Chapter 3: Engagement & Content: Context Influences Usage of Traditional Advertising Elements

The following chapter examines how Instagram influences traditional advertising elements within its platform via rhetorical context and content. Because Instagram’s advertising platform is embedded within the social platform’s rhetorical context to create user/consumer engagement, this rhetorical context also influences the advertising content embedded within. To define how Instagram as a rhetorical context influences traditional advertising elements, Chapter 3 builds a conceptual model composed of native ads, context-specific engagement, targeted ads, and ad-context congruity.

Native Ads

Ads that appear within a platform embedded amongst similar content (i.e., not pop up ads or web banners) are referred to as native ads. They appear endemically in the platform (Zulkifly and Firdaus 430). In the Instagram platform, native ads look just like regular Posts but are denoted as “Sponsored” under the username. Within Feeds, advertisers can design photo, video, carousel ads, just like users (“Build Your Business on Instagram”). They appear in the same type of post format as non-paid Posts, the key differentiator being that they have an animated banner that appears on the bottom of the visual with a call-to-action (i.e., “CTA”). This banner, unlike the rest of Instagram Posts, is hyperlinked to an external designated landing page. These Posts can also feature captions. Similarly, in Stories, ads are also “Sponsored” and appear between non-paid Stories in a user’s Story Feed. In Instagram, this means that while a user/consumer is scrolling through their Feed or Stories, they will see both user-generated content and “Sponsored” Posts that appear similar to user-generated content.

Native ads are found to be relatively successful in social media advertising. For example, in “Persuasion and the Online Consumers: Investigating Copywriting Strategies in Native Advertisements”, researchers Zulkifly and Firdaus found that native ads are highly effective at creating a positive impact on consumers’ brand awareness, recall, favorability, and purchase intent because they are “non-interruptive” (Zulkifly and Firdaus 430). Because embedded ad content in the platform does not disrupt the user experience (i.e., does not impede their scrolling or viewing of content), it enhances a user/consumer’s overall brand and platform experience while in-platform.

However, because native advertisements are less disruptive to the consumer, Zulkifly and Firdaus also found that consumers were more likely to skip over native ads as compared to other online advertisement locations (such as pop ups or web banners) (430). This is due to in-app or native advertising content being subject to the same rhetorical context mechanisms as other user-generated content (like scrolling through Instagram’s Feed or swiping through Instagram Stories). Essentially, native advertisements are also subject to the same behaviors and mechanisms curated by Instagram to develop habitual user/consumers.

Accordingly, Zulkifly and Firdaus determined that native ads must have an impactful, persuasive message to effectively influence the consumer and purchasing behavior (433). They analyzed the persuasive elements of native advertisements on Facebook according to the AIDA model. The AIDA model is an advertising formula where ads: 1) create Awareness, 2) generate Interest and 3) Desire, and 4) finally call the consumer to Action. In their study of Facebook native ads, Zulkifly and Firdaus found that all four components of the AIDA model (awareness, interest, desire, and action) were necessary in attracting consumers to the native ads and influencing their attitude towards the advertised products. This research in native ads on Facebook demonstrates that advertising elements are still active within native ad content and are essential to attracting user/consumer engagement.

Overall, Zulkifly and Firdaus show that native ads create a positive consumer experience because they are not disruptive to users in-platform. However, because native advertising content is embedded within the Instagram’s social user-generated content, it is subject to the same user engagement behaviors designed by Instagram. As a result, Zulkifly and Firdaus’ research also shows that native ads embedded within a rhetorical context must contain advertising elements or innovate upon advertising elements to circumvent or overcome user/consumer behavior created by the rhetorical context itself. Further, this user/consumer behavior also represents a context-specific way of engaging with embedded content. As users develop familiarity with other user-generated content on Instagram, they develop habitual engagement behaviors (such as “liking” a specific kind of content, or “saving” certain type of Posts) facilitated by Instagram. Brands must modify advertising elements not only to solicit engagement from user/consumers, but also to account for Instagram-specific engagement from user/consumers created as conditions set by its rhetorical context.

Context-Specific Engagement

Context-specific engagement defines user engagement with content as specific to individual social media contexts (i.e. how a user engages with content within Instagram will be different than Twitter). Research in social media advertising further argues that this context-specific engagement is also predictive of engagement with advertising content within the same designated context, i.e., how users interact with Instagram user-generated content will be predictive of how they interact with Instagram advertising content. Brands, when designing ads and utilizing traditional elements, must consider how user/consumers will view and interact with their ad as a native ad embedded in Instagram.

