An investigation on the influence of YouTube advertising on the purchase intention of nutritional drinks during COVID pandemic

In the era of social media, YouTube platform is substantially used by marketers and consumers for their preferred needs. Inter alia, hedonic motivation and persuasiveness of consumers and advertisements respectively have been probed to explain the purchase intention. Ducoffe's web advertising model was employed, and a cross-sectional design was administered to collect data from 517 YouTube users in India. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. The results indicate that credibility and entertainment are the two major factors that lead to persuasiveness and befit the hedonic needs of the consumers during COVID pandemic which finally results in consumers' purchase intention. This research signifies that the advertisements played a significant role in luring the consumers towards nutritional drinks, during ordinary situations. Further, it was empirically proved that the frequency of viewing YouTube significantly impacts hedonic motivation and persuasiveness and ultimately results in the purchase intention of nutritional drinks.