When brand-related UGC induces effectiveness on social media: the role of content sponsorship and content type

ABSTRACT

With the growing power of brand-related user-generated content (UGC) on social media, marketers have begun incorporating UGC into the marketing mix as part of word-of-mouth marketing. Drawing upon the Persuasion Knowledge Model, this study examines how content sponsorship interacts with content type to influence consumer responses toward brand-related UGC (inferences of manipulative intent, brand attitude, and intention to click on a URL). The results of an experiment with an online panel in the United States show that when the content is organic (i.e. unpaid), experience-centric content is more likely to induce favourable consumer responses than promotional content. When the content is sponsored (i.e. paid), however, promotional content yields more effective results than experience-centric content. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that consumer inferences of manipulative intent serve as a mediator for the interaction effects between content sponsorship and content types on consumer responses.

KEYWORDS:

• Brand-related UGC
• WOM marketing
• content sponsorship
• content type
• PKM
• inferences of manipulative intent

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The list of product categories was developed based on the analysis of 500 sponsored tweets at the point of data collection.

2. The largest age group among US Twitter users is young adults 18–34 (http://www.quantcast.com).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by 2016 Hongik University Research Fund.

Notes on contributors

Mikyoung Kim

Mikyoung Kim (PhD, Michigan State University) is an assistant professor in the School of Advertising and Public Relations at Hongik University. Her research focuses on consumer responses to marketing strategies on various digital media.

Doori Song

Doori Song (PhD, University of Florida) is an assistant professor of marketing at the Warren P. Williamson, Jr. College of Business Administration, Youngstown State University. His research focuses on consumer psychology and behavior.