In “Engagement with Social Media and Social Media Advertising”, researchers Voorveld et al. posited that context-specific engagement—as it relates to social media advertising—is predictive of ad effectiveness as it relates to consumer engagement. Their research studied each social media platform as an individual context versus using “social media” as a collective context for all social media platforms. For example, Instagram and LinkedIn will offer its own respective context and engagement—so advertisers should consider Instagram as an individual entity with specific user/consumer engagement when designing ad content. To start, each social medial platform appears visually different—how Instagram appears to users will be different than how LinkedIn appears to users. Additionally, features like a “Like” or “Heart” button that appear on multiple sites will have different functionality that affects how user perform an action.  For example, both Twitter and Instagram each use a “heart” icon for a user to “like” a post. However, Instagram users can utilize both the heart icon or the “double-tap” functionality to “like” a Post. Twitter users cannot. Voorveld et al.’s research found that context-specific engagement is beneficial to predicting advertising effectiveness, but only if each social media platform is examined as an individual context.

Further, to determine if context-specific engagement is indeed predictive of advertising engagement within each social media platform as an individual context, Voorveld et al. examined consumer-reported experiences on social media contexts to draw parallels between their engagement with user-generated content versus advertising content. In their study, users scored Instagram content “highest on the pastime and topicality dimensions…Scores on entertainment and social interaction were also moderate to high” (Voorveld et al. 45). Accordingly, Instagram advertising scored high for entertainment value as well (Voorveld et al. 46). These findings demonstrate that engagement with user-generated content can be predictive of engagement with advertising content. The experiences reported by user/consumers of Instagram show strong, intuitive correlations between emotions produced by user-generated content and advertising content.

Voorveld et al.’s study highlighted the importance for advertisers to understand how users emotionally and intuitively experience, engage, and interact with Instagram content. Understanding context-specific engagement is useful for advertisers on platforms like Instagram, where it is both an advertising and social media platform embedded within a rhetorical context. Importantly, Voorveld et al. found that social media advertising engagement is the sum of experiences people have when confronted with social media advertising on that platform (40). This highlights the necessity of understanding Instagram as a rhetorical context that produces specific user engagement, which, in turn, can be predictive of engagement with Instagram advertising content.

Additionally, their research also found that Instagram as a rhetorical context influences advertising content. For advertisers targeting Instagram user/consumers with their ad content, it is necessary to develop advertising strategies that reflect Instagram-specific engagement.  If consumers reported similar emotional experiences with user-generated and advertising content, it is likely that advertisers are adapting traditional advertising elements to ‘fit’ Instagram as a rhetorical context that produces certain emotional and intuitive user experiences and engagement.

Targeted Ads

One method of recreating or mirroring these emotional and intuitive experiences is by personalizing the ad experience with targeted advertising. Targeted ads are a way of personalizing the ad content to the consumer based on a variety of factors such as “consumers’ past behavior (e.g. retargeted ads), current behavior (e.g. contextual ads), or knowledge about consumer identity (e.g. personalized emails) and location (e.g. mobile ads)” (Liu-Thompkins 7). The premise of targeted ads is inherently: the consumer is more likely to buy what they’re already looking for.

For Instagram, targeted ads are a form of personalization which utilizes consumer online browsing and shopping data to deliver relevant ads to users while they scroll or swipe through content. As noted in Chapter 2, Instagram’s rhetorical context not only creates habitual users, it also collects information and data on these users. For example, if a user frequently interacts with “dog” based content (such as dog Instagram accounts), the Instagram algorithm would label this consumer as someone who would respond well to sponsored Posts from pet-related D2C brands in their Feed. This arsenal of information makes Instagram a powerhouse for targeted advertising.

According to Instagram, it uses targeted ads to show “businesses that are interesting and relevant to you” (“About Instagram Ads”). The platform describes its information collection strategies as pulling what the consumer “does” on Instagram, Facebook, third-party sites, and apps. (Essentially, collecting any information-searching, browsing, or purchasing site data across various digital channels and networks to inform the ad content a user sees on Instagram.)

