Content area
Purpose
Netizens refer to citizens of the internet, and code-switching refers to the use of more than one language, style or form of expression to communicate. This study explores the advertising communication effectiveness of using netizen language code-switching in Facebook ads. Moreover, if a brand is with negative brand images, using positive brand images as a control group, this study investigates not only the advertising communication effectiveness of netizen language code-switching but also its effectiveness of remedying the negative brand images.
Design/methodology/approachOnline experiments were conducted, and data were analyzed using independent sample t-test, MANOVA and ANOVA.
FindingsThe results indicate that netizen language code-switching can enhance advertising communication effectiveness in Facebook ads. Furthermore, under a negative brand image, netizen language code-switching has significant effects on improving Facebook advertising communication effectiveness.
Originality/valueThis study takes netizens as the research subjects to explore the advertising communication effectiveness of netizen language code-switching in Facebook ads. This study provides further insight into the effect of netizens' culture on Facebook advertising and enriches the existing literature on social media advertising, as well as expanding the application of code-switching. The results of this study provide enterprises a new perspective on the copywriting content design of Facebook ads.
1. Introduction
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. (Nelson Mandela)
With the growth of the global Internet economy, social media has become an important marketing communication tool and channel (Yuan et al., 2021). Social media provides a suitable area for promoting customer relationships, building customer communities and communicating with customers (McCarthy et al., 2014). Thus, many marketers have started using social media for advertising. Zote (2020) reported more than $89 billion social media advertising spending in 2019, with an annual rate of 8.7%, and that it could reach $102 billion by 2020. The fact shows that social media advertising might become a mainstream marketing in the future. Due to the growth and popularity of social media advertising, how to attract the attention and interest of consumers to it and further positively influence their attitudes toward an ad and increase their purchase intention have become essential for digital marketing. Facebook has become a main platform of social media advertising because of the growth of the Facebook user population. Hence, it is imperative for businesses to have a comprehensive understanding of the behavioral attitudes of this target market (Duffett, 2015).
Along with the rapid growth of the internet, unique Internet cultures flourish, for instance, the formation of netizens and netizen language. Netizens refer to citizens of the internet (MacKinnon, 2012) who proactively receive information about different events and express their opinions and sentiments regarding online events. These online events often influence related offline events, in which netizens play central roles (Tan et al., 2012). Besides, netizens have developed plenty of unique language terms on online communities and forums. These unique language terms, which are called netizen language, have become popular on the internet due to netizen's constant usage, forming a unique and popular culture of netizens.
Code-switching refers to the use of more than one language, style or form of expression to communicate or convey information to each other in dialog, text, video and other messaging situations (Romaine, 1992). Research on code-switching advertising mainly explores the advertising effectiveness of bilingual language switching, such as the switching between English and Spanish (e.g. Luna and Peracchio, 2005b) and that between English and Chinese (e.g. Lin and Wang, 2016a, b). The results of the above literature show the positive effects of code-switching in marketing (Luna and Peracchio, 2005b; Lin and Wang, 2016b). Unlike prior code-switching application mostly focus on the switching between languages of countries such as English and Spanish, netizen language code-switching is between the formal language and the netizen language, which belongs to language style switching. Similar to prior code-switching application, previous literature reveals the bilingual language code-switching can enhance the advertising effectiveness if the switched language fits the language preference of ad viewers (Luna et al., 2005; Luna and Peracchio, 2005b), and netizen language code-switching might have the same effect as the bilingual language code-switching if we can apply it to the target group, netizens. Social media ads or posts have recently embedded netizen language in their contents to attract netizens' attention. Does embedding netizen language in code-switching positively affects advertising effectiveness? To the best of our knowledge, there is still a lack of research investigating the advertising effectiveness of using netizen language code-switching. On top of that, as a low-cost strategy based on text modification, the netizen language code-switching can easily be used by practitioners in their ad without complex modification of their current ad design. Therefore, we present Study 1 using Taiwanese netizens research subjects to explore the advertising communication effectiveness of netizen language code-switching in Facebook ads. We not only answer the above question but also close the research gap. Moreover, the practical values of the netizen language code-switching strategy for business are also discussed.
Furthermore, we would like to investigate whether netizen language code-switching can not only enhance advertising communication effectiveness but also remedy the negative images of a brand. Advertising communication effectiveness refers to the evaluation of how well an advertising campaign or a particular ad can communicate thoroughly with consumers (Kotler, 1996). A negative brand image makes consumers negatively perceive a brand (Lii and Sy, 2009; Romani et al., 2012). If consumers perceive a brand negatively, they may turn away from the brand, resulting in lower advertising communication effectiveness. A real case comes from one of the largest supermarket franchises, Px Mart, in Taiwan. During an interview, a top manager of Px Mart said that younger people spend too much money and should learn to endure a lower income. His statement was widely criticized by the public. Px Mart is good at managing its Facebook fan page; its advertising posts on its Facebook fan page usually receive positive feedback. However, after the incident, its first advertising post received more than 2,700 “angry” Facebook reactions, which created a negative vibe. Two days later, the manager issued a public apology through its Facebook fan page. However, the apology post still received more than 5,100 “angry” Facebook reactions, indicating the public's negative emotions. Few hours after the apology post was released, many negative comments were still posted on the fan page. Then, the fan page curator posted another post “Eh…Excuse me… May I speak now?” The post used informal Chinese grammar and mixed Taiwanese dialect and Mandarin, which became a sentence/line that netizens can use on the internet. Interestingly, the post received more than 21,000 “haha” reactions, and only around 200 “angry” reactions were received. From our observations, the post might create a positive impact to remedy the public relation crisis by a single sentence. Social media is a platform that users such as netizens do not necessarily know other users. Observing the incident of Px mart, we apply social identity theory to elaborate the phenomenon that netizen language code-switching can alleviate the negative impact. Since the users do not know others, using netizen language code-switching instead of a “formal statement” may make the netizens feel that the brand, Px Mart, shares the same identity with them, thus making the netizens identify with the brand. Therefore, netizens will tend to categorize Px Mart as an in-group member and positively evaluate the brand (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel and Turner, 1986). When people are thinking positively toward a brand, they will be more likely to forgive negative encounters of the brand (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000; Tax et al., 1998) and even be more willing to take on the recovery attempts from that brand (Grégoire et al., 2009; Grégoire and Fisher, 2006). Thus, apart from exploring enhancement of advertising communication effectiveness, we would also like to investigate the effect of netizen language code-switching to remedy negative brand images. Thus, we want to investigate whether using netizen language code-switching in Facebook advertising enhances advertising communication effectiveness for brands with a negative brand image. To answer the above questions, including the same brand with positive brand images as a control group, we present Study 2 using Taiwanese netizens as research subjects to investigate whether applying netizen language code-switching can remedy the advertising communication effectiveness of the brand with negative images.
