A Narrative Transportation Theory Approach to Brand Related
Storytelling on Social Media
Göktuğ Kılıç
11105623
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Masters Program Communication Sciences
Track Persuasive Communication
Supervised by Dr. Young Shin Lim
Abstract
The main purpose of this study is to find the effects of storytelling on people’s brand attitude and purchase intention. Recently, storytelling has been drawing lots of attention among practitioners and academics. The previous studies showed that storytelling promotes positive brand attitude, better brand recall, and less critical thinking towards the brand. However, as a channel these studies employ traditional media or online platforms. This study investigates the influence of brand related storytelling and its underlying mechanisms in a social media platform. The results of an online experiment (N = 148) indicated that the transportability of a person positively affected the exposed participants’ purchase intention through the brand attitude. In light of these results, this study underlines the importance of brand related storytelling on social media in order to have a more positive brand attitude and a higher purchase intention.
Keywords: brand, storytelling, narrative transportation theory, brand attitude, transportability, familiarity, purchase intention
A Narrative Transportation Theory Approach to Brand Related Storytelling on Social Media
From the beginning of the history of human interaction, humans tell stories (Dal Cin, Zanna, & Fong, 2004). One of the very first stories that we know has been told at Lascaux about hunts and animals circa 17000 – 15000 B.C.E. (UNESCO, n.d.). In order to understand and make a daily example of the use of stories, we could think how adults use the story itself as a persuasive tool to convince their children to go to bed, making a promise of storytelling before bedtime. Stories always have had a persuasive effect on humans no matter what their demographics because stories touch our feelings and change our beliefs (Green & Brock, 2000). Since we experienced the power of stories for ages, it did not take a long time for the academics, marketers, advertisers and practitioners from every related field of persuasion to discover the applicability of stories to their persuasive intentions and campaigns.
There is an inevitable trend of storytelling/narrative persuasion in the marketing field (Pulizzi, 2012). A survey that has been conducted by Escalas (1998) shows that 62% of TV ads in the US have a narrative structure, meaning that the ad is embedded in a story. Therefore, practitioners should have a better understanding of how stories exactly work as a persuasive tool. The study of Braddock and Dillard (2016) shows the dramatic growth rate of research on the effects of narratives. According to their study, when the term “narrative” has been searched in 1993 there were only 15 citations. However, when the same term was searched in 2003, there was a 380% increase of the term “narrative” in published studies. Finally, in 2013 the growth of the research on effects of narratives
shifting to digital/online platforms, practitioners should especially understand how narrative/storytelling works on social media. (eMarketer, 2016).
Therefore, this study will focus on the marketing and brand side of storytelling on social media. The previous research regarding the difference between storytelling and non-storytelling approached the issue mostly within a frame of traditional media channels such as TV, printed media etc. Since there has not been enough research on the effects of brand related storytelling within a social media frame, this study will closely examine this phenomenon regarding brand attitude and purchase intention. Hence, the current study aims to investigate the following research question: What are the effects of storytelling in a social media advertising campaign on purchase intention and brand attitude, and what is the effect of the underlying mechanism of transportability and familiarity on the consumer?
Theoretical Background Stories to Share
Every era had its preferred storytelling medium (Papacarissi & Blasiola, 2015). Starting with cave walls, to paper, radio, TV and now social media through the Internet. Thanks to Web 2.0 and the development in social media platforms, the creation and exchange of content has become much easier and faster (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In the fast-changing online landscape, brands are trying to reposition themselves in order to fit into the new online landscape (Fournier & Avery, 2011). Also, it is clear that there is an inevitable consumer interest in online channels. According to Lang (2010), in 2008 the average consumers 26% of media consumption was devoted to online channels, however in 2010 this percentage went up to 32%, showing the growing interest of consumers
towards online channels. As a consequence, the brands are rushing to social media to gain followers and to try and create positive engagement for their brands to increase more favourable attitudes towards their brands. In order to create more positive engagement, brands can use narratives/stories. According to Yuki (2015), the most powerful driver of sharing branded content on Facebook is the one that contains a story in the content. Since the consumers of the online platforms and users of social media see the brands as “party crashers”, this perception might be damaging the goal of the brands for creating positive attitudes (Fournier & Avery, 2011). In line with the reports of Yuki (2015), one can assume that posting brand related storytelling/narrative content on social media should give an advantage to create positive attitudes for the brand while a non-narrative post will be in lack of creating the same positive attitude.
Narratives/Stories as Persuasion Tool in Advertisement
The narrative does not have an exact, universally accepted definition (Hinyard & Krauter, 2007). In line with previous definitions this study accepts the definition of the narrative as Hinyard and Krauter (2007) defined it: “A narrative is any cohesive and coherent story with an identifiable beginning, middle, and end that provides information about scene, characters, and conflict; raises unanswered questions or unresolved conflict; and provides resolution.” (p. 778). Moreover, according to Escalas (1998) the structure of a narrative is consisted by two components, chronology and causality. The chronology represents the time schedule of the events that are occurring in a story. The causality is the connector of the events that are occurring in the story with causal inferences.
advertisement that tells a story (Escalas, 1998). Furthermore, according to Matilla (2000), narrative ads are organized by causal inference within the narrative’s chronological structure. The implementation of narratives in advertising can be described as a sequence initiated by an event, which consists of characters that are engaging in an action in order to achieve a goal, causing a result as an outcome (Escalas, 1998). The previous conceptual studies suggest that when a text has been communicated with a narrative/story, evaluations of the product, the advertisement and the brand should obtain better results than a text that has been communicated with a non-narrative style (McKee, 2003; Wells, 1988; Woodside, 2010; Woodside, Sood, & Miller, 2008). Accordingly, the results of the previous empirical studies support this claim (Chang, 2008; Escalas, 2004; Green & Brock, 2000; Lundqvist, Liljander, Gummerus, & van Riel 2012; Mattilla, 2000; Murphy, Frank, Chatterjee, & Baezconde-Garbanati 2013; Polyorat, Alden& Kim, 2007).
