An Appeal to Intimacy: Consumer Response to Platform‐Appeal Fit on Social Media

This research investigates a novel type of fit unique to digital marketing: that between the intimacy of an advertizing appeal and of the social media platform through which it is advertized. In doing so, we challenge the common marketing practice of posting identical content across platforms by showing how the same ad is received differently by consumers across differing platforms. Consistent with theories of processing fluency, we propose that platform‐appeal fit (in terms of intimacy) enhances consumers' social media engagement with the brand because the associated fluency enhances consumers' favorable cognitive judgments, affective state, and attitudes. A Pilot Study first maps the contours of platform intimacy through multidimensional scaling of several popular platforms. The resulting perceptual maps are then used to compare consumer response to an intimate or nonintimate appeal posted by actual (Experiment 1) and fictitious (Experiment 2) brands on platforms of varying intimacy. Results provide evidence for fluency as a mechanism for increased engagement following platform‐appeal fit, suggesting that a one‐size‐fits‐all approach to digital marketing may be suboptimal in terms of consumer response.