The Effect of Sponsorship disclosures and Brand Familiarity in Blogs

THE EFFECT OF SPONSORSHIP

DISCLOSURES AND BRAND

FAMILIARITY IN BLOGS

Graduate School of Communication, University of Amsterdam

Master Persuasive Communication (MSc)

Submitted by Alice Lamy on the 30th of June 2017 Student number: 11105879

Abstract

This study examines the effects of sponsorship disclosures in blog posts on consumers’ brand attitude, ad attitude and click intentions and how these relationships are moderated by brand familiarity. Brand familiarity, described by the direct and indirect experiences a consumer has had with a brand, implies that consumers will often like or more positively evaluate a brand they are familiar to, as opposed to an unknown brand. Following previous research, the persuasion knowledge model and resistance theories have been used to investigate the underlying effects of disclosures. To test the effect of disclosures on brand attitude, ad attitude, and click intentions and whether brand familiarity was acting as a moderator in these relationships, an online experiment was conducted (N = 167) with four different blog posts for each condition (familiar brand and disclosure, familiar brand and no disclosure, unfamiliar brand and disclosure,

unfamiliar brand and no disclosure). It was found that disclosures did not have any direct effect. However, as expected, there was an interaction effect of disclosures and brand familiarity on click intentions, where consumers communicated more positive click intentions when exposed to a familiar brand. These findings give an understanding of how brand familiarity impacts

persuasion in native advertising, and underline the importance of using disclosures in sponsored content.

Sponsored content, also referred to as native advertising, is an advertising practice that incorporates brands into the content of different media platforms such as television, radio or the Internet (Smink, 2014). This phenomenon differs from more traditional advertising practices, as it tries to reach the consumers in an unobtrusive way by taking the same form as a publisher’s original content in order to positively influence the perception of a brand (Sonderman & Tran, 2013).

This marketing strategy has flourished across the Internet, and especiallywithin consumer-generated media platforms such as blogs, micro blogging sites (e.g., Twitter) or social

networking sites like Facebook and Instagram (Liu, Chou & Liao, 2014). Consumer generated media refers to online sources of information created and shared by consumers who intendto inform each other on different subjects such as products, brands and services (Liu et al., 2014). The phenomenon of online sponsored content is seen as the “future of advertising” (Boerman, van Reijmersdal & Neijens, 2012) as it is an effective form of advertising and an alternative to pop-up ads or banners, often seen as irritating and disruptive of users’ flow (Goldsmith & Lafferty, 2002). However, because sponsored content is integrated to non-commercial media content, the persuasive intent of the message is not conspicuous and it becomes hard for consumers to distinguish what is commercial content from what is not (Boerman et al., 2012).

The present study will focus on sponsored content in blogs. Blogs are an attractive

opportunity for marketers to trigger users’ interest for a specific brand (Mutum & Wang, 2012) and represent 65% of online content marketing tactics (Smith, 2016). Moreover, blogs can be visited by millions of users every day, thus allowing for a very large reach (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016).

Native advertising has recently been criticised by governments, educators, audiences, consumer organisations and researchers for its unethical persuasive nature (van Reijmersdal, Tutaj & Boerman, 2013). Indeed, sponsored blog posts blur the lines between bloggers’ legitimate opinions and commercial posts (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016) and influence peoples’ attitude towards the brand and the media outlet (Wu et al., 2016). Regulations have therefore been implemented in several countries in order to raise awareness toInternet users when exposed to sponsored content (Smink, 2014). In fact, while the majority of consumers tend to avoid and disbelieve what is said in traditional ads, most of them are however not able to identify correctly a native advertising piece when exposed to it (Wu et al., 2016), and are unable or too distracted to use cognitive resources to process the embedded ads (Cain, 2011). Native advertising is therefore deceptive and misleading for consumers (Cain, 2011), underlining the importance of using sponsorship disclosures to actively create awareness of persuasive attempts and give consumers the ability to distinguish editorial content from commercial content (Boerman et al., 2012).

Consequently, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) established regulations requiring bloggers to disclose cash or in-kind payments they received for discussing or reviewing a specific product or brand in their blog (Paul, 2011).