On the other hand, the non-narrative, like the narrative, does not have a universally accepted definition. In the literature it is referred to with different terms. For example, “argumentative” (Boller & Olson, 1991; Padgett & Allen, 1997), “list” (Adaval & Wyer, 1998), “lecture” (Woodside, 2010) “rhetoric” (Green & Brock, 2000; Deighton, Romer, & McQueen, 1989). The general and the most common point of these definitions is that the non-narrative text is informational and contains only argumentation. Related to that, the non-narrative advertisement can be described as a factual advertisement copy that only offers information about the product’s benefits and features (Polyorat et al., 2007). By offering only attributed related information, these texts do not provide the necessary structural elements (i.e. chronology and causality) for the reader to create an association with the product, which might help a better evaluation and recall (Anderson
& Bauer, 2014; Van Osselaer & Janiszewski, 2001). Additionally, narrative advertisement texts obtain better results regarding recall, favorable evaluations, and purchase intention (Mattila; 2000, Adaval & Wyer, 1998). Moreover, other previous research shows that narratives have more persuasion power of changing beliefs when compared to the non-narrative text (Chang, 2008). This study, regarding narrative persuasion, will scrutinize especially the attitudes and the purchase intention. The reason of this specific examination is based on Ajzen’s (1991) theory of planned behaviour (TPB). This is because the TPB proposes that the attitudes are one of the underlying determinants of the intention. Additionally, Connor and Sparks (2005) showed that based on the TPB model the strongest predictor of intention is the attitude and, accordingly, the strongest predictor of the behaviour is the intention. In light of this information and these empirical results this study’s first hypothesis is as follows:
H1: Those who have been exposed to a brand’s social media post in the narrative style (story) will score higher on the purchase intention through brand attitude, when it is compared to those who have been exposed to a post in the non-narrative style.
After presenting and establishing the definitions of narratives, non-narratives, narrative ads, and non-narrative ads, in order to examine the underlying mechanisms of transportation, this study will employ the narrative transportation theory as its theoretical base. Additionally, this study accepts Green and Brock’s (2002) transportation-imagery model as the pioneer model and, to test its hypothesis, it will be based on the extended transportation-imagery model of Van Lear, Ruyter, Visconti, and Wetzels (2014).
The concept of narrative transportation theory started with Gerrig’s (1993) metaphor of “traveller”, in which he was referring to the literal traveling experience in order to describe the mental transportation of a reader from our real world’s time and space to the story’s time and space. From that point, the conceptualization of transportation has been widened as the experience of a reader or a listener’s/viewer’s experience of being lost in the content that they are engaging with (Escalas, 2004). Perhaps one of the most well-known conceptualizations of transportation is Green and Brock’s (2000) based on Gerrig’s work. According to Green and Brock (2002), the definition of the transportation is a convergent process where the cognitive process focuses on events that are going on in the story. As a result of this mental transportation, the transported person may lose their access to the real world’s facts more easily, in order to grasp the ‘reality’ of the narrative world. In order to test the narrative transportation theory, Green and Brock (2002) proposed the transportation-imagery model.
The Transportation-Imagery Model
According to the transportation-imagery model, the narrative persuasion occurs when a reader is “transported” into the world of the narrative (Green & Brock, 2002). According to the model, there are three main points for a persuasion effect. Firstly, the model claims that the persuasion takes place because the transported reader is absorbed in the narrative. As a consequence of this absorption the reader is less likely to generate counter argumentations. Secondly, thanks to the transportation the story can seem more like a real experience, which is named realism. Realism is defined as the receiver’s perception of the story whether similar to the real word or perceived as being authentic (Murphy et al., 2013). Finally, the transportation may create an emotional bond between
the reader and the characters of the narrative, causing a greater influence on the beliefs of the reader (Escalas, 2013; Green & Brock 2000). On the other hand, the applicability of the model has limitations. For example, in order to apply the model, the text must contain the characteristics of a narrative (i.e. chronology and causality) and elicit vivid imagery. Lastly, there are various numbers of factors that influence the transportation, such as perceived realism of the narrative, the quality of the narrative, propensity for absorption, narrative format, imagery in the narrative, ability of creating vivid mental images, narrative format, and use of suspense (Green & Brock, 2000, 2002; Green, 2004).
