Interacting with Social Media Ads: Effects of Carousel Advertising and Message Type on Health Outcomes

Carousel advertisements (ads) on social media provide consumers with the opportunity to scroll left and right when reading an ad’s content. Such an interactive advertising format has great potential to elevate consumers’ interactive and engagement experience with ads, which might be further linked with increased advertising effectiveness. The present study sets out to explore the efficacy of carousel advertising for communicating public health issues by considering both media-specific (i.e., noncarousel versus carousel) and message-specific (i.e., statistics versus narrative) characteristics. Through two experiments, we found reading carousel ads increased participants’ control perception, which was positively associated with their message engagement and then favorable ad-related outcomes. Yet, contrary to predictions, the narrative-based carousel ad was found to be no more interactive or engaging than the statistics-based one in affecting perceptual and attitudinal outcomes. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings for interactive advertising research.