Abstract: Social media political advertising has, in recent years, been the target of a lot of interest and scrutiny from the public, scholars, and even the social media platforms themselves. While there is still some debate as to the overall effectiveness of social media political advertising there is compelling evidence to show that a number of social media users seek to avoid content that is political in nature. The present study sought to shed light on the understanding of how consumers actually view or avoid political advertising on social media by using eye-tracking equipment to map users eye scanpaths as they viewed a constructed social media news feed. It was found that users with high levels of political interest fundamentally view political advertising differently with different scanpaths than those who have low political interest levels.
Abstract: The present study sought to define and test the effects of “mistargeting” – that is, the phenomenon in which consumers are delivered online behavioral advertising (OBA) that has served them an irrelevant ad based on misinterpreted characteristics. Results of a 2 (ad mechanism disclosure: present/absent) x 2 (targeted ad accuracy: high/low) between-subjects experiment (N = 109) show that mistargeting produces higher reactance than simple low ad relevance, and subsequent negative effects for brands.
Abstract: Recently, Facebook has changed the way they display the disclosure language regarding political advertisements in an attempt to increase transparency. The goal of this study was to use eyetracking to determine the effectiveness of the new disclosure language and to assess other important factors dealing with how users look at political ads. Findings suggest that Facebook’s new political ad disclosure language is not effective at enhancing users comprehension of who paid for the advertisement.