Previous studies have demonstrated that sponsorship disclosures activate persuasion knowledge (PK) (Boerman et al., 2012; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). PK empowers people and allows them to use coping strategies when confronted to persuasion attempts and to develop, over time,a critical attitude towards advertising (Boerman et al., 2012). It has been showed that the activation of PK through disclosures - as opposed to the absence of disclosures - leads consumers to more negative attitudes towards the brand and the blog post, and has a negative impact on purchasing

intentions (Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015; Boerman et al., 2012; Hwang & Jeong, 2015; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016).

This study will focus on the effect of sponsorship disclosures on brand measures and behavioural intentions while extending previous research on this subject. First of all, instead of measuring purchase intentions as in previous studies on sponsored blog posts, the current study will examine consumers’ click intention. Similarly to purchase intentions, click intentions are a dimension of consumers’ reactions towards online sponsored content, whereby creating positive attitude towards sponsored ads will more likely lead to high click intentions (Gauzente, 2010). Second, the mere exposure effect defined by the repeated exposure to a brand or a product leading to brand familiarity and in turn to liking (Hekkert, Thurgood & Whitfield, 2013) is said to enhance the persuasive power of a message (Cain, 2011). Indeed it has been shown that brand familiarity, described by the experiences consumers have had directly and indirectly with a brand, has a positive influence on consumers’ attitudes and evaluations of sponsored content. A study by Wei, Fischer and Main (2008) on the effect of disclosures during a radio show indicated that brand familiarity played a positive role on consumers’ evaluation of the advertised brand. Another study focussing on online marketing found that the negative impact of covert marketing (undisclosed marketing strategies) was lower when advertising came from well-known

companies (as opposed to new companies) (Milne, Rohm & Bahl, 2009). Therefore, it has been demonstrated that brand familiarity positively impacts consumers’ reactions towards sponsored content, which could potentially balance sponsorship disclosures’ effects. Yet, there is still a lack of research on the effect of disclosures and brand familiarity in sponsored blog posts.

On the whole, the aim of this study is first to examine the impact of disclosures on brand attitude, as well as attitude towards the ad and click intention and, secondly, to

investigate the moderating effect of brand familiarity in these relationships. Findings from this study will provide both theoretical and practical implications, as it will give insights on the impact of sponsorship disclosures in blogs by focussing on the influence of brand familiarity on consumers’ processing of native advertising.

Theoretical Framework

The effect of sponsorship disclosures as it applies to blog posts has not yet been studied extensively. Some studies have nevertheless found that disclosures lead to less trust in the blogger (Hwang & Jeong, 2015) and influence negative attitudes towards the blog (Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015) as well as towards the sponsored message (Hwang & Jeong, 2015). Previous studies have also resulted in contradictory results: disclosures have shown to have negative effects on brand attitude and purchase intention in some cases (Campbell, Mohr, & Verlegh, 2012; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016), whereas Colliander and Erlandsson (2015) found positive effects on the same variables. These conflicting results are most likely caused by the use of different types of disclosures, the positioning of disclosure in the sponsored content, as well as the different products and brands featured in the blog post (Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015; Hwang & Jeong, 2015; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). Moreover, they show how sponsorship disclosures

influence consumers differently, based on the activation of persuasion knowledge. The following chapter will give an overview of the scientific literature on disclosures in different media, and present the hypotheses of this study.

Effect of Sponsorship Disclosures on Ad Attitude, Brand Attitude and Click Intention

Marketers use native advertising to avoid skepticism and resistance from consumers towards the persuasive effort by occulting the source of the advertising message (Campbell et al., 2012). In the blogosphere, bloggers are extensively solicited to positively discuss products and brands in exchange for monetary or material

compensation (Lu, Chang & Chang, 2014). Because brand placements have the ability to persuade in an unobtrusive manner and are deceptive for consumers (Boerman et al., 2012), sponsorship disclosures are included in native ads to inform audiences that they are exposed to persuasive content.

