Weakening the avoidance bug: The impact of personality traits in ad avoidance on social networking sites

ABSTRACT

Social network advertising continues to be a prevalent advertising strategy for brands. With the cluttered ad environment, consumers may adopt varying strategies (e.g. ad avoidance) to prevent ad exposure. Literature suggests the link between personality traits and SNS use, and online behavior. Thus, this study examines how personality traits function to determine individuals’ perception of SNS ads and consequently ad avoidance. Using an online panel (MTurk) and survey, this study tests proposed relationships using SEM. The results indicate that four personality traits (i.e. neuroticism, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness to experience) have significant but opposite relationships with perceived relevance, perceived intrusiveness and privacy concern. Perceived relevance decreased ad avoidance whereas perceived intrusiveness and privacy concern increased ad avoidance confirming the significance of these three considerations in explaining the phenomenon of SNS ad avoidance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Personality traits
• advertising avoidance
• social network advertising
• social networking sites
• consumer behavior

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Naa Amponsah Dodoo

Naa Amponsah Dodoo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Marketing Communication at Emerson College. Dr. Dodoo’s research revolves around her fascination with evolving new media technologies, its role in digital and social media environments, and subsequent influence on consumer psychology and behavior in offline and online realms. Primarily, she explores the effects of individual traits and contextual aspects of digital communication on persuasion. Her work has been published in journals such as the International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Interactive Advertising and Journal of Marketing Communications.

Jing (Taylor) Wen

Dr. Jing (Taylor) Wen is an Assistant Professor in School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Wen conducts research in consumer psychology and media effects in the context of marketing, health, and risk communications with a special focus on the construct of emotions. Her research identifies multiple aspects of the construct of emotions, including mixed emotions, context- and ad-induced emotions, multiple dimensions of emotions — valence, arousal, and dominance, and psychophysiological measurement of emotions — eye-tracking and fMRI. Her work has appeared in journals including International Journal of Advertising, Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, and Journal of Interactive Advertising.