No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness
Studies on digital advertising effects claim that the primary purposes of online ads are persuasive : They seek to change vote choice or voters’ attitudes toward candidates. But recent scholarship has noted that social media’s unique affordances encourage electoral campaigns to use them in specific...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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SAGE Publishing
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Social Media + Society |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251316117 |
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| _version_ | 1832539927755096064 |
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| author | Bridget Barrett Shannon C. McGregor |
| author_facet | Bridget Barrett Shannon C. McGregor |
| author_sort | Bridget Barrett |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Studies on digital advertising effects claim that the primary purposes of online ads are persuasive : They seek to change vote choice or voters’ attitudes toward candidates. But recent scholarship has noted that social media’s unique affordances encourage electoral campaigns to use them in specific ways, such as using Facebook’s ads for email list-building. We conceptualize such strategic campaign goals as instrumental purposes of advertisements. We develop novel measures to test these instrumental effects. In an online survey experiment using Facebook ads from the 2020 Biden and Trump campaigns, we test our theory with list-building, fundraising, and persuasion ads. In a factor analysis, we find that instrumental and persuasive effects are related, but distinct, aspects of candidate support. We also test the effects of these ads on persuasive and instrumental outcomes. Our control treatment was an ad for a can of Progresso soup. We found no main persuasive or instrumental effects of any advertisement type. These ads performed no better than soup. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-c7f201efd84b426187d7630f1ad8a158 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2056-3051 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | SAGE Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Social Media + Society |
| spelling | doaj-art-c7f201efd84b426187d7630f1ad8a1582025-02-05T08:03:27ZengSAGE PublishingSocial Media + Society2056-30512025-02-011110.1177/20563051251316117No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of EffectivenessBridget Barrett0Shannon C. McGregor1University of Colorado Boulder, USAThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USAStudies on digital advertising effects claim that the primary purposes of online ads are persuasive : They seek to change vote choice or voters’ attitudes toward candidates. But recent scholarship has noted that social media’s unique affordances encourage electoral campaigns to use them in specific ways, such as using Facebook’s ads for email list-building. We conceptualize such strategic campaign goals as instrumental purposes of advertisements. We develop novel measures to test these instrumental effects. In an online survey experiment using Facebook ads from the 2020 Biden and Trump campaigns, we test our theory with list-building, fundraising, and persuasion ads. In a factor analysis, we find that instrumental and persuasive effects are related, but distinct, aspects of candidate support. We also test the effects of these ads on persuasive and instrumental outcomes. Our control treatment was an ad for a can of Progresso soup. We found no main persuasive or instrumental effects of any advertisement type. These ads performed no better than soup.https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251316117 |
| spellingShingle | Bridget Barrett Shannon C. McGregor No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness Social Media + Society |
| title | No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness |
| title_full | No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness |
| title_fullStr | No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness |
| title_full_unstemmed | No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness |
| title_short | No Better Than Soup? Comparing Null Experimental Effects of Political Facebook Ads Across Persuasive and Instrumental Measures of Effectiveness |
| title_sort | no better than soup comparing null experimental effects of political facebook ads across persuasive and instrumental measures of effectiveness |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051251316117 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT bridgetbarrett nobetterthansoupcomparingnullexperimentaleffectsofpoliticalfacebookadsacrosspersuasiveandinstrumentalmeasuresofeffectiveness AT shannoncmcgregor nobetterthansoupcomparingnullexperimentaleffectsofpoliticalfacebookadsacrosspersuasiveandinstrumentalmeasuresofeffectiveness |