Title: Examining beliefs, values and attitudes towards social media advertisements: results from India

Authors: Thamaraiselvan Natarajan; Janarthanan Balakrishnan; Senthil Arasu Balasubramanian; Jeevananthan Manickavasagam

Addresses: Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli – 620015, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli – 620015, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli – 620015, Tamil Nadu, India ' Department of Management Studies, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli – 620015, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: The purpose of this study is: a) to empirically identify the Indian consumer attitude towards social media advertisements based on their demographics; b) to investigate the relationship underlying beliefs, values, attitude and behaviour towards social media advertisements among Indian consumers. Online data collection was administered from various social media sites. Five hundred ten responses were recorded comprehensively as usable data. CHAID criterion in decision tree technique was used to identify the significant demographic characteristic predicting consumer attitude. A two-step structural equation modelling approach using LISREL 8.8 was applied to understand the relationship underlying beliefs, advertising value, consumer attitude, and consumer behaviour. A consumer's occupation, income level and preferred social media sites were identified as the most significant demographic predictors for his/her attitude towards social media advertisements. Standardised estimates of the structural equation modelling indicated that four beliefs factors, namely, hedonic/pleasure, social role and image, materialism, and falsity, significantly influenced advertisement value. This research is amongst such pioneering efforts in exploring the online presence and response of Indian consumers to internet marketing in the form of social media advertisements.

Keywords: online consumer behaviour; social media advertising; demographics; internet marketing; decision tree; online marketing; India; consumer behaviour; structural equation modelling; SEM; consumer beliefs; consumer values; consumer attitudes; social media adverts; occupation; income level; preferred sites.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2015.072738

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2015 Vol.20 No.4, pp.427 - 454

Received: 29 Apr 2014
Accepted: 12 Jul 2014
Published online: 28 Oct 2015 *

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