Journal of Management Sciences

Vol. 5(2): 40-64, 2018

DOI: 10.20547/jms.2014.1805203

Customer Attitude towards Online Ads of Smartphone Brands: A

Netnographic Analysis of User Generated Comments on YouTube

Yasir Rashid ∗ Muhammad Zeeshan †

Abstract: Today ads are no more one-sided communication but a mixture of online and offline channels
developed for the sake of direct interaction with the communities. YouTube in specific and other online video
platforms in general have shifted paradigm of TV commercials altogether for many brands.Just like other
product brands, smartphone brands have also their presence on social media including YouTube and have their
channels at it. The smartphone online ads on YouTube gain millions of views, thousands of likes, and dislikes,
comments and replies to these comments. However, these quantitative metrics cannot necessarily be seen as
an indicator of effectiveness of online video ads. There is a need to have some qualitative and exploratory
evaluations to know about viewer’s attitude toward the online brands of smartphones. This netnographic
(ethnographic) research study is examining viewers’ attitude toward smartphone brands ads. 13 video ads of
4 popular smartphone brands (Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, and Q Mobile) in Pakistan have been taken with
2926 viewer’s comments and their replies. The findings are helping in the assessment of viewers (consumers)
comments on the basis of cognitive and emotive processing and supportive and antagonistic stance toward
online smartphone ads as well as brands. The research outcomes have implications for marketing managers
specifically of smartphone brands to use smartphone video ads as a part of their viral marketing campaign.
The research paper is also discussing the limitations and future research directions.
Keywords: Netnography, user generated content, Youtube ad, consumer attitude, sentiment
analysis.

Introduction
Pakistan is rapidly becoming a digital economy. Consumers are more aware, accessible
and responsive to digital mode of message dispersion. SMS is still widely used as a cheap
and affordable marketing tool by the companies in Pakistan. Since SMS marketing doesn’t
require internet connection, or smart phone, its popularity has increased in last few years
(Aslam, Batool, & Haq, 2016). But in recent years, due to the wide spread of internet,
smart phones and changing consumer trends, online advertising has created its impor-
tance and integral space in the digital advertising landscape. Lutz, MacKenzie, and Belch
(1983) were the first to investigate about customer’ attitudein response to advertisement.
They introduced four conceivable reaction sequences that may take after an encounter
with an advertisement i.e. “direct one-way, indirect one-way, direct two-way and mutual
independence”. They extracted five constructs from the center of each of the four models:
∗ Assistant Professor of Marketing, University of Management and Technology, Lahore. E-mail: [email protected]
† PhD Marketing Research Scholar, University of Management and Technology, Lahore.
E-mail: [email protected]

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“advertisement cognition, brand cognition, attitude towards the advertisement, attitude

towards the brand and purchase intention” . These constructed have since been investi-
gated to give an impressive number of observational researches (Batra & Ray, 1986; Lutz
et al., 1983; MacKenzie & Lutz, 1989).
In order to leverage the gigantic power of social media, brands are reconsidering their
approach to advertisement (Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, & Silvestre, 2011). In or-
der to frame consumer’s perceptions of product and corporate brands, new communi-
cation channels are being used with an intention of getting viewers votes and sharing
in their networks or community i.e. friends, followers, and colleagues (Grant, Botha, &
Kietzmann, 2015). The viral of desired videos has triggered new of form of interactive
advertising where a video or ad is uploaded and viewers give their comments and other
viewers reply to these comments which gradually builds a debate on social media i.e.
YouTube.
Gupta, Singh, and Sinha (2017) stated that marketing industry holistically and adver-
tisement in specific has been grasped by multimedia by using its interactive tools. Being
one of the tool of multimedia, social media is developing with an advanced velocity and
helping meaningful participation. YouTube is placed at number second largest search
engine after Google and provides best to its users by using its features.
YouTube is amongst one of the popular social media sites (Gupta et al., 2017). It is
a rich archive of information and insights about markets and consumption (Dehghani,
Niaki, Ramezani, & Sali, 2016). It is equipped with multiple dimensions of the products
and services. Dehghani et al. (2016) attributed entertainment, informativeness, and cus-
tomization as the positive drivers of YouTube. He also maintained that brand awareness
and purchase intention of consumers are increased with the advertising value of YouTube.
Being highly influential market space, YouTube provides brands and its audience an op-
portunity to engage with each other. This is an indicator of YouTube’s usefulness in pro-
moting products in the era of digital market place (Gupta et al., 2017).
Though the number YouTube views is an indicator of a videos’ popularity, but this
fame cannot be transformed into brand equity. Quantitative metrics do not represent the
whole story but they can even misguide the marketers (Grant et al., 2015). For example, Q
Mobile corporate brand ad telling a story of disobedience of father (https://www.youtube-
.com/watch?v=fWbStB0qXIw&t=9s) gained 906,870 views and 540 comments but major-
ity of comments were representing a negative and antagonistic attitude toward the ad
as well as brand. So, the quantitative metrics do not represent attitudinal dimensions
which is a key component of the impact of an advertisement on band equity (Shimp,
1981). Quantitative metrics are not good indicator of the success of online marketing
due to its short-term orientation (Chandon, Chtourou, & Fortin, 2003). According to our
knowledge, very few studies in advertising literature are proving tools to evaluate the
qualitative dimensions of online ads. Few philosophers have tried to work in this area,
(Grant et al., 2015) proposed a typology that provided a structure to analyses consumer at-
titude toward online ads. By making ad processing (i.e. cognitive vs. affective) and stance
(i.e. supportive vs. antagonistic), these structures of viewer’s attitude toward online ad-
vertisement can help in interpreting viewer’s response to the advertisement. Moreover,
Zinkhan and Burton (1989) and Maclnnis and Jaworski (1989) endorsed two of the five