It has been showed that displaying a disclosure in sponsored blog posts, as opposed to not displaying a disclosure, activates PK, allowing consumers to respond to persuasive messages (Boerman et al., 2012; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). The Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM) (Friedstad & Wright, 1994) establishes that consumers develop personal knowledge on persuasion attempts and marketing strategies over time that allows for the development of coping tactics, believed to be effective responses towards persuasive attempts. Because consumers tend to be willing to keep their freedom of choice and avoid manipulation by resisting recognised persuasion attempts (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016; Wei et al., 2008), the activation of PK makes advertising messages and sales strategies less effective. Indeed, reactance theories have stated that warning consumers of persuasive intents generates audiences’ resistance (Friedstad & Wright, 1994). Sponsorship disclosures in sponsored blogs therefore negatively influence blog readers’ attitudes (Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015).

Furthermore, several studies on disclosures have shown that persuasion knowledge is much more activated among people who were exposed to a disclosure, compared to people who were not (Boerman et al., 2012; Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015; Hwang & Jeong, 2016; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016; Wei et al., 2008). On top of activating PK, disclosures also lead to higher levels of cognitive (counter-arguing) and affective (moods and feelings) resistance strategies. Hence, when consumers are given cues to use

resistance strategies (such as disclosures); they become able to refute persuasive messages in an effective way (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016).

The hierarchy of effects model (Lavidge & Steiner, 1961) identifies three dimensions in consumers’ behaviour: cognitive, affective and conative. These three dimensions correspond to consumers’ awareness/understanding, interest/liking, and purchase intention/buying of a brand or product, respectively (Balasubramanian, Karrh, & Patwardhan, 2006). Consequently, in this study, a focus will be placed on attitude towards the ad, attitude towards the brand, and click intention. These elements

correspond to the different consumers’ mental stages of the hierarchy of effects model (Lavidge & Steiner, 1961), which are the main drivers in marketing and advertising research (Hwang & Jeong, 2015). However, the cognitive component will not be investigated here, as it was tested and confirmed by aforementioned studies that consumers do become aware of persuasion attempts when exposed to disclosures, by activating PK.

Consumers’ attitude towards the ad has been defined as a “predisposition to respond in a favourable or unfavourable manner to a particular advertising stimulus […]” (Goldsmith & Lafferty, 2002). Machleit and Wilson (1988) emphasize the fact that ad

attitude has both affective and cognitive dimensions, which implies that knowledge and previous experiences, as well as feelings and emotions, influence consumers’ evaluation of an ad. Ad attitude therefore indicates the extent to which an advert is liked, the extent to which it is perceived to be good, as well as favorability towards the message (Hwang & Jeong, 2016).

So far, very few studies have explored the effect of blog disclosures on ad attitude. Hwang and Jeong (2016) found that sponsorship disclosures in blog posts negatively affect ad attitude. More precisely, more negative ad attitude was observed in the “simple” disclosure condition as opposed to not showing any disclosure (the “simple” disclosure indicating that a brand paid to appear in the blog). However, no significant results were found between the “honest opinions” disclosure and the absence of a disclosure.

Another study conducted by Lu et al. (2014) did not show any significant difference in ad attitude on sponsorship disclosures indicating whether the blogger received direct or indirect monetary compensation.

These inconclusive results might be caused by the choice of disclosures used in both studies. Indeed, disclosing the blogger’s honest opinions or monetary compensation did not seem to effectively activate PK, as no significant results were found on ad attitude. However, disclosing that a brand paid to appear in a blog post seemed to alter ad attitude (Hwang & Jeong, 2016) and thus to activate PK. As mentioned above, the PKM poses that once consumers identify the persuasive goal of a message, they will be more inclined to depreciate the sponsored message, explaining these findings. Therefore, sponsorship disclosures indicating that a brand has paid to appear in a blog negatively influence

consumers’ processing of sponsored content and have a negative impact on ad attitude (here the sponsored blog article).

H1a: When exposed to a sponsorship disclosure in a blog post, consumers will express more negative attitudes towards the ad than when there is no disclosure.

Brand attitude refers to the extent to which consumers like a brand and how positively they will react towards it (Hwang & Jeong, 2016). Prior studies on the effect of sponsorship disclosures on brand attitude in different media and contexts (e.g., radio shows, television shows and blogs) have found a negative effect of disclosures on

consumers’ attitudes towards the brand (Boerman et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2013; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016, Wei et al., 2008), while others did not find any significant results (Hwang & Jeong, 2016) Negative brand responses are due to consumers’ resistance towards content of persuasive nature (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016), because the majority of consumers are scepticaltowards advertising (Boerman et al., 2012). Hence, when sponsorship disclosures are added to sponsored content, it serves as an extra cue for consumers to depreciate the brand (Boerman et al., 2012).

