Persuasion Knowledge

Knowledge of persuasion can be identified as “consumers’ knowledge and beliefs of various advertising-
related issues, such as the goals and tactics marketers use to persuade them, the extent to which consumers
find these techniques effective and appropriate, but also personal beliefs about how to cope with these
persuasion tactics and goals” (Boerman et al., 2017, p. 83). Friestad and Wright (Friestad and Wright.,
1994, p. 3) found that persuasion knowledge “enables consumers to recognize, analyze, interpret, evaluate,
and remember” persuasion messages. The effectiveness of messages or the advertised content is reduced
by persuasion knowledge (Dekker & Van Reijmersdal, 2013), as it fosters consumers’ protection from
suasion (Wood & Quinn, 2003). Shin and Cho (2014) identified that knowledge of persuasion has a negative
effect on purchasing intent.. In short, persuasion knowledge includes ideas about the goals and motives
behind persuasion, that is, the intentions of marketer and how the marketers constantly aim to achieve it.
Therefore, consumers with high levels of persuasive knowledge are more aware of marketers’ tactics and
intentions and, thus, make less purchases (Lee & Faber, 2007).

Persuasion knowledge holds great significance when it comes to a consumer buying intention. The concept
itself even though is there in every consumer’s mind yet not everyone is aware of it and how it impacts
their decision-making process. Companies spend heavily on marketing in order to increase the shopping
trips of its consumer (Workman & Paper, 2010). The persuasive advertising pressure on consumer increases
as an outcome of massive expenditures and the attention that companies pay to advertise their services and
products effectively (Neuner, Raab & Reisch, 2005).

Relation between Persuasion Knowledge and Social Media Endorsers

During childhood the perception of persuasion and marketing begins to develop with the ability to
differentiate commercial advertising from editorial content. This is accompanied by an awareness of the
persuasive purpose and strategies and messages of marketing, the identification of bias and distortion, and
the ability to use cognitive protection against advertisements. Both Celebrity and social media endorsers
along with the moderation of persuasion knowledge depends on three things:

 Disclosure of sponsorship
 Creditability
 Product placement

All in all, it reflects the mental aspect of persuasion knowledge, also known as conceptual knowledge of
persuasion. This research operationalizes empirical awareness of persuasion as the perception of ads by
audiences. While knowledge of persuasion is supposed to be developed at adulthood there are situations in
which this skill also adults need to improve or adapt. A case in which experience of adult persuasion may
not be enough is when new advertising forms are adopted or when advertisement is combined with editorial
content so that it cannot be identified as advertising automatically. Such two conditions refer for Facebook's
sponsored content, are still quite new and are incorporated into the Facebook newsfeed of a person in such
a manner that it matches people's non-commercial content in their friend network. This could make it
difficult for users to identify the post as advertisement, which is why there is a social debate about the
potential disapproval in sponsored content online.

In fact, influencers on social media may show strong results in the media and in customer convictions.
According to a Neilsen marketing survey, influencer marketing yields “returns on investments” (ROI)
11 times higher as compared to digital marketing (Tapinfluence 2017). In contrast, celebrity endorsement
are more instrumental in raising brand awareness among consumers, whilst social media influencers
play a highly significant role in driving product engagement and brand loyalty (Tapinfluece 2017) as they
are more capable of communicating to a niche segment.

However Consumers have learned to recognize their messages as convincing attempts, given their clear
commercial interest in selling a particular product or brand. Consumers are therefore sceptical with their
credibility. Social media like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter offer the opportunity to hit target audiences
with advertised content in a less obstructive fashion than the traditional media. The material sponsored
comprises of marketing notifications to be looked like the content of a person's network of friends shared
by them. They are very close in design and style and are inserted in the news feed of an individual in daily
messages from friends, As a result, it is more challenging for buyers to distinguish non-commercial market
material from commercial content.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the USA has formulated rules, which protect consumers from
such "misleading or deceptive practices," calling for advertisers specifically to disclose social media ads.
For example, a sponsored label is included in a sponsored post. Such messages warn customers about the
commercial purpose of the advertisement and should help consumers to identify the ads as such and thus
to trigger their understanding of their persuasion knowledge

Hence the use of celebrities as endorsers, may be effective in attracting attention and may also help people
identify a brand. On the other side, people prefer to mistrust celebrities because they already believe they
were paying for endorsing the particular brand and so it would not be their own view.

On the opposite, social media influencers seem to be able to maintain credibility as influencers, even though
people may be conscious that they are paid to do so.
The conclusions of a number of researchers suggest that they consider influencers to be more reliable than
celebrities While celebrity endorsement on Instagram also continues to be successful, their findings still
indicate that micro-celebrities, or as they claim "non-traditional celebrities," have even more influence.
According to them, this is because they are seen as more trustworthy and people can relate to them more
quickly than to celebrities.