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constructs of Lutz et al. (1983) from their four possible response sequences i.e. consumers
response to advertisement in terms of their attitude toward the ad as well asattitude to-
ward the brand.
The behavior of smart phone customer is highly unpredictable due to swift increase
in the numbers of customers. A large number of marketers of smartphones are also well
aware about the importance and potential of online ads and adopting YouTube as an
influential marketing instrument. Implicit knowledge about videos, users, community
interests, and categories can be provided by analyzing YouTube comments (Siersdorfer,
Chelaru, Nejdl, & San Pedro, 2010) of smartphone ads. Keeping in view the proposed ty-
pology of Grant et al. (2015) and two consumer response targets of the studies of Zinkhan
and Burton (1989) and Maclnnis and Jaworski (1989), this research study aimed to explore
how consumers process(cognitive versus emotive) online ads of smartphone brands on
YouTube and develop an attitude about it? It was investigated by analyzing and inter-
preting 2925 comments on 13 online ads of 4 smartphone brands on YouTube in Pakistan
i.e. Samsung, Huawei, Oppo, and QMobile. Moreover, viewers’ experience can be un-
derstood and enhanced by mining YouTube comments for positive, negative, and neutral
sentiments.

Literature Review
Response of Viewers toward Advertisement
Consumers respond to advertisement in two ways: one, attitude toward the ad and sec-
ond, attitude toward the brand (Maclnnis & Jaworski, 1989; Zinkhan & Burton, 1989).
Grant et al. (2015) Posited that this attitude toward the ad and attitude toward the brand
mediate the relationship between online ads and brand equity. Moreover, these medi-
ators also interact with each other and cannot be taken independently. Brand equity is
influenced by brand experience of the customer. De Gauquier, Brengman, Willems, and
Van Kerrebroeck (2018) maintained that brand experiences activate feelings and senti-
ments in a customer about the brand. They furtherposited that brand experience also
evoke cognition as it instigate a customer to exercise thinking process, be stimulated and
feel more inquisitive about that particular brand.

Brand Equity
Brand equity (BE) has been defined as “outcomes that accrue to a product with its brand
name compared with those that would accrue if the same product did not have the brand
name” (Ailawadi, Lehmann, & Neslin, 2003). It emerges from the interaction between
consumers and the brand which stimulates consumer developing awareness and asso-
ciations towards the brand (H. M. B. Berthon P., 2002). Brand equity has been studied
under tow points of view i.e. financial value and customer value. The financial value per-
spective of brand equity highlights financial value of a renowned brands. For example,
Coca Cola and KFC are compared to less renowned brands. Nevertheless, conventional

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marketing strategies focuses on creating financial value for the firms, marketers should
first build and know the hidden attitudinal factors in order to ensure positive market-
ing outcome for the brand (Grant et al., 2015). The customer value perspective of brand
equity or customer-driven brand equity is developed when brand becomes unique and
memorable, is recognized as superior quality and reputation to its customer and can be
discriminated at two levels i.e. brand awareness and brand image (Keller, 1993). Brand
awareness refers to the degree a brand is recognized and recalled by the customer whereas
brand image is customer’s perception about the brand. This aspect is crucial to examine
as it proposes unique guidelines for marketing strategies and helps in managerial deci-
sion making (Keller, 1993). In order to investigate the relationship between smartphone
brands ads and brand equity, a concise summary of attitude toward ads and attitude to-
ward brand literature is given. The relationship between the two of these constructs to the
ingredients of brand equity is entrenched in multiple prior research streams, discussed in
the upcoming sessions.

Viewer’s Attitude toward the Ad

A large number of scholars have used Shrimp’s attitude toward ad construct in order to
predict customer-driven brand equity with the ad (Burke & Edell, 1989; Holbrook & Batra,
1987). The construct of attitude toward ad has two separate structures i.e. cognitive and
affective (Shimp, 1981). According to cognitive approach, customer consciously pursues
consistency between beliefs and values of him/herself and that of the ad. Moreover, male
and female viewers responses differ in terms of attitude toward the ad (Wirtz, Sparks,
& Zimbres, 2018). Male viewers exhibit positive attitude towards ads having sexual ap-
peals due to females actor’s (actress’s) physically attractive features and signaling sexual
orientation by their actions and poses. Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) (Fullerton
& Cacioppo, 1986) and heuristic-systematic model (HSM) (Chaiken & Eagly, 1989) are
used to elaborate the relationship between cognitive processing and brand equity. These
theories help to investigate persuasions variables, processes, and consequences of cog-
nitive processing (Petty, Wegener, & Fabrigar, 1997). Despite that the cognitive aspect
of attitude toward ad construct has reaped little controversy, there is still no consen-
sus among academicians how to describe and measure consequence (Poels & Dewitte,
2006). Shimp (1981) emphasized to examine affective reaction to the ad too in order to
understand effectiveness of ad from attitude toward ad perspective.The terms like atti-
tude, emotions, mood, and feelings were frequently used by the authors but in ad-hoc
ways because these terms were applicable to the research studies (Muehling & McCann,
1993). Affect is an umbrella concept in general which is made up of all these psycholog-
ical processes (Bagozzi, Gopinath, & Nyer, 1999). The current study has taken J. Phelps
and Thorson (1991)’s conceptual definition which defines affect as “a viewer’s general lik-
ing or disliking of an advertisement”. Various types of affective responses to advertising
have been prosed by scholars (Burke & Edell, 1989; Holbrook & Batra, 1987) devised to
facilitate marketers to develop advertising strategies to target particular feelings, rather
to a generic emotional condition. For example, in order to understand and measure the
way various types of feelings work, Holbrook and Batra (1987) created a categorization