However, the negative effects of disclosures on brand attitude were only observed under specific conditions and through the activation of PK. In fact, no direct effect of

disclosures were found on brand attitude. Boerman et al. (2012) found that only longer disclosures placed in a TV show (6 seconds versus 3 seconds) led to negative brand attitudes. Still in the context of television shows, only disclosures placed after exposure to a brand placement (as opposed to pre-exposure) resulted in lower levels of brand

attitude (Campbell et al., 2012). A study by van Reijmersdal et al. (2016) on disclosures in sponsored blog posts showed that only consumers expressing higher levels of cognitive and affective resistance towards advertising evaluated the brand more negatively.

Furthermore, Wei et al. (2008), found a significant effect of disclosures on brand attitude in a radio show, but only according to the consumers’ perceived appropriateness of this type of covert marketing.

These results underline that disclosures have a negative effect on brand attitude but only under certain conditions (type, timing, placement), and only through the indirect effect of PK. Hence, as disclosures activate consumers’ PK, we can expect that disclosures have a negative effect on brand attitude in sponsored blog posts. Thus, hypothesis 1b states that:

H1b: When exposed to a sponsorship disclosure in a blog post, consumers will express more negative attitudes towards the brand than when there is no

disclosure.

The literature on disclosures have mainly focussed on purchase intentions, which are a component of behavioural intentions, where disclosures negatively affect

consumers’ intention to purchase the brand or product advertised in a sponsored content (Liljander, Gummerus, & Söderlund, 2015; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). However, no other dimensions of behavioural intentions have been investigated in the context of sponsored blogs. A study by Mao and Zhang (2015) on ad click intentions on social media platforms, showed that perceived informative nature of the product, as well as perceived entertainment of the ad, positively influenceclick intention. As most blogs are

dedicated to sharing information on purchases, products and brand experiences with online communities (Lu et al., 2014), they are usually written in an entertaining fashion to capture blog readers’ attention and interact directly with the blogger (Colliander & Erlandsson, 2013). Therefore, blogs are entertaining for audiences and encourage consumers to engage with the products or brands discussed. However, previous studies showed that disclosures negatively influence consumers’ behavioural intentions towards the advertised product. Consequently, we can suppose that disclosures will also dissuade consumers from clicking on the sponsored link. We assume that:

H1c: When exposed to a sponsorship disclosure in a blog post, consumers will express more negative click intentions than when there is no disclosure.

Moderating Effect of Brand Familiarity

Brand familiarity has been considered a possible moderator in several studies on sponsorship disclosures on television and radio (Smink, 2014; Wei et al., 2008). Brand familiarity is composed of the number of product-related experiences accumulated by consumers; these experiences go from exposures to advertisements, information search, interactions with salespersons, choice and decision making, and purchasing and product usage in different situations (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987). Furthermore, the mere exposure effect, which is the repeated exposure to a brand or product and leads to brand familiarity and liking, can enhance consumers’ persuasion (Cain, 2011). Mere exposure leads to higher attractiveness towards a brand (Hekkert et al., 2013) and consequently facilitates approaching and choosing a brand over competitors (Baker, 1999), making the

advertising message less threatening for consumers (Grimes & Kitchen, 2007).

Consumers’ accumulated experiences with brands over time leads to associations with them (Koll & Wallpach, 2013). Moreover, the hierarchy of effects model states that these brand associations lead to evaluation or behavioural responses, where knowledge of a brand will affect brand choice and purchase intentions (Koll & Wallpach, 2013). Furthermore, the more a consumer is familiar with a brand, the more likely will the consumer exhibit a response toward the brand’s marketing strategy (Koll & Wallpach, 2013).

However, when consumers have never been exposed to a brand and when there is no available memory of prior brand or product evaluation, there is a non-attitude towards the brand (Smink, 2014). Conversely, when a brand is familiar, more associations with the brand are available in memory (Smink, 2014) and consequently make the ad or sponsored content less threatening.

