Study: brand presence and disclosures in native advertisements

TO DISGUISE, OR DISCLOSE? The influence of disclosure recognition and brand presence

on readers’ responses towards native advertisements

in online news media.

Simone Krouwer, Karolien Poels & Steve Paulussen

University of Antwerp

[email protected]

Twitter: @SimoneKrouwer

Suffers from “Banner Blindness”

AN AVERAGE ONLINE NEWS READER…

Doesn’t pay

anything for

online news

(BE: 88%)

Uses an

AD blocker

(BE: 23%)

Non-disruptive advertising

Look and feel of news article

Federal Trade Commission:

“A disclosure may be necessary

to prevent deception”

NATIVE ADVERTISING

Simone Krouwer – University of Antwerp

STATE OF THE ART: DISCLOSURES Sponsored

by science

Can increase ad recognition (conceptual PK)

(e.g. Van Reijmersdal, 2016)

Can subsequently lead to negative attitudinal responses

Attitudinal PK Skeptical processing

(Boerman et al., 2012)

Can lower evaluations of the advertisement and advertiser

Decrease in credibility (Wojdynski, 2015)

No studies yet on impact on news website


Persuasion Knowledge:

Conceptual PK Ad recognition

Attitudinal PK Critial / skeptical processing

WE DON’T WANT TO BE MANIPULATED…

(e.g. Boerman, 2014)

HOWEVER…

Readers often don’t recognize disclosures! (less dan 25%)

Highest disclosure recognition when they are middle-positioned

(Wojdynski, 2015)

Disclosure (and subsequently ad) recognition does not always lead to

negative evaluations of the ad and context…

(E.g. Becker-Olsen, 2003; Carr and Hayes, 2014)

Other factors may play a moderating role


WHAT ABOUT THE CONTENT?

Case study: “Negative evaluation of native ad cannot be explained by disclosure”.

(Carlson, 2015)


BRAND PRESENCE

High brand presence can increase suspicion

Information Utility & Inferences of Manipulative Intent

Increase in value for reader =

Advertisement mainly benefits the advertiser =

(e.g. Campbell, 1995; Sweetser, 2016)

High brand presence less benefits lower attitude

towards the ad. (e.g. Wentzel, Tomczak, & Herrmann,2010)

Negative advertising experiences may spill-over on the

context. (Yang and Oliver, 2004; Ha and Litman; 1997)


EXPECTATIONS

Disclosure position and recognition

H: A middle-positioned disclosure will be more often recognized than a top-

positoned disclosure

RQ: Will a top-positioned disclosure combined with a middle-positioned

disclosure significantly increase disclosure recognition?

H: Both disclosure recognition and high brand presence will:

Increase conceptual PK

Increase attitudinal PK

Decrease attitude towards the ad and advertiser,

mediated by increased attitudinal PK

Negatively influence news website credibility,

mediated by increased attitudinal PK

H: Brand presence will moderate the effects of disclosure recognition:

High brand presence will increase the negative effects.Simone Krouwer – University of Antwerp

Disclosure position

ConceptualPK

Attitudinal PK

AadAbNews website

credibility

High Low

Brand presence

Disclosurerecognition

Involvement

News website experience

3 X 2 EXPERIMENT

Top Middle Top + Middle


+

++

+

- - -

THREE DISCLOSURE CONDITIONS

2 BRAND PRESENCE CONDITIONS

46,9% Male

53,1% Female

290 ONLINE NEWS READERS

Average age:

42 years

Min. age = 18

Max. age = 66

73%Visits more than

once a week the

news website

Binary Logistic Regression

ANCOVA analysis Preacher & Hayes

mediation analysis


DISCLOSURE RECOGNITION

Middle - positioned disclosure

sig. more often recognized

(22.8% VS 11.2%)

X No added value of top- and

middle-positioned disclosure

(26.7% VS 22.8%)

X Attitudinal PK

X Aad

Conceptual PKF(1, 285) = 8.81, p = .004)

Disclosure recognition

X Ab

X News website


+

+

-

-

-

BRAND PRESENCE

X Conceptual PK

Attitudinal PK(F(1, 283) = 139.24, p < .001)

High Low

Brand presence

News website(B = -.36, SE = .08; 95%

CI = -.543 to -.200).

Ab(B = -.23, SE = .08; 95%

CI = -.397 – -.079).

Aad(B = -.69, SE = .12; 95%

CI = -.960 to -.472).


• All effects controlled for news website experience and involvement• News website, Ab and Aad mediated by attitudinal PK

-

-

-

+

+


DISCLOSURE RECOGNITION BRAND PRESENCE

CONCLUSION

Disclose! But disguise the brand…

1. No influence of disclosures on readers’ attitudinal PK & evaluations…

VS other studies? Different disclosures, different contexts…

2. Influence of brand presence on all evaluations, mediated by attitudinal PK

Important to focus more on brand presence, and other content factors?

Focus more on attitudinal parts of PK!

3. Especially important for news media’s credibility


LIMITATIONS & FUTURE RESEARCH

Limitations

Self-reported disclosure recognition

Existing, well-known brand

Only short-term effects for news media

Future research

Other content characteristics, e.g. two-sided information (Eisend, 2007)

Different types of brands (also fictive brands)

Long-term effects for advertisers and news media

More direct measurements of attitudes and behavior


THANKS!

ANY QUESTIONS?

Simone Krouwer, Karolien Poels & Steve Paulussen

University of Antwerp

[email protected]

@SimoneKrouwer

BACK-UP


DISCLOSURE RECOGNITION BRAND PRESENCE

X There was no significant

influence on conceptual PK

A disclosure positioned at the middle

of a page was more often recognized

This disclosure recognition increased

Conceptual PK

X Disclosure recognition did not

increase attitudinal PK

High brand presence did

increase attitudinal PK

X Disclosure recognition did not

decrease Aad, Ab & evaluation of the

news website

Which subsequently sig. decreased

Aad, Ab & News website evaluation


2. DISCLOSURE POSITION AND RECOGNITION

Top-positioned

disclosure

Middle-positioned

disclosire

Top-and-midle

positioned

disclosure

Yes 11,1% 22,8% 26,7%

No 88,9% 77,2% 73,3%

The text contained the label: “aangeboden door Samsung”.

Have you seen this label?

BRAND PRESENCE

High Low Significantie

Conceptual PK 4.49 4.23 p = .120.

Attitudinal PK 4.40* 3.28* p < .001.

Aad 5.08* 4.54* p < .001.

Ab 4.26* 4.41* p = .043.

News website 4.28* 4.70* p = .001.

* = significantly different

DISCLOSURE RECOGNITION

Yes No Significantie

Conceptual PK 4.75* 4.27* p = .004

Attitudinal PK 3.95 3.96 p = .960

Aad 4.63 4.82 p = .971

Ab 4.43 4.31 p = .362

News website 4.40 4.50 p = .196

* = significantly different

5 EXPLAINING THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF HIGH BRAND PRESENCE

Degree to which readers felt manipulated by the text

1 = Not al all, 4 = neutral, 7 = Very strong

In low brand prominence

conditions

3.28 4.40In high brand prominence

conditions

Study: brand presence and disclosures in native advertisements

Science

Transcript of Study: brand presence and disclosures in native advertisements