intention of wearable devices. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Does country culture influence consumers' perceptions toward mobile banking? A comparison between Egypt and the United States

This study provides insights into the potential impact of country culture on consumers’ perceptions toward usage of new innovative technological services. Focusing on mobile banking (m-banking), this work compares responses from three distinct consumer segments, including– 1) consumers living in Egypt, 2) consumers from Egypt who are living in the U.S. and 3) U.S. consumers. The study utilizes constructs from the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) including, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, along with perceived risk, trust and social influence to examine the differences between these three distinct consumer segments’ usage intentions toward mobile banking. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). Results indicate that country culture (both primary and secondary) can, to some degree, influence consumers’ perceptions and intentions toward mobile banking. Implications and future research suggestions are provided.     

Mobile services with handset bundling and governmental policies for competitive market

Governmental policies can significantly affect the social adoption of services offered by communication technology providers and competition between service providers. Following the implementation of several policies by the Korean government and mobile network operators’ promotion of mobile handset bundling, consumer adoption rates of the latest mobile phone and communications services have been higher in Korea than in other countries. Mobile handset bundling provides consumers the bundled sale of mobile phones and services, but this practice can restrict consumers’ choice of services and limit competition among service providers. This study analyses this ambivalent effect of bundling by mobile network operators (MNOs) and evaluates the outcomes of the Korean government policies (2011–14) using market statistics. Our results highlight that the policies have produced changes in market share but the government needs to promote service differentiation among providers.     

The effects of negative information-related incidents on social media discontinuance intention: Evidence from SEM and fsQCA

Social media have experienced a decline in their number of users. Understanding the antecedents of users’ discontinuance intention can help social media platforms in mitigating them. It is necessary to enrich the theoretical account of social media discontinuance intention from the aspect of negative information-related incidents. With this realization, underpinned by stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework, the current study examined the interrelationships of negative information-related incidents, social media fatigue, perceived information overload, and social media discontinuance intention. The proposed hypotheses were verified by analyzing the responses of 328 Weibo users through structural equation modeling (SEM) and fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). According to the SEM results, all negative-related information incidents can explain perceived information overload and social media fatigue, which in turn lead to discontinuance intention. The fsQCA findings also confirmed the significance of discontinuance intention determinants and provided the configurations that enhanced discontinuance intention. These findings can assist social media managers in developing unique strategies to address the specific needs of social media users.     

Integrating guanxi into technology acceptance: An empirical investigation of WeChat

Social influence is an important research topic in the technology acceptance literature, in particular for social media. Prior empirical studies have for the most part employed social influence theory to investigate user intentions to continue with social media, while culture driven theories have been neglected. Rather than using social influence theory, we introduced guanxi theory to explore how guanxi social mechanisms (or processes) influence Chinese users’ continuance intentions in WeChat. Specifically, we developed a model that examines the role of guanxi as manifested by renqing, mianzi and ganqing in perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and continuance intention in WeChat. A survey research method was adopted to test the proposed hypotheses. This study found that ganqing has a positive impact on perceived usefulness and continuance intention. Mianzi exerts a negative effect on continuance intention but exhibits a positive effect on perceived usefulness. Renqing was found to have no significant impact on perceived usefulness and continuance intention. Our study advances the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by introducing guanxi-based constructs in a Chinese mobile social-messaging application context. Our study also offers alternative insights on guanxi-based social influence processes in the Chinese technology acceptance literature.     

User-orientated perspective of social media used by campaigns

Campaigns have increasingly resorted to Facebook because it has the highest number of users among social media platforms. The question as to whether Facebook is a more favorable choice of social media than a blog for political purposes must be addressed. In this comparative study, cross-sectional data collected in the 2009 and 2014 Taiwan local elections were used for exploring the differences among voter motivations, perceived credibility, and dependency between the use of political blogs and Facebook. In addition, the impact factors regarding the relationship between blogs and Facebook dependency were analyzed. The findings indicate that voter motivations, perceived credibility, and dependency were higher for political blogs than they were for Facebook, suggesting that in a political context, people prefer blogs to Facebook. The results of regression analyses indicate that the motivation for debating political topics was a significant predictor of the dependency on blogs, whereas motivations for general information and entertainment were related to Facebook use. The perceived credibility was not related to blog use; however, accuracy and information depth were significant factors for the use of Facebook. The reasons for the differences between peoples’ use of political blogs and Facebook are discussed in this paper. This study advances our understanding on the variations in people’s use of different social media platforms in a political context, and few studies have investigated this topic from a user-oriented perspective.     

A Comparative Study of Consumers’ Purchase Intention on Different Internet Platforms

The aim of this paper is to study consumers’ purchase intention on web-based and social-based B2C e-commerce platforms. This research is one of the first empirical studies to employ the Stimulus-Organism-Response Model (S-O-R Model) as a main research model. The researchers found six findings which contrast with the previous literature. First, the two-way communication tools provided by the platform are not powerful enough to significantly affect the emotional needs of online consumers. Second, the stimulus that affect user’s interpretation of online information is the two-way communication tools provided by the platform. Third, the risk perceived by a consumer in contemplating a particular purchase action does not significantly affect the emotional needs of consumers. Fourth, the stimulus that affects users’ curiosity aroused while interacting with the platform is the ability of the platform to enhance user participation in the platform’s activities. Fifth, consumers’ emotional needs significantly affect online consumers’ purchase intention. Finally, the degree of users’ attention while using the platform significantly affects consumers’ purchase intention.