Mxit advertising’s influence on cognitive attitudes amongst Millennials in the Western Cape

Abstract

The social media have grown at an exponential rate in recent years, especially amongst the youth (known as Millennials) in South Africa, who access social media primarily via mobile devices; these have served as an additional catalyst to fuel this growth. The rapid advancement of social media is also attributed to the Millennials’ desires for social interaction connectedness, information, entertainment and convenience. Millennials portray a difficult market to reach with advertising due to the large fragmentation of media, diverse range of interests and demographical differences, but this lucrative market cannot be ignored owing to their huge purchasing power. Mxit is a popular social medium in South Africa and provides numerous advertising opportunities for organisations and their brands. The purpose of this study was to examine Millennials’ cognitive attitudes towards advertising on Mxit, and assess the influence of certain usage and demographic factors. The research surveyed 1858 young adults in the Western Cape who were between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Millennials maintained favourable cognitive responses towards Mxit advertising. All of the usage elements and a demographic factor, gender, were also found to have a signifi cant influence. The results provide both academia and organisations with fresh insights and a greater understanding of social network advertising.

Keywords: social media, social network sites, Mxit advertising, Millennials, cognitive attitudes, hierarchy-of-effects model, awareness, knowledge