The results indicate that netizen language code-switching in Facebook ads can enhance ad communication effectiveness. Furthermore, in the case of brands with negative brand images, netizen language code-switching has significant effects on remedying negative brand images and enhancing the advertising communication effectiveness of Facebook ads to a similar level of brands with positive brand images. This study contributes to the literature in terms of both theory and practice. In the theoretical aspect, this study takes netizens as the research subjects to explore advertising communication effectiveness of netizen language code-switching in Facebook ads. This study provides further insight into the effect of netizens' culture on Facebook advertising and enriches the existing literature on social media advertising, as well as expanding the application of code-switching. In the practical aspect, the results of this study can provide enterprises a new perspective on the copywriting content design of Facebook ads. If the main targets of the ads are netizens, enterprises can use netizen language code-switching as a low-cost but effective strategy to enhance the advertising communication effectiveness of their ads. Furthermore, enterprises with negative brand images and cost considerations can use the netizen language code-switching to remedy negative images and improve the communication effectiveness of their ads without investing huge funds.
2. Literature review and hypotheses development
2.1 Advertising communication effectiveness on social media
Social media advertising is a form of Internet advertising that incorporates Web 2.0 and social technologies into business functions to create an interactive environment for consumers and ads (Alalwan, 2018; Tajvidi et al., 2021). This means that, apart from receiving information from sellers, consumers can also provide feedback to sellers about themselves. In addition, social media allows consumers to communicate and share information about each other. Designing social media advertising content that successfully engages customers and motivates them to purchase their branded products has been a challenge for companies (Alalwan, 2018). Thus, advertising communication effectiveness in social media has become an important research topic.
In terms of antecedents of online advertising communication effectiveness, Brackett and Carr (2001) proposed a useful model to explain the determinants of consumer attitudes toward online advertising. They indicated that the value of advertising is the main factor in determining consumers' attitudes toward advertising. The value of an ad depends on its entertainment, information provided, credibility and reduced irritation. Ferreira and Barbosa (2017) pointed out that the communication effectiveness of Facebook ads depends on consumer participation with social media. However, social media platforms, messages and consumer characteristics are important indicators of consumers' attitudes toward Facebook advertising, and thus, understanding of these indicators is critical. Alalwan (2018) explored the effects of social media advertising features on consumers' purchase intentions using three factors (performance expectancy, hedonic motivation and habit) from the extended unified technology acceptance and use theory (UTAUT2), as well as interactivity, informativeness and perceived relevance. The findings showed that except for habit, all other aforementioned factors positively affect purchase intentions. Based on the social influence theory and regulatory focus theory, Wiese et al. (2020) found that the factors influencing the attitudes toward Facebook ads were advertising value, trust in Facebook and attitudes toward general advertising.
The content of the advertising message drives the consumer's behavioral response, resulting in purchase intentions (Martínez-Navarro and Bigné, 2017). Sponsoring social media posts are one of the advertising strategies that companies implement so that ads appear on the delivery platform in a native way (Li et al., 2020). Table 1 summarizes previous research on the advertising communication effectiveness of sponsored social media content in social media advertising strategies. As shown in Table 1, Facebook is the most frequently examined social media platform. In addition, advertising content strategies are mostly approached from the perspectives on the message types (e.g. Celebi, 2015; Cvijikj and Michahelles, 2013; Dao et al., 2014; Dolan et al., 2019; Lee and Hong, 2016; Lee et al., 2018; Taylor et al., 2011; Villarroel Ordenes et al., 2019; Wang and McCarthy, 2020), creativity (e.g. Lee and Hong, 2016), rhetorical styles, cross-message compositions (e.g. Villarroel Ordenes et al., 2019), narratives, brand presence, disclosure labeling (e.g. Grigsby and Mellema, 2020), content source (e.g. Wang and McCarthy, 2020) and celebrity endorsements (e.g. Yu and Hu, 2020). For measuring advertising communication effectiveness, attitude toward the ads (e.g. Celebi, 2015; Grigsby and Mellema, 2020; Taylor et al., 2011), engagement (such as likes, comments, and shares) (e.g. Cvijikj and Michahelles, 2013; Dolan et al., 2019; Lee and Hong, 2016; Lee et al., 2018; Villarroel Ordenes et al., 2019; Wang and McCarthy, 2020; Yu and Hu, 2020), perceived value of ads (e.g. Dao et al., 2014), and purchase intention (e.g. Dao et al., 2014) are included. Most studies conclude that informativeness and entertainment positively affect advertising communication effectiveness (e.g. Celebi, 2015; Cvijikj and Michahelles, 2013; Dao et al., 2014; Taylor et al., 2011). As shown in Table 1, most current research discusses the communication effectiveness of social media ad content strategies in terms of ad message types such as informativeness and entertainment, but no research has investigated the communication effectiveness of code-switched ads.
2.2 Code-switching and its application to advertising
Code-switching refers to the use of more than one language variety or style within an utterance or discourse, or between different interlocutors or situations in a sentence or a conversation to express a thought or an idea (Romaine, 1992). In the code-switching context, the main language used is called a matrix language, and the language different from the matrix language is called embedded language (Myers-Scotton, 1993). The matrix language provides the structure and framework of the entire context, and the embedded language is inserted into the matrix language. Usually, the embedded language will become particularly prominent and noticeable (Myers-Scotton, 1993). While applying code-switching in an ad, the embedded language would become salient and activates attitudes and associations related to the embedded language (Luna and Peracchio, 2005a, b).
An advertising message using two or more languages is called a code-switching ad (Luna and Peracchio, 2005a, b). Regarding applying code-switching in advertising slogans, Luna and Peracchio (2005a) indicate that when individuals' attention is attracted by the code-switched words, they will activate the language schema to which those words belong and become aware of the social meaning carried by that language. People's negative attitude toward the code-switching language will lead to a negative evaluation of the advertising slogan, which then reduces their assessment of the product. Thus, advertisers will decide whether to use code-switching based on the audience's acceptance of the ads and the effect of using code-switching ads (Luna et al., 2005; Luna and Peracchio, 2005b).
