東北大学機関リポジトリTOUR

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Impact of Facebook Advertisements on Purchase

Intentions of Mobile Facebook Users:

Investigating the Moderating Role of Brand

Origin and Perceived Product Value

著者

QAZI TAYYAB YAQOOB

学位授与機関

Tohoku University

学位授与番号

11301甲第17831号

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Impact of Facebook Advertisements on Purchase

Intentions of Mobile Facebook Users:

Investigating the Moderating Role of Brand

Origin and Perceived Product Value

by

Tayyab Yaqoob Qazi

B4ED1504

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the

Requirements for the Degree of

Doctorate in Philosophy.

Graduate School of Economics and Management,

Tohoku University, Japan

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DEDICATION

To All My Ancestors, Beloved Parents, Siblings & My Wife.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Being a Muslim, I consider it my utmost duty to express my deep gratitude to Almighty Allah, the Compassionate and Merciful, Who gave me health and opportunity to complete this study. I offer my humble thanks from the core of my heart to the Holy Prophet Mohammad (Peace Be Upon Him), who is forever source of guidance and knowledge for entire humanity.

I extend deep gratitude to my Supervisor, Professor Seiichi Ohtaki, for his encouragement, scholarly guidance, timely help, sympathetic attitude and exclusive cooperation during my study in Tohoku University. I gratitude his kind guidance, persistent inspiration, patience and crucial contribution from the very beginning to the end of this Ph.D. dissertation. I am very grateful to him in every possible way and hope to keep up this collaboration also in the future. No doubt, without his kind guidance this thesis would not have been possible.

It is my pleasure to pay tribute to Japanese Government for their grant of Monbukagakusho: MEXT Scholarship to meet my financial needs during my study.

Many thanks go in particular to all research interviewees who contributed through their precious time and information, when I conducted the field studies.

I am also thankful to University`s staffs and all my warm-hearted friends for their friendly attitude and valuable guidance both in study and daily life, without their support, my dissertation would not have been completed and my life in Japan would not have been so joyful.

Lastly, I wish to thank and express my appreciation to my family members who helped and prayed for me. I can never forget my mother’s efforts she put forward for my bright and prosperous future. May Allah Almighty bestow His blessings and forgiveness upon her in this life and afterward. I could never complete this study without the help and encouragement of my entire family.

Tayyab Yaqoob Qazi 01. Jan. 2018 [email protected]

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1. BACKGROUND

Social media has provided a great advertising opportunity for the organizations. The organizations of the current era are advertising their products and services on the social media due to reach and popularity around the world (Maina, 2016). Priyanka and Srinivasan, (2015) argues that social media has wide reach to the potential customers in the form of interactive and viral means of social networking advertising to inform, persuade, and remind the customers about the products and services. Through social media, an organization can upload advertising contents to attract target audience and obtains reviews of products or services (Ngai et al., 2015). A business example of social media advertising is traced backed to Taco Bell’s advertising on Instagram about the experience in which user experiences are shared to acquire and retain customers. Taco Bell reached 12.5 million customers of ages between 18 to 44 years old in United States (US) in just four weeks which was (04) four times higher ad recall in groups (Allen, 2014). Interestingly, the users of social media sites do not realize that they are being marketed by the companies and promote the product or services (Adamopoulos and Todri, 2015) and they also have a positive attitude towards social media advertising campaigns (Jung et al., 2015).

There is a list of top 20 popular social media websites which include social networking websites of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest,

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Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Quora, Vine, Periscope, BizSugar, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg and Viber (Maina, 2016). The author further argued that the both the small and big businesses use these social media websites for advertising their products and services. However, the reach and popularity of each social media website is not equal. Hence, an organization has to know the popularity of social media sites for cultivating optimum benefit from social media advertising. According to the author (Maina, 2016), Facebook was the most popular social media website in terms of total number of users and name recognition across all top most 20 popular social media websites.

Facebook is an important social networking website used by the firms to reach the potential customers, to inform, persuade, and remind the users about various products and services (Priyanka and Srinivasan, 2015). Many organizations upload their advertising contents to attract target audience and obtains reviews of products or services (Ngai et al., 2015) on Facebook because it provides two way communication through which marketers avail the opportunity of advertising and customers can analyze, react and purchase products or services (Parveen et al., 2015) advertised there. The importance of Facebook as advertising media is evident from the very popular business example AirAsia. AirAsia launched a Facebook campaign “gave away a plane” by offering free trip to Kuala Lumpur if anyone shares his/her trip information with their Facebook contacts (Jung et al., 2015). Many of the customers shared their experiences with AirAsia with their Facebook friends and got the prize of free trip. But the company got many new customers through this Facebook advertising campaign.

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According to Koch and Dikmen (2015), Facebook advertising provides a major benefit of global access to the Facebook users who do not even know that they are being advertised with a greater impact on their purchase decisions. The Facebook users who are exposed to Facebook advertisement have not only positive purchase intentions towards campaigns but also share or promote it among their social contacts (Adamopoulos and Todri, 2015). Hence, a study of Facebook advertising is very crucial to cope the advanced use of technology in business.

Advertising

Advertisement refers to the messages communicated to general public which are containing detailed information about services or products. These messages contain important information about service/product’s availability, features, usage and price. Advertising is intended for providing information about services/products and influencing recipient people to purchase those advertised products/services (Adams and Stanton, 1984). The main aim of advertising is to inform people about some specific service or product and ultimately persuading them to purchase that specific service or product (Shimp, 1997). The content or message displayed to the general public is referred to advertisement or ad (De Cenzo et al., 2011).

