Friends, Fans, and Followers: Do Ads Work on Social Networks? How Gender and Age Shape Receptivity
David G. Taylor
Sacred Heart University
Jeffrey E. Lewin and David Strutton
University of North Texas
INTRODUCTIONTo generate brand awareness for its Old Spice fragrance line, Procter & Gamble invited Facebook users to “Turn Up Your Man Smell” by becoming “fans” of its products. Within a week, the brand’s fan page had more than 120,000 new fans (Morrisey, 2009). Not content merely to draw fans to its Facebook page, the Red Robin restaurant chain enlisted Facebook users as “brand ambassadors,”...