How Informativeness and Advertising Value in Social Media Advertising Contribute to Consumers’ Purchase Intention?

The rapid rise of the current trend of social media has captured much attention of marketers and consumers on a global scale. The increasing infiltration of social media in businesses and among consumers makes traditional methods of marketing communication outdated, and new social and economic needs are being generated. The importance of social media-driven advertising has been the main focal point in recent studies as making adjustments to this changing situation is the greatest challenge for marketers. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the effects of informativeness and advertising value on consumers’ smartphone purchase intention in the context of Bangladesh. Building on the Usage and Gratification Theory (UGT) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study gathered responses through a self-administered survey instrument in a quantitative approach. Initially, a total of 452 smartphone consumers were recruited to collect data using the purposive sampling technique following both offline and online surveys in Bangladesh. Finally, 434 usable responses were used to analyze the collected data using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings of the study showed that informativeness has a positive impact on advertising value and attitude toward social media advertising and advertising value has positively influenced attitude toward advertising and purchase intention. Although attitude toward advertising does not positively affect purchase intention, it mediates the relationship between advertising value and purchase intention. The findings will have significant theoretical and practical implications for policy- makers, researchers, and practitioners.