Manuela López

Social media has enabled certain individuals who create content on the Internet to attract mass audiences and exert considerable influence on consumers (Casaló, Flavián, and Ibáñez-Sánchez 2020). R...

Purpose: Synthetic advertising, which involves creating or modifying ads through artificial intelligence (AI) technology, has recently transformed the field of media and advertising. Despite its emerging importance, our understanding of consumer perceptions in this context is limited. This study is one of the first to explore the impact of synthetic advertising on consumer behavior.Design/methodology/approach: Across two between-subject experimental studies, using coffee shop customers in the USA, we tested how, why and when awareness of falsity in AI-generated corporate social responsibility (CSR) ads affects online brand engagement.Findings: In Study 1, awareness of falsity in AI-generated CSR ads negatively impacts online brand engagement, with perceived sincerity mediating this relationship. Additionally, a higher level of CSR authenticity mitigates the negative effect of awareness of falsity on online brand engagement. CSR authenticity does not moderate the mediation effect of perceived sincerity in the relationship between awareness of falsity and online brand engagement. In Study 2, the relationship between awareness of falsity and online brand engagement is moderated by brand familiarity. Importantly, perceived sincerity only mediates this effect for unfamiliar brands, not familiar ones.Practical implications: This study provides key insights for managers using AI to promote CSR initiatives. While AI can save time and budget, it may lead to negative consumer reactions due to perceptions of insincerity. To mitigate this, companies should focus on enhancing the authenticity of their CSR efforts and humanizing AI-generated ads. Additionally, established brands should be cautious of reduced consumer engagement with AI-generated content, while unfamiliar brands can benefit by emphasizing sincerity in their messaging.Originality/value: This paper is one of the first studies that discuss how, why and when awareness of falsity in AI-generated corporate social responsibility ads affects online brand engagement.

Background: Twitter offers tools that facilitate the diffusion of information by which companies can engage consumers to share their messages. Literature review: Communication professionals are using platforms such as Twitter to disseminate information; however, the strategies that they should use to achieve high information diffusion are not clear. This article proposes message repetition as a strategy. Research questions: 1. What is the wear-out point of Twitter? 2. How many times should a company repeat a tweet written on its brand page to maximize the diffusion for seeds? 3. How many times should a company repeat a tweet written on its brand page to maximize the diffusion while minimizing the number of consumers reaching their wear-out point for seeds? 4. How many times should a company repeat a tweet written on its brand page to maximize the diffusion for nonseeds? 5. How many times should a company repeat a tweet written on its brand page to maximize the diffusion while minimizing the number of consumers reaching their wear-out point for both seeds and nonseeds? Research methodology: An agent-based simulation model for information diffusion is proposed as an approach to measure the diffusion of a tweet that has been repeated. The model considers that consumers can reach their wear-out point when they read a tweet several times. Results: The results of the model indicate the number of times a company should send the same tweet to achieve high information diffusion before this action has negative effects on consumers. Brand followers are key to achieving high information diffusion; however, consumers begin to feel bothered by the tweet by the sixth repetition. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine tweet repetition as a strategy to achieve higher information diffusion on Twitter. In addition, it extends the information diffusion literature by controlling the wear-out effect. It contributes to both communication and computational science literature by analyzing a communication problem using an agent-based approach. Finally, this article contributes to the field of technical and professional communication by testing a strategy to reach great information diffusion, and by creating a tool that any company can use to anticipate the results of a communication campaign created in Twitter before launching it.

This study examines the negative effects of COVID health and safety protocols implemented by theme parks in the context of the ‘new normal’ (summer 2021) on the number of visitors the park has received and their (dis)satisfaction levels. The study uses actual content analysis from 1,142 online reviews from two different time periods (before and after the COVID-19 pandemic), obtained from TripAdvisor, for a cross-country analysis. Results from analysis of variance and linear regression models show that dissatisfaction has rocketed since the pre-COVID era. Reasons for this dissatisfaction differ among parks, indicating that there may be different ways in which tourist agents can deal with these COVID protocols, ways that may be more or less successful in terms of improving consumer satisfaction.

Digitalization and social media are transforming company–consumer interactions, opening new communication avenues. Companies are thus adopting an omnichannel strategy to offer multiple media and channels for use before, during, and after purchase – that is, during the customer journey. The success of this journey requires both effective integration of the company’s offline and online channels and strong consistency in communication terms. In this context, offering a smooth transition between touchpoints along the consumer journey to optimize consumers’ experience requires appropriate omnichannel integration. However, little is known about how to assess customer journey, despite the implications therein for companies’ performance and consumer reactions. To fill this gap, the present paper proposes and validates indicators to measure the extent to which controlled touchpoints are really integrated and oriented toward the consumer and provide a satisfactory customer journey. Focusing on corporate website, brand pages on social network sites, apps, and physical stores as fully controlled touchpoints, we offer an instrument to assess integration and customer orientation, as well as avenues for further extension. Application of the indicators comprising the instrument reveals that integration is improving and customer-centric approach is gaining attention, but still has room for improvement. Theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed.

Since the advent of the Internet, word of mouth (WOM) has been integrated into the online channel, with users writing their opinions and reading reviews from other members. Currently, WOM has been growing and developing on social network sites, including Instagram. The figure of influencer has emerged as especially prominent on this particular social media platform. Brands have become aware of the importance of influencers and contact them to publish brand content to their profiles. This has become a new marketing strategy in which companies can reach greater numbers of consumers and exert a significant influence on them. Against this background, the current research analyzes how brand posts and stories by influencers on Instagram affect consumers, depending on the format used (post vs. story) and whether the content is promoted. A 2x2 experimental study is conducted with 573 participants. Results show that the content published by influencers affects consumers’ purchase intention differently depending on the format, wherein stories are more persuasive than posts. However, we find that indicating that the publication is promoted has no impact on consumers.

Purpose: Opinion leaders are increasingly important as a source of information, with consumers judging them to be more credible than other media and more influential than other consumers. Thus, companies have an interest in engaging opinion leaders to post about products and brands, and the authors analyse different incentives for encouraging them to spread the word on social media (via electronic word-of-mouth [e-WoM]).Design/methodology/approach: A 2 × 3 between-subjects experimental design was developed in which 359 technological opinion leaders (bloggers) participated. The authors manipulated the monetary incentive (money vs no money) and non-monetary incentives (information only vs return product vs keep product) offered in exchange for a brand post.Findings: Various techniques for approaching opinion leaders are effective, but to differing degrees. Providing a product free of charge increases the likelihood that opinion leaders will post about it, and the highest intention to post is observed when they are allowed to keep the product. In contrast, giving money to opinion leaders could have an indirect negative impact on their intention to post through the expected negative reaction of followers.Originality/value: It remains unclear how opinion leaders can best be encouraged to spread e-WoM, as incentives used for consumers may work differently for opinion leaders, who have followers that they want to maintain. The main contribution of this paper lies in its explanation of why opinion leaders react differently to monetary versus non-monetary incentives.