Antecedents of South African Millennials’ Purchase Intention on Instagram: Integrating Advertising Value and Technology Acceptance Models

Organizations are increasingly using Instagram as a marketing mechanism to increase brand exposure, increase sales, identify leads, and monitor audience engagement among young consumers. Therefore, this study aims to determine the impact of advertising on Instagram on the purchase intention of Millennials via the advertising value and technology acceptance models in an African emerging economy. The research made use of descriptive and quantitative research methods via an online questionnaire to collect data from 521 South African Millennial respondents in 2024 through convenience and snowball sampling. AMOS software (v23) and structural equation modeling were utilized to evaluate the hypotheses. The findings yielded positive associations between informativeness, credibility, irritation, and perceived usefulness and between entertainment, informativeness, credibility, and perceived ease of use; however, the association between irritation and perceived ease of use was negative. The variables also showed positive associations with purchase intention, with the exception of irritation, which demonstrated a negative relationship among South African Millennials due to advertising on Instagram. This study offers an understanding of the effect of advertising on Instagram among Millennial consumers in an emerging economy. The research also makes a unique contribution to digital advertising and Instagram commerce via the advertising value and technology acceptance models among younger generational cohorts.