THE ROLES OF AD POSITION, AD TYPE, VALUE CO-CREATION, AND THE MODERATING EFFECTS OF ENGAGEMENT & PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS ON PODCAST AD EFFECTIVENESS

Abstract

Following calls in the literature for more academic research on podcast advertising, the present research is among the first to examine the relationship of advertising form (host-read ad vs. conventional/non-host read ad) and serial ad placement (beginning/pre-roll vs. middle/midroll) on ad-related variables and behavioral intentions such as Purchase Intention, Attitude Toward the Ad, Attitude Toward the Brand, and Information Seeking Intention. The study also examines the potential moderating effects of Parasocial Relationships and Engagement, as well as the mediation of Persuasion Knowledge, within these relationships, and investigates precursors to Parasocial Relationship and Persuasion Knowledge perceptions. Experimental data finds support for main effects of mid-roll serial ad placement outperforming pre-roll position on Purchase Intention, Attitude Toward the Ad, and Information Seeking, and an interaction effect such that among those in the pre-roll condition, greater levels of Attitude Toward the Brand were indicated for those in the host-read condition vs. the conventional ad condition. Support was also found for Evaluative Persuasion Knowledge as a mediator between the serial ad placement condition as IV and Purchase Intention, Attitude Toward the Brand, Attitude Toward the Ad, and Info Seeking; Engagement’s moderation of the relationship between the IVs and PI, Abrand, InfoSeek, and EvalPK; and Parasocial Relationship’s moderation of the relationship between the IVs and InfoSeek as well as EvalPK. Further, Parasocial Interaction Behaviors were found to positively predict Parasocial Relationship perceptions, and Dispositional Persuasion Knowledge measures were found to positively predict situational persuasion knowledge. Additionally, we find that Value Co-Creation successfully predicts focal DVs to a greater extent than thepreviously examined moderator concepts, and show support for a serial mediation model beginning with Engagement then flowing through Parasocial Relationship perceptions on to Value Co-Creation, which then flow to the focal dependent variables. Zooming out, we thus also introduce a novel conceptual factor or phenomenon, Parasocial Engagement, derived from both the experimental data as a well as a conceptual reconciliation of the concepts of Consumer Engagement, motivation-based Engagement, and Parasocial Relationships, utilizing Service- Dominant Logic as a unifying conceptual framework and pointing to “the market” as the field in which social exchanges of many, and possibly all, types occur.