Abstract:
With the radical transformation of the conventional forms of advertising,
Facebook has emerged as a powerful network for advertising where it has
expanded to the automotive industry as a common practice leading to major
increases in sales growth, profitability, and market share. Regardless of this
growing trend, individuals' daily social media activity demonstrates a
behavioural pattern known as advertisement avoidance. This conduct has been
identified as a major impediment to the anticipated effectiveness of social media
marketing operations. Thus, it is vital to identify the major factors that cause
Facebook users in the automotive industry to avoid social media marketing. The
study deployed a positivist research paradigm and deductive research approach
following the survey research technique, which optimally expounds the study's
broader research approach. 318 usable responses were examined to validate the
proposed hypothesis using multiple linear regression. Results show that privacy
concerns, negative experiences, and goal impediments on Facebook are
significant influencers of advertisement avoidance, while perceived
personalization and ad skepticism do not have any impact on Facebook users'
advertising avoidance behavior. This study will pave the way for automotive
industry practitioners to expand their businesses into virtual platforms by
understanding major factors that cause Facebook users' avoidance behavior
towards social media marketing as this study will be one of the few studies in Sri
Lanka that empirically investigates how to stimulate social media marketing via
Facebook.