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of affective responses to advertising. Watson and Tellegen (1985) presented a typology

of two-factor structure of affect to see affect positive vs. negative and high vs. low.Some
researchers created instruments to compute affective reactions to ads, i.e. (Maclnnis &
Jaworski, 1989) cognitive and emotional, Wells (1975) reaction profile, Maclnnis and Ja-
worski (1989) viewer response profile created from ad processing framework. Based on
the work of Lazarus and Lazarus (1991) asserting the cognitive intentionality in emotions,
Poels and Dewitte (2006) introduced the emotional continuum, which covers a spectrum
of processing from low intensity emotions like i.e. pleasure and arousal to high intensity
and complex responses which need cognitive processing and self-regulative responses
(Grant et al., 2015). This is a right choice for this research study due to its capability
of capturing the entire range of cognitive and affective responses as an outcome of ad
processing and predictor of brand equity. Though, Petty et al. (1997) proposed to mea-
sure cognitive and affective responses independently, many advertising planning models
consolidate them. According to popular hierarchy of effect model (Preston & Thorson,
1984), a cognitive response is induced by the viewer’s exposure to the ad which generates
an affective response and that effective response leads to an action (Grant et al., 2015).
Moreover, the attitude is also changed by the cognitive effect from social influence (Xue
& Zhou, 2018). For example, people’s interaction on social networking sited (SNS) is one
of the very common source of cognitive effect where other users activities in terms of con-
tent sharing, comments, replies, likes, dislikes shape their attitude. Likewise, this study
see cognitive and affective processing as antagonistic components on the continuum. As
smartphones users watch ad’s video on YouTube, the video stimulates cognitive or af-
fective processing to some extent in the viewer that affects their attitude toward the ad
(smartphone ad) as well as attitude toward the brand (smartphone brand).

Viewer’s Attitude toward the Brand

Being a well-documented mediator of brand equity, attitude toward the brand is required
to be closely examined (Homer, 1990; Mitchell & Olson, 1981). The change in consumer’s
attitude toward advertised brand is assessed through this construct (Grant et al., 2015).
A positive change in consumer’s attitude toward the brand will increase brand equity
(Shimp, 1981). Whereas Muehling and McCann (1993) found above 100 single section
studies, (Gresham, Bush, & Davis, 1984) proposed that a global attitude metrics would be
the most effective metrics to examine ad effectiveness. In return, the FCB grid (Vaughn,
1986) and the Rossiter-Percy grid (Percy & Donovan, 1991) were integrated to from feel
/ think processing mechanisms with a low and high involvement perspectives as a pre-
dictor of change in brand attitude (Grant et al., 2015). While Mitchell and Olson (1981)
empirically confirmed the mediating effect of attitude toward ad and attitude toward
brand, many other models of attitude toward the ad have been constructed to narrate
the way attitude toward ad mediates the relationship between predictor to outcomes of
advertising. For instance, direct effect was found from attitude toward ad to attitude to-
ward brand by Shimp (1981). The double mediation effect (Lutz & Swasy, 1977) asserted
that attitude toward ad has a single-sided relationship on attitude toward brand and an
indirect effect on attitude toward brand, mediated by brand recognition. The reciprocal

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mediation hypothesis (RMH) by Heider (1946) asserted a contemplative relationship be-

tween attitude toward ad and attitude toward brand. Lastly, it was confirmed by Howard
(1977) that there is no direct (causal) relationship between attitude toward ad and attitude
toward brand; however, revealed that attitude toward ad is a predictor of purchase inten-
tion. On the other side, Huang, Su, Zhou, and Liu (2013) claimed that attitude toward
ad and attitude toward brand possess a positive reciprocal relationship in an online set-
ting having causation streaming in both directions. Consumers exhibit more favourable
attitude toward brand when they socialize through interaction with other consumers in
online communities (Hammick & Ju, 2018). To understand the relationship between the
ad as stimulus, in this study smartphone ads, and brand equity, the causal model recom-
mended by Heider (1946) is applied. In reciprocal mediation hypothesis (RMH), Heider
(1946) found reciprocal mediation relationship between attitude toward ad and attitude
toward brand.It is logical and acceptable to apply an established theoretical framework
to identify and measure the relationship between constructs as the effect of theoretical
framework is generalized rather the findings of the study in a specific context (Calder,
Phillips, & Tybout, 1981). In this study, attitude toward and attitude toward brand can
be applied as mediators through which smartphone ads can be examined as theoretical
explication allows researchers to confirm and reproduce previous research with a new
context.

Supportive and Opposing Attitudes in Interactive Advertising

The support received by an ad is also a crucial point in order to understand interactive
advertising concept advertising (P. Berthon, Pitt, & Campbell, 2008; Campbell, Pitt, Par-
ent, & Berthon, 2011). The exposure to online ad will create positive or negative attitude
toward the video and makes viewers decide either to share or not share the video in their
network (Dobele, Lindgreen, Beverland, Vanhamme, & Van Wijk, 2007).
Affective responses like fear, sadness, inspiration, and humor creates will in the people
to forward the video to others (Berger & Milkman, 2010; Huang et al., 2013). It has been
observed that smartphone brands ads bring out intensive affective response in viewers
and have a demonstrated record to be viral. Markets should ensure that online ads should
create affective reactions in the viewers while watching the video otherwise they will not
share it. Likewise, the viewers having supportive rather antagonistic (opposing) response
to the brand, will more likely to share the video (Botha & Reyneke, 2013).
Marketing managers of smartphone brands can leverage the benefit of using YouTube
in viral marketing campaigns to elicit robust favorable emotional responses in viewers,
which consequently motivate them to share these video ads in their community or net-
work. There are many smartphone video ads who have motivated viewers to share them
but also there some not eliciting positive emotions and hence could be shared. Accord-
ing to the knowledge of the author of this research study, no one has yet explored that
how viewers respond to smartphone video ads on YouTube. Hence, this is necessary
to examine that how online smartphone brands ads shape customer’s attitude toward
the smartphone brands. This research study is attempting to understand customer’s re-
sponses to smartphone brands ads by analyzing the comments on video ads of four pop-

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ular smartphone brands ads in Pakistan. These real-time responses of consumers are
providing marketing practitioners a considerable opportunity to understand smartphone
consumer’s attitude toward on YouTube (online) ads and developing deeper insight into
real-time responses.

