The Influence of Advertorial Attributions on Forum User Responses via M-R Theory: Materialism as Moderator

Abstract

In business activities today online advertisements act as an important channel in interacting with forum user and communicating product information Since there is lack of past literature discussing the relationship between online advertisement attributes and users this research focuses on the forums especially advertorials with the M-R theory using advertorial attributes such of informativeness credibility irritation and entertainment as online environmental stimulus to study forum user’s reaction to advertorials and understand their emotional states including control arousal and pleasure In addition materialism will be manipulated as a moderating variable to further discuss its moderating effect between advertorial attributes and forum users control This study focuses on respondents who have forum browsing experience and SEM was used to analysis the 421 valid questionnaires collected Results indicate the causal relationship among control arousal and pleasure Advertorial attributes will influence forum user’s emotional states via control and emotional states will directly affect the information acceptance and purchase intention Partial moderating effect of materialism was present between advertorial attributes and control among which credibility and pleasure were significant As this study discovered online forum user indeed care about advertorial attributes it suggested that when editorial writers are publishing advertorials they should provide high credibility information and detailed descriptions regarding product characteristics combined with interspersed entertaining images and videos to reduce lengthy confusing and tedious layout in order to minimize negative impact of users’ emotions In addition if writers can increase readers’ acceptance of contents and positive emotions by providing true detailed information the promotion effect of advertorials can be significantly enhanced

Date of Award	2015 Jul 2
Original language	English
Supervisor	Hsin-Hsin Chang (Supervisor)