The influence of advertising on Instagram on purchase intention among Millennials in South Africa

Abstract

Instagram is a popular networking site which allows Instagram users to use smartphones to take images and/or videos, use filters, and share experiences. The platform has gained popularity among other platforms worldwide, having grown dramatically since its introduction. Instagram's growth has led businesses to start using the platform in their marketing plans. Additionally, the Millennial population of South Africa has consumer demographics with the largest internet usage, making them viable targets for advertising on Instagram. As a result, South African marketers have incorporated advertising on Instagram in their advertising strategies to attract Millennials. Millennials are those for whom technology is part of their everyday lives. They are connected every day, engaging on social media, and using it as a tool to make buying decisions. Technology enables Millennials with the ability to look for information on a product, read through product reviews from other users, and make purchase decisions. This generation utilises social media to interact with online communities and exchange messages, inspiration, videos, and pictures. This study is significant and necessary as it adds to the current collection of studies of the effectiveness of advertising on Instagram and provides important insights on how companies can adjust their advertising tactics to boost engagement with consumers. This study highlights the need to develop and build on existing literature, providing new insights, and contributing to helping businesses. In particular, there have been not many studies regarding the role of advertising on Instagram on the attitude and purchase intent of South African Millennials, thus this study will fill the gap by analysing Millennials in South Africa in this regard. The research reported on here explores how advertising on Instagram affects Millennials’ purchase intention in South Africa, including attitudes, usage factors and demographics. It is important for the businesses to understand how promoting on Instagram works, as there is extensive use of digital networking sites by Millennials nowadays. The study uses the advertising value model and technology acceptance model (TAM) to explain why Instagram advertising promotes Millennial or Generation Y purchase intentions. Hypotheses were developed to explore the correlation of Instagram ads on the purchase intent of each variable. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to quantify and examine the relationships between the variables. The research made use of a quantitative research method where a questionnaire was employed for collecting data to analyse the attitudinal influence of advertising on Instagram and its relationship with intention to purchase. The research aimed to assist advertisers with the knowledge to use Instagram as a marketing tool to reach Millennials; the research insights are designed to provide those in South Africa who are marketing to Millennials with valuable information. The current study employed a non-probability sampling method that integrated convenience and snowball sampling methods. The questionnaire was created using the internet resource Google Forms, and emails, social media, and messaging applications like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were utilised to distribute the Google Forms survey. Participation was limited to Millennial respondents (aged 22 to 42) who had used Instagram and gave their permission to take part. As for the initial data gathering, the survey was conveniently administered to Faculty of Business and Management Sciences students as well as J and B House residents, and thereafter snowballing sampling was employed. Data were collected and analysed by the Statistical Package for Social Science. The total sample size was 521 respondents. The Cape Peninsula University of Technology's Business and Management Sciences Faculty Ethics Committee granted approval for the researcher to conduct the study and fieldwork, and participants consented before commencing the study. The study's findings demonstrated that there were favourable associations between the variables, such as entertainment and perceived irritation and perceived usefulness, which helped to expand and create a revised TAM model in terms of advertising on Instagram. The study also found that Millennial respondents who spent more hours, were less experienced, and displayed greater purchase incidence tendencies showed more favourable purchase intention attitudes. This study can help South African businesses wanting to increase brand awareness, boost sales, track audience engagement and find prospects. Marketers can gain knowledge about Instagram's use, how to employ Instagram ads and how to encourage purchase intentions. Thus, this study will contribute substantial knowledge concerning Instagram's rapid growth and the ways in which companies could utilise the platform for advertising. The results of the data collected emphasised how businesses could implement Instagram advertising in their promotional activities when attracting Millennials. The study extended the TAM and advertising value model; thus, a newly developed model was created that demonstrated that entertainment, informativeness, irritation, credibility, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and purchase intention positively interact with Millennials’ intentions to purchase products or services using Instagram. The data collected validated most of the hypotheses, which showed that Millennials’ attitudes were generally positive toward Instagram advertising.