This study examines the impact of emotionally driven advertisements on empathy as felt by consumers on social networking sites (tested using Facebook, in the current study), and analyzes the role of social identity as a mediator between empathy and engagement. The study follows an experimental design conducted on college students. The results suggest that emotional appeal has a positive impact on empathy as well as attitude toward ad, which in turn have a positive impact on engagement. The results also suggest that social identity mediates the relationship between empathy and engagement on social networking sties. Findings of this study can be of help to marketers for creating strategies involving emotionally driven advertisements for social networking sites.
MONIKA RA WAL (Sun,) studied this question.