Visibility through clutter: How could small businesses cut through advertising clutter on Instagram?

Abstract

Small businesses heavily relay on Instagram in order to build their brand with respect to its user friendliness, low cost, and accessibility. However, in a very competitive market it is difficult to capture online attention and develop word of mouth. Instagram can be a powerful marketing tool if properly understood, hence deeper investigation on this platform is required. While current literature has intensively explored the field of social media marketing post launching a business, it is somewhat limited in the pre-launch state. In parallel with the literature scarcity on pre-launch marketing, the motivation behind this research stems from the challenges small businesses encounter within launching. Advertising clutter presents itself as the preeminent challenge as it limits exposure for small businesses. Furthermore, consumers are irritated by the clutter hence it is necessary to empirically validate an approach that assists business in capturing consumer attention in cluttered advertising environments such as Instagram. This study sheds light on the Food & Beverage sector in the Middle East which is currently among the most popular sectors advertised on Instagram (Crowd Analyzer, 2022). The contribution to the current stream of marketing literature comes from introducing solutions to advertising clutter on Instagram by incorporating Schema Incongruity Theory and providing cues that are viable for hedonic sectors. Furthermore, this research demonstrates the significance of activating bottom-up attention processing for consumers scrolling in cluttered environments such as Instagram. Lastly this research empirically validates a Pre-Launch marketing communication campaign model for new businesses, starting from capturing attention leading to purchase intention. What can small businesses in the food industry do in order to build an attractive pre-launch marketing campaign? To answer this question, this study employed a three stage mixed methods design for the methodology, where the first qualitative stage consists of 5 focus group semi-structured interviews with middle eastern Instagram users to ask about their experience with restaurant ads and what would capture their attention whilst scrolling through their feed. This stage assisted in validating the pre-launch marketing framework and introduce new ideas that required further investigation. Secondly, upon the findings of the interviews, an experiment design was necessary to provide empirical validation on what type of ads capture consumer attention in cluttered Instagram environments. The experiment was conducted on 62 participants following a within subject design to experiment how consumers react ironic ads compared to traditional. Lastly, to test the rest of the constructs in the framework, a questionnaire was conducted with 323 Instagram users that have a liking for food. The findings of this study shed light on the necessary tools needed to build a successful pre-launch marketing campaign for small businesses by providing a step by step approach on the type of ads and type of opinion leaders that are most effective in middle eastern food & beverage sector. The findings also indicate the stages that an Instagram user undergoes until reaching the purchase stage. Understanding the stages of the purchase process can help new businesses align their marketing strategy with those stages to assist in building a more effective campaign. This study provides solutions for numerous managerial problems (Lack of marketing plans, a poor comprehension of the industry they operate in, and competition against well established companies) all three are pitfalls for small businesses in the middle east (Albalushi & Naqshbandi, 2022).