Abstract

This research examines how a brand’s ad adjacency to offensive content influences consumers’ perceptions, emotions, and behavioral intentions toward the brand. Varying the type of offensive content, we conduct two experiments to demonstrate how offensive association (OA) between social media content and the brand’s ad increases negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) intentions. The two studies show that the seemingly accidental association with offensive content leads NWOM intentions via heightened blame attribution and negative emotions. The results suggest that even a brand’s inadvertent association with offensive content can induce consumers to believe that the brand implicitly approved or overlooked its ad placement. Furthermore, the negative spillover effects of brand safety violations are found only when the perceived ad intrusiveness is high. The present research provides advertisers with the rationale behind their need for being vigilant in safeguarding their ads and sponsorship.

摘要

这项研究考察了品牌与攻击性内容的广告相邻性如何影响消费者对该品牌的看法、情感和行为意图。改变攻击性内容的类型，我们进行了两个实验来展示社交媒体内容和品牌广告之间的攻击性关联 (OA) 如何增加负面口碑 (NWOM) 意图。这两项研究表明，与冒犯性内容的看似偶然的关联通过加剧的责备归因和负面情绪导致 NWOM 意图。结果表明，即使品牌无意中与冒犯性内容相关联，也会使消费者相信该品牌暗中认可或忽视了其广告展示位置。此外，只有当感知到的广告侵入性很高时，才会发现违反品牌安全的负面溢出效应。