YouTube as Interactive Advertising Platform

The variety of social media tools i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, wikis,
Flicker, and mashups are available on social networking sites (SNS) (He & Wang, 2016).
These social media tools help in branding activates like advertisement, public relations,
content delivery, customer services and support, product development and innovation
(Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Leonardi, Huysman, & Steinfield, 2013). Social me-
dia tools can be used for various purposes and activities but its value can be leveraged the
way it is used (Majchrzak & Ives, 2009). For example, advertisement can be personalized
by using personal data posted by users on social media sites (Walrave, Poels, Antheunis,
Van den Broeck, & van Noort, 2018). The features and functionality of social media has
an influence on user/customer behavior and directly affect people’s interaction, coordi-
nation, cooperation, socialization, and information sharing style (Sundararajan, Provost,
Oestreicher-Singer, & Aral, 2013). Comments on YouTube are a key source of studying
attitude of the consumer (Botha, 2014).

Methodology
The online advertising is no more a medium of single side communication that is con-
sumed in isolation but it providesviewers opportunities at multiple levels of interaction,
interoperation, and co-creation (Calder et al., 1981). There are various types of social me-
dia platforms available on internet i.e. Facebook, YouTube, Daily Motion, Reddit, and
blogs etc. to give their comments about the video ads (Grant et al., 2015). These online
conversations has provided market researchers a great opportunity to develop insights
about consumer behavior of individuals (Jones, 1998). This qualitative empirical infor-
mation helps researchers to deeply explore the relationship between the brand and con-
sumers (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2009; Malhotra, 2010). Exploratory research designs are
used when a research question is somewhat not explored and researcher is unaware about
the possible answer of the question (Malhotra, 2010). Keeping in view the research ques-
tion raised in this study, netnography (ethnography) research methods was believed to be
most appropriate.

Netnography
Netnography is the internet version of ethnography which provides marketing researchers
to get an insight into online consumer community by studying contextualized data. By
using the baseline of textual discourse analysis, this method of interpretation helped re-
searcher of this study to capture and manage the netnographicempirical information and

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later analyze and interpret it. Netnographic data collection technique is less invasive as
compared to focus group or ethnography and more representational than quantitative
techniques or surveys (Kozinets, 2002). Netnography also possesses an inherent benefit
of revealing common values and norms in virtual communities which may later be clas-
sified (Grant et al., 2015). The netnographic process emerges from three basic steps: first:
suitable website selection (i.e. YouTube for this research), second: collection of empirical
information, third: analysis of empirical information (Kozinets, 2002). I order to evaluate
attitude of viewers toward smartphone brands ads, 697 comments from 4 smartphone
video ads on YouTube were collected. He maintained that data analysis and interpreta-
tion process go simultaneously in netnograhic coding. The ads were chosen keeping in
view the ample justification for richness of discourse.
It is important to note that in order to tap consumers (viewers) attitude, they were not
made part of any laboratory settings or an interview (Mogaji, Farinloye, & Aririguzoh,
2016). Researcher didn’t talk about their relationship with the mobile brand. Moreover,
there was not a question of confidentiality of the empirical information of participants
as their comments (on YouTube video ads) were already public and anyone could see
them online. All the indicators or dimensions of their attitude toward smartphone ads
and brands were subjectively derived from the analysis of their comments (empirical in-
formation) later. Observation is the only source to determine consumer’s attitude in this
approach of research (Lane & Menzies, 2015).

Sample Selection
The video ads on YouTube were selected by adapting the criteria of Grant et al. (2015);
Mogaji et al. (2016). Comments from 4 Pakistani smartphone videos ads were taken to
understand consumer and smartphone brands relationships. The videos were published
(uploaded) within the period of one year (July 01, 2016 and June 30, 2017).

Table 1
YouTube Smartphone Ads Statistics

Sr Brand URL Published Date Comments Views

1 Samsung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6m65jAvCpQ 13-Dec-16 340 1,279,427

2 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bR0fE8rS7U 7-May-17 328 3,422,442
3 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpakUlBderc 19-Jun-17 317 2,998,209
4 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjV4eHSfgw 27-Mar-17 315 5,737,612
5 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bDz45MxSzA 28-Feb-17 299 2,107,476
6 Samsung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeIySdYBX9o 7-May-17 287 714,893
7 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs4GYv KFcY 28-Feb-17 235 1,471,546
8 Samsung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwnHXy XHHI 11-May-17 196 1,504,488
9 Samsung https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wt8pRuEHTIo 6-Feb-17 188 842,119
10 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-V5fwQdsZ4 24-May-17 173 1,797,256
11 Oppo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFV3bjqNPmQ 11-Jun-17 125 1,435,572
12 QMobile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3HANQYwNfU 7-Nov-16 72 109,157
13 Huawei https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pVYaXY-jPo 10-Mar-16 50 90,221

The minimum duration of the video ad was 30 seconds. The videos had a large num-
ber of views as less viewed videos have less or no comments. The video had a large

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number of comments too by the viewers about the ad which was represented by discus-
sion and debate. The comments had variety or variations to extract maximum dimen-
sions. Each video ad was from same industry (i.e. smartphones) but represents different
brands.

Analysis and Findings

The empirical information (viewer’s comments) were analysed and managed via NVivo
11 Plus software. The use of NVivo software was necessary to identify the terms viewers
for discourse analysis, knowing their context, and coding them, and at the end group-
ing them. Moreover, in order to know the positive and negative responses of viewers,
sentiment analysis function of NVivo was used which helped to segregate positive and
negative sentiments in the empirical information.

Unit of Analysis
The unit of analysis were commentsof viewers and replies to these comments on YouTube
ads of smartphone brands.

