We study the impact of perceived personalization on consumer responses to advertising on Facebook, a popular social network site (SNS). Based on two experiments, we test a moderated mediation model with perceived relevance as the mediator and respondents' attitudes toward Facebook as the moderator of the relationship between perceived personalization on one hand and brand attitude and click intention on the other. The results show that perceived personalization improves responses toward Facebook ads, through perceived relevance. The moderating impact of attitude toward Facebook is significant only in the second study. There, the positive effect of perceived personalization of Facebook advertisements on click intention is stronger for participants with more positive attitudes toward Facebook.

We study the effect of perceived personalization in advertising on social networking sites (SNSs) on consumer brand responses. In study 1 (N = 202), we test a parallel mediation via perceived personal relevance and intrusiveness on brand attitude (Ab) and click intention (CI). Perceived personalization improves Ab and CI by increasing the perceived personal relevance and, unexpectedly, by decreasing the perceived intrusiveness of the ad. Study 2 (N = 264) extends the processing mechanism of personalized advertising by additionally including the mediating effects of self-brand connection and reactance toward the ad. Perceived personalization has a positive indirect effect on self-brand connection via perceived personal relevance, but not via perceived intrusiveness. Self-brand connection, in turn, has a positive effect on consumers’ responses. Contrary to expectations, reactance does not significantly affect brand responses. Study 2 also examines the moderating role of perceived privacy protection by the SNS. Higher levels of perceived privacy protection by the SNS do not strengthen the indirect effects of perceived personalization.

Purpose: This study aims to assess the relative importance of the argument strength, argument sidedness, writing quality, number of arguments, rated review usefulness, summary review rating and number of reviews in determining the perceived usefulness and credibility of an online review. Additionally, the authors use insights from the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) to explore the effect of consumers' product category involvement on the cues' relative importance.Design/methodology/approach: A conjoint analysis (N = 287) is used to study the relative importance of the seven previously mentioned attributes. A balanced orthogonal design generated eight cards that correspond to individual reviews. Respondents scored all eight cards in a random order for perceived usefulness and credibility.Findings: Overall, argument strength is the most important cue, while summary review rating and the number of reviews are the least important for perceived review usefulness and credibility. The number of arguments is more important for people who are more highly involved with the product, while writing quality and rated review usefulness are relatively more important for the low-involvement group.Originality/value: This study provides a comprehensive test of how consumers perceive online reviews, as it the first to the authors’ knowledge to simultaneously investigate a large set of cues using conjoint analysis. This method allows for the implicit valuation (utility) of the individual cues, revealing the cues' relative importance, in a setting that comes close to a real-life context. Besides, insights of the ELM are used to understand how the relative importance of cues differs depending on the level of review readers' product category involvement.

In two studies, this paper examines how perceived personalization in advertisements on social media affects brand engagement and ad avoidance. Using a preregistered between‐subjects cross‐sectional survey (n = 794), we tested four different moderated mediation models with perceived creepiness and perceived relevance as competing mediating variables, and hedonic and eudaimonic well‐being as moderating variables. Perceived relevance explains the positive effect of perceived personalization on brand engagement and the negative effect on ad avoidance. Moreover, perceived creepiness explains the negative effect of perceived personalization on ad avoidance. Contrary to our hypotheses, we find positive effects of perceived personalization via perceived creepiness on brand engagement and ad avoidance. Then, a qualitative think‐aloud survey (n = 36) shows that participants are accustomed to personalized advertisements and scroll to avoid them unless there is relevant or useful content. Independent of their well‐being, participants are not creeped out because of personalized advertising; however, it does raise their privacy concerns. Finally, the findings of our two studies indicate that advertisers and social media need to particularly consider consumers' negative affective well‐being to effectively deliver personalized advertisements due to the increase in creepiness and/or privacy concerns.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the boundary conditions of the effect of the valence of word-of-mouth on social networking sites (sWOM) on consumer responses (attitude toward the service provider, purchase intention and positive word-of-mouth intention). Specifically, the authors examine two moderators: the tone of voice (factual vs emotional) of the sWOM and service type (utilitarian vs hedonic) of the service that the sWOM is about. Design/methodology/approach: A 2 (message valence: positive vs negative) × 2 (tone of voice: factual vs emotional) × 2 (service type: utilitarian vs hedonic) full-factorial between-subjects online experiment with 400 respondents was conducted and the data were analyzed using Hayes’ PROCESS macro. Findings: The results show that message valence exerts a greater impact on consumer responses with factual sWOM messages compared to emotional ones. Furthermore, the impact of message valence is stronger for hedonic services compared to utilitarian services. In contrast to the authors’ expectations, there is no significant impact of matching the tone of voice to the service type. Practical implications: First, for sWOM senders, factual messages are found to be more influential: backing an sWOM up with arguments and specific details increases the chance of it affecting consumers’ responses. As a result, marketers, especially of predominantly hedonic services, should encourage their followers and customers to spread positive factual sWOM about their service. Originality/value: The study tests two previously unstudied moderating variables that affect the relationship between message valence and consumer responses to sWOM messages. Moreover, this study provides interesting insights for marketers and bloggers or reviewers.