The Extended Transportation-Imagery Model
Van Laer et al. (2013), proposed an extended model for the transportation-imagery model. Being in line with Green and Brock’s (2002) model, their model composed of the storyteller’s and story receiver’s antecedents. The model accepts the changes on the cognitive and affective responses, beliefs, attitudes and intentions as an effect of the narrative transportation. The model has been constructed on a meta-analysis study. Moreover, according to the authors, because of the insufficient number of articles about the channels that are used by the storyteller, the model does not include a specific channel. Therefore it cannot conclude whether the narrative persuasion causes the same outcomes in a social media channel, as it does in traditional media channels. Even if the extended transportation-imagery model does not include a specific channel in the model, in order to fill the research gap on the matter of narrative persuasion on social media, this study will employ Facebook as the social media channel.
This study will be focusing on the story receiver’s antecedents, since the interest of the study is the effects of storytelling on people, as in line with the study’s research question; however, also the characteristics of the story should be taken into account. The previous research shows that the differences in the characteristics of the story do not affect the outcome in certain aspects. For example, according to Green and Brock (2000,2002), there is no difference between fictional and nonfictional stories. The previous empirical results support the claim showing that people are equally likely to accept the information whether the story is fictional or not (Green & Brock, 2000; Green & Brock, 2002). Additionally, the empirical results show the effect of fictional based belief change (Prentice, Gerrig, & Bailis, 1997; Strange & Leung, 1999; Wheeler, Green, & Brock, 1999). Related to that, another study shows that people accept false statements from a fictional story such as “mental illness is contagious” (Wheeler, Green, & Brock, 1999). More interestingly people have the tendency of accepting false statements even if they are explicitly informed that the story is a fictional one (Wheeler et al., 1999; Green & Brock, 2000). Another aspect of a story can be its genre. The definition of the story genre of this study is in line with Genette’s (1992) definition, which is the difference of the category of stories that is defined culturally in a society. Bilandzic and Busselle (2008) show that the genre of a story does not affect the narrative transportation; however, the familiarity of the story receiver with a specific genre does.
The extended transportation-imagery model claims that the use of narratives affects the audience’s cognitive and affective responses, beliefs, attitudes, and intentions. As mentioned before, based on theory of planned behaviour (TPB) this study employs the purchase intention as the dependent variable, since the intention is the strongest predictor
of the behaviour. Hence, this study will examine the effects of storytelling on people’s purchase intention through the attitude, and if the effects of underlying mechanisms of transportation play a role in a specific channel (social media), from the story receiver’s perspective (i.e. transportability, familiarity).
Transportability
Transportability refers to the individuals ability or tendency to be transported into the narrative (Dal Cin, Zanna, & Fong 2004; van Lear et al., 2014). According to Dal Cin et al. (2004), transportability is not dependent on any specific story or genre, and therefore can occur with any kind of story or genre. On the other hand, they also find out that some people are transported more and some less. Also, some narratives create a stronger tendency to be transported than other narratives. Hence, the transportation can be determined either by the characteristics of the reader or the narrative.
This study focuses on the effects of readers’ transportability. Previous research shows that the transportability is related with image producing capacity (Betts, 1909) and empathic ability (Davis, 1983). Dal Cin et al. (2004) demonstrated that transportability has a moderator role in narrative persuasion. Their study showed that the participant who had higher scores on transportability had reported being captivated in the narrative more when compared with those who had lower scores on transportability. In another study about smoking behavior, Dal Cin, Sonya, Gibson, Zanna, Shumate, and Fong (2007) found a partial role of transportability on behavior change on people’s smoking behavior when the anti-smoking campaign was based on a narrative. In line with these empirical results, this study argues that since the transportability can predict the narrative
relation with attitude and purchase intention. Additionally, the previous researches show that narratives can cause belief adoption (Dal Cin et al., 2007; Green & Brock, 2000). Following the TPB’s argumentation of beliefs being the determinants of the attitude, and attitudes being the determinants of the intention, this study argues that attitude should have a role as a mediator in this relation. In sum, this study will examine the role (if any) of transportability as an underlying determinant to predict the purchase intention through attitude within a specific medium (Facebook). Therefore this study hypothesizes that:
H2: For those who have been exposed to a brand’s social media post in the narrative style of text (story), their transportability will positively affect the purchase intention through brand attitude.
Familiarity
According to Green (2004), the term familiarity refers to the degree of prior knowledge about the experience that takes place in the story’s genre or topic. Green (2004) also argues that it is crucial to have a minimum level of familiarity for the narrative transportation to occur. Green’s reasoning for the minimum level of familiarity is that the receiver of the story should obtain the ability to understand the information that is in the story’s plot. Additionally, more prior knowledge/familiarity might lead to higher levels of narrative transportation and appreciation of the story. The prior knowledge might cause a greater narrative transportation because the reader could have easier immersion into the story, thanks to prior knowledge/familiarity of the employed theme by the story or an element of the story (location, patterns of the event) (Slater, Rouner, and Long 2006; Sestir & Green, 2010). Additionally, the previous researches show that interpretation of information depends on the prior knowledge (Higgings & King, 1981;
Wher & Srull, 1981). In parallel with these studies and findings this study hypothesizes that:
H3: For those who have been exposed to a brand’s social media post in the narrative style of text (story), their familiarity will positively affect the purchase intention through brand attitude.
