The Effectiveness of Comment Sidedness on Inoculating Consumer Attitudes and Intentions Toward Social Media Advertising

Ben Libon (Ph.D. Student) and Nathaniel Evans, “The Effectiveness of Comment Sidedness on Inoculating Consumer Attitudes and Intentions Toward Social Media Advertising”. Paper Accepted to the American Academy of Advertising Annual Conference, Austin, March 26-29, 2026. Abstract: Social media has reshaped how consumers evaluate brands by exposing them to immediate, public feedback. This study tests whether two-sided messaging in the context of social media comments can provide an inoculation effect against future negative attacks. Using a 5×2 between subjects experiment (N = 503) with a Facebook ad for a fictitious product (electric scooter), participants viewed one of five initial comment sections (no comments, one-sided positive, one-sided negative, two-sided positive-leaning, two-sided negative-leaning) and were then exposed to either a solely negative or mixed (negatively leaning) attack. Results showed that across brand attitude, product attitude, and purchase intent, solely negative attacks produced significantly larger declines than mixed attacks. While also highlighting that pre-exposure to the two-sided comment sections reduced the effect of those attacks. The findings extend inoculation theory to user-generated environments, showing that audiences rely heavily on overall valence to make their decisions.  The findings also offer practical guidance for social media management, such as disabling comment sections on ads.