Understanding the differential effectiveness of marketer versus user-generated advertisements in closed social networking sites: an empirical study of WeChat

Teng Teng, Huifang Li, Yulin Fang, Lingzhi Shen

Abstract: Purpose In recent years, closed social networking sites (SNSs) have become popular advertising media. Marketer-generated advertisements (MGAs) and user-generated advertisements (UGAs) are the two pillars of advertising businesses. The objective of this research is to investigate and compare how these ad types (i.e. MGA versus UGA) affect advertising effectiveness in closed SNSs. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a scenario-based experiment of 403 WeChat users in China and used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the research model. Findings The study results indicate that UGAs perform better than MGAs in enhancing consumers' perceived informativeness, credibility and entertainment, while MGAs are more likely to make consumers feel irritated than UGAs in closed SNSs. Moreover, consumers' perceived informativeness, credibility and entertainment positively influence advertising effectiveness, whereas perceived irritation negatively affects it. Originality/value This study reveals consumers' psychological response mechanisms to MGA and UGA and sheds light on their differential effectiveness by extending the stimuli-organism-response model to the context of closed SNSs.