Drivers of intention to pass-along an online advert : the role of functional attitude formation towards an advert and spite among the audience

Abstract

The context of the study centers around online brand communications. It is aimed to investigate psychological constructs operative in cognitive processes, by which consumers are inclined to pass-along an ad of emotional nature on digital domains. Two novel hypotheses were investigated in this regard. Firstly, the newly operationalized multi-dimensional general functional attitude, made up of value-expressive, social adjustive and utilitarian dimensions (Franc&Brkljacic,2005), was able to predict consumers motives to engage with a brand’s ad in the cyber world. In this hypothesis, the attitude acts as a predictor of the intent. This link is grounded in theory (Ajzen, 1985).The novel aspect is that in this research, the attitude was conceptualized as having functional attributes (Franc & Brkljacic,2005). Hence, the stronger the attitude toward the ad, the more potent the inclination to act would be. The second hypothesis in this research, investigated the relation that spite as a negative trait, has on the attitude and intention link. This hypothesis is in itself ground breaking and acted to advance theoretical literature on this subject, by understanding if spite is an active variable in the mentioned latter process. Spite was introduced as a mediator in this research model, whereby by correlating with the attitude, it weakens the audiences intention to engage with the ad online. Psychometric scales relevant to all constructs were borrowed from other studies and tested on a sample of 205 students by means of a self-administered, structured, online questionnaire. A positive linear relation between the functional attitude and intention resulted from regression analysis (0.042). Moreover, Process MACRO, identified spite as a significant negative mediator(0.017). Spite correlated with the attitude(B=.09), which then led to a decrease in the audiences intent(B=-.015). Clearly, more compelling evidence by replicating this study is desired, in order to make sure that spite acts as a deterring mediator in the context of online advertising and approve the salience of the functional attitude scale in this context. Moreover, more attention needs to be given to the spitefulness trait, by generating novel direct instruments applicable to business and communication scenarios.