Discourse Analysis
When the purpose is to analyze various identities that individuals and groups relate with
the organization (or brand) and are usually created in interaction (Coupland & Brown,
2004), the comments are required to be qualitatively analyse by adopting discourse anal-
ysis technique.Variety of methods including discourse analysis are used by the supporter
of connective ethnography in offline as well online spaces to examine participant behav-
iors in words (Barna, 2011) or comments on YouTube.
In order to get an approach to credible information, develop intimacy with specific
meanings, and understanding community issues, motivations, and dynamics in a better
way, researchers should analyses conversational interactions of virtual communities in
their social settings and natural environment (Toledano, 2017). Kozinets (2002) asserted
that there is much difference between in online than that of face-to-face social experience.
Kozinets further insisted that “netnography is positioned somewhere between the vast
searchlights of big data analysis and the close readings of discourse analysis”. Social
media comments and discussions are a rich representative of big data and provides an
ample reason to use discourse analysis for this research study (Toledano, 2017).
In order to represent social practices in texts, discourses are used as resources to know
the social practices (Van Leeuwen, 2008). This association is built up by creating and
using texts, and doing as such thusly makes new perceptions, entities, observations and
concepts building up the brand as an institute (Munir & Phillips, 2005; Phillips, Lawrence,
& Hardy, 2004). Obviously, vast volumes of text must be produced and promoted inside
the brand community as well and should be supplemented by other movement outside

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the online community if the company’s marketing is to have an effect on the world past
the virtual community (Hakala, Niemi, & Kohtamäki, 2017).
Discourse analysis, which underlines socially intuitive parts of spoken and written
dialect as the essential setting for extricating meaning (Fairclough, 2003), was utilized to
distinguish orderly subthemes and super-subjects (Hakala et al., 2017). By using discourse
analysis technique on YouTube comments, we can better develop an insight on consumer
attitude toward smartphone ads.
This at first included the utilization of manifest coding to select and arrange remarks
(or discrete responses, a few of which might be implanted in a solitary discourse). Man-
ifest codes are the components that are physically present at the exterior of correspon-
dence and are effectively checked (Gray & Densten, 1998). Eventually, 2926 comments
were extricated from 13 video ads of 4 smartphone brands on YouTube. These were then
partitioned into relatedmanifest subthemes. Latent content analysis, which concentrates
on the tone or in other words implied meaning in the correspondence (Klaus, 1980), was
along these lines used to infer implicit meanings and to encourage the dissemination of
the subthemes into related super-themes. Manifest andlatent coding both manage inter-
pretations, which can differ in terms of insight and at abstraction level. In inactive coding,
emoticons (e.g. :), <3), which delineate related feelings, were additionally mulled over.
Only textual comments were considered for analysis purpose and latent comments or
emotions (e.g. :), <3) were not considered (Shakeela & Weaver, 2016).

Findings
Advertising literature gives inadequate expansion mechanisms with respect to utilizing
TVCs on social network sites. It can be done by understanding viewer’s responses on
these video ads. The findings are organized in two dimensions i.e. by unpacking viewer’s
responses toward smartphone video ads and by presenting outcomes of discourse anal-
ysis as a typology of consumer attitude toward the ad and the brand. The comments of
video ads were analyzed in order to address the objective of this study. In order to get the
answer of first question that “how consumers process (cognitive versus emotive) online
ads of smartphone brands on YouTube?” different terms were interpreted and grouped
into themes from textual discourse of all 2925 comments of 13 videos of smartphone ads
in Pakistan. The analysis of text on NVivo software helped to extract various terms in
the viewer’s comments and grouped them into six themes as Ad Features, Affect, People
in Ad, Product Features, Brand Names, and Brand Comparison. The details of the terms
extracted against each theme along with the frequency coding and target coding is being
displayed in table-2.

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Figure 1
Word frequency cloud of 60 most repeating words in viewer’s comments generated in NVivo software

Table 2
Themes and Terms extracted from Discourse Analysis of YouTube Comments
Sr. Theme Term/Text Coding Frequency Coding Target

1 Ad Features Dance, Glamour, Indian, Music, Nudity, Song Name 117 Ad

2 Affect Nice, Love, Amazing, Good, Lol, Like, XXX, Best, Wow, Awesome, Ugly 105 Ad/Brand
3 People in Ad Actress, Girls, Goulding (Celebrity), Maya (Celebrity), Singer 80 Ad
4 Product Features Camera, Display, Features, Price, RAM, Selfie 64 Brand
5 Brand Names Huawei, Apple, Oppo, QMobile, Samsung 44 Brand
6 Brand Comparison Check, China, Compete, Copying 26 Brand

The second identified theme is Affect which has been constructed by grouping the
terms Nice, Love, Amazing, Good, Lol, Like, XXX, Best, Wow, Awesome, and Ugly. This
theme is helpful in examining the way consumers process online ads emotionally. Inter-
estingly this theme is targeting ad as well as brand. Affect produced by advertisement
infers to attitude toward brand (Gresham & Shimp, 1985). Thus, Poels and Dewitte (2006)
emotional continuum has been used to get an insight into empirical information (com-
ments).
When an ad (persuasive message) is viewed by an individual, the same can either be
accepted or rejected on the basis of conscious and unconscious processing by develop-
ing a relationship of the ad to current knowledge, values, feelings and beliefs (Friestad
& Wright, 1994). Grant et al. (2015) postulated that according to emotional continuum,
consumer (viewer) response to ad has a range from lower-order emotions (e.g. arousal
and pleasure) to higher-order emotions (e.g. distrust). The lower-order emotions possess

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 Journal of Management Sciences

warmeth sentiments like Lol, Wow, Yukhhh etc. whereas higher order emotions are made
up of critically evauated information i.e. “Really amazing after using samsung galaxy
grand prime this one should be more good than ggp and also not expensive like ggp...”