According to Kotler (1989) advertising may take various media and forms according to the nature of product and potential users. Advertising may take various forms such as printed document, audio, video, or a blend of some of these or all of

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them. However advertising does not promote personal views or thoughts. De Cenzo et al., (2011) argued that advertising may also use various media as per available budget and advertisement goals such as newspaper, hoardings, bill boards, magazines, outdoor advertising, search results, blogs, mailers, contests, direct mail, text messages, sponsorships, posters, events, radio, television and internet. The medium used for advertising is called advertising channel or advertising industry which includes companies and agencies and collectively known as advertising industry. The advertising industry helps organizations in creating advertisements, selecting media to be used for advertising, editing the messages, visualizing the contents, designing the layout of advertisement and conducting research (Arens, 2004; Katz, 2016; Moriarty et al., 2014).

The internet advertising which is also called online or modern world advertising is deemed to be very effective in terms of cost and has world-wide reach. The organizations use websites where they paste their advertisements on the internet. The advertising organizations are easily identified as the advertising organizations by the viewers in online mode on the internet (Ha and McCan, 2008). Out of the internet advertising, social media advertising is the main category which has been gaining a wide popularity during the recent decade (Schaffer, 2013). However, from various websites of social media on the internet, Facebook is considered to be the easy to use and widely spread social media website around the globe (Ernst, 2017). Therefore, the advertising on the Facebook got a special attention as a modern advertising media in the business world.

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All types of advertising, at least, provides basic information about a product or service, its availability, its features and benefits. This information increase the chances that a person will purchase goods or services advertised to him/her (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2009). The viewers or potential users also get the benefit of making a buying choice by assessing various substitutes of the product or service though advertisement (Hafeez et al., 2017). The scholar of advertising and marketing argue that when customers evaluate goods or services positively, they have a tendency of purchase intentions towards the advertised service or product (Adelarr et al., 2003; Beatty and Ferrell, 1998; Bowden, 2009; Cheung and To, 2017; Dittmar et al., 1996; Hausman, 2000; Qazi et al., 2017). However, an advertisement which is aligned with potential users’ needs and wants can result in stimulating purchase intentions and ultimate buying of the advertised products/services (Ducoffe, 1996, (Pollay & Mittal, 1993, Brown, Pope & Voges, 2003, Dahlen, 2001.

From the above discussion, the researcher concludes that the study of advertising is really very important for the academia, businesses and the end users of services/products. The advertising creates a positive attitude towards advertised service/product and ultimately forms purchase intentions relating to the advertised products that lead to ultimate purchase by the advertisement viewers. Keeping in the view the modern advanced technology world, the researcher assesses that Facebook advertisement has positive impact on purchase intentions and it is easier to customize advertisements son Facebook than traditional advertising. Hence, a study of Facebook advertisement is deemed to be the need of the current advanced advertising industry.

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Purchase Intentions

Purchase intentions refer to the potential consumers/customers’ intention to purchase a specific product or service. It includes all types of stimulus which influence the behavioral intentions about the future buying by the customers (Taylor and Baker, 1994). Hence, we can conclude that purchase intention is an important constituent of consumer buying behavior which encompasses through desired purchase decisions.

Impact of Advertising on Purchase Intentions

Advertising has a positive impact on consumer behavior specially on framing purchase intentions of the target viewers of that advertising (Kotler, 1989). Such association of advertising with purchase intentions is found by the almost all studies in this domain (Anshen, 1955; Drossos, 2014; Rewal et al., 1998; Helm and Evans, 2016; Lee et al., 2011; Pechmann and Stewart, 1990; Petty et al., 1983; Ramond, 1960; Woodside and Taylor, 1978). Hence, the following can be inferred:

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Facebook Advertising

With the passage of time and advancement of new technology in the business world, the channels and modes of advertising have been changed dramatically (Dekoulou et al., 2017). The advertisement went through print media to electronic media i.e. newspaper advertisement to the electronic mediums such as radio, television and internet. Internet advertising went beyond mere website to social media advertising and Facebook is a type of social media advertising (Chu, 2011; Srinivasan, 2015). Facebook adverting includes the dimensions of homepage impression, organic impression and homepage impression (Nielsen, 2012). While advertising on Facebook, the companies face the major challenge of security restrictions by the facebook users. Hence, the advertising companies has reached to the solution of this problem. They have categorized the places through which they can show their ads on the facebook

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such as users’ News Feeds, friends’ likes, friends’ experiences etc.

To understand the working of the facebook advertisement one must has to understand the term “impression” which refers to how many times a post seen, and how frequently users are exposed to that particular content. So, the frequency of ads displays on facebook is measured in Impression which is a key metric for measuring Facebook performance. Impression reveals how many users an ad is reaching and how frequently those users are seeing the ad. Paid advertising on Facebook can also drive impressions for a particular advertisement by the marketers. They know the exact factors which are important and serve as driving force for a particular brand advertisement exposure on Facebook.

It is interesting to mention here that all three types of advertising (social impression advertisement, homepage impression advertisement and organic impression advertisement) are available in both the desktop and mobile versions of facebook advertisement. However, mobile facebook advertisements have different look from desktop version due to the size of screen and webpage settings.

1.2. MOBILE FACEBOOK ADVERTISING

With the advancement of technology and progress in android & windows mobile phones (smartphones), the facebook gained more popularity than ever before on desktop version (Rowles, 2017). In the desktop version, the users had to sit on desktop computers in home or a place specifically spared for the use of desktop computers. They also needed electricity cables to be attached with the computers in

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order to run facebook in their desktop computers. However, with the invention and advancement of smartphones, running facebook has become an easier task for users. Now, the users have to download facebook application in their mobile and can run facebook on just one click. Now, they are tension free about the electricity, place and time (Rowles, 2017).

The advertisement on mobile version of facebook became important for the advertisers and organization with the wide use of facebook on mobile phones. According to Srinivasan (2015), Jung et al., (2015) and Qazi et al., (2017), Mobile Facebook became an important media for advertising around the world in a global competition. Like desktop version of Facebook adverting, mobile version of facebook advertising has the similar ways of advertising. The major ways of advertising on mobile version of facebook include homepage impressions, organic impressions and homepage impressions (Nielsen, 2012). All these three types of advertising on mobile version have their specific places through which the companies can display their ads on the facebook such as users’ News Feeds, friends’ likes, and friends’ experiences. Like desktop version of facebook advertisements, mobile version of facebook advertisement also use the term “impression” which refers to how many times a post seen, and how frequently users are exposed to that particular content to calculate the effectiveness of mobile facebook advertisement.