English is widely used in code-switching ads in the non-native English-speaking market to increase brand and product attractiveness, and then enhance consumers' perceived value and social status (Eckhardt, 2005; Lin and Wang, 2016a; Zhou and Belk, 2004). Luna and Peracchio (2005b) set Spanish as a minority language and set English as the primary language, confirming that the switching from English to Spanish would evoke associations with the basic patterns and perceptions of minority languages because consumers would change the product evaluation according to their perceptions of the minority language. Lin and Wang (2016b) explore whether consumers' local-global identity plays a moderating role in the effectiveness of code-switched ads among monolinguals. They find that consumers with a local identity have higher ad and product evaluations for non-code-switched ads than for code-switched ads. By contrast, consumers with a global identity have higher ad and product evaluations for code-switched ads than for non-code-switched ads.
Table 2 summarizes the findings of previous studies on advertising communication effectiveness of code-switched ads. Moreover, Table 2 shows that the media studied previously for code-switched ads are traditional print ads. Advertising code-switching language strategy is the code-switching of two different languages, for example, English–Spanish, English–Hindi, Chinese–English, Chinese–Japanese, and Korean–English. Thus, the research in code-switched advertising has not yet been explored in social media. In addition, no studies have been conducted that explore the effectiveness of advertising communication in the same language but with different linguistic style code-switching. This suggests a need to explore advertising communication effectiveness in the context of social media and the advertising effects of code-switching in different language styles of the same language (e.g. netizen language code-switching).
2.3 Social identity theory and cultural proximity
The social identity theory elaborates on how individuals develop a sense of belonging to a specific group after classification, identification, and comparison, and further gains self-esteem (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel and Turner, 1986). During the classification process, individuals will classify themselves into a specific group by identifying the group characteristics, such as age, gender, education level, belief and social connection. Based on the characteristics and classification criteria of the group, individuals can better understand and define their identities and personalities clearly, while also classifying others into in-groups, that is, groups they belong to, or out-groups, the groups they do not belong to. Through this classification process, individuals could depict their current state in the social environment and further understand their positions in society (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel and Turner, 1986). Individuals having strong identification toward their group will increase their willingness to participate in the group-related activities and purchase the group-related products (Madrigal, 2001).
Cultural proximity refers to audiences' content preference based on their region, ethnicity, dialect/language or other elements closer to their own culture. Therefore, culture is a factor in increasing the sales of media products (Straubhaar, 1991). Moreover, Straubhaar (2007) believes that language is an important factor in evaluating cultural proximity, especially for TV programs that require language understanding, such as talk shows, variety shows, and sitcoms. If the language used is different, such programs are not culturally close to the local audience.
According to previous research, code-switching ads can effectively evoke consumers' cognition and evaluation of the embedded language (Eckhardt, 2005; Lin and Wang, 2016b; Luna and Peracchio, 2005b; Zhou and Belk, 2004). According to social identity theory, this study infers that when the individuals classify themselves as part of a group of netizens, they will generate feelings of the identification group and belongingness. Thus, they are more likely to accept content related to their culture and are more interested in such content. In other words, netizens will decide whether the individual belongs to the same group of netizens, depending on whether the individual understands the netizen culture and netizen language. When individuals exhibit netizens' characteristics, the netizens will be more likely to identify with the individual or accept the individual's message, which further evokes a change in attitude. Moreover, cultural proximity theory indicates that people will be more likely to prefer content close to their culture (Straubhaar, 1991). Netizen language code-switching can prompt netizens to feel the closeness in culture and favor the ad which uses it. Thus, when a netizen language code-switching ad is presented to the netizens and evoke the cognition of their culture, the netizens will give a higher evaluation to the ad due to the identification and cultural proximity. Thus, this study proposes hypothesis 1 as follows:
For netizens, advertising posts with netizen language code-switching have greater advertising communication effectiveness than those without netizen language code-switching.
2.4 Brand image
Brand refers to a collection of names, terms, symbols, images, etc., which allows consumers to distinguish one enterprise's products and services from another (Kotler, 1996). The brand image is defined as aggregate factors that consumers would associate with the brand, and the association is a collection of the brand information, brand concept, and product features (Keller, 1993). Consumers also evaluate product quality through external and internal clues, and consumers use the brand image as an external clue to evaluate perceived product quality (Richardson et al., 1994).
The products with a better brand image can reduce the consumers' perceived risk and further improve product evaluation (Rao and Monroe, 1988). In addition, the brand image also affects consumers' response to advertising and promotion. A positive brand image enhances the communication effectiveness of marketing strategies (Keller, 1993; Spears and Singh, 2004), whereas a negative brand image will lead consumers to form a negative perception, which may result in complaints, lower purchase intentions, switching to other brands and even boycotts (Romani et al., 2012). That is, if a consumer has a negative perception of the brand, they will try keeping themselves away from the brand, resulting in lower advertising communication effectiveness.
Having a negative brand image, enterprises can attempt to deliver timely and appropriate information to consumers through marketing campaigns to remedy the brand image and thus gain consumers' trust and enhance their loyalty (Hsieh and Li, 2008). Another strategy to improve the brand image and further enhance consumer loyalty and purchase intention is stimulating the social identification of the target consumers (Underwood et al., 2001). According to social identity theory (Tajfel, 1974) and cultural proximity (Straubhaar, 1991), reading netizen language code-switching ads can trigger netizen's interest in the content of the ads and make them perceive the ads' relevance to their culture because it evokes their awareness and identification with their own culture. That is, netizens may identify with whoever use netizen language code-switching as an in-group member. As netizens treat the brand as an in-group member, netizens will highly and positively evaluate the brand. When consumers think positively toward a brand, they tend to be more forgiving to the negative encounters of that brand (Anderson and Sullivan, 1993; Singh and Sirdeshmukh, 2000; Tax et al., 1998). In addition, if netizens believe that their relationship with the brand is strong, they will be more willing to not only forgive but also accept recovery attempts such as apology from that brand (Grégoire et al., 2009; Grégoire and Fisher, 2006). Therefore, netizen language code-switching ads can positively mitigate the negative influences of negative brand images on advertising communication effectiveness. Accordingly, we propose hypothesis 2 as follows:
For netizens, applying netizen language code-switching can mitigate the negative impact of negative brand images on advertising communication effectiveness of advertising posts.
Based on the hypotheses, Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of this study.
3. Research methodology
3.1 Experimental design and pretests of stimuli
We used advertising posts on Facebook fan page as the target of our experiment design. Thus, to ensure the experimental procedure is the same as the actual usage, this study builds the webpage with the same interface like a real Facebook page and removes unnecessary functions (the shortcuts on the left and the story on the right are not functional) to simulate a realistic scenario of reading sponsored posts on Facebook. To prevent the possible influence of subjects' previous experience regarding existing platform brands, we created a made-up brand, “HANDLE,” for the experiment.
