Product Fit Uncertainty and Interplay between Traditional Advertising and Social Media Marketing

Abstract

Although brands have widely adopted multiple marketing media, our understanding of how to effectively coordinate traditional advertising and social media marketing to improve business outcomes is still limited. This paper examines the role of product fit uncertainty in determining how the two media and their interaction affect product sales differently in the context of the motion picture industry. We first find that traditional advertising is more effective for products with a lower level of fit uncertainty, while social media marketing benefits products with a higher level of fit uncertainty more. More importantly, these two media are more likely to substitute each other for low fit uncertainty products and complement each other for high fit uncertainty products. To further provide practical implications on tailoring social media content, we show that marketers’ social media posts featuring experience attributes have a larger effect on the sales of high fit uncertainty products, while social media posts featuring search attributes benefit low fit uncertainty product more. This study sheds lights on how firms can align their multichannel marketing strategy with product characteristics and effectively communicate the relevant product information with customers to enhance sales.

Keywords: product fit uncertainty, social media marketing, media interplay, substitution, complementarity, motion picture industry