Types of Mobile Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising may opt the three basic ways of reaching facebook users. These ways are called the types or dimensions of facebook advertisement. They are:

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homepage impression, organic impression and homepage impression (Gibs and Bruich, 2012). The details of these types is illustrated below:

i. Social Impression

An advertisement on facebook with the social information of facebook users is called social impression advertisement. The term social impression explains the number of times an ad is viewed when that advertisement is displayed on facebook with social information such as Facebook friends who are engaged with Facebook Page or ad. This type of advertisement is appeared on specific places on Facebook which are called “ placements” in the right column of facebook pages which includes social circle information about a Page, event or app such as viewer's friend(s) connected with specific Page, event or app. The effectiveness of this type of advertisement is measured in “Social Metrics”. Social Metrics is used to measure Advertising Performance if the social context is added to an advertisement (Li et al., 2012).

In Social Metrics, there are some important elements which needs to be understood before forwarding next in the study. In social impressions, social clicks are deemed important which refers to the number of times an advertisement is clicked with social context such as with information about a viewer's friend(s) who connected with your Page, event, or application. This may also be shown in the form of percentage (social %). It is interesting to mention here that social impression Ads can also appear in both the desktop

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and mobile versions of facebook advertisement in News Feed at the right column. However, mobile applications advertisers can also use Audience Network to show their advertisements (Smock et al., 2011)

ii. Organic Impression

According to Jung et al., (2016), organic impression is a type of facebook advertisement in which the advertisement contents are displayed in a user’s News Feed, ticker, or on advertisers’ page. This form of advertising is generally from unpaid sources rather than paid sources. In this advertisement the organic reach is considered to be the total number of “unique people” who are exposed to the advertisement through unpaid distribution on facebook. It is most usually from an organization’s or advertiser’s own facebook pages. In organic reach of an advertisement, the sum of post reach won't equal total reach because Pages can reach people through content other than posts. For example, if someone visits a Page after searching for it, they'll be counted in total reach but not post reach. Also, if someone sees more than one Page post, they'll be counted in post reach for each post they see, but they'll only be counted once in total reach.

Improving organic impressions means making it into News Feeds more frequently and optimizing your marketing tactics against Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm (McGee, 2013). The focus for improving organic impressions should be growing the number of active and engaged fans on

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your page, placing emphasis on shareable content, and limiting the negative feedback of the viewers. Paid advertising on Facebook can also drive impressions, for marketers, this underscores the importance of understanding what’s driving brand exposure on Facebook. It is interesting to mention here that organic impression Ads can also appear in both the desktop and mobile versions of facebook advertisements.

iii. Homepage Impression

According to Jung et al., (2016), in facebook advertising through homepage impressions, the companies and advertisers focus on entire view of a facebook page. Advertisements through homepage impressions are located in the sidebar of Facebook that contain creative content including text and image. Such advertisements also provide the viewers an option to access and like the page on which the advertisement is actually based. Hence, the advertisers and organizations may set up their custom short domain to Buffer homepage where the viewers see their updates. According to Rawee (2016), homepage impression advertisement may include the various elements on facebook but are not limited to Facebook Pages, Facebook Profiles, Facebook Groups, Linked Twitter Accounts, LinkedIn Profiles, LinkedIn Company Pages, and Google+ Pages. It is interesting to mention here that homepage impression advertisements can also appear in both the desktop and mobile versions of facebook (Wang and Reani, 2017).

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Features of Mobile Facebook Advertising

Advertising on mobile version of Facebook has various positive characteristics which make it as an attractive platform for advertising by the corporations around the world. Mobile version of facebook provides easy access to the right people, capture their attention and get desired results at low costs. The huge number of mobile facebook users around the world has necessitated the corporations to advertise on this version of facebook too. The users of mobile facebook users in the world are around one billion in the world. The people you want to reach are here. There are 0.5 billion people who use Facebook every day on mobile (Facebook, 2017). Another important feature of mobile facebook is that the advertisements are easy to create and costs lower than desktop version and any other social media advertisement.

Facebook Advertising and Purchase Intentions

Facebook advertisement has a significant and direct association impact with purchase intentions of the potential customers/consumers (Chu & Kim, 2011; Leung et al., 2015; Van et al., 2014; Yang, 2012). The study of Jung et al., (2015) revealed a that Facebook advertisement offers an aligned match of company offerings with customers’ needs & wants more effectively than to traditional advertising. They found a positive and significant relationship of Facebook advertisement with purchase intentions of the customers. Besides this, the studies of Leung et al., (2017) and Qaz et al., (2017) found a positive and significant relationship of Facebook advertisement with purchase

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intentions of the customers. Hence the following relationship of Facebook advertisement and purchase intentions is well established:

1.3. COUNTRY OF ORIGIN

Country of origin (COO) refers to the country of ownership of a corporation or organization from which it is belonged. It is the positive or negative tendency of a customer toward a specific product or service. This tendency is the result of preconceived ideas about the quality of products originating in a specific country. However, there is a difference in the impact of COO on consumer buying behavior especially framing purchase intentions with respect to socio-economic groups, mixed products (tangible and intangible) and services. According to Schooler (1971), COO is

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a type of country patriotism bias towards domestic products or services over foreign similar products or services due to inherent information suckled in the minds of citizens. Hence, we can conclude that COO has both the direct and indirect effect on purchase intentions.

1.4. PERCEIVED VALUE

Perceived value refers to various value facets such as functional value, economic value, emotional value and social value positively perceived by a customer by the use of a specific product or service. Various studies treated perceived value as a positive trade-off of benefits over sacrifices perceived by a customer by using a specific product and they also considered it very important in research in buying behavior and purchase intentions (Gallarza et al., 2017; Koller et al., 2011; Slater and Narver, 2000; Ulaga and Chacour, 2001). It is a proved fact that perceived value has a significant effect on purchase intentions and consumer buying behavior. However, both the direct and indirect effect of perceived value on purchase intentions needs to be analyzed.

