EXPLORING GENDER DIVERSITY IN MOBILE ADVERTISEMENT ENGAGEMENT: A QUALITATIVE APPROACH

Abstract

Mobile phone is a medium of promotion that people carry with them every time. The
study aims to investigate the concept of customer engagement towards mobile advertising and
the effect of visual content, source appearance, and self-influencer congruence in the COVID
19 lockdown context. Four in-depth focus group sessions were conducted, containing
respondents from different Pakistan areas, and data was analyzed using thematic analysis
through NVIVO. The study recommends that source appearance and self-influencer
congruence impact customer engagement, while the visuals animations and graphics in the ads
highly impacts their engagement behavior. The customers have free time and prefer to get
information about the product during the pandemic period. However, these customers engage
when the source is attractive and has a huge fan following. The lousy source in mobile
advertisements intensifies the customers' irritation in the uncertain situation, and they evade it.
The findings using social role theory illustrate that the study's model is valid and suggests
gender differences play a significant role in engagement strength which is unique and peculiar.
The males engaged with the ads based on the attractive source appearance of the influencer,
while the females were attracted to the ads based on the congruence between the influencer and
the advertised products. The implications of the study allow for to diversification of gender
roles while engaging with the mobile ads in the context of COVID-19 lockdown uncertainty.