The present study examines the uses of variation strategies in social media advertising. Social media advertising may vary in place in that it runs on different platforms and vary in content in that it features different ad executions. Drawing upon psychological reactance theory and the repetition-variation literature, this study proposes that variation strategies in platform or content reduce perceived ad intrusiveness due to the addition of new information or aesthetic values. As a result, the decrease in perceived ad intrusiveness leads to enhanced ad effectiveness. Moreover, this study investigates whether the superimposition of platform variation and content variation further elevates ad effectiveness through reducing perceived ad intrusiveness compared to using variation in only one aspect. This experimental study employed a 2 (repetitive ads vs. varied ads) by 2 (single platform vs. multiple platforms) between-subject factorial design. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram were selected as the platforms to present stimulus ads. Three real ads from the social media pages of a British coffee shop brand Caffé Nero were used to create stimuli. Social media users residing in the United States were recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk and a total of 1,306 participants completed the study.The findings indicate that platform variation has a conditional indirect effect on brand attitude and purchase intention through perceived ad intrusiveness, and this effect is moderated by content strategy. Specifically, when repetitive ads are used, the use of multiple platforms reduces perceived ad intrusiveness, resulting in more favorable brand attitude and greater purchase intention as opposed to the use of a single platform. In contrast, when varied ads are used, no significant differences are found in the outcome variables between single platform and multiple platforms. In other words, the superimposition of variations in both platform and content does not lead to the best outcomes, but no variation in either platform or content is rated as most intrusive, eliciting the least favorable brand attitude and the lowest purchase intention among the four conditions. The present study makes theoretical contributions to the body of knowledge by revealing the underlying mechanism and boundary conditions of the advantage of cross-platform advertising over single-platform advertising. It also offers actionable insights for media planners, IMC strategies, and social media advertisers as follows: 1) In terms of brand attitude and purchase intention, multiple platforms outperform single platform in the social media context only when paired with repetitive ads; 2) For single-platform campaigns in social media, it is better to use varied ads than repetitive ads; 3) For multiple-platform campaigns in social media, repetitive ads are as effective as varied ads. In summary, utilizing variation strategies, either in platform or content, improves ad effectiveness in social media.
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