Table 3
Original comments representing lower and higher order emotions

Lower Order Emotions Comments Higher Order Emotions Comments

* kya ap chahay gay k pakistan ka koi model girl aur boy add
* Loluxama khan oppo is also a chinese brand...tchtch me hota aur wo girl is trah k libas me hoti? kya ap chahay gay
k wo laki is add me aa k gunahgaar hoti? ye kaam non-Muslims
ko e krny do....
* wow atif bhai superb * The fingerprint sensor is quick and battery life is also good
* Build quality & much better price wise than that overrated
* woooooooooooooo I am your fan
iphones which are also made in China
* Oppo phone lost its repo when the batteries started bursting
and burning.... Buying aoppo phone without a review done and
* Atif..you are love <3 life would be impossible without your songs
made in Pakistan is injustice to Pakistani customers and oppodosent
target midrange users....
* waoo this is amazing!!!!! * poor in charging. i used only two days then i sold it.
* that’s why I always love Samsung :*** * ekselfiekikeemat 50000?
* Second time they used Ellie Goulding Song in their adverts
* break the iphone and unbox samsung s8
First was Love me like you do now this one Still Falling For You.
* Love this phone
* really amazing after using samsung galaxy grand prime this one
* i love oppo mobile
should be more good than ggp and also not expensive like ggp...
* ITS AMAZING GREAT AMAZING LOOOOOOK NICE
* not soo good
* yukkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
* DJsharukhqureshi97 I just wasted my 30 seconds on reading this
stupid comment and now I&#39;m even wasting more time on writing
this. Samsung haters goona all get themselves..and talking about this
phone might be great.. it is and has bet all the existing phones

Furthermore, the themes identified in the area of how consumer’s comments on on-
line ads of smartphone brands on YouTube target the ad and the perceived brand was
in consistent with the studies of Zinkhan and Burton (1989) and Maclnnis and Jaworski
(1989) which exhibited two major responses of consumer; attitude towards the ad and
attitude towards the perceived brand. In this research study, the comments of viewers
in the themes identified as Ad Features and People in Ad are representing consumer’s
attitude toward ad.
The comments of viewers in the themes identified as Product Features, Brand Names,
and Brand Comparison are representatives of consumer’s attitude toward the perceived
brand.
Some cognitive responses of viewers were exhibiting confusion in their mind which
was an indicator that brand failed to peruse the actual message it wanted to communicate
to the consumers. For instance, one viewer commented about Oppo smartphone brand
ad:
“sooooo .... what was the point of the dance and the wires ??? Does the phone dance with you
or wires come out of it instead of buying separate ?? ”

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 Journal of Management Sciences

Figure 2
Hierarchy of identified themes map (Attitude toward Ad) of Discourse Analysis in NVivo

52
 Journal of Management Sciences

Figure 3
Hierarchy of identified themes map (Attitude toward Brand) of Discourse Analysis in NVivo

Another expressed his/her feelings as: “Not a good advertisement, atleast not in a practi-
cality sense. I have no idea which audience it is targeting at. Glamor does not get you money. If
you are looking forward to sell a smartphone in such a competitive market, please show us what
you have to offer. We have enough high school musicals and Step Up revolution movies to enter-
tain us with glamor and dance. Please do not make mistakes what QMobile made. People buy cell
phones because of their features not because its ad had a super hot model. Please OPPO, do not
make fun of yourself. You are better than this”.
Some viewers clearly stated that the ads was not exhibiting any meaning like:
“Just dance and a girl with wires but the whole add was pointless”

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 Journal of Management Sciences

Table 4
Original comments representing “attitude toward the ads”
Ad Features People in Ad

* What is the name of this song? * Qmobile seems like made a deal with Ellie Goulding.
Almost all their ads use her songs
* watched on for Ellie goulding song*still falling for
* And please tell the song name in this ad
you*amazing na!
* I am in love with the music * My dream girl my love my deepika padukone
* Background music also awesome ... Thanxq mobile... * Can’t believe samsung pakistan showing a girl in
For this song shorts in the staring of the ad... Pathetic!!!
* The point is, to use nudity to attract attention to the phone.
People would watch this ad more attentively than others, * watched only for maya ali because she is so pretty
and remember any product name she gives. pak actress
It is pure spectacle, with very little substance.
* Glamor does not get you money. If you are looking
forward to sell a smartphone in such a competitive
* The money of marketing went to an India actress and I
market, please show us what you have to offer. We
will not spend a penny on a company using enemies for
have enough high school musicals and Step Up
marketing.
revolution movies to entertain us with glamor and
dance.
* Indian models not acceptable at all * Atif is best singer
* I will not buy something marketed by an Indian
* you are grate......singer of this world...and i’m big fan of
actress in Pakistan. OPPO’s marketing team in
your...!! ...!!
Pakistan must be shit if they dont know this fact

If the apparent product features and use of product is not communicated, ad possess
low level of compliance with viewer’s personal values, and celebrity is not prominently
set in the ad, can lead to such confusion in viewers’ mind (Grant et al., 2015).
The third question i.e. “how consumer’s degree of support (supporting versus an-
tagonistic) on online ads of smartphone brands on YouTube help in the assessment of
consumer’s attitude toward the ad and toward the brand?” was answered in compliance
with four consumer attitude typology to online ads of Grant et al. (2015). The degree of
support to online ads by viewer’s comments was different. It was revealed by quanti-
tative metrics of sentiment analysis (Figure-2) in NVivosoftware that positive (184) and
negative comments were almost equal in numbers (187).

