Branded content and motivations for social media use as drivers of brand outcomes on social media: a cross-cultural study

Social media are increasingly popular for delivering branded content to consumers worldwide. A central task for researchers is to understand what consumer brand-related motivations and brand appeals drive consumer engagement and benefit brand outcomes across different cultures. Based on the Uses and Gratifications theory, this study explores how individuals’ motivations for social media use and branded content reflecting these motivations affect three focal consumer brand responses (viral behavioral intentions, click intention, and purchase intention) across different cultural contexts, namely Western European (i.e. Austria, Belgium, Sweden) and Latin (i.e. Brazil, Chile, Portugal) cultures. Our results exhibit significant positive effects of motivations (Remuneration) and branded appeals (entertainment appeal) on consumer responses that prevail in both Western European and Latin cultures. Managers implementing cross-cultural social media marketing can use the insights of this paper as a guide to target audiences with brand appeals, enhancing the effectiveness of their brand communication activities on social media.