1.5. PRESENT RESEARCH SITUATION AND RESEARCH GAP

Jung et al., (2015) conducted a study and recommended to study mobile version of Facebook advertisements and check their influence on purchase intentions of the advertisement viewers. Till now it is an unfilled research gap to be studied by the marketing researchers. Hence, the researcher took the task of studying the impact of mobile version of Facebook advertisements (social impression advertisements;

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homepage advertisements; and organic impression advertisements) on purchase intentions of the advertisement viewers. They used perceived advertising value as moderating variable in their study. But the researcher would use perceived value of the products being advertised because it has strong impact on purchase intentions (Eggert and Ulaga, 2002) instead of perceived advertising value as used by Jung et al., (2015).

Besides the direct impact of mobile version of Facebook advertisements on purchase intentions, the moderating effect of brand origin as a moderating variable while examining purchase intentions was recommended by four recent studies (Ferreira and Ribeiro, 2016; Gineikiene et al., 2017; Holtbrügge and Zeier, 2017; Insch et al., 2017). Hence, this study is an effort to study the impact of Facebook advertisements on one hand and investigating the moderating role of brand origin on the other hand. Besides moderating effect of brand origin, perceived value is also being used as moderating variable in this study due to its importance in explaining purchase intentions.

1.6. RESEARCH PROBLEM

Evaluating the impact of advertising on ultimate sales remained the basic concern for the organizations. The role of advertising is well established in framing purchase intentions of the potential users and ultimate sales. However, the advertising may be done in various forms and media. It is very important decision of a business organization to select a specific media because the media will result in the effectiveness of an advertisement. The media also define the cost and reach of the

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message of advertisement. As the business organizations try to find a cheap media which can also have a wide reach to the most of the target people, the social media website of Facebook has both the desired qualities of low cost of advertisement and wide reach to the viewers.

The literature of marketing and advertising has already established a valid association of advertisement with purchase intentions. Previous studies also have established a direct impact of desktop version of Facebook advertisement on purchase intentions. But the research problem is still unaddressed due to the lack of studies evaluating the impact of mobile version of Facebook advertisement on purchase intentions. Besides, the moderating role of brand origin and perceived value are also needed to be studied. This research problem induced the researcher to conduct the present study to solve this research problem.

1.7. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The researcher has identified the research gap and defined the research problem for the current study. The researcher has set the below mentioned research objective to be fulfilled by this current study. The researcher’s analysis would comprise of the food, clothing and electronics products.

i. To explore the positive impact of mobile version of Facebook advertisement (social impression, homepage impression and organic impression) on purchase intentions.

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of mobile version Facebook advertisement and purchase intentions. iii. To investigate the moderating role of perceived value between

relationships of mobile version Facebook advertisement and purchase intentions.

1.8. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

From the background build-up for this study, understanding the importance of advertisement, impact of advertisement on purchase intentions, current research gap availability, analyzing the research problem, and after determining the research objectives for this study, the researcher has developed following questions to be probed in the current study:

i. Is there any relationship of mobile version of Facebook advertisement (social impression, homepage impression and organic impression) and purchase intentions?

ii. What is the impact of social impression on purchase intentions? iii. What is the impact of homepage impression on purchase intentions? iv. What is the impact of organic impression on purchase intentions?

v. What is the moderating impact of brand origin between relationship of mobile version Facebook advertisement and purchase intentions?

vi. What is the moderating impact of perceived value between relationship of mobile version Facebook advertisement and purchase intentions?

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1.9. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The current study would be significant in terms of academic contribution to the existing body of knowledge in the field of facebook advertising and its role in framing purchase intentions. This study also has significance in terms of contribution to the practice of using facebook advertising and initiating purchase intentions and gaining ultimate purpose of selling goods. These two dimensions of significance of the study are described with details as under:

i. Theoretical Significance

The study would add to existing literature and fill the grey area left by the researchers in the field of consumer research, purchase intentions, advertisement, brand origin and perceived value. The desktop version of Facebook advertisement (social impression advertisements; homepage advertisements; and organic impression advertisements) have direct influence on purchase intentions of the advertisement viewers (Jung et al., 2015). They also highlighted a future research area of studying customers using Facebook on their mobile phones. This research gap is also supported by the study of Koch and Dikmen (2015) who mentioned that Facebook users on mobiles had grown to more than half of the total Facebook users in the world. Hence, the study of advertisements on mobile version of Facebook can be useful for all stake holders because mobile version of Facebook differs from desktop

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version in terms of time available to sit, read, and write long replies; type of messenger used for communication; difference in the homepage and newsfeed; and frequency and size of advertisements. Besides these arguments, the study of brand origin and perceived value as moderating variables while examining purchase intentions would fully comprehend the impact of mobile version of Facebook advertisements (social impression advertisements; homepage advertisements; and organic impression advertisements) on purchase intentions of the advertisement viewers.

ii. Practical Significance

The current study would help the governments, industries, consumers and academics to understand the moderating role of brand origin and perceived value in framing consumers purchase intentions by seeing Facebook advertisement of the products and services. This study would help firms offering products/services. All mentioned stakeholders can easily recognize the patterns of purchase intentions and can incorporate desired features in their products or services.

1.10. SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER

This chapter has discussed the background of advertisement and its impact on purchase intentions of consumers. This chapter discussed the evolution of advertisement which encompassed through social network advertisement, desktop

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facebook advertisement and mobile facebook advertisement. All types of advertisements have positive impact on purchase intentions. In spite this, the study discussed research gap available which became a source of motivation to start this research study. This study would explore the relationship between three types of mobile facebook advertisements (homepage impression, organic impression, social impression) and purchase intentions. However, the moderating effect of country of origin and perceived value would also be explored.