In the regions where we collect data, most real news sites tend to support a particular political idea or a political party. Considering subjects might have their political preferences, we chose a fictitious news site instead of the real ones to avoid possible bias caused by the same or different political preferences. Thus, the simulated news website of this study refers to the real online media, such as CNN and Times New Lens, to build a virtual news site, XYZ News, reporting HANDLE's news.
Apart from inviting five experts in information management and marketing to review the experimental design and the questionnaire, we also conducted a pretest to ensure the appropriateness of the experimental design and the content validity of the questionnaire. A total of 120 questionnaires were distributed to the college students for pretest, and 107 valid samples were collected. The pretest includes the measurement reliability test of netizen identification and netizen language terms, and the validity test of the brand image and netizen language code-switching manipulations.
3.1.1 Netizen identification scale
The target group in this study is netizens. To identify whether the subjects are netizens, referring to Zhang and Khare's (2009) global-local identity scale, we develop a measurement scale for netizen identification consisting of four items: “I like to learn everything on the internet,” “I like to learn the terms used on the internet,” “I understand the meaning of the latest Internet terms,” and “I understand the culture on the internet.” A seven-point Likert scale was used to rate the items in this questionnaire, anchored from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). The criteria for differentiating whether the participant is a netizen are as follows: If the mean of the measurement is greater than 4, the participant will be considered a netizen (a valid sample), and vice versa. The results of the pretest show that the Cronbach's α of the netizen identification scale is 0.847, which is higher than the suggested value of 0.700 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981), indicating the reliability of our scale.
3.1.2 Netizen language terms
To collect the netizen language terms commonly identified by netizens, we first collected and organized the popular netizen language terms on online forums and communities in Taiwan. Then, we invited scholars and senior netizens who are familiar with social media and netizen culture, to evaluate the popularity of the netizen terms. The results could serve as the foundation of the netizen language code-switching design of social media ad. To ensure the valid design of the netizen language code-switching ad, we design the scale for netizen language terms evaluation, which is measured by three items: “Some terms in this advertising post are popular terms on the internet,” “Some terms in this ad are only understandable for people familiar with online popular culture,” and “Some terms in this advertising post are often used by netizens on forums and social networking sites.” A seven-point Likert scale was used to rate the items. The higher the score, the higher the degree of agreement. The advertisement contents with and without the usage of netizen language code-switching are “周年慶!商品全面八折。可…可惡,好想買R” and “周年慶!商品全面八折。看了真的好想買…,” respectively. “周年慶!商品全面八折” is the matrix language, and “可…可惡,好想買R” is the embedded language. The meanings of the above two Chinese sentences are identical: “Anniversary! 20% off all products. I want to buy it.” However, the second sentence switches from formal terms to netizens terms to perform netizen language code-switching.
To evaluate whether the netizen language code-switching is manipulated properly, the participants were randomly assigned to ads with or without the usage of netizen language code-switching. Moreover, they were asked to fill in the netizen language terms evaluation scale. If the mean of the ads with and without a netizen language code-switching is, respectively, higher and lesser than 4, and the mean of the with netizen language code-switching ad is significantly higher than that without, it indicates that the manipulation is appropriate. The results of the pretest show that Cronbach's α of the netizen language evaluation scale is 0.871, revealing high reliability. The mean of the netizen language terms evaluation of the ad with netizen language code-switching (mean = 5.583) is significantly higher than the ad without netizen language code-switching (mean = 3.642) (t = 8.518, p < 0.001). Moreover, the mean of the ads with (without) netizen language code-switching ads is higher (lesser) than 4, indicating that the manipulation is appropriate, and the experiment can be conducted accordingly.
3.1.3 Brand image
To manipulate the positive brand image, we create made-up news about how HANDLE contributes to public welfare and charity. For the negative brand image, we create made-up news about HANDLE, in particular, about HANDLE's negligence and recklessness in business. Table 3 shows the news report of positive and negative manipulation of brand image. To minimize the concern about the reliability of the fictitious news website, we told the subjects that the fictitious news website is a reliable news site during the data collection. To avoid an excessively negative brand image that could not be addressed by any remedy, in manipulating the negative brand image news, we stated the old and inoperable equipment and firefighting facilities in the platform's logistics center, which could pose safety hazards to employees at work. Moreover, we stated that the products were stored in a poor environment that could deteriorate over time.
We use the scale of attitude toward the brand to check the brand image manipulation. The attitude toward the brand is measured using four 7-point semantic differential scales proposed by Holbrook and Batra (1987): dislike/like, negative/positive, bad/good, and favorable/unfavorable. Manipulation is appropriate if the mean of the attitude toward the brand for the positive (negative) brand image is greater (less) than 4 and the mean of the positive brand image is significantly greater than the negative brand image. The subjects are randomly assigned to the positive or negative brand image news, and they were asked to fill in the attitude toward the brand scale. The Cronbach's α of the scale is 0.962, indicating high reliability. The mean of attitude toward the brand for positive brand image (5.713) is significantly greater than that of negative brand image (3.093) (t = 14.799, p < 0.001), as well as the mean of positive (negative) brand image is greater (lesser) than 4, showing that the manipulation is appropriate.
3.1.4 Advertising communication effectiveness
The dependent variable of this study is advertising communication effectiveness, which includes attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. The attitude toward the ad is measured using three seven-point semantic differential scales proposed by MacKenzie and Lutz (1989): good/bad, pleasant/unpleasant, and favorable/unfavorable. The measurement of purchase intention is adapted from the scale proposed by Lu et al. (2010) and is modified to ensure its relevancy to the experimental context as follows: “Given the chance, I would consider purchasing products on HANDLE,” “I will likely purchase products on HANDLE,” and “Given the opportunity, I intend to purchase products on HANDLE.” A seven-point Likert scale is used to rate the items. The reliability test results of the scale will be provided in each study.
3.1.5 Experimental controls
To avoid the effect of non-manipulated factors on the experimental results, the following controls are made: (1) Using a single server as the environment to make the connection stable and consistent for all experimental scenarios; (2) The web interface design and experimental procedure of different experimental scenarios are the same; (3) The introduction and the privacy protection statement of different experimental scenarios are the same; (4) Except for the manipulation, the rest of experimental advertising content, including colors, pictures, text, order and size, are all controlled to be the same for different experimental scenarios.
