Which Message? Which Channel? Which Customer? - Exploring Response Rates in Multi-Channel Marketing Using Short-Form Advertising

Abstract

Formulating short-form advertising messages with little ad content that work and choosing high-performing channels to disseminate them are persistent challenges in multichannel marketing. Drawing on the persuasive systems design (PSD) model, we experimented with 33,848 actual customers of an international telecom company. In a real-life setting, we compared the effectiveness of three persuasion strategies (rational, emotional, and social) tested in three marketing channels (short message service (SMS), social media advertising, and mobile application), evaluating their effect on influencing customers to purchase international mobile phone credits. Results suggest that companies should send rational messages when using short-form advertising messages regardless of the channel to achieve higher response rates. Findings further show that certain customer characteristics are predictive of positive responses and differ by channel but not by message type. Findings from crowdsourced evaluations also indicate that people noticeably disagree on what persuasive strategy was applied to these short messages, indicating that consumers are not well-equipped to identify persuasive strategies or that what advertisers see as a “pure” strategy actually involves elements from multiple strategies as interpreted by consumers. The results have implications for the theoretical understanding of persuasive short-form commercial messaging in multichannel marketing and practical insights for advertising within a limited amount of space and attention afforded by many digital channels.

A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Character Presence in Advergames and Its Impact on Brand Outcomes

“…The findings of the study suggested that character presence and cultural aspect are significantly related to each other. This finding is consistent with those of Marzouk et al (2021), who claim that character presence is crucial for effective advertising using advergames in order to have a favourable impact on the brand outcomes while taking the cultural factor into consideration. Also, this finding is similar to the results of Masuda and Nisbett (2001) as they state that culture impacts the perceptual processes like East Asians and North Americans have different percieving and thinking style.…”

“…Several researches have looked into how well characters work in emotive advertising. Marzouk et al (2021) but not many have explored the influence of character presence on brand outcomes in advergames from cross-cultural aspect. By conducting an empirical study to determine the character presence in advertising video games and its impact on brand outcome from a cross-cultural point of view, this study solves the aforementioned gap.…”