Method Participants
The data collection method was the convenience sampling. The link of the experiment was posted on Facebook and Reddit. A total of 202 participants’ data has been collected. After the elimination of those who had missing values, the remaining number of 148 participants’ data has been used for the analyses. The age range of the participants was 18 – 56 years old, (M = 27.6, SD = 7.03). Nearly half of the participants (48.6%) were between the ages of 18 - 26 years old. In the gender data, there were 23 missing values. The remaining of the 125 participants were 80 males (51.4%), 44 female (29.7%) and 1 other (0.7%). In a wide variety of countries, the top two countries were Netherlands (N= 46, 31%) and Turkey (N= 21, 14,2%).
Design and Stimuli
The study employed an experiment with a single factor between subject’s design. The study’s independent variable is the type of the text (narrative vs. non-narrative). The manipulation was made through a Facebook post of a fictional brand. The stimuli texts, the brand and the logo, were created only for this study. An imaginary sparkled water brand called “Bubblybobbob” was presented. In the narrative condition the text was a story, the brand and the product were embedded in the story and there was no explicit
intention of a persuasive intent. Simply the brand’s product takes a place in the story as an object that helps the hero of the story. The brand’s product and the brand itself were stressed in the key sequences of the story, such as revealing very important information regarding the story.
On the other hand, in the non-narrative condition the text was structured in an argumentative rhetorical way; in other words without the intention of hiding the persuasive intent while giving the information about the brand and the product (Green & Brock, 2000; Deighton et al., 1989; Boller & Olson, 1991; Padgett & Allen, 1997). The non-narrative text’s structure was mostly the production process of the product and its features. The length of the texts was not the same. The non-narrative text was longer; however, the narrative version contained 12,8% more words when compared to the non-narrative text. The same attributes of the product were mentioned in both texts within their text style (narrative vs. non-narrative). For example, in the narrative text, while underlining the taste of the electrolyte-feature of the sparkling water, the hero of the story was presented as enjoying this feature, whereas in the non-narrative text the same feature is only described and listed.
To sum up, in the narrative condition, a Facebook post presented a narrative text (See Figure 4., Appendix A). In the non-narrative condition, also a Facebook post was presented; however, this time with a non-narrative text (See Figure 3., Appendix A). Participants were assigned randomly to one of these conditions. The purchase intention was employed as the dependent variable. Additionally, participants’ personal involvement was measured as the control variable.
The experiment has been conducted in an online environment. At the beginning of the experiment, participants have been informed briefly about the general topic of the study that they will be participating in and related information about their consent. They have been randomly assigned one of the conditions. After reading the Facebook post participants have been asked to fill a questionnaire about brand attitude, purchase intention, and the personal involvement as the control variable. Those who had the narrative condition also answered the questions regarding their transportability and familiarity. Finally, they have been asked their demographics. After the questionnaire, they have been debriefed and thanked.
Measures
Brand attitude
The brand attitude was measured with a scale adapted from Spears and Singh (2004). The scale consists of seven items: unappealing-appealing, bad-good, unfavourable-favourable, unlikeable-likeable, unsatisfactory-satisfactory, disagreeable-agreeable. All of the items are on a seven-point Likert’s scale, and the scale is presented with a bipolar matrix type. The reliability of the scale has been reported with a Cronbach’s alpha of .96, indicating that the scale has a high reliability.
Purchase Intention
The scale is adapted from Baker and Churchill’s (1977) research. In order to measure the purchase intention the study employed three items: “Would you like to try this product?”, “Would you buy this product if you happened to see it in a store?”, “Would you actively seek out this product in a store I order to purchase it?” All the items are on a seven-point
Likert’s scale. The scale was anchored by extremely unlikely and extremely likely. The reliability of the scale was reported with a Cronbach’s alpha of .87.
Transportability
The scale is adapted from Gerrig (1993) and Green and Brock (2000). Transportability was measured with eleven items. The items of the scale were: “While I was reading the narrative, I could easily picture the events in it taking place.”, “While I was reading the narrative, activity going on in the room around me was on my mind.”, “I could picture myself in the scene of the events described in the narrative.”, “I was mentally involved in the narrative while reading it.”, “After finishing the narrative, I found it easy to put it out of my mind.”, “I wanted to learn how the narrative ended.”, “The narrative affected me emotionally.”, “I found myself thinking of ways the narrative could have turned out differently.”, “I found my mind wandering while reading the narrative.”,“The events in the narrative are relevant to my everyday life.”, “The events in the narrative have changed my life.”. All the items are on a seven-point Likert’s scale. The scale was anchored by strongly disagree and strongly agree. The reliability of the scale has been reported witha Cronbach’s alpha of .76
Familiarity
The familiarity was measured with nine items on a seven-point Likert’s scale, adapted from Holmes, Corrigan, Williams, Canar and Kubiak (1999). In previous studies, the original scale has been used with ranking order. However, Corrigan, Green, Lundin, Kubiak, and Penn (2001), in their study, used the same scale with regard to level of contact measurement. The items were: “I have watched a movie or television show in which a character depicted a person similarly to Michael.”, “My job involves providing
services for people who had a similar experience with Michael.”, “ I have observed, in passing, a person I believe may have the same experience as Michael.”, “I had the same experience what Michael experienced in the story.”, “I have worked with a person who had a similar experience as Michael at my place of employment/study.”, “My job/study includes providing services to people who had the similar experience as Michael.”, “A friend of the family had a similar experience as Michael had.”, “I have a relative who had a similar experience as Michael had.”, “I live with a person who had a similar experience as Michael had.”. The reliability of the scale is α= .77.