3.2 Experimental procedure
3.2.1 Study 1
Study 1 employs a laboratory experiment to test the advertising communication effectiveness of the netizen language code-switching on the Facebook fan page. This experiment uses a between-subjects design with two groups. At the beginning of the experiment, the following introduction about HANDLE Online Shopping Mall is provided:
HANDLE is an online mall that sells all types of merchandise on the internet. “Handle Everything” shows the spirit of our business. We cover all kinds of merchandise and sell more than 5 million merchandise, with more than 2 million merchandise in stock. HANDLE provides one-day shipping for entire Taiwan and 6-h shipping for the Taipei metroplex.
After reading the introduction about HANDLE, the subjects will be randomly assigned to one of the two scenarios, the ad with netizen language code-switching and the ad without netizen language code-switching. To confirm that the participants read the content thoroughly before moving to the next step, we have a program to ensure subjects stayed on the page for at least 15 s. After reading the ad, the subjects will fill in the questionnaire and demographic data.
3.2.2 Study 2
Study 2 employs the laboratory experiment method, and the experimental design is a 2 (netizen language code-switching: with and without) × 2 (brand image: positive and negative) between-subjects factorial design, including four experimental scenarios. The subjects will be randomly assigned to one of the four scenarios. After reading the positive or negative brand image news report and the ad, a survey will be conducted to collect research and demographic data. Subjects must read the news report and advertising content for at least 15 s each to confirm that the participants read the content thoroughly before moving to the next step.
3.3 Participants
This study aims to understand the advertising communication effectiveness of netizens while reading an advertising post on Facebook; therefore, the subjects of the experiment must be netizens. Thus, the participants are asked to answer the netizen identification scale. If the mean score is greater than 4, the participant will be considered a netizen and will be regarded as a valid sample. To recruit participants, we posted recruitment messages on the Facebook personal page, Facebook communities, Facebook fan pages, and bulletins of Taiwan's largest online forum, PTT. Besides, we conducted our data collection during the same period in each study and used IP address control to avoid duplicate responses from each subject.
For Study 1, 184 valid responses are obtained, of which 38.6% are male, and 61.4% are female. Regarding the age of subjects, 41.3% are between 19 and 25 years old, which constitute the largest group, followed by the age group of 31–35 years (17.4%) and 26–30 years (17.4%). Most subjects have a college degree (60.9%) and followed by those who have a graduate school degree (29.9%). The dominant occupation is students (40.2%), followed by other industries (16.8%), and the service industry (14.1%).
For Study 2, 235 valid responses are obtained, of which 40.0% are male, and 60.0% are female. Regarding the age of subjects, 37.9% are between 19 and 25 years old, which constitute the largest group, followed by the age group of 26–30 years (26.4%) and 31–35 years (13.6%). Similar to Study 1, most subjects have a college degree (66.7%), followed by those who have a graduate school degree (27.1%). Moreover, the dominant occupation is students (35.3%), followed by the service industry (15.3%) and other industries (15.3%).
4. Results
4.1 Study 1
4.1.1 Reliability and validity
The dependent variables in Study 1 are the attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. The reliability analysis shows that the Cronbach's α of purchase intention and attitude toward the ad are 0.972 and 0.898, respectively, both exceeding the recommended threshold of 0.7 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981), which indicates good reliability of the scale. Table 4 shows the average variance extracted (AVE), the square root of the AVE, and correlations between the constructs. All AVE values are higher than 0.50, the suggested threshold (Fornell and Larcker, 1981), showing the convergent validity of measures. The square roots of the AVE are higher than the correlation between the construct, which shows discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
4.1.2 Manipulation check
The manipulated variable in Study 1 is netizen language code-switching; thus, the netizen language evaluation scale is used to check the manipulation in the experiment. The results show that the mean of the ad with netizen language code-switching (4.821, n = 97) is significantly greater than that without netizen language code-switching (3.988, n = 87) (t = 4.910, p < 0.001). Moreover, the mean of the ads with (without) netizen language code-switching ads is higher (lesser) than 4, indicating the manipulation is appropriate.
4.1.3 Hypothesis testing
We use an independent sample t-test to test H1. Table 5 shows that the attitude toward the ad with netizen language code-switching (4.526, n = 97) is significantly higher than that without netizen language code-switching (3.793, n = 87) (t = 4.649, p < 0.001). The purchase intention to the advertising post with netizen language code-switching (4.137, n = 97) is significantly higher than that without netizen language code-switching (3.632, n = 87) (t = 2.523, p = 0.012). Therefore, the results support the H1. That is, employing netizen language code-switching in advertising posts on the Facebook fan page has greater effects on advertising communication effectiveness than advertising posts without netizen language code-switching.
4.2 Study 2
4.2.1 Reliability and validity
For Study 2, the dependent variables are also the attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. Reliability analysis shows that the Cronbach's α of purchase intention is 0.949, and the Cronbach's α of attitude toward the ad is 0.877, which both exceed the recommended threshold of 0.7 (Fornell and Larcker, 1981), indicating the good reliability of the scale. Table 6 shows the average variance extracted (AVE), square root of the AVE, and correlations between the constructs. Showing the convergent validity of measures, all AVEs exceed 0.50, which is the suggested threshold (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). Moreover, the square roots of the AVE are higher than the correlation between construct, showing discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
4.2.2 Manipulation check
In Study 2, the manipulated variables are the netizen language code-switching and the brand image. We use the netizen language evaluation scale and the attitude toward the brand scale to perform the manipulation check. The results show that the mean of netizen language terms evaluation of advertisement with netizen language code-switching (5.094, n = 128) is significantly higher than the advertisement without netizen language code-switching (3.994, n = 107) (t = 9.916, p < 0.001), showing appropriate manipulation. We use the scale of attitude toward the brand to check the positive and negative brand image manipulation. For the negative and positive brand image manipulation, the mean of the attitude toward the brand is 3.594 (n = 117) and 5.496 (n = 118), respectively. The difference between positive and negative brand image manipulation is significant (t = 14.556, p < 0.001), showing appropriate manipulation.