Figure 4
Screen shot of sentiment analysis nodes of NVivo window

54
 Table 5
Original comments representing “attitude toward the brand”
Product Features Brand Names Brand Comparison
* Build quality & much better price
wise than that overrated iPhone * Oppo is best at copying Apple like please yarr * Should check oneplus 3T or wait for oneplus 5
which are also made in China
* Samsung and apple has no comparison from other
* Good phone hy, camera very nice brands !!Oppois far away from samsung not even
* Build quality & much better price wise than that
clear result, video performance, comparable !!!Lastly features of samsungalwasys
overrated iphones which are also made in China
screen, ram all r better than previous beats apple on the other hand apple has very few
advantages over samsung!
* I suggest you, just go and check the rumors and don’t
* Phone.. Just Check Its Features And
called it a low resolution camera because I have 5s which
Quality, camera Everything Uu will Be
camera easily compete with s5 which came later than 5s
Shocked..Its Has AlotOf Features Like
* Try Qmobile approximately 1 year later and hardly compete with s6
Off screen Bideo Recording Or Taking
one cuz I already use s6 but don’t like bcuz of its
Pictures. Off screen Touch Features and
highly un accurate fingerprint scanner and unable

55
Many More...
to control heat and a very low gpu.
* SabirUllahAfridi Yes lol, he is supporting
overpriced old shaped phone, he even doesn’t * Q mobilez14 all the best..Also have galaxy s6 * Oppo is best at copying Apple like please yarr
know what features Samsung S8 offers.
* Yet the fact is why apple not using the amoled
is because of the fact that people will use to
taunt that apple is copying samsung and the
* Very Nice Galaxy A Series 2017 * Oh cmon stop copying lg
other fact is Super Amoled is a highly battery
draing display as compaired to ips or retina
displays.
* Oppois little much Copying Iphone. But the Quality
§ Oppo only Concentrate on selfie camera * Same galaxy((((((dna))))))))=different no attitude
And Performance is much better then samsung..
* Nice phone .Like S galaxy series
* Lanathaioppowalo tum per Abhi F1S kakiya
Karon?? Kitnayka sale hogayaaap exchange
Karof3plus Kay sath???
* Oppof1s ka version update krain still waiting
* Oppo f3 vs Huawei p10
Journal of Management Sciences
 Journal of Management Sciences

Those who gave positive responses took a supportive stance and gave favorable com-
ments about the ad and brand:
Table 6
Original comments representing positive sentiments of viewers
Toward Ad Toward Brand
* Very nice ad atif ur looking very handsome keep it up * That’s why I always love Samsung :***
* U made my day??? * Awesome phone!
* Really amazing after using samsung galaxy
* Creativity on it’s peak! grand prime this one should be more good than
ggp and also not expensive like ggp...
* Very very so beautiful * Really amazing cell
* iphone Is The Father And Oppo Is Much
* Watched on for Ellie goulding song*still falling for you*amazing na!
Much better than Samsung..!
* Lastly featuers of samsung always beats apple
* Qmobile made the song more awesome then orignal one on the other hand apple has very few advantages
over samsung!
* The Ad was super creative and nice * I really love this Phone...
* This ad tells that y oppo is invincible * S6 edge plus is more stylish and good looking than s8

Interestingly majority of the comments were not supportive which is not in consistent
as is expected from the virally successful videos.It is very important to note that positive
experience during web browsing can also result in the impulsive buying by the customer
(Habib & Qayyum, 2018). Majority of the viewer’s took an antithetical stance and demon-
strated an antagonistic attitude. They commented in an antagonistic manner both toward
the ad and toward the brand.
Table 7
Original comments representing negative sentiments of viewers
Toward Ad Toward Brand
* Why this indian ad i just hate this * Now i m selling my oppo mobile after seeing
ad huh please make it pakistani models this shit indian add...
* Go and sale only there get lost from
* Whatever it is it still doesn’t justify the ridiculous
our country and take your shitty brand
prices these phones are for
with you as well
* Oppo’s marketing team in pakistan
* Samsung xiaomioneplus rocks oppo is shit
must be shit if they dont know this fact
* You seriously are a pervert who must * I don’t like it seriously awaiting for samsung galaxy
have been having wet dreams about ugly s8 edge but a series are not bad but not much attractive
bollywood actresses to me like it
* Retailers convince not so tech savvy or illiterate
* You advertise the hell out of oppo ...
people to buy the shit.
* I hate depika * Over priced shit phone
* I hate this ad. * Very bad phone
* Hate this add kstbcz of this old lady mkeup
krny sy brhapa nh chupa jata zehr lgtii h wesy * I ask everyone to boycott Samsung products.
b mjy yh aurt
* Well guys i was saying that that it is a good phone
but i am suffering from a storage issue you cant download
* Ghatyaindian actress hate her
above 5 apps well it sucks so i am going to change it very
soon
* This is vulgarity and should be * Yeah touchwiz was shit performance if i had a
banned in Pakistan. samsung device i would install a custom room on it
* Not a good advertisement, atleast
not in a practicality sense.
* Oppo take away ur vulgarity
* Inappropriate ad.
* Bycott this kind of product which
spreads such kinds of vulgarity

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 Journal of Management Sciences

However, the opposing attitude of viewers is in compliance with the ads response’s
continuum of Batra and Ray (1986) where the range of responses is from Source Bolstering
to Source Derogation, either of them need an understanding as support of the ad is a
crucial component for the ad to get accepted.

Discussion
Setting up theoretical findings from this research study furnishes marketers with under-
standing into how viewers or consumers respond to online ads of smartphone brands, as
well as how to potentially focus on the most “appealing” customers inside each market
segment. Even though the brands that adopt the strategy with online and offline com-
ponents are more prone to be customer centric and successful (Frooghi, Waseem, Afshan,
& Shah, 2015), online advertising should be dealt with a different mindset and utmost
importance. A great part of the current literature on advertising demonstrates adver-
tisements that evoke pleasant feelings affect the brand more than negative, neutral, or
informational advertisement do (Grant et al., 2015). Pham, Geuens, and De Pelsmacker
(2013) Observations endorsed it and disregarded the role of product category and rele-
vancy of the ad to the day-to-day life of consumer. Brand attitude can also be influenced
by emotionally captivating ads (Grant et al., 2015). Therefore, marketers should focus on
emotional appeal component of their adverting campaign. For instance, when the viewer
cognitively support an ad focusing on creating brand awareness and product knowledge
by the marketing managers, it does not increase brand equity as he/she is just confirming
or endorsing prior favorable associations about the brand (Batra & Ray, 1986). That’s is
why marketers of smartphone ads should incorporate positive affective (emotional) ele-
ments in their ads to build consumer-brand relationship (Grant et al., 2015). It will have
a high magnitude impact on brand equity as emotional appeal influence imagery associ-
ation of consumer about the brand which consequently influences their loyalty with the
brand.
The effect of smartphone brands on antagonistic stance interms of negativecognitive
comments as well as negative emotional (affective) comment are more challenging to clar-
ify.To relieve negative brand equity impacts, marketers must know about the risks and
difficulties when creating a smartphone ads. Viewers exhibit an aversive attitude toward
corporate viral marketing campaign (Fournier & Avery, 2011). For instance, the corporate
brand ad of QMbile in Pakistan in which a teenager girl was shown as disobedient daugh-
ter to her father was negatively commented by majority of the viewers. So, marketers
must make sure that ad should not exploit their feelings (Dobele, Toleman, & Beverland,
2005) and should follow ethical standards (Kaikati & Kaikati, 2004).
A negative reaction may create a negative imagery association about the brand or
make consumers to boycott the brand (J. E. Phelps, Lewis, Mobilio, Perry, & Raman,
2004). The connection between negative cognitive reactions and the impact that these
reactions have on viewersforwarding the comments is not clear. Past empirical studies do
not agree that there is any difference in the way the positive and negative views get vi-
ral or forwarded and also between negative emotional responses and positive emotional