Control Variable
Personal involvement inventory was added as a control variable. The scale was adapted from Zaichkowsky’s study (2013), which was a revised version of the 20 item-scale of the Personal Involvement Inventory. The study employed the revised ten-item on a seven-point Likert’s scale and the scale was presented with a bipolar matrix type. The items of the scale are: unimportant-important, boring-interesting, irrelevant-relevant, unexciting-exciting, means nothing-means a lot to me, unappealing-appealing, mundane-fascinating, worthless-valuable, uninvolving-involving, not needed-needed. The reliability of the scale is α > .9, indicating that the scale is stable. The reason of adding the personal involvement, as control variable, is because Zaichkowsky (1986) determines three antecedents for involvement, which are the characteristics of the person, characteristics of the stimulus, and characteristics of the situation. One or more of these antecedents could have an influence on the involvement level. For example, it can affect the involvement of the product (Hupfer & Gardneri, 1971), advertisement (Krugman, 1967) or with purchase situations (Clark & Belk, 1978). Since this study is examining the
narrative persuasion from the story receivers’ perspective, one of the personal involvement antecedents (characteristics of the person) fits with this study’s objective. Therefore, personal involvement was included.
Results Preliminary Analysis
The study takes personal involvement as the control variable. The result of the correlation analyses shows that there is a statistically significant, moderate strength, positive correlation between the purchase intention and personal involvement, r = .47, N = 148, p = .000. (See Table 1, appendix A) Therefore, personal involvement was included to further analyses.
Narrative vs. Non-narrative Brand Post
The prediction of Hypothesis 1 was that when compared, those who have been exposed to a brand’s social media post in the narrative style (story) will score higher on the purchase intention through the brand attitude than those who have been exposed to the non-narrative style. The indirect effect was b =, 10, SE = .14 not significant with 95% bootstrap CI [-0.23, 0.34]. Thus, Hypothesis 1 was not supported. The results showed that the style of the text (narrative vs. non-narrative) does not predict the brand attitude significantly, b = .15, t = .66, p = .511. The brand attitude is a significant predictor of the purchase intention, b = .63, t = 10.57, p < .001. The style of the text was not a significant predictor of purchase intention after controlling for the mediator, b = .27, t = 1.63, p = .104. Therefore, there is no mediation effect of the style of the text. In order to test the mediation effect the study used the model 4 of PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). The control
variable personal involvement does predict the brand attitude significantly, b = .33, t = 4.11, p = .001. Also, it predicts the purchase intention after controlling for the mediator, b = .29, t = 4.74, p < .001.
Effect of Transportability on Processing of Narrative Brand Post
The model 4 of PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) analysis was used to investigate Hypothesis 2; the transportability positively affects the purchase intention through the mediation of the brand attitude. The indirect effect was b = .29, SE = .18 is significant with 95% bootstrap CI [0.01, 0.72]. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is supported. The results indicated that transportability is indeed a significant predictor of the brand attitude, b = .51, t = 2.09, p = .041. The brand attitude is also a significant predictor of the purchase intention, b = .56, t = 5.40, p < .001. Moreover, transportability was still a significant predictor of purchase intention after controlling for the mediator, b = .60, t = 3, p = .004. Additionally, the total effect of transportability is a significant predictor of the purchase intention, b = .89, t = 3.77, p = .004. The control variable does not predict the brand attitude, b = - .23, t = - .19, p = .852. However, it predicts the purchase intention after controlling for the mediator, b = .28, t = 2.96, p = .004.
Effect of Familiarity on Processing of Narrative Brand Post
In order to test the mediation effect of familiarity, the study used again the model 4 of PROCESS (Hayes, 2013). As hypothesised in Hypothesis 3, the study predicts that familiarity positively affects the purchase intention through the mediation of the brand attitude. The indirect effect b =, 25, SE = .16 was not significant with 95% bootstrap CI [-0.02, 0.62]. Thus, Hypothesis 3 is not supported. The results showed that familiarity does not predict the brand attitude significantly, b = .44, t = 1.58, p = .119. The brand attitude
is a significant predictor of the purchase intention, b = .56, t = 5.40, p < .001. Familiarity was not a significant predictor of purchase intention after controlling for the mediator, b = -.02, t = - .10, p = .922. Therefore, there is no mediation effect of familiarity. The control variable does not predict the brand attitude, b = .00, t = .03, p = .974. However, it predicts the purchase intention after controlling for the mediator, b = .38, t = 3.69, p = .006.
In sum, results did not support the prediction of Hypothesis 1. There was no direct or indirect effect of the style of the text on purchase intention. Hypothesis 2 was supported. There was a full mediation effect of transportation on purchase intention through the brand attitude, confirming the role of transportability as an underlying determinant of the transportation to predict the purchase intention through attitude. Lastly, Hypothesis 3 was not supported. There was no direct or indirect effect of familiarity on the purchase intention.
Discussion
This study’s aim was to investigate the influence of the narrative text in a social media advertising campaign on people’s purchase intention through brand attitude. This is one of the first studies about the use of brand related storytelling on social media with a narrative transportation theory approach.
