The influence of advertising appeals on viral advertising, brand awareness, and purchase intention: The moderator role of hedonic personality

Viral advertising has become a trending topic nowadays. This study aims to examine the effect of advertising appeals on viral advertising, brand awareness, and purchase intentions with the hedonic personality playing as a moderating role. The use of hedonic personality itself to predict viral intentions, brand awareness, and purchase intentions have not been widely discussed by other researchers. This study can be classified as explanatory research with purposive sampling and partial least square as sampling techniques and data analysis. This study was designed to focus on individuals who can be classified as social media active users with a minimum age of 18 years old. The result shows that advertising appeals (humor and informative) have a positive and significant impact on viral intention and attitude toward advertisement. Thus, the higher viral intention and the positive attitude toward advertisement will increase the possibility of purchase and the level of brand awareness. While hedonic personality was significantly proved moderates the relationship between viral intentions and brand awareness in this study. The nature of respondents in this study who mainly are at high level of hedonic personality make the moderation role of hedonic personality has no significant impact on the relationship of viral intentions on purchase intentions. Therefore, the viral factor on hedonic consumers did not seem to correlate purchase intentions.


Introduction
Traditional marketing has lately begun to be abandoned by marketers. Rust & Oliver (1994) predict that traditional marketing will die and begin to be abandoned. This death is caused by technological advances that produce new media and markets. The internet has a big impact on the world of advertising and business processes (Krishnamurthy & Singh, 2005). Today's business model is also starting to change and develop along with the development of the internet. Online marketing is a new face for today's business trends.
Before the internet came the marketers using television, newspapers, magazines, brochures, and word of mouth in introducing their products to the public (Keller, 2013).
Social media has social power which influences public opinion widely due to the ease of accessing social media by using a cellphone which makes people can easily gain all the intended information. Social media used by marketers to promote and communicate their products and services due to the reason for speediness, widely, and easily accessed (Enyioko & Okwandu, 2019). Shareef et al. (2019) added that create buzz or word of mouth through social networks considered a robust alternative channel for continuous two-way interactivity nowadays. Many marketers invest their resources to create a best-suited advertising content strategy that can relate to the targeted consumer so that content messages can generate buzz among the social community and goes viral by nature. Moran et al. (2014) added that the message that generates by market or social by nature considered more believable and trustworthy than marketer-initiated messages. Sharma & Kaur (2018) who researched global advertising content to explore what factors made the viral content throughout the world, concluded that most of the global advertisements used transformational appeals with positive emotional content in the form of happiness, joy or gladness as the advertisement appeal strategy which then influence consumers intention to purchase and their viral intentions. The success of viral messages determined by entertainment, social needs, and consumer engagement (East et al., 2016). Al-Rawi (2019) added that several attributes should be concerned by marketers when makes advertisements like information utility or practical value, humorous, and social value.
Based on that researchers want to discuss why an advertisement has become viral and can influence consumers buying behavior. Researchers see a gap that has not been widely discussed by other researchers. The gap is the use of individual preferences like hedonic personality to predict viral intentions, brand awareness, and purchase intentions. Nusair et al. (2017) added that hedonic personality is one of the fundamental factors in predicting the willingness to share knowledge and switching cost then affect electronic word of mouth communication. Therefore, the fact that there are limited studies that used individual preferences as a predictor of viral intentions, brand awareness, and purchase intentions need to be examined. This study aims to examine the effect of advertising appeals on viral advertising, brand awareness, and purchase intentions with the hedonic personality playing as a moderating role.

Advertisement Appeals
The use of humor advertising appeals in advertising has been widely used by marketers in creating advertisements for a product. A study conducted by Korgaonkar et al. (1997) found that the use of informative, sensuality, and humor advertisements can attract the attention of consumers. Research, in general, shows the attraction that humor has a significant positive influence on consumer attention and recall, and there is potential for improved processing and understanding Weinberger & Gulas, (1992). Nikolinakou & King (2018), Petrescu et al. (2016), Wu et al. (2018) added that humorous appeals positively associated with the willingness to share advertising. To sum up, Primanto & Dharmmesta (2019) concluded that the impact of humorous advertisement not only to entertain the consumers so they would perceive advertisement attitude positively but also influences on word of mouth intention especially since the most successful viral advertisements in the last decade are ad that contains humorous content (Lance & Guy, 2006). H1a: Humor advertising has a positive effect on viral intentions.
H1b: Humor advertising has a positive effect on attitude toward advertising.
Although advertisement that used humor appeals are considered the most effective in influencing consumers, informative advertising also has the advantages of humorous type ad.
Consumers can be so involved in humor appeal that they may miss the main message or even brand from the ad. Sung (2016) stressed that informative advertising shows positives attitudes toward advertising on satisfied consumers. Informative advertising will trigger people to create a buzz because they feel there is a benefit in the ad. Petrescu et al. (2016) concluded that not only has a positive effect on attitude towards advertising, informative advertising also influences viral intentions.
H2a: Informative advertising has a positive effect on viral intentions.
H2b: Informative advertising has a positive effect on attitude toward advertising.
The influence of advertising appeals on viral advertising, brand awareness, and purchase intention: The moderator role of hedonic personality by Wisnu Prajogo, Edi Purwanto

Viral Intentions
Just like word of mouth, viral advertising is considered as a more efficient way to lead to competitive advantages. According to Petrescu et al. (2016) the more often people continue advertising it will enable a person to buy the product. This desire to share is called viral (2016)  H3a: Viral intentions has a positive effect on purchase intentions.
H3b: Viral intentions has a positive effect on brand awareness.