Structure of the Study

The researcher has structured the current study in five major parts (chapters) as per international standard doctoral dissertation writing by the leading universities of the world. The following are the chapters of this research study (doctoral dissertation):

1. Chapter 1: introduction 2. Chapter 2: Literature Review 3. Chapter 3: Research Methodology

4. Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Discussion of Results

5. Chapter 5: Conclusions, Implications, Recommendations and Future Research Directions

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Conclusions, Implications, Recommendations and Future Research Directions Data Analysis and Discussion of Results

Research Methodology Literature Review

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2. 1 PREVIOUS STUDIES ABOUT ADVERTISING TO PURCHASE INTENSIONS

Advertising refers to planning and using media (mass, interactive, or personal) to promote the sales of an advertiser’s products and services (McCorkle and Payan, 2017). It is purposed to increase the awareness of target audience regarding the product while impacting consumer minds subtly (Godey et al., 2016). The major purpose of advertising is to inform, persuade, and remind target markets to buy the advertiser’s offerings (Kumar et al., 2016). Research shows that the advertising has a direct impact on the business performance of an organization including its sales (Kumar et al., 2016), profits (Kumar et al., 2017), brand equity (Aaker, 1992; Keller, 1993), and business value (Godey et al., 2016).

Nevertheless, research shows that the effectiveness of the advertising varies from business to business as well as their offerings. One kind of advertising effort might be useful to one business while the same kind could be harmful to the other (Mansour and Diab, 2016). There are many factors affecting advertising effectiveness including consumer tastes, values, industry norms/trends, and product/service personality (Ansari and Riasi, 2016). Advertisers face numerous challenges while enhancing their advertising effectiveness and they are concerned to draw the attention of the consumer while minimizing the noise/clutter generated by competing products and services. One suggested way to achieve audience reception and overcome noise is

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creativity. Research studies strongly support the role of creativity for advertising effectiveness (Godey et al., 2016). Advertising is a strategic tool to represent a business and its products to the local and regional market as well as to draw the attention of the customers (Kumar et al., 2016). Through advertising function of the organization, customers gain awareness about the product as well as its benefits and its usage (Patwa et al., 2016).

Advertising is a source of communication between the firm and the consumers regarding the value offered by company to satisfy consumers’ needs and wants (Mansour and Diab, 2016). In contemporary business world, competitors are focusing on integrated marketing communication and 360 degree media campaigns to reach their target audience effectively (Woodside, 2016). Even today, the classical forms of mass non-personal media such as television, print, radio, mailers, selling contests, paper, direct and endorsement is being used although it is losing its effectiveness with the emergence of digital media technologies (Ogilvy, 2013).

Advertiser can engage in advertising function using two ways: (1) performing advertising function on its own and/or (2) hiring an advertising agency to perform advertising activities on its behalf (Ogilvy, 2013). The most common practice is the latter that is firms hire specialized advertising agencies that have expertise in production, media planning, and execution to inform, remind, and persuade consumers using traditional and non-traditional media (Heerde et al., 2013). These firms are also specialized and creative enough to overcome the noise generated by competition

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offering similar products and services (Ansari and Riasi, 2016). At this stage, creativity comes into play and defines the brand positioning of company in the minds of the target customers (Ogilvy, 2013).

The Purpose of Advertising

Advertising is an important element of marketing mix. It is a multi-purpose process directly impacting the promotional component of marketing mix. The major purposes of advertising are but not limited to the following:

i. Increasing and enhancing customer awareness about advertiser’s offerings (Wells, 2014).

ii. Matching the product/service offerings with personal needs and wants of target audience (Liu & Shankar, 2015).

iii. Achieving the desired brand positioning in the marketplace (Swani, Milne, & P. Brown, 2013).

iv. Building brand loyalty and associate positive associations with the brand (Bernstein, Ottenfeld, & Witte, 2014).

v. Announcing new products and services (Muda, Musa, Mohamed, & Borhan, 2014).

vi. Reinforcing company’s selling proposition (Wang, et al., 2014).

vii. To stand out the noise/clutter generated by competition (Peng, Qu, Peng, & Quan, 2017).

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viii. Using all means necessary to reach the target audience while minimizing wasted reach (Shao, Grace, & Ross, 2015).

ix. Enhancing brand recall (Tellis, 2014).

x. Communicating brand promises and warranties to the consumer (Diehl, Terlutter, & Mueller, 2016).

xi. Enhancing purchase intentions (Chu et al., 2011; Van-Tien et al., 2014).

Specific advertising goals vary from organization to organization. It is the business strategy that defines narrow and specific advertising goals of an organization (Diehl et al., 2016). For example, an advertising goal to increase sales inquiry will be based on the business strategy of sales development. Likewise, it has different goals in different phases of a business lifecycle and product life cycle as well. In the introduction phase of product lifecycle, the major focus of advertising is to create a unique identity of the product/service in the marketing (Aaker, 1992). At this stage, advertising spending of the company is maximum because there is a need to reach the maximum number of target customers and to maximize the brand awareness (Kumar et al., 2016). Therefore, all kinds of media can be used at this stage to maximize the advertising impact (Godey et al., 2016).

As the product moves to growth phase, the focus of the advertising changes to encouraging the target customers to prefer and buy the product relative to competitors (Heerde et al., 2013). At this stage, the focus of advertising is to persuade the customers that the product/service offering is the right choice for them relative to competing brands. As customers have some awareness of the brand at this stage,

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advertising spending reduces a little (Ogilvy, 2013). When the product moves towards maturity stage, the focus of the advertising changes towards reminding customers about the brand or service offering (Kumar et al., 2016). In this phase, advertising focuses on awareness, interest, desire, and action (AIDA) as the need to refocus awareness arises as market becomes highly competitive. At this stage, advertising becomes more focused and creative as brands struggle to stand out the noise generated by competition (Tellis, 2014). Therefore, at maturity stage, advertisers mostly focus on niche and focused markets to generate maximum response while using non-conventional media and advertising means (Woodside, 2016).