This study's main conclusion is that story receiver’s transportability has a significant role as an underlying effect of the transportation. Previously Mazzocco, Green, Sasota, and Jones (2010), already tested and established this mechanism; however, this is the first study that tests the effect of this underlying mechanism within a social media platform. Since there was a mediation effect, this study concludes that for
the receivers who were exposed to a story in a social media platform, their transportability is indeed a significant influential mechanism of the purchase intention through the brand attitude, which was hypothesized in Hypothesis 2.
Hypothesis 1 was not supported. The style of the text (narrative vs. non-narrative) was not able to predict the effect of narratives on purchase intention through the brand attitude since there was no mediation effect. One of the reasons of this result could be the quality of the story that has been used for the stimulus. In the studies of Green and Brock (2000) and Green et al. (2004), the “craftsmanship” of a narrative has been discussed as a factor of transportation. As a measure, “external success” has been proposed, meaning that books that are selected or labeled by experts as “classics” or those books that won the title of bestseller. They also proposed that the rich detailed information leads toward more vivid imagery or the readers feel closer to the characters of the story. In order to create a deeper transportation, the story of the stimulus contains sharp changes in dynamics of the events and does not end with a clear ending to create curiosity. However, since the stimulus was created only for this study, there is a high chance that the quality of the narrative text was not good enough for deeper immersion and therefore deeper transportation.
Finally, the results of familiarity show that it could not predict the mediation effect of the brand attitude to purchase intention. One of the reasons of the insignificant results for familiarity could be the scale that has been employed by the study. In previous studies the same scale has been used to measure familiarity, however, it was measured with ranking order or with the level of contact. Also, the items of the scale might not be suitable to measure the familiarity of the participants for the specific story that has been
used as stimulus. The original scale has been created to measure people’s familiarity with mentally ill people. When this scale was adopted for this study, the items were regulated to test the familiarity of the elements that are in the story; however it seems that the regulations have not worked in this case.
Managerial Implications
The main outcome of this study could help practitioners in campaign designing. This and previous studies results stress the importance of the role of the story in a communication plan. Whatever their communication channel is, whether traditional or new/social media, a communicational plan should have a story in order to create a more positive brand attitude and higher purchase intention. Additionally, while having a story-based campaign, practitioners also should carefully construct their story to have a higher transportability for their target audience in order to create the chance of deeper immersion. Since the narratives can hide the persuasion intent, thanks to their structure, the narratives should be used in persuasion to not show the intention of persuasion or at least making it more subtle on social media.
Limitations and Future Research
The present study has some limitations. First, the comparison of the stimuli text (narrative vs. non-narrative) contains some difference in terms of length and word count. The non-narrative text is longer; however, the narrative version contains 12,8% more words when it is compared to the non-narrative text. The study tried to keep the stimuli as short as possible in order to minimise the dropouts and maximise the information intake. Also, in order to make it more comparable, the non-narrative text should have been longer, but the longer the text the more technical it becomes. On the other hand, using too
many buzzwords might have created the effect of trying to sell it too hard. In fact, one of the comments written by a participant points out that the buzzwords (premium line, zero-calorie, vapour-distilled, purest spring water with electrolytes, long-lasting taste, etc.) that have been used in the non-narrative text created a sceptical approach to the text, which can be argued to have created a negative effect on brand attitude.
Finally, the familiarity scale was adopted from previous studies (Corrigan, Green, Lundin, Kubiak, & Penn, 2001; Caputo & Rouner, 2011). However, those studies were using the scale with a ranking order method. This study presumed that familiarity could have been measured by using the same items while measuring them on a seven-point Likert’s scale. However, results were not significant.
This study focused on the written form of narrative and non-narrative texts. The popularity of visual-based social media platforms is becoming greater among users; for example Snapchat and Instagram (“600 Million and Counting”, 2016; Smith, 2017). The future research should investigate if the effect is still the same when the narrative text is visual and not written, while controlling for the underlying mechanisms. Additionally, the emerging field of virtual reality should be researched profoundly. This is because logically one could argue that the transportability of the story will be much higher when it is compared with a written or conventional visual narrative text.
In conclusion, transportability positively influences the purchase intention through the brand attitude. This study provided insights for the first steps of a narrative persuasion approach to a brand related storytelling on social media.
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Appendix A
Figure 1. Hypothesis 1, Conceptual model.
Figure 2. Hypothesis 2 and 3, Conceptual model.