H1: The use of social media endorsers in influencer marketing will have a more positive effect
on consumer responses than the use of celebrities with the moderation of persuasion knowledge.

Relation between persuasion knowledge and Celebrity endorsers

Celebrity endorsements are a popular way for advertisers to promote their brands services and products.
Through shifting a celebrity's positive image or attributes to the brand advertisers strive to activate the
desire of consumers to buy or use the supported product or service. Several academic studies have shown
that celebrity endorsements greatly increase the effectiveness of advertising. The endorsement by
celebrities the use of celebrities as endorsers may be effective in gaining attention and may also help
people identify a brand. On the other side, it was found that people prefer to dislike celebrities because
they already believe that they are paid for selling the particular brand and, thus, their advertising may not
be legit. When it comes to advertising people are sceptical because people recognize the exposure of
sponsorship they will be ready to see advertisements that can eventually lead people to ignore the
persuasion. While the disclosure of advertorials seems acceptable to customers, it may also be
counterproductive to the credibility of the sponsored post, as it may be deemed too commercial with
already attaching the stigma for advertising for the sake of making money with celebrities. A research
suggests that the more people know about a celebrity the less effective a celebrity is in an advertising
context and a blogger might be a more neutral option than a celebrity that could polarize.

Product placement could have a positive effect on the purchasing habits of consumers by actually
changing their behaviour, but it does not preclude negative effects. One thing that has been observed in
past studies about product placement is the degree to which the placement is popular, whereby more
popularity seems to elicit more negative reactions. Consumers often view the placement of the product in
a negative way, especially if the persuasive effort is too evident and the positioning seems too
commercial. Therefore, it seems important to equate two situations, one in which the product is
clearly seen and one in which it is not shown at all.

Since the famous and apparent placement was shown to have a rather negative impact on the reactions of
consumers, celebrity endorsement also enables marketers to create more focus on the celebrity and the
meaning they attach to the brand or product rather than the product itself. Product placement may
therefore have a positive effect on the purpose of purchasing and this relies on the degree to which the
customer likes the celebrity. When there was no (obvious) marketing context people liked product
placement more. This could mean, for the study at hand, that pictures that clearly show a brand work
better when sponsorship is not revealed, as this would expose the viewer / consumer's marketing context
The pictures in which a brand is clearly put or advertising is revealed could therefore be assumed
to have a negative impact on customer reactions.

If people thought that the endorser (in their case, celebrity) is dishonest, the influencer's attributes seem to
play a very important role, particularly credibility. Unless the individual is viewed as trustworthy,
disclosure had a rather negative effect on customer perceptions. As social media endorsers are likely to be
viewed as more trustworthy than celebrities, as stated earlier, it can therefore be concluded that the
combination of social media endorsers and either disclosure or no disclosure will elicit more positive
responses to the combination of celebrities and either disclosure or no disclosure.

H2a: Sponsorship disclosure activates people´s persuasion knowledge.

H2b: Persuasion knowledge is negatively related to consumer responses.

Effect of Persuasion knowledge on buying intention

The persuasion knowledge model suggested three types of consumer persuasion knowledge: agent,
tactic, and topic.

Agent knowledge applies to "all of an agent's non-persuasion knowledge and integrates assumptions
about the agent's attributes and abilities. Customers use agent knowledge to decide what the primary
purpose of a business is: persuading customers or making profits. Consumers may conclude a discrepancy
between pro-social messages and self-serving motivations of advertisers when assessing pro-social
messages offered by a business. In other words, customers may believe that a company is trying to build
its credibility by marketing activism and exploit it to purchase its products.

Tactical knowledge is described as "personal knowledge of the customer about the strategies and tactics
used in attempts at persuasion. This form of information is closely linked to the capacity of the user to
identify and comprehend persuasive messaging. Consumers with good tactical knowledge are therefore
less vulnerable to misleading communications and can withstand attempts at persuasion.

Topic knowledge is "any non-persuasion-related information about the topic or product of the attempted
persuasion, including details about the promotional goods and the sense in which they appear." In the
case of corporate social responsibility, once customers know how the socially responsible practices of
companies relate to public welfare, they may view the actions favorably and become willing to buy goods.

It is more difficult to persuade those who are elevated in self-esteem compared to people who are weak
in self-esteem (Wood & Stagner, 1994). That's because people with high self-esteem are more positive
about their own decisions and less anxious with social rejection than people with low self-esteem.
Consumers with high self-esteem are more inclined to question marketing statements for the same reason
than to trust anything that is portrayed (Boush, Friestad & Rose, 1994). Therefore, we conclude that users
who are weak in persuasion knowledge will be less conscious of marketing strategies. Consequently, their
perceptions towards ads will be more constructive than those of high PK consumers.

H3: high persuasion knowledge rejects efforts of celebrity endorsement leading to a negative effect
on buying intention.