The Effect of Instagram Advertising on the Advertisements Acceptance of Sports Customers during the COVID-19

Purpose: Consumer attitude towards advertising is one of the effective indicators of advertising effectiveness; the consumer’s cognitive ability towards advertising appears in their thoughts and feelings and consequently will affect their acceptance of advertising. The present study investigated the impact of Instagram advertising on the advertisement’s acceptance in the Covid-19 pandemic course in sports clubs’ customers.Methodology: The research method is descriptive correlation and survey in data collection. A total of 273 customers of sports clubs completed the following questionnaires: a combination of questionnaires for Instagram advertising, Taylor Todd’s Attitude to advertising questionnaire (2002), and the Merisavo advertisements acceptance questionnaire (2007). Structural equation modeling based on the partial least squares was used to analyze the data.Findings: The results showed that the modified model had a good fit (GOF=0.717). We indicated that Instagram advertising and its components (Entertainment, Interaction, new and Up-to-date, and Usefulness) positively and significantly affect customers’ attitudes and acceptance of advertisement. Also, the attitude towards advertising as a mediating variable significantly affects advertisement acceptance (P=0.001).Originality: In this article, we examine the modeling of Instagram advertising in the sports industry using structural equation modeling (SEM).