Exposed to the narrative text
Table 1. Correlation between the purchase intention, attitude, familiarity,
Story vs. No story Purchase Intention
Transportability
Familiarity
Brand Attitude Purchase
F am il iar it y .148 .043 .093 .233 1 A tt it ude .704** .324** .266* 1 .233 T rans por tabi li ty .471** .169 1 .266* .093 P er sonal Inv ol ve m ent .473** 1 .169 .324** .043 P ur chas e In te nt ion 1 .473** .471** .704** .148 SD 1.53 1.44 .72 1.47 .63 M 2.64 3.45 3.44 3.46 1.72 V ar iabl es P ur chas e Int ent ion P er sonal Inv ol ve m ent T rans por tabi li ty A tt it ude F am il iar it y
Note: * p < .05, **p < .01, All the variables (N = 148), except Transportability (N =60) and Familiarity (N = 54)
Appendix B Q1 Dear participant, I am a student from the University of Amsterdam, and I am conducting a research on social media. You will be shown a Facebook post, and then asked to answer a few questions. The questionnaire will be conducted with an online survey and will take around 10 minutes to complete. All your answers will be anonymous and will not be distributed to third parties. I really appreciate your cooperation, and I thank you in advance for your time and dedication. Kind regards, Göktuğ Kılıç Q2 This research is performed under the responsibility of the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. You are therefore guaranteed that your demographic information and data will be processed anonymously and will not be distributed to third parties. Participation occurs voluntarily, meaning that you can withdraw from participation at any time before or during the survey, or revoke your participation within 24 hours after the survey, without vindication. Furthermore, participating in the research will not entail you being subjected to any risk or discomfort, and you will not be exposed to any explicitly offensive material. If you have any remarks and/or complaints about the followed procedure, please contact a member of the ASCoR Ethical Committee at the University of Amsterdam at ascor-secr-fmg@uva.nl. Your remarks and/or complaints will be handled confidentially. If you want more information about this survey, please contact the project leader through goktug.kilic@student.uva.nl . I have read and understood the above consent form, and I agree to participate in this research study. m Yes (1) m No (2) If No Is Selected, Then Skip To End of Survey Q49 In the following page you will be shown a Facebook post, please read it carefully. Afterwards, you will be asked a few questions about the Facebook post. Q47 Please read the following Facebook post carefully. After 30 seconds the next button will be available, please click it to see the following questions. Q50 Timing First Click (1) Last Click (2) Page Submit (3) Click Count (4) Q4 Please read the following Facebook post carefully. After 30 seconds the next button will be available, please click it to see the following questions.
Q44 Timing First Click (1) Last Click (2) Page Submit (3) Click Count (4) Q15 Please indicate your overall feeling regarding the sparkling water, Bubblybobbob. 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) 6 (6) 7 (7) Unappealing:Appealing (1) m m m m m m m Bad:Good (2) m m m m m m m Unpleasant:Pleasant (3) m m m m m m m Unfavorable:Favorable (4) m m m m m m m Unlikeable:Likeable (5) m m m m m m m Unsatisfactory:Satisfactory (6) m m m m m m m Disaggreable:Agreeable (7) m m m m m m m
Q16 Please answer the following questions regarding the sparkling water, Bubblybobbob. Extremel y unlikely (1) Moderatel y unlikely (2) Slightly unlikel y (3) Neither likely nor unlikel y (4) Slightl y likely (5) Moderatel y likely (6) Extremel y likely (7) Would you like to try this product? (1) m m m m m m m Would you buy this product if you happene d to see it in a store? (2) m m m m m m m Would you actively seek out this product in a store in order to purchase it? (3) m m m m m m m
Q19 Please indicate your overall feelings about sparkling water in general. (NOT regarding Bubblybobbob) 1 (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) 6 (6) 7 (7) Unimportant:Important (1) m m m m m m m Boring:Intersting (2) m m m m m m m Irrelevant:Relevant (3) m m m m m m m Unexciting:Exciting (4) m m m m m m m Means nothing:Means a lot to me (5) m m m m m m m Unappealing:Appealing (6) m m m m m m m Mundane:Fascinating (7) m m m m m m m Worthless:Valuable (8) m m m m m m m Uninvolving:Involving (9) m m m m m m m Not needed:Needed (10) m m m m m m m
Q5 How much do you agree with the following statements? Please indicate your overall feelings regarding the story that you have just read. Strongly disagree (1) Disagree (2) Somewhat disagree (3) Neither agree nor disagree (4) Somewhat agree (5) Agree (6) Strongly agree (7) While I was reading the story, I could easily picture the events in it taking place. (1) m m m m m m m While I was reading the story, activity going on in the room around me was on my mind. (2) m m m m m m m I could picture myself in the scene of the events described in the story. (3) m m m m m m m I was mentally involved in the story while reading it. (4) m m m m m m m After finishing the story, I found it easy to put it out of my mind. (5) m m m m m m m I wanted to m m m m m m m
learn how the story ended. (6) The story affected me emotionally. (7) m m m m m m m I found myself thinking of ways the story could have turned out differently. (8) m m m m m m m I found my mind wandering while reading the story. (9) m m m m m m m The events in the story are relevant to my everyday life. (10) m m m m m m m The events in the story have changed my life. (11) m m m m m m m
Q6 How much do you agree with the following statements regarding the story that you have just read? Strongl y disagre e (1) Disagre e (2) Somewh at disagree (3) Neither agree nor disagre e (4) Somewh at agree (5) Agre e (6) Strongl y agree (7) I have watched a movie or television show in which a character depicted a person similarly to Michael. (1) m m m m m m m My job involves providing services for people who had a similar experience with Michael. (2) m m m m m m m I have observed, in passing, a person I believe may have had the same experience as Michael. (3) m m m m m m m I had the same experience what Michael experienced in the story. (4) m m m m m m m I have worked with a person who had a similar experience as Michael at my place of employment/stud y. (5) m m m m m m m My job/study includes providing services to people who had the similar experience as m m m m m m m
Michael. (6) A friend of the family had a similar experience as Michael had. (7) m m m m m m m I have a relative who had a similar experience as Michael had. (8) m m m m m m m I live with a person who had a similar experience as Michael had. (9) m m m m m m m Q7 Please identify your gender. m Male (1) m Female (2) m Other (3) ____________________ Q8 How old are you?