57
 Journal of Management Sciences

responses (Grant et al., 2015). What is sure, however, is that both negative cognitive re-
sponse and negative emotional response can have genuine unfavorable impacts on brand
equity.
Managers must realize that all viral smartphone brand ads will get reactions from all
of the four consumer archetypes i.e. cognitive and supportive, cognitive and antagonistic,
affective and supportive, and affective and antagonist due to extra ordinary dissemination
of viral videos of smartphone ads. Marketing managers should be careful while creating
a smartphone ad by keeping in view the desired cognitive and emotional (affective) re-
sponses. This realization is critical as it might illuminate better arranging toward how to
motivatesharing (making video viral) and improving brand equity. Keeping that in mind,
shouldcheck the impacts of smartphone ads videos before uploading it on social media or
YouTube to guarantee that the result is lined up with marketing goals, following ethical
concerns and positively perceived by the viewers.

Limitation and Future Research

Though the purpose of this study was to understand that how consumers process online
ads of smartphone brands, the way they comment on these ads, and to understand their
degree of support for online ads, however, there are some limitations in terms of research
design and producing results from analysis of empirical information.
The chosen qualitative research design i.e. netnogrpahy is amongst the rigorous one
to cater the experience and culture of online communities (Kozinets, 2002), but it was
applied in a very limited universe of online community i.e. YouTube. The online ads are
also uploaded on other social media sites i.e. Facebook, Instagram and blogs etc. where
a huge number of comments are produced by the viewers. So, the future research on
online ads should cater all social networking sites to cater all sorts of online communities.
The smartphone ads chosen were all Pakistani ads which implies that the findings have
limited geographical implications. It is recommended that smartphones ads should be
chosen from across the globe to tap the culture of international online communities.
The selected ads had differentnatures, for example, some of them were focusing on
product features and attributes, some were endorsing celebrities, and other were emo-
tional appeal. There was a limitation in terms of analyzing empirical material in these
dimensions to know that how viewers process each category of ad differently. It can
help marketing managers to know which nature of ad is more desirable for online ads of
smartphones.
Keeping in view the richness, authenticity, and (ease) accessibility of netnogrphic data,
marketing researchers in specific and of other related disciplines in general have many
opportunities to leverage it in their future research. For example, marketing related phe-
nomenon i.e. customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, brand awareness, brand association,
brand health, and service quality etc. can be explored through netnographic data. For in-
stance, an online shopping store can measure its corporate brand image by capturing and
analyzing thousands or even millions of comments on its facebook page. The service
quality can also be measured or even quantified by analyzing the number of positive and

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 Journal of Management Sciences

negative comments by using sentiment analysis technique. Hence, researchers can cap-
italize nentnography from various theoretical frameworks to contribute to the body of
knowledge as well as bringing implications for practitioners.

Conclusion
The quantitative metrics of effectiveness i.e. how much, how often, and how many are
deadly important for managers and researchers. These metrics are very easy to tap on so-
cial networking sites i.e. Facebook and YouTube etc. For example, the quantitative metrics
of a video (on YouTube) like cookies, log files, number of thumbs up and down, time and
post exposure search queries can easily be recorded by video advertisers (Pashkevich,
Dorai-Raj, Kellar, & Zigmond, 2012). Apart from these quantitative measures, a huge
amount of untrusted big data is available in the form viewer’s comments and replies
these comments by other viewers. The purpose of this research was to get an insight on
these unstructured but qualitative responses of such online communities on YouTube by
choosing the context of smartphonebrands in Pakistan. The findings will help marketing
practitioners of smartphone industry to create an ad campaign so that it could get viral in
positive direction and get favorableassociations about the brand to increase brand loyalty
of the perceived brand.
This research study has identified that smartphone brands consumers take YouTube
ads as online commercials. Moreover, by performing discourse analysis on viewer’s com-
ments, this research study has helped to know that how they process online ads of smart-
phones. In the light of the framework of Zinkhan and Burton (1989) and (Grant et al.,
2015), this research is contributing by creating constructs of smartphone consumer’s atti-
tude toward ad and attitude toward brand. It was revealed that smartphone consumers
interpret ad in terms ad features and people in the ad. Moreover, attitude toward brand
is interpreted as product features, brand names, and brand comparison. This study has
also found the patterns of consumer’s degree of support toward the ad and toward the
brand under the archetype of consumer attitude by Grant et al. (2015). According to this
archetype, viewers’ comments can either be supportive or antagonistic toward the ad and
toward the brand. The findings are revealing that online smartphone brand ads can be
utilized as a part of viral marketing campaign as source to motivate emotional response
to the ad and generate a favorable attitude both toward the ad and smartphone brand
which consequently trigger viewers to share or forward the video.

59
 Journal of Management Sciences

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