Native Strategy in In-feed Advertising:The Matching Effect of Media Context Valence and AD Temporal Frame on Native AD Persuasion
With the popularization of mobile Internet,in-feed ads have developed rapidly.One of the most important features of in-feed ads is their requirement for nativeness,meaning that the adver-tisement and media context should be highly congruent or similar to be seamlessly integrated.Based on the persuasion knowledge model,some scholars focusing on nativeness have proposed that the integration of advertisements and media context can be enhanced by concealing or diluting the"advertisement"label in in-feed ads,thereby improving their effectiveness.Additionally,based on sche-ma theory,other scholars have explored strategies to enhance the nativeness of advertisements through visual schema effects and se-mantic schema effects between advertisements and media context.However,these strategies often remain superficial,and while they reduce the perceived intrusiveness of advertisements,they can make audiences feel manipulated or even deceived.Unlike previous studies,this research proposes a native strategy based on construal level fit.This approach achieves integration by aligning the construal level of the advertising message with that of media context.In this paper,one field experiment,one pretest and three simulation experiments were conducted.The field experiment tested the matching effect between media context emotion valence and advertisement temporal focus in a natural environment by plac-ing a simulated in-feed ad on the Sina Weibo platform.The pretest examined the priming effect of news valence on participants'con-strual level.The simulation experiments built on the pretest by us-ing a Today's Headlines-like in-feed context as the scene setting for the experimental stimulus materials,each consisting of three news items and one advertisement embedded in the news stream.The first simulation experiment examined the matching effects of media context valence and advertisement temporal frame on the ad effectiveness.The second simulation experiment replicated these matching effects and further examined the mediating role of per-ceived diagnosticity.The third simulation experiment examined the moderating role of timeconstraint on the matching effects.The study found that:In-feed ads that emphasize product benefits in a long-term(short-term)frame are more persuasive when the media context is positive(negative).Perceived diagnosticity mediates the above matching effect.Time constraint moderated the matching effect,i.e.,the matching of the media context valence and the advertisement's tem-poral frame has a significant impact on the persuasiveness of the advertisement message when time constraint are present.This paper holds substantial theoretical value and practical significance.Theo-retically,it breaks through the existing scope of discussions on im-proving advertisement nativeness strategies in in-feed ad research by exploring integration methods at a deeper construal level.It also expands research in both the construal level theory and perceived diagnosticity by demonstrating that matching media context poten-cy with in-feed ad temporal frame improves perceived diagnosticity of advertisements.Additionally,it identifies and verifies the mod-erating role of time constraint based on the timeliness requirement of in-feed ad placement.Practically,this study proposes a strategy for the nativeness of in-feed ads based on the matching effect at the construal level,advising companies to adjust the content of advertisements according to the surrounding media environment.It emphasizes the importance of the emotional valence of media media context for the effectiveness of in-feed ads.Furthermore,it introduces the tool of"temporal frame"for in-feed ad copywriting,highlighting that the effectiveness of different temporal frames depends on the effectiveness of the surrounding contextual infor-mation.Finally,it explores the boundary conditions of the matching effect,finding that time constraints amplify the matching effect,thereby reminding companies to place their ads during periods when consumers generally face strong time constraints(e.g.,office hours),and to apply the native strategy proposed in this paper.
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