Attitude Toward Advertising
Attitude toward advertising has been defined as an individual predisposition (feelings H4a: Attitude toward advertising has a positive effect on purchase intentions.
H4b: Attitude toward advertising has a positive effect on brand awareness.

Brand Awareness and Purchase Intentions
While brand awareness is known as individual perceptual and attitudinal brand associations so they can recognize dan recall the brand easily. Purchase intention can be described as the degree that an individual intends to buy a product (Park & John, 2012). intention. It means that the more aware consumers toward some brand, the highest the possibility they will purchase the product.

H5:
Brand awareness has a positive effect on purchase intentions.

The Moderator Role of Hedonic Personality
Individual who have a hedonic personality was more easily influenced by the persuasion of marketers. An individual with hedonic behavior tend to more emotionally in making purchases, they like to make spontaneous purchases. Hedonic behavior is often associated with impulsive buying, the degree to which an individual tendency is convincingly to make an unintended, immediate, and unreflective purchases (Sofi & Nika, 2017). The study of the moderator role of hedonic personality has been discussed by authors. Chang et al. (2011) Kuikka & Laukkanen (2012)

Methods
This study can be classified as explanatory research with purposive sampling as sampling techniques. This study was designed to focus on individuals who can be classified as social media active users with a minimum age of 18 years old. The While validity of the instrument was measured by confirmatory factor analysis. The reliability of the instrument in this study was measured with Cronbach's alpha. Table 2 shows that all item measured in this study is valid and reliable.

Model fit indices are very important measures in managing data because fit indices show
the suitability of the model with the data and explain the quality of the model under study.
Haribowo (2017) stated that average path coefficient (APC), average R-square (ARS), average variance inflation factor (AVIF) was commonly used to measure the model fitness.
The influence of advertising appeals on viral advertising, brand awareness, and purchase intention: The moderator role of hedonic personality by Wisnu Prajogo, Edi Purwanto

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While the value of APC and ARS that below 0.050 considered as good, the value of AVIF that below 5 considered as fitness. Based on Table 3, it can be concluded that the model of this study meets the criteria for the value of goodness of fit model, therefore the model can be processed into hypotheses testing stages. Hypothesis testing is processed using partial least square by looking at the test results on the estimated value and the P-value.    Note: **** means that the probability test value was lower than 0.001  (2019), Wu et al. (2018) that claimed that humorous appeals not only to entertain the consumers so they would perceive advertisement attitude positively but also the willingness to share advertising. Lance & Guy (2006) added that the most successful viral advertisements in the last decade are ads that contain humorous content.

Result and Discussion
The result of this study was consistent with previous studies conducted by Petrescu et al. (2016), Sung (2016) which states that informative advertising has a positive effect on attitude toward advertising and viral intentions. Primanto & Dharmmesta (2019) added that rather than humor content, the use of informative appeals appears to be more effective for a highrisk product because consumers tend to be more engaged, involved, and requires extensive thought when evaluating a high-risk product.
This study proved Kudeshia & Kumar (2017), Nuseir (2019), Severi et al. (2014), Vinh et al. (2019 research that concluded there was a positive and significant relationship between viral intentions and purchase intentions, also viral intentions and brand awareness. Petrescu et al. (2016) added that the more often people continue to share ads, it will enable a person to buy the product. These findings indices that consumer behavior will appear as buying interest when seeing a product with the advert being viral. He also added that viral advertising is considered a good strategy to increase brand awareness. The higher the number of people that shares an advertisement, the advert will become viral, and enhances the familiarity and memorability of the brand. This study also proved Lancendorfer et al. (2008) Lee & Shin (2010) that concluded that brand awareness can influence consumers to generate interest in buying, consumers will buy a product or brand that they have known before.
Finally, the moderation role of hedonic personality on the relationship between viral intentions and purchase intentions, also the relationship between viral intentions and brand awareness was proved partially. While the probability value of the moderation relationships between viral intentions and brand awareness was lower than 0.010 which means that H6b is accepted. The probability value of the moderation relationships between viral intentions and purchase intentions was higher than 0.010 (0.180) which means that H6a is rejected. Our respondents can be classified as a high hedonic individual. An individual with a high level of hedonic personality will tend to see the brand first. For them, a brand is about pleasure and joy (Pham et al., 2018). They only buy the brand if it can lift their social class. They are The influence of advertising appeals on viral advertising, brand awareness, and purchase intention: The moderator role of hedonic personality by Wisnu Prajogo, Edi Purwanto 28 purchasing a luxurious and exclusive experience (Kapferer et al., 2014). Therefore, the viral factor on hedonic consumers did not seem to correlate purchase intentions.

Conclusion and Suggestion
The result shows that advertising appeals (informative and humor) have a positive and significant impact on viral intention and attitude toward advertisement. Thus, the higher viral intention and the positive attitude toward advertisement will increase the possibility of purchase and the level of brand awareness. While hedonic personality was significantly proved moderates the relationship between viral intentions and brand awareness. The nature of respondents in this study who mainly are at the high level of hedonic personality make the moderation role of hedonic personality has no significant impact on the relationship of viral intentions on purchase intentions. Therefore, the viral factor on hedonic consumers did not seem to correlate purchase intentions. Future research should consider another moderator factor such as age, gender, and others that may have an impact on purchase and viral intention.