4.2.3 Hypothesis testing
Table 7 shows all the scenarios of Study 2. We use MANOVA to test the main effect and the interaction effect for the factors investigated on attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. Table 8 indicates the significant main effect of netizen language code-switching (Wilks' Lambda-value = 0.921, F = 9.834, p < 0.001) and brand image (Wilks' Lambda-value = 0.938, F = 7.580, p < 0.001); however, the interaction effect is nonsignificant (Wilks's Lambda value = 0.996, F = 0.440, p = 0.645). As shown in Table 9, the attitude toward the ad is significantly higher with netizen language code-switching (4.646, n = 128) than that without (4.137, n = 107) (F = 16.742, p < 0.001). Moreover, the purchase intention is also higher with netizen language code-switching (4.615, n = 128) than that without (4.022, n = 107) (F = 14.995, p < 0.001). The attitude toward the ad with a positive brand image (4.573, n = 118) is significantly higher than that with a negative brand image (4.257, n = 117) (F = 6.842, p = 0.009). The purchase intention to the advertising post with positive brand images (4.636, n = 118) is also significantly higher than that with negative brand images (4.051, n = 117) (F = 15.133, p < 0.001). These results reveal the significance of the main effects of both netizen language code-switching and brand image.
To test the H2, we use one-way ANOVA to test the differences between Scenarios 1, 2, 3 and 4. The results show that the means of the attitude toward the ad (F = 8.067, p < 0.001) and purchase intention (F = 10.247, p < 0.001) are significantly different among groups. Thus, we apply the Bonferroni test to perform the post hoc test (Table 10). As shown in Table 10, the means of both the attitude toward the ad and purchase intention in Scenario 3 are significantly higher than that in Scenario 4 (p < 0.001). Moreover, significant differences do not exist among Scenarios 1, 2, and 3. In summary, even both Scenarios 3 and 4 are with negative brand images, Scenario 3 with netizen language code-switching provides better advertising communication effectiveness than Scenario 4 without netizen language code-switching. In addition, the advertising communication effectiveness of Scenario 3 reaches the same level as Scenarios 1 and 2, in which the brand has positive images (Figure 2). Thus, we conclude that the results support H2.
5. Discussions and conclusion
5.1 Discussions
First, the findings of Study 1 indicate that advertising posts on Facebook with netizen language code-switching have a more significant positive effect on netizens' attitude toward the ad and purchase intention than those without netizen language code-switching. This finding echoes a similar finding of the previous research that when the congruence between code-switching and the consumers' identity enhanced the evaluation toward the ad (Lin and Wang, 2016b), which suggests that if netizen characteristics can be used well, the netizen language terms identified by netizens can be employed in the ads to significantly enhance the attitude toward the ad and increase the purchase intention of netizens.
Second, the results of Study 2 point out that with a negative brand image, netizen language code-switching can remedy negative brand images and improve the advertising communication effectiveness at the same level of positive brand images. The positive effect of the netizen language code-switching for the brand with a negative brand image indicates that applying the netizen language code-switching can enhance advertising communication effectiveness under a negative brand image. On top of the above results, we can see that when the brand has positive images, applying netizen language code-switching cannot significantly enhance advertising communication effectiveness.
Overall, our results verify the effectiveness of netizen language code-switching. Next, we would like to discuss the nature and characteristics of the netizens' language. From the social identity theory and cultural proximity perspective, we argue that the netizen language can serve as a marker or a badge in its application such as advertising, which allows them to identify if the advertising is related to the netizens. Social identity theory suggests that people might tend to promote the group they think they belong to (Tajfel, 1974; Tajfel and Turner, 1986), and cultural proximity suggests that people tend to favor the media content closer to their own culture (Straubhaar, 1991, 2007). However, Internet users are not all netizens, and Internet contents are not all related to netizens. That is, although netizens are browsing the internet, they may find that many online contents are not related to the netizens group. Therefore, even if they tend to promote and favor content related to netizens, they might not be able to find appropriate content. Taking online advertising as an example, netizens have seen numerous online advertising posts, but most of them are not related to the netizens. Once the netizen's language is embedded in an ad post, it can awaken the netizen to the ad post's relevance, and the netizen may like the ad post more, even if the ad shares the same meaning with another ad post without netizen language code-switching. Based on the results and discussion, we propose the following theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.
5.2 Theoretical implications
This research contributes to the literature across code-switching, e-commerce, and marketing disciplines and offers several important theoretical implications in the following ways. First, along with the rapid growth of the netizen population and the increasing influence of online public opinion, understanding how netizen language code-switching is related to advertising communication effectiveness in the context of online social media is important. However, research on sponsored social media content using netizen language code-switching in social media advertising is scant. This study uses netizens as the research subjects to explore the effect of netizen language code-switching on Facebook advertising communication effectiveness. This study fills the gap in the existing literature of social media advertising, in particular, the communication effectiveness of sponsored social media content in social media advertising strategies.
Second, the previous code-switching studies on advertising mainly explored the effect of bilingual language code-switching. So far, the extant research of code-switching application in advertising still lacks investigation on the advertising communication effectiveness of code-switching between different language styles such as the formal language and the netizen language. To the best of our knowledge, this study pioneers the studies employing different language styles and expressions to explore the effect of netizen language code-switching on advertising communication effectiveness. The current study offers a new theoretical understanding of the effect of code-switching between different language styles and contributes to the literature by extending code-switching theory into the context of social media advertising.
Third, we explored whether the use of netizen language code-switching can improve advertising communication effectiveness when netizens are informed about the negative brand image of the company. The research results show that netizen language code-switching can effectively mitigate the effect of negative brand images on advertising communication effectiveness. Therefore, the research results can further enrich the literature on code-switching used in social media advertising and provide new research thoughts for electronic/social commerce, social media advertising, and marketing-related fields.
5.3 Managerial implications
Posting advertising posts on Facebook to increase brand visibility and to promote the products has become one of the marketing strategies utilized by most enterprises, organizations, and even individuals. How to enhance consumers' interest and increase attitude toward advertising and further convert them into purchase intention and purchase behavior is an essential issue for brands. The experimental website of this study mimics the actual news website and sponsored advertising posts on Facebook, which better simulates the subject's real channel of access to brand-related information on the internet and scenario of seeing the brand's ad on Facebook. Therefore, the results can provide practical references for brands to advertise on Facebook.
Based on the results, we propose the following two practical suggestions. First, according to the findings of Studies 1 and 2, the subjects' (netizens) attitude toward the ad and purchase intention with the netizen language code-switching are significantly greater than that without the netizen language code-switching. Therefore, we suggest that the brand can apply the netizen language code-switching in advertising posts on Facebook to enhance advertising communication effectiveness. Second, the findings of Study 2 also show that when the subject reads a news report about the brand's negative image, the application of netizen language code-switching to advertising can help the brand improve netizens' attitude toward the ad and increase their purchase intention. Besides, companies with a negative brand image and cost limitation can use the netizen language code-switching to improve advertising communication effectiveness instead of investing funds to improve their brand images. Netizen language code-switching can be a possible response to remedy a public relation crisis. The findings of this study can provide enterprises a new perspective on the copywriting content design of social media advertising posts on fan pages.