Q56 What is your nationality? m Afghanistan (1) m Albania (2) m Algeria (3) m Andorra (4) m Angola (5) m Antigua and Barbuda (6) m Argentina (7) m Armenia (8) m Australia (9) m Austria (10) m Azerbaijan (11) m Bahamas (12) m Bahrain (13) m Bangladesh (14) m Barbados (15) m Belarus (16) m Belgium (17) m Belize (18) m Benin (19) m Bhutan (20) m Bolivia (21) m Bosnia and Herzegovina (22) m Botswana (23) m Brazil (24) m Brunei Darussalam (25) m Bulgaria (26) m Burkina Faso (27) m Burundi (28) m Cambodia (29) m Cameroon (30) m Canada (31) m Cape Verde (32) m Central African Republic (33) m Chad (34) m Chile (35) m China (36) m Colombia (37) m Comoros (38) m Congo, Republic of the... (39) m Costa Rica (40) m Côte d'Ivoire (41) m Croatia (42)
m Cuba (43) m Cyprus (44) m Czech Republic (45) m Democratic People's Republic of Korea (46) m Democratic Republic of the Congo (47) m Denmark (48) m Djibouti (49) m Dominica (50) m Dominican Republic (51) m Ecuador (52) m Egypt (53) m El Salvador (54) m Equatorial Guinea (55) m Eritrea (56) m Estonia (57) m Ethiopia (58) m Fiji (59) m Finland (60) m France (61) m Gabon (62) m Gambia (63) m Georgia (64) m Germany (65) m Ghana (66) m Greece (67) m Grenada (68) m Guatemala (69) m Guinea (70) m Guinea-Bissau (71) m Guyana (72) m Haiti (73) m Honduras (74) m Hong Kong (S.A.R.) (75) m Hungary (76) m Iceland (77) m India (78) m Indonesia (79) m Iran, Islamic Republic of... (80) m Iraq (81) m Ireland (82) m Israel (83) m Italy (84) m Jamaica (85)
m Japan (86) m Jordan (87) m Kazakhstan (88) m Kenya (89) m Kiribati (90) m Kuwait (91) m Kyrgyzstan (92) m Lao People's Democratic Republic (93) m Latvia (94) m Lebanon (95) m Lesotho (96) m Liberia (97) m Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (98) m Liechtenstein (99) m Lithuania (100) m Luxembourg (101) m Madagascar (102) m Malawi (103) m Malaysia (104) m Maldives (105) m Mali (106) m Malta (107) m Marshall Islands (108) m Mauritania (109) m Mauritius (110) m Mexico (111) m Micronesia, Federated States of... (112) m Monaco (113) m Mongolia (114) m Montenegro (115) m Morocco (116) m Mozambique (117) m Myanmar (118) m Namibia (119) m Nauru (120) m Nepal (121) m Netherlands (122) m New Zealand (123) m Nicaragua (124) m Niger (125) m Nigeria (126) m North Korea (127) m Norway (128)
m Oman (129) m Pakistan (130) m Palau (131) m Panama (132) m Papua New Guinea (133) m Paraguay (134) m Peru (135) m Philippines (136) m Poland (137) m Portugal (138) m Qatar (139) m Republic of Korea (140) m Republic of Moldova (141) m Romania (142) m Russian Federation (143) m Rwanda (144) m Saint Kitts and Nevis (145) m Saint Lucia (146) m Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (147) m Samoa (148) m San Marino (149) m Sao Tome and Principe (150) m Saudi Arabia (151) m Senegal (152) m Serbia (153) m Seychelles (154) m Sierra Leone (155) m Singapore (156) m Slovakia (157) m Slovenia (158) m Solomon Islands (159) m Somalia (160) m South Africa (161) m South Korea (162) m Spain (163) m Sri Lanka (164) m Sudan (165) m Suriname (166) m Swaziland (167) m Sweden (168) m Switzerland (169) m Syrian Arab Republic (170) m Tajikistan (171)
m Thailand (172) m The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (173) m Timor-Leste (174) m Togo (175) m Tonga (176) m Trinidad and Tobago (177) m Tunisia (178) m Turkey (179) m Turkmenistan (180) m Tuvalu (181) m Uganda (182) m Ukraine (183) m United Arab Emirates (184) m United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (185) m United Republic of Tanzania (186) m United States of America (187) m Uruguay (188) m Uzbekistan (189) m Vanuatu (190) m Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of... (191) m Viet Nam (192) m Yemen (193) m Zambia (580) m Zimbabwe (1357) Q10 Which social media platforms do you use? (More than one can be selected) q Facebook (1) q Twitter (2) q Instagram (3) q Snapchat (4) q Pinterest (5) q Other (6) ____________________ Q11 Thank you for your input. This will help a great deal to my thesis research. I would like to inform you that the brand Bubblybobbob and any information regarding the brand are fictional and only created for this research. The aim of this research is to have a better understanding the effect of stories on social media. Q12 If you would like to withdraw your results within 24 hours, you can contact me via goktug.kilic@student.uva.nl, citing your unique identifier. Therefore, please create your unique identifier below (e.g., your favourite book, colour, movie), so I will be able to withdraw your input.
Q13 If you have any comments about this study or survey, you can leave them here. Q14 Thank you for participating and please click the "next>>" on the bottom right side of the page to complete the survey.