The increased use of targeted ads has led to a naturally increased consumer awareness of targeted ads. Initially, targeted ads concerned consumers more than engaged them, as it triggered significant concerns of data privacy and tracking (Liu-Thompkins 7). Previously, consumers were unaware their search habits on Google—for example—could be collected via technology and used to retarget them on another platform. Now, however, users have developed an increased awareness of Instagram (and other social media) ad targeting algorithms.

In “Infinite Scroll: Life Under Instagram” by Dayna Tortorici, the author writes about how her “mindless” scrolling through Instagram led to her discovery of targeted ads and how they construct a hyper-personalized Instagram world: 

When Instagram introduced advertisements in 2013, it suddenly seemed as if every fifth image in my feed was an ad. Then I counted—every third or fourth post was an ad. With time, they grew uncannily specific…I was being reached by Facebook Ads Manager through detailed targeting, which I knew existed…What were other people seeing? I realized I had no idea…I was alone with my ads, in a filter bubble of one.

After discovering how hyper-personalized her feed was to her preferences, she attempted to turn off targeted ads to diversify the ad content in her feed. However, Tortorici quickly found that her habitual use of the platform was able to quickly amass data and behavioral information to show her targeted ads again:

Overnight, my Instagram ads became delightfully random. But my life as a generic nontarget, a recipient of ads for Amazon influencers, corny T-shirts and trashy iPhone games, was short lived. I simply spent too much time on Instagram for it not to relearn what it knew before I wiped the slate. I wish I could wipe it again.

Through this personal experiment, Tortorici demonstrates how inseparable Instagram’s rhetorical context is from targeted advertising. Even after turning off settings that would deliver targeted ads, the Instagram algorithm quickly “re-learned” her shopping habits and interests based on her habitual use.

To counteract user concerns over targeted ads, Instagram does offer some user controls over their advertising experiences. Instagram users have the option to hide an ad or learn more about their personal ads on Instagram. In “Ad Settings”, users can see their ad activity, indicate ad topic preferences, and learn more about ads on Instagram. “Your Ad Activity” shows the user ads they’ve recently interacted with; “Ad Topic Preferences” gives users options to see fewer ads based on select topics (alcohol, parenting, pets, social issues, elections, or politics); and “About Ads” provides more general transparency into Instagram ads (“About Instagram Ads”). Though these are “user controls” over their advertising experiences, in actuality, this input is also being used to refine targeted ad algorithms.

Overtime, consumers appear to have shifted from being alarmed to expecting targeted ads in their Instagram Feed. In fact, even beyond the expectation of simply seeing ads on social media, users are now primed to receive ads of interest in their feeds and use that information accordingly: 

 A survey with over 2,000 online users indicated that 21% of respondents believed that social media provided information that helped them decide what to buy, and 18% of them believed that social media could introduce them to a brand or product they didn’t know about before. (qtd. in Zhang and Mao 157) 

Thus, not only are Instagram users primed to see targeted ads, a significant portion of these users will use these personalized ads to some degree of information-seeking for products.

While consumers tend to vary in their feelings toward targeted ads on Instagram, fundamentally, research has found them to effective in engaging consumers. Targeted ads enhance the overall effectiveness of ads by increasing personal relevance to the consumer, reducing ad skepticism, and induce more attention processing behavior (Liu-Thompkins 7). However, similar to research conducted by Zulkifly and Firdaus concerning native ads, researcher Liu-Thompkins found in “A Decade of Online Advertising Research: What We Learned and What We Need to Know” that targeted ads must still contain the “executional” elements of an ad, such as visibility and content (7). Advertising elements—to whatever extent—need to be present in Instagram ad content to engage user/consumers as they scroll or swipe through user-generated content on Instagram.

Additionally, because targeted ads have a positive impact on consumer ad experiences in Instagram, this means they also have a positive impact on advertisers. As researchers Majeed et al. note in their study on emotional advertisements in women’s online consumptive behavior, it is beneficial for advertisers to use targeted advertising as a method of reaching their desired consumer demographic (18). D2C brands can use information collected by Instagram to consider “age cohorts, background information, likes and dislikes, income, location, and challenges being met by the audience” to develop personalized ad campaigns (Majeed et al. 18). For advertisers, Instagram’s ability to provide this information ensures they can better allocate ad spend to marketing only to consumers likely to buy their product and can strategically develop more persuasive, personalized ad content.