Types of Advertising

Advertising itself has changed its trends from traditional methods to non-conventional methods (Moon and Kwon, 2011). It is easy to reach the end users on personal level through these social sites (Fuchs, 2017). Also, targeting customers has become more efficient through these social sites. As compared to traditional methods, these methods are way more cost effective as well. Online advertisement works very fast that the day that one gets started is the same day that results manifest. There is basically neither waiting period nor long start-up process. Once an entrepreneur initiates its business promotion on the internet, he/she can very easily get results online. The advertising campaign can be launched successfully on multiple channels of social media (Radtke, 2017.

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Advertising has thousands of different channels for a business to convey message to customers. Today’s advertisers have massive variety of choices at their disposal. Internet has provided a lot of these, with a help of videos, websites, chat-rooms and many more. Here are some examples which are available for the business owner to advertise his product through these channels (Bright, 2017). The major types are discussed as follow:

A. Above-the-Line Media Advertising

Above the line media advertising involves non-personal/mass-media campaigns using television, radio, newspaper, and outdoor/billboard advertising (Ansari and Riasi, 2016). It has different forms described below:

i. Television

It is the most obvious form of above the line media used for advertising. Advertisements on television can attract millions of customers to firm’s products and services (Liaukonyte, Teixeira, & Wilbur, 2015). It has an advantage that the customer can watch, listen and see the different colors which attract the customer to the product (Brasel & Gips, 2014). On the television advertisements, advertisers can convey their message to the audience by the demonstration that how their product or service work (Choubineh, Zarei, & Ahmadi, 2014). It is the most expensive type of advertising. Advertising on television is sold in units (10, 20, 30, 60 seconds) and the prices vary according to the time slot (Ansari & Riasi, 2016).

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ii. Radio

Advertising on the radio is another very good and productive source to target the audience (Williams, 2015). If the target audience listens to a typical station, the advertisements on radio can bring new customers to the business (Martín-Santana, Reinares-Lara, & Muela-Molina, 2015). However, sound has its boundaries. For listeners, it is difficult sometimes to remember or comprehend with listening only without having any visuals (Moriarty, et al., 2014). The best way is to craft the message creatively while repeating it on regular intervals (Diehl, Terlutter, & Mueller, 2016).

iii. Print Media

Print Advertising is the third form of mass-media that can used for massive non-personal communication (Brasel & Gips, 2014). Once there was a huge market of sales through print media but now it is on the back seat in the advertising market (Diehl, Terlutter, & Mueller, 2016). However, there is one thing that is about the advertising on the print media, it is a kind of different and different is good (Godey et al., 2016). When customer tires from the contemporary advertising, they return to the print media. Print media can be divided into three sub-categories:

i. Periodical Advertising: If the ad is in a magazine or newspaper or anything else that comes out on regular basis then it can be called periodical advertising (Moriarty, et al., 2014). For decades, print advertising was the best standard for advertisers and for their customers. To get a place in the center spread of a well-known magazine or on front or back page of the newspaper meant millions

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of people were seen that advertisement (Bernstein, Ottenfeld, & Witte, 2014).

ii. Brochure, Leaflet & Point of Sale Advertising: Another way to convey your message to the customer is print the message on a brochure, leaflet or on a flyer and distribute it into the market (Moriarty, et al., 2014). Usually these ads have fewer chances to be seen.

iii. Direct Mail Advertising: It is a very simple way of advertisement, all you have to do is print company’s ad and mail it direct to the customers (Moriarty, et al., 2014). It is a very good and productive way to convey your message to the consumers about your products or services.

iv. Directories

Directories are another form of above the line media that list businesses by your name or category (Yellowpages, phone directory). The printed directories have a drawback that they cannot be changed and updated overnight and as compared to that online directories have a massive edge on the print directories (Wells, 2014). Advertiser can change your details accordingly and they can up-to-date your details of business and it can be done on a click of a button. Organizations can also add and remove things from their list if they want to target the market then it is best to advertise in both (Moriarty, et al., 2014).

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Interactive media advertising involves all sources which provide an interaction between the viewer and the advertiser. It has different forms described as under:

i. Internet and Online Media

Internet and online advertising is one of the most obvious forms of interactive media. Interactive media is personal and it allows one-to-one relationship with target audience (Priyanka and Srinivasan, 2015). Using interactive media like internet and online website, personalized and customized needs of target audience can be identified and targeted using advertising (Ngai et al., 2015). This increases advertising effectiveness. More importantly, advertisement feedback is obtained in real-time relative to above the line media advertisements that results in performance improvement and advertising contingency planning (Parveen, et al., 2015).

ii. Website Advertisements

Online advertising includes website advertisements such as banner ads, pop-ups, textlinks, coupons, Adwords, videos, and social media linkages (Parveen et al., 2015). Online advertising also refers to other form of digital marketing such as paid search, search engine optimization, content marketing, email marketing, and pay-per-click advertising (Bernstein et al., 2014). It also includes social media advertising and Facebook advertising that will be discussed in detail in coming sections.

