Mining messages: Exploring consumer response to consumer‐ vs. firm‐generated ads

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social media provide consumers with a platform for interactivity, and interactivity leads to consumer empowerment by providing the consumer with a platform to make their voice heard. This paper contributes to the marketing literature exploring the voice of the consumer in consumer‐generated advertisements (CGAs). The objective of this research is to find ways to measure consumer response to CGAs. We measure whether they differ from firm‐generated ads in the responses they elicit and also observe whether they generate different responses by ad type, or if some categories have similar responses. We review CGAs for Apple's MacBook Air lightweight laptop and run a text mining application to understand the common themes and conduct text analysis on the responses to both CGAs and firm‐generated ads to answer the question “Is the source of the advertisement important?” Text analytics also enable us to measure consumers' attitude toward products, companies, and ads. We then work toward understanding why and under what circumstances CGAs are effective and how companies may handle or foster different types of CGAs. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.