Effect of Gender on the Relationship between Visual Content and Customer Engagement

Abstract

This thesis aims to use the stimulus organism response mechanism to investigate the concept of customer engagement in mobile advertising. The effect of visual content, source appearance, and self-influencer congruence was measured in the COVID-19 pandemic context. The mixed method approach had four in-depth focus group sessions and a questionnaire distributed among participants from different cities of Pakistan. NVIVO and two separate Hayes’ PROCESS macro templates were used to analyze the data. The study recommends that visual content positively impacts customer engagement through source appearance and self-influencer congruence in a more robust way. At the same time, there is no direct effect of the visual content on customer engagement behavior. Customers want to scroll, criticize, and be entertained by advertisements during the pandemic period. However, these customers engage when the source is attractive, has relevant attributes and huge fan following. The findings suggest that gender diversity plays a significant role in defining mobile advertising engagement intensity, which is unique and peculiar. Males are attracted to the source with a beautiful appearance compared to females whose engagement with mobile advertisements is based on self-influencer congruence. Keywords: Visual content, Source appearance, Self-influencer congruence, Customer engagement