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The advertising using below the line media is extremely focused, specific, and direct relative to above the line media advertisements. Advertising using such media is also referred to be ‘direct marketing’. Forms of below-the-line media are mentioned as under:

i. Outdoor Billboard

There are different ways of the advertisement outside and on the go. Outdoor billboard (an above the line media tool) can be seen alongside the roads and on different events (Muda et al., 2014). Transit advertisement can be seen on buses, taxies and on different transport through posters on them (Kumar et al., 2016). Big and massive billboards can convey advertiser’s message to the public across with a big impact. If a customer passes through advertiser’s billboard everyday on the way to work, when they want to buy something relevant to your product, advertiser will be the first business who they think of (Patwa et al., 2016). Sometimes, even the largest billboard contain limited information and hard to see the web address or the phone number (Muda et al., 2014). It is usually in the favor of advertiser to make it easier to read the information for the customers so that they can follow up and find maximum information about advertised business and product (Peng et al., 2017). Outdoor billboards advertising can be very expensive, if a place near station or on a prime location is hired (Moriarty et al., 2014). Outdoor Advertising may also contain support media. Support media consists of different options for the business to convey their message to the public. This kind of media includes bus and taxi seats, bus stop benches,

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aerial and trade publications. Each has its own benefits and drawbacks but they have a wide range of audience in a local and regional market (Moriarty et al., 2014).

ii. Direct Mail

Direct mail marketing is one of another below the line strategy used by marketers in which they send tailor-made messages to potential customers through direct mails (Ansari and Riasi, 2016). The message is crafted as per needs of the target and their needs are pinpointed in advertising message. Therefore, below the line campaigns can be sometime more effective in generating response (Patwa et al., 2016).

iii. Sponsorships and Public Relations

Sponsorships and public relations is an important tool of below the line media in which advertisers sponsor different events and press conferences (Wells, 2014). In such conferences, the advertising message is crafted subtly and indirectly to build product or brand image. Examples of such kinds of advertisements involve hospitals sponsoring seminars or press conferences on a specific disease and giving out information to generate awareness (Wells, 2014). In such events, participants or audience do not realize that they are being advertised (Moriarty et al., 2014).

iv. Brand Activation and Direct Selling

Brand Activation and Direct Selling are tools of advertising that enable the target audience to test the product quality in real-time simulations. Through door-to-door selling and distribution of free samples, advertiser gift the product to target

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audience by encouraging them to try the product for free or at a minimal costs (Kumar et al., 2016). As a result, an advertising message is giving through the product performance, quality, and customer services provided by representative. In brand activation, brand events are launched in which customers are invited to test the product or service for free at branded premises (Wells, 2014).

v. In-store advertising or shelf marketing

In store advertising or shelf marketing involves using in-store or on premise advertising activities such as point-of-sales or discount offers to engage the target audience (Moriarty et al., 2014). The above mentioned techniques are discussed in brief although advertising has gained evolution to a wide range of other media.

2. 2 PURCHASE INTENTIONS

Purchase intention is a central characteristic of consumer behavior which refer to the decision of a customer to purchase goods or services (Dodds et al., 1991; Kim et al., 2011; Van der Heijden, 2003), chances of a person to purchase goods or services (Schiffman and Kanuk, 2009) and making a buying choice by assessing various substitutes of the product or service (Zeithaml, 1988; Karimi et al., 2015). Various studies argue that when customers evaluate goods or services positively, then they have tendency to buy a specific product or service which is termed as purchase intention of the customers (Beatty & Ferrell, 1998; Dittmar, Beattie, & Friese, 1996; Hausman, 2000; Rook, 1987; Rook & Fisher, 1995; Weinberg & Gottwald, 1982).

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Purchase intention are truly the subjective judgments by the users that is obtained after general evaluation to purchase products or services (Hsu, 1987; Dodds et al., 1991; Blackwell et al., 2001 and Shao et al, 2004). The statement describes several points, which are: (1) consumer willingness to consider a product or service to purchase, (2) Purchase intention in the future, and (3) repurchase decisions. Other than that, purchase intentions also refer to the degree of perceptual conviction a customer holds to purchase a product or service. Moreover, satisfaction has a positive incremental effect on brand loyalty. This satisfaction comes with the positive feedback from the circle of influence surrounding one’s social life.

According to Putrevu and Lord (1994), if has a person has an intention to buy backed by a will to buy any specific product or service on a specific price, it is said that he/she purchase intention for that specific product or service. Besides the intentions, they must also have a strong desire to buy products that are promoted, a definite plan to purchase and positive influence on their ultimate purchase decisions. Taylor & Hunter (2002) also agreed with the definition and dimensions of purchase intentions provided by Putrevu and Lord (1994). According to Schiffman and Kanuk (2010), purchase intention shows the transaction behavior of a customer after evaluating the goods and services from various angles such as utility and price. Some researchers treat purchase intention as a base of ultimate decision. They argue that without proper purchase intention, the actual purchase is not possible because it show the likelihood behavior of a customer to make ultimate purchase (Alford and Biswas, 2000; Wang et al., 2012). They suggest that in order to increase purchase intention, the

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corporations must have to make adjustment in the price and promotion of a product (Alford & Biswas, 2000) and advertisement contents (Johnson and Russo, 1984).

Hence, the researcher concludes that purchase intention is the initial step towards the ultimate and actual purchase of a product by a customer and the purchase intention can be enhanced through proper advertisement of the products for creating awareness among the potential customers.

Relationship between Facebook Advertising and Purchase Intentions

The influence of Facebook advertising on one’s intentions to purchase are discussed by many scholars as evidenced by Hsu and Hsu (2017), Boerman et al., (2017), Qazi et al., (2017) and many other recent papers (Christodoulides et al. 2012; Hajli et al., 2017; Leong et al., 2017; Phua et al., 2017; Smith et al. 2012; Taylor, 2013; Villanueva et al., 2008). Purchase intentions of customers are driven & motivated by a relationship of price, quality, and perceived value associated with the brand (Dodds and Monroe, 1985). Various studies consider alignment of advertisement with needs and wants of the target customers that results in stimulating purchase intentions of potential customers (Ducoffe, 1996, (Pollay & Mittal, 1993, Brown, Pope & Voges, 2003, Dahlen, 2001. Facebook advertisement has positive

Purchase

Intention

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impact on purchase intentions (Chu & Kim, 2011). An SNA successfully relating the company offerings with the users’ needs and wants, creates positive associations of a brand and purchase intentions (Van et al., 2014). Jung et al., (2015) narrate that mostly an advertisemnt on Facebook match company offerings with customers’ needs & wants more effectively than to traditional advertising because it is easier to customize advertisement than to traditional advertising (Yang, 2012; Leung et al., 2015).

