Online retail sales events: Examining the consequences of intrusive social media advertising

Online Retail Sales Events (ORSE) are characterised by increased social media promotional intensity, repeated exposure to advertising, and rapid consumer decision-making. Under such conditions, both participation motivation and cognitive fatigue may influence consumer reactance, in response to perceived intrusive social media advertising, through complementary but distinct channels. Prior research on intrusive advertising and its effects have largely focused on traditional and digital advertising contexts, limiting an understanding of how intrusiveness operates within a social media landscape. This research draws upon social media advertising and advertising reactance literature and theory to investigate how reactance operates in this distinct environment. Study 1 investigates intrusive characteristics of ORSE social media advertising, through a qualitative approach. Study 2 employs a between-group experimental design, comprising two pilot studies, which informed a subsequent main experiment. Study 2 demonstrates a significant three-way interaction effect on emotional reactance, involving perceived intrusiveness (experimentally manipulated as ORSE social media advertising intrusiveness), social media cognitive fatigue, and ORSE participation motivation. Additionally, the ‘low information’ intrusive stimulus had a significant conditional effect on emotional reactance, that reduces both ORSE and product-level purchase intentions, as separate outcome variables. To further understand the role of ORSE participation motivation, Study 3 broadens the contribution of this research with a third pilot study and a main experiment, which experimentally manipulates ORSE participation motivation. Study 3 findings include an additional significant three-way interaction effect on both ORSE and product-level purchase intentions. Collectively, this research makes contributions to retail social media advertising, advertising reactance literature, and ORSE.