Consumer Involvement in In-Feed Advertising: Implications for Chinese Cross-Border SMEs from a Comparative Analysis of WeChat and Zalo Users in China and Vietnam

Abstract

With the global proliferation of mobile instant messaging (MIM) apps, in-feed advertising has become a core marketing channel in emerging Asian markets. This study compares the factors influencing consumer involvement in in-feed advertising via WeChat (China) and Zalo (Vietnam), drawing on data from 873 respondents (444 Chinese, 429 Vietnamese). The empirical results show that consumer attitude serves as a critical mediating variable for involvement in both markets, while trust in e-vendors exhibits no predictive power across the two samples. However, there are some key differences between the two countries: social influence, self-presentation, and trust in the app positively drive Chinese users’ attitudes, whereas Vietnamese users’ attitudes are shaped solely by advertising informativeness and entertainment. Through this empirical study, this paper hopes to remind Chinese SMEs to recognize the differences and to provide insights for Chinese SMEs entering Vietnam’s cross-border e-commerce market.