Facebook advertising offers users or consumers the opportunity to interact actively with the adverts on links allowing them to ‘‘like’’ and ‘‘share’’ and also view who else or which friends liked or shared the same adverts. In this way, company and consumers are directly involved with each other. Some researches states that social media sites such as Facebook act as a credibility tester of brands. Lee and Kim (2011) found that consumers review other consumer’s messages on social media as being motivated by altruism, unlike advertising generated by advertisers. In today’s corporate world, the success or failure of any product or brand hinges on public perceptions and relations. The success of advertising should be measured through consumers’ evaluations of the interest aroused by the advertisements. Facebook creates wide platforms for viral online recommendations (Smock, Ellison, Lampe, & Wohn, 2011). This encourages organizations to willingly spend a reasonable portion of their budgets on analyzing procedures to determine potential customers and target them with advertisements on Facebook (Falls, 2009). However, organizations are shifting from push advertising to trust-based advertising, in which advertisers engage their consumers with their brands and stimulate word of mouth (WOM) promotion (Knight

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& Kristina, 2007). These WOM are developed through Facebook, which positions Facebook advertising as an effective means to enhance the brand image of any product or service (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010)

Most of the modern advertisers establish “Facebook Pages” for the purpose of advertising various products online (Lipsman et al., Bruich 2012). For 2014, Super Bowl ads, 58% contained hashtags (#), that is increase from 50% in 2013 (Novet 2014). A study by DEI Worldwide (2008) found 70% of consumers visit social media sites for updates and up to date information for any product or service, 49% of these consumers were influenced by the information they found through the social media sites for making buying decisions, 60% pass along information to others online and were transmitting the information to different sources, and 45% of those who searched for information via social media sites engaged in word of mouth. Stambor 2014, almost 25% of U.S. internet users have made a purchase on a retail websites after clicking from a social media sites. Certain social media sites produce more lucrative purchases than others, with Pinterest’s average order value of $123.50 almost three times larger than a Facebook order (Stambor 2014), that shows the Facebook enjoys more than $40 as an average order value. Regarding its professional potential, in the second half of 2011, about 2.5 million websites integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of comScore’s top 100 US websites and over half of its top 100 global websites (www.facebook.com, 2011). These numbers highlight the importance of Facebook as a most important communication tool for both end users and organizations. For entrepreneurs, social media platforms can be used as a valuable

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mean for communicating with their targeted customer groups (ANKENY, 2011a; FORBES, 2011). The research reveals that up to 60 percent of the Facebook advertising market is made up of small and mid-sized businesses (ANKENY, 2011b).

There are various advertising strategies companies use to target Facebook users who might be potential customers. One specific way of establishing a social presence and engaging customers is to create brand fan pages on Facebook. Companies can place brand posts containing photos, videos, messages, quizzes, anecdotes, and other materials on these pages, while customers can become fans or followers of these brand fan pages, and indicate that they like the brand posts, comment on, or forward them (de Vries et al. 2012). The reviews, recommendations and likes results in the online Word of mouth for the followers as well. These dedicated brand pages offer the followers to express their liking and passion for the brand and in this way the fans are united their shared interest in the brand (Kozinets 1999). Brand fan pages also showcase part of the customers’ relationship with the brand (McAlexander, Schouten, and Koenig 2002), help to strengthen the brand–customer relationship (Muñiz and O'Guinn 2001), serve as a source of information, and sometimes provide social benefits to the fans (Bagozzi and Dholakia 2002; Dholakia, Bagozzi, and Pearo 2004). A recent study of Qazi et al., (2017) found a direct relationship between the facebook advertisement and purchase intention of mobile facebook users.

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2. 3 SOCIAL NETWORKING ADVERTISING WEBSITES

Initially, internet was limited to desktop computers. As the technologies, have evolved and the mega and heavy computers are shrinking to small palm top machines it has become easy to stay on line (Shao, 2009). Mobile devices are playing vital role in maintaining this connectivity. In the beginning of this millennia, affordability of such devices was limited. Soon many companies jumped in to the race for developing smaller and cost effective devices (Fuchs, 2017). In this way now people have much advanced mobile sets and on a very affordable price. The service providers have also shifted their trend from voice to data and are offering more attractive data packages. Similarly, the social sites have adapted to these smaller devices. Now, almost every site is accessible on smart phones. This has increased the connectivity and presence on the sites as well (Fuchs, 2017; He et al., 2017; Moon and Kwon, 2011).

This advancement in technology of the current era has significantly changed the concept of online and internet advertising. With the launch of social media websites, the corporations and advertisers have changed their focus from general advertisement techniques to the specific advertisement techniques and medium for getting appropriate results. The corporations can advertise their products or services on the social media which can enable them to reach potential customers around the globe (Maina, 2016). This social media not only provides a global reach to the potential customers but also provides an interactive and viral means advertising. The reach and popularity and interaction of social media helps corporations in getting positive results

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on social media websites in the form of informing, persuading, obtaining reviews and reminding the potential customers about their products or services (Ngai et al., 2015; Priyanka and Srinivasan, 2015).

There are a lot number of social networking websites in the world. However, the popularity, reach, number of users and frequency of usage of social networking websites matter a lot when we see in the perspective of advertisements by the corporations. Hence, preparing a list of important social networking websites with the above mentioned concerns can be handy for the corporations interested in social media advertising. According to Maina (2016), there are top twenty (20) popular social media websites being used in the world. He explains that these social networking websites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Youtube, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, Flickr, Reddit, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Quora, Vine, Periscope, BizSugar, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Digg and Viber respectively. The author recommends these websites for advertising irrespective of size and nature of business. But, the reach, popularity and associated costs with the social media websites are not equal. Therefore, a corporation has to decide about the ultimate advertising on some certain social media website/websites to obtain maximum benefit from advertising.

Comparison of Social Networking Advertising Websites

It is very useful if we can make a useful comparison of social networking advertisement websites in terms of number of users and popularity. The higher the number of users are, the higher effectiveness of an advertisement is there. Among all