Impacts of duo-regional generic advertising of social media on consumer preference

Generic advertising is commonly used to market agricultural products by groups of producers to increase the overall demand. With the popularity of social media, a cheaper and convenient alternative platform has been created for generic advertising. Despite social media advertising gaining success in some areas, little is known about whether this success can be duplicated to agricultural products. Questions also remain about potential benefits to producers when multiple organizations conduct generic advertising for the same or similar products. This study investigates the own and spillover effect of duo-regional generic advertising of two grower organizations' (Florida and California) social media on consumer preference for fresh produce with different origins. Overall, a significant increase in willingness-to-pay is found for the products being promoted by social media, indicating a strong own effect of duo-regional generic advertising. A substantial spillover effect of generic advertising is also found for social media conducted by California and Florida on domestic and imported products, correspondingly. Mexico receives a free-rider benefit from the generic advertising provided by Florida social media. The results shed light on the industries that try to promote food products using social media and inform policy decisions on how to utilize generic advertising better to expand the market. [EconLit Citations: D10, D12].