Avoidance of Social Media Advertising: A Latent Profile Analysis

Some individuals actively avoid social media advertising, for instance by scrolling over ads or ignoring ads. Therefore, this research aims to identify distinct profiles of individuals avoiding social media advertising. We build upon the advertising avoidance model and take a person-centered approach, using latent profile analysis to identify different profiles of individuals, who avoid social media advertising. We identified three distinct profiles of individuals, differing in their perception and their level of avoidance: unconcerned users, playful avoiding users and goal-oriented users. We contribute by characterizing individuals avoiding SMA, so that companies can use these profiles to derive different strategies how to deal with different profiles of individuals.