5.4 Limitations and future research
This study has some limitations that point to several interesting opportunities for future research. First, the online experiments of this research have only been conducted in Taiwan, but research in other countries deserves further investigation. Second, to investigate netizen-related issues, future research can include the trendiest netizen language terms to test if the subjects can understand the meaning behind those terms, thereby confirming the subjects' knowledge of online culture and effectively identifying the valid samples of netizens. Third, the experiment in this study uses the questionnaire survey to measure the subjects' attitude toward the ad and purchase intention. However, the attitude toward the ad and purchase intention on the online community might be measured differently, such as the number of likes received, comments and shares, or the conversion rate on a shopping website. Future research may consider using these metrics to explore advertising effectiveness and using more in-depth or distinct netizen language terms to investigate whether those can enhance the effect of netizen language code-switching. Fourth, for our negative brand image manipulation, we only show subjects pieces of made-up news about employee safety concerns and merchandise storage issues. Future research can further extend the study to more serious public relation crisis such as fake products to further verify the effectiveness of netizen language code-switching.
This research is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 107-2410-H-390-011-MY2), Taiwan, and is partially supported by the Higher Education SPROUT Project and Center for Innovative FinTech Business Models of National Cheng Kung University, sponsored by the Ministry of Education, Taiwan. The authors also thank the Associate Editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on the manuscript.
Figure 1
The conceptual framework
[Figure omitted. See PDF]
Figure 2
The remedy effect of netizen language code-switching on negative brand images
[Figure omitted. See PDF]
The adverting communication effectiveness of sponsored social media content in social media advertising strategies
| Studies | Advertising content strategies | Advertising communication effectiveness | Findings | Social media |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor et al. (2011) | Message types: informativeness and entertainment | Attitude toward the ad | Informativeness and entertainment positively affect attitude toward the ad | Social media in general |
| Cvijikj and Michahelles (2013) | Message types: informative, entertaining and remuneration | Engagement (likes, comments, shares) | Providing entertaining and informative content significantly increases engagement. Besides, fans react positively to content that provides remuneration, but only in the form of comments | |
| Dao et al. (2014) | Message types: informativeness and entertainment | The perceived value of ads; purchase intention | Informativeness and entertainment positively affect the perceived value of ads, which in turn influences purchase intentions | Facebook YouTube |
| Celebi (2015) | Message types: informativeness and entertainment | Attitude toward the ad | Perceived informativeness and entertainment of Facebook ads have positive effects on attitude toward Facebook advertising | |
| Lee and Hong (2016) | Message types: emotional and informative appeals; Creativity | Attitude toward empathy expression (likes) | Informativeness and advertising creativity are key drivers of favorable behavioral responses to social media ads | |
| Alalwan (2018) | Performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, interactivity, informativeness and perceived relevance | Purchase intention | Consumers' performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, interactivity, informativeness and perceived relevance of ads positively affect purchase intentions | Social media in general |
| Lee et al. (2018) | Message types: persuasiveness and informativeness | Engagement (likes, comments, shares) | Persuasiveness has higher consumer engagement than informativeness | |
| Dolan et al. (2019) | Message types: rational and emotional appeals | Passive engagement (likes); Active engagement (comments) | Rational appeals have a greater effect on active and passive engagement. Emotional appeals facilitate passive rather than highly active engagement | |
| Villarroel Ordenes et al. (2019) | Message types: assertive (informational/factual), expressive (emotional), and directive appeals; Rhetorical styles; Cross-message compositions | Message sharing | On Facebook, expressive appeals have higher message sharing. On Twitter, assertive content is more likely to be shared. The use of rhetorical styles (alliteration and repetitions) and cross-message compositions enhance consumer message sharing | Facebook |
| Grigsby and Mellema (2020) | Narratives; Informational execution; Brand presence; Disclosure labeling | Attitude toward the ad | An informational execution, high brand presence, and prominent disclosure labeling are more effective than a narrative execution-style | |
| Wang and McCarthy (2020) | Message types; Post format; Content source | Customer engagement | For Singaporeans, persuasive-only content and mixed content resulted in more likes and emoji responses, whereas informative-only content effectively generates comments and questions. Videos and third-party sources strengthen the relationship between informative-only content and customer engagement. For Australians, informative-only content and mixed content are more effective than persuasive content in engaging customers | |
| Yu and Hu (2020) | Celebrity endorsement types | Social media interactions | Localized (vs standardized) celebrity endorsements lead to more social media interactions for luxury brands |
Communication effectiveness of the code-switched ads
| Studies | Media | Subject | Ad language strategies | Advertising communication effectiveness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Koslow et al. (1994) | Print ads | Hispanic American adults | Whole English vs Whole Spanish vs English–Spanish code-switching (English is the matrix language and the Spanish is embedded) vs Spanish–English code-switching | Spanish–English code-switched ads have a better advertising attitude than English–Spanish code-switching ads |
| Luna and Peracchio (2005b) | Print ads | Fluent Spanish–English bilinguals | English–Spanish code-switching vs Spanish–English code-switching | Spanish–English code-switched ads are more persuasive than English–Spanish code-switched ads |
| Krishna and Ahluwalia (2008) | Print ads | University students in India | Whole Hindi vs English vs Hindi–English code-switching vs English–Hindi code-switching | Slogans with English elements (whole English, Hindi–English code-switched, and English–Hindi code-switched slogan) are evaluated more favorably than the whole Hindi slogan in marketing luxury goods |
| Chou and Jen (2016) | Print ads | University students in Taiwan | Whole Chinese vs Chinese–Japanese code-switching | For consumers with low comprehension of Japanese, whole Chinese ads are more effective than Japanese code-switched ads |
| Lin and Wang (2016a) | Print ads | University students in Taiwan | Whole Chinese vs English vs Chinese–English code-switching vs English–Chinese code-switching | For local firms, the Chinese slogan was the most favorable for marketing necessities; however, English or English–Chinese code-switched slogans were more favorable for marketing luxury goods |