While brand familiarity did not have any moderating effect in the context of disclosures in a TV show (Smink, 2014), Wei et al. (2008), found out that in radio shows, in the presence of a disclosure, consumers evaluated the unfamiliar brand more

negatively compared to the familiar brand. However, when the sponsored content featured a familiar brand, consumers did not evaluate the brand differently when a disclosure was either present or absent. Thus, it seems that the negative effect of a disclosure is moderated by consumers’ brand familiarity.

Moreover, a study on online covert and overt marketing indicated that the negative impact of covert marketing is reduced when the marketing strategy comes from well-known companies (Milne et al., 2009).

So, when consumers are familiar with a brand, it is very likely that they will express more positive attitudes than towards the unfamiliar.

As mentioned earlier, mere exposure creates a sense of familiarity that makes the

advertising message less threatening to consumers, as they have already been exposed to a familiar brand several times and can process the information given in the message with greater ease (Grimes & Kitchen, 2007). On the other hand, when the brand is completely unfamiliar to consumers, the ad is the only information consumers can rely on to form an opinionand an attitude (Machleit & Wilson, 1988), as no other associations are available in memory.

In fact, when studying the effect of brand knowledge (a component of brand familiarity) and disclosures in blogs, Lu et al. (2014) found out that when consumers have high brand knowledge, the evaluation of the sponsored blog post will be more positive than when brand knowledge is low. Hence, when a brand discussed in a sponsored blog post is familiar to consumers, it is very likely that they will evaluate the blog post more positively than when a brand is unfamiliar.

Moreover, a familiar and well-known brand is usually a promise of high quality, and the brand name can have its own effect on online purchasing intentions: when the

expectations towards a brand are favourable, consumers will be more trustful towards the ad and will have higher intentions to click on the available link (Doong, Wang & Foxall, 2010).

As it was hypothesised earlier, sponsorship disclosures have a negative effect on attitudes and behavioural intentions. The question that now arises is how this negative impact can be moderated by brand familiarity. While the absence of attitude, experiences and

associations towards an unfamiliar brand are neutral and therefore leave space for the consumer to create positive or negative opinions, the activation of PK through disclosures can however take over consumers’ positive impressions of sponsored content.

High brand familiarity can moderate negative reactions since the evaluation of the ad and the brand will be based on existing knowledge and experiences. When consumers are exposed to a well-known brand, sponsorship disclosures should have a moderate or neutral impact on ad and brand attitude. Furthermore, when consumers are able to relate to specific ads on social media because they are familiar with the brand, this will affect positively the intention to click on the ad (Mao & Zhang, 2015).

As mentioned earlier, consumers are more likely to positively evaluate familiar brands due to the information on previous experiences, existing attitudes available in their memory and mere exposure effect. Even when persuasion knowledge and resistance strategies are activated, familiarity and all associations to a known brand will moderate positively the impact of disclosures on brand measures and behavioural intentions in a sponsored blog post. But because unfamiliar brands do not allow consumers to recall any associations, attitudes or exposures, the disclosure effect might be intensified and

negatively affect consumers’ evaluations, attitudes and intentions. The second hypothesis therefore states that:

H2: The impact of a sponsorship disclosure in a blog post on ad attitude, brand attitude and click intentions will be moderated by brand familiarity, such that the effect of a disclosure will be more negative for unfamiliar brands compared to familiar brands.

Method Research design and procedure

To test the hypotheses, a 2x2 between-subject online experiment was conducted, with presence of a disclosure vs. no disclosure as one factor, and familiar brand vs. unfamiliar brand as the second factor. Once participants gave their informed consent, they were confronted with one of the four conditions. The questionnaire consisted firstly of questions about familiarity towards the brand and attitude towards the brand prior exposure to the stimulus. Secondly, the respondents were confronted with the blog article featuring a cocktail recipe with one of the chosen brands. After reading the article, respondents answered questions about their level of attitude towards the brand, attitude towards the ad and click intentions. To finish, a short debriefing message was shown, explaining that both blog and article were fictitious and were written for the purpose of this study only. The online experiment was conducted in May 2017, in a time period of 8 days. A