SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND YOUNG CONSUMERS' BRAND PERCEPTION: A REVIEW OF EXISTING LITERATURE

Abstract

Young consumers now form their earliest and often most lasting impressions of brands not through television or print but through the scroll of a social media feed. This shift has pushed advertisers toward formats, personalization strategies, and influencer partnerships that behave very differently from the mass-media tools of the previous generation, and academic literature has only partially kept pace with the change. This paper brings together existing conceptual and empirical work to examine how social media advertising shapes brand perception among young consumers, with particular attention to platform context, message personalization, and influencer credibility. Using a narrative literature review method, published studies, theoretical models, and regional evidence from India's National Capital Region were read, compared, and organised into recurring themes rather than tested through new fieldwork. The review traces the theoretical grounding offered by the Elaboration Likelihood Model, brand equity theory, and advertising value models, before moving to more recent findings on cross-platform advertising formats, personalization, influencer-led content, and the particular sensitivities of Generation Z audiences in urban Indian markets such as Gurugram. The findings suggest that young consumers process social media advertising through a blend of rational evaluation and social trust, that perceived authenticity now matters as much as message content, and that platform choice materially changes how an advertisement is received. The paper closes by identifying gaps that future empirical work, particularly mixed-methods studies set in fast-growing digital markets, could usefully address.