| Lin and Wang (2016b) | Print ads | Adults in Taiwan | Whole Chinese vs Chinese–English code-switching | Consumers with a local identity rate the whole Chinese ads more highly than the Chinese–English code-switched ads. Consumers with global identity rate ads with Chinese–English code-switched higher than whole Chinese |
| Ahn et al. (2017) | Print ads | University students in South Korea | Korean–English code-switching vs English–Korean code-switching | Korean–English code-switched ads have a significantly higher attitude toward the advertising slogan and product evaluation than English–Korean code-switched ads |
| Alvarez et al. (2017) | Print ads | University students in Chile, Mexico, and Ecuador | Whole English vs whole Spanish vs Spanish–English code-switching | There is no significant difference in the attitudes toward advertising of Chilean and Mexican consumers on the three strategies. Ecuadorian consumers have higher attitudes toward advertising on the whole English ads |
| Lin et al. (2017) | Print ads | University students in Taiwan | Whole Chinese vs Chinese–English code-switching vs Chinese–French code-switching | Whole Chinese ads have a higher attitude toward ads than code-switched ads for advertising a local brand. However, when promoting foreign brands, not all code-switching ads are favored over whole Chinese ads, and code-switched ads that use a high-exposure foreign language (English) are more highly rated than code-switched ads that use a low-exposure foreign language (French) |
Positive and negative brand image manipulation news report
| Positive brand image manipulation | HANDLE proactively engages in public welfare and charity |
| Being an online mall that sells all types of merchandise on the Internet, HANDLE believes that “Handle everything” is the spirit of the brand. “Handle everything” not only shows the meaning of selling all types of merchandise but also shows that, as a Taiwanese company, the enterprise will do its best to take social responsibility | |
| HANDLE has been paying close attention to various social issues in Taiwan for a long time and has made efforts in public welfare and charity. In the aspects of education, medical care, sports, and environmental protection, people can see the proactive contributions of HANDLE. In terms of medical care, the charitable foundation of HANDLE cooperates with universities to provide research funds in cancer medication, daily care, and life care. Thus, related departments of universities can research without worries. In terms of sports, HANDLE also owns badminton and volleyball teams, and it sponsors outstanding players. HANDLE also runs free sports training camps for students. In terms of environmental protection, the locations of HANDLE's logistics stations are selected by strictly evaluating the impacts on the environment, considering the nearby geology and protected areas. Complying with environmental protection laws and regulations, HANDLE has never been fined by the environmental protection Bureau. HANDLE avoids destroying the local ecology and affecting the safety of residents | |
| The CEO of HANDLE also promises that as a Taiwanese company, HANDLE also values social responsibility in addition to its operations and will continue to invest in various charities in the future | |
| Negative brand image manipulation | Poor sanitation and environmental control, the government urges HANDLE to improve by the deadline |
| Being an online mall that sells all types of merchandise on the internet, HANDLE believes that “Handle everything” is the spirit of the brand. “Handle everything” not only shows the meaning of selling all types of merchandise but also shows that, as a Taiwanese company, the enterprise will do its best to take social responsibility | |
| However, in the latest spot test of the logistics center, although passing all sanitation and environmental control tests, some of HANDLE's equipment and fire facilities are still old and unusable, which might cause safety concerns. On top of that, the storage of merchandise is weak, which might cause deterioration concern eventually. At present, government officials have evaluated and proposed practical improvement suggestions, and the administration will conduct random checks in the future. In addition to providing logistics service, an online retailer should ensure the safety of employees and the quality of merchandise, which might achieve a win-win situation for the enterprise, employees, and customers |
The AVE and inter-variable correlations (Study 1)
| Construct | AVE | Construct | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attitude toward the ad | Purchase intention | ||
| Attitude toward the ad | 0.702 | 0.838 | – |
| Purchase intention | 0.812 | 0.710 | 0.901 |
Note(s): Diagonal elements show the square root of the average variance extracted (AVE)
Independent sample t-test results (Study 1)
| Dependent variables | Netizen language code-switching | Mean | t-value | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attitude toward the ad | With | 4.526 | 4.649 | <0.001*** |
| Without | 3.793 | |||
| Purchase intention | With | 4.137 | 2.523 | 0.012* |
| Without | 3.632 |
Note(s): *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01; ***: p < 0.001
The AVE and inter-variable correlations (Study 2)
| Construct | AVE | Construct | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attitude toward the ad | Purchase intention | ||
| Attitude toward the ad | 0.702 | 0.838 | – |
| Purchase intention | 0.803 | 0.649 | 0.896 |
Note(s): Diagonal elements show the square root of the average variance extracted (AVE)
Experimental scenarios and sample size (Study 2)
| Scenario | Netizen language code-switching | Brand image | Sample size |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | With | Positive | 65 |
| 2 | Without | Positive | 53 |
| 3 | With | Negative | 63 |
| 4 | Without | Negative | 54 |
The results of MANOVA-Wilks' Lambda test results (Study 2)
| Effect | Wilks' lambda value | F-value | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intercept | 0.041 | 2668.356 | <0.001*** |
| Netizen language code-switching | 0.921 | 9.834 | <0.001*** |
| Brand Image | 0.938 | 7.580 | 0.001** |
| Netizen language code-switching × Brand image | 0.996 | 0.440 | 0.645 |
Note(s): *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01; ***: p < 0.001
The results of the main effect of MANOVA test (Study 2)
| Factor | Dependent variable | Manipulation | n | Mean | F-value | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netizen language code-switching | Attitude toward the ad | With | 128 | 4.646 | 16.742 | <0.001*** |
| Without | 107 | 4.137 | ||||
| Purchase intention | With | 128 | 4.615 | 14.995 | <0.001*** | |
| Without | 107 | 4.022 | ||||
| Brand image | Attitude toward the ad | Positive | 118 | 4.573 | 6.842 | 0.009** |
| Negative | 117 | 4.257 | ||||
| Purchase intention | Positive | 118 | 4.636 | 15.133 | <0.001*** | |
| Negative | 117 | 4.051 |
Note(s): *: p < 0.05; **: p < 0.01; ***: p < 0.001
Post-hoc analysis results (Study 2)
| Dependent variable | Scenario | Netizen language code-switching | Brand image | Mean | Post-hoc test (among scenarios, only significant results are listed) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attitude toward the ad | 1 | With | Positive | 4.754 | |
| 2 | Without | Positive | 4.352 | ||
| 3 | With | Negative | 4.534 | ||
| 4 | Without | Negative | 3.926 | ||
| Purchase intention | 1 | With | Positive | 4.841 | 1 > 4 (p < 0.001***) |
| 2 | Without | Positive | 4.384 | ||
| 3 | With | Negative | 4.381 | ||
| 4 | Without | Negative | 3.667 |
Note(s): *: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001
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