With this personalized ad content, Instagram as a rhetorical context influences advertising elements within that ad content. Targeted advertising research, similar to native ad research, suggest that advertisers must innovate advertising content to account for a hyper-specific user/consumer demographics which are created as a result of user and behavior data collected from Instagram. According to MarketLine research, “As target audiences are increasingly fragmented due to technological advancements and differing consumer habits, players in the advertising industry must constantly innovate, market, adjust, and improve their practices to ensure clients’ needs are met thoroughly” (14). Because sophisticated ad platforms like Instagram are able to curate a rhetorical context for large-scale information collecting, advertisers must consistently develop ad content to effectively utilize this information to provide an engaging ad experience on Instagram. As noted by Zulkifly and Firdaus’s research on native ads and Liu-Thompkins’s research on social media advertising, the effectiveness of ad personalization in engaging consumers is still contingent on other executional elements of an ad, such as its persuasiveness, visibility, and content. Additionally, as shown by Voorveld et al.’s research on context-specific engagement, ad content must also account for authentic Instagram user engagement and interaction with native, user-generated content within Instagram as a rhetorical context.

Ad-Context Congruity

To explore the influence of Instagram on advertisers adapting traditional advertising elements to fit within the rhetorical context of Instagram, ad-context congruity is defined as the degree to which the advertising material is thematically similar to the adjacent editorial content  (i.e., how similar in appearance is advertising content when placed next to non-advertising content). Research in social media advertising adapts ad-context congruity to understand the effectiveness of advertising content embedded within a social media platform (i.e., a “native” ad) that blends with user-generated social media content. Thus, ad-context congruity can be used to understand that Instagram influences traditional advertising elements when advertisers adapt content to conform with Instagram as a rhetorical context.

In “From Online Motivations to Ad Clicks and Behavioral Intentions: An Empirical Study of Consumer Response to Social Media Advertising”, researchers Zhang and Mao used ad-context congruity to highlight the importance of understanding social media platforms as rhetorical contexts when developing advertising content. As they noted in their research, it has been shown that if consumers perceive higher congruency between the ad and the media content surrounding the ad, consumers would be more likely to pay attention to the ad and consequently generate favorable responses (157). For advertisers seeking to increase consumer engagement with their ad content on social media platforms, ad-context congruity calls for it to be perceived as “of the platform”. The more an ad looks like native user-generated content in the rhetorical context of Instagram, the more likely user/consumers are to engage with it.

Zhang and Mao’s research in ad-context congruity, similar to Voorveld et al.’s findings in context-specific engagement, demonstrated how advertising on Instagram as a rhetorical context compels ad content to be thematically similar to the user-generated content on Instagram to effectively influence user/consumer behavior by engaging them in authentic emotional, intuitive Instagram experiences. Context-specific engagement accounts for changes in traditional advertising elements that would be adapted by advertisers attempting to mimic authentic emotional and intuitive perception and engagement via Instagram ad content. Additionally, ad-context congruity accounts for changes in traditional advertising elements that would occur to create advertising content that is thematically congruent when adjacent to native, user-generated content in the rhetorical context of Instagram. To this end, Instagram’s specific rhetorical context influences advertising content creation and how traditional advertising elements are being used in Instagram ads.

While both the native and targeted approaches to ads positively influence consumer behavior, research has shown that these factors are not sufficiently effective in influencing consumer behavior: Native and targeted ads must still deliver a persuasive message to engage consumers to prevent skipping or being construed as invasive (Zulkifly and Firdaus, Liu-Thompkins). It is not enough to simply be a native ad embedded in the app and personalized to the consumer, research has shown that ads which demonstrate a clear understanding of a social media platform’s rhetorical context are more likely to be construed as engaging, with a positive influence on consumer’s overall perception of a brand (Voorveld et al., Zhang and Mao).

Context-specific engagement theory outlines how Instagram as a rhetorical context influences how users emotionally and intuitively engage and perceive content within the platform. In turn, this rhetorical context influences how consumers emotionally and intuitively engage and perceive advertising content within Instagram. Ad-context congruity posits that advertising content must be thematically congruent with adjacent user-generated content within Instagram. Advertisers adapt content to match context: advertising content must harmonize with other user-generated content within Instagram as a rhetorical context. These theories conceptualize how Instagram as a rhetorical context influences traditional advertising elements via context, engagement, and content.

The question remains: How has Instagram influenced traditional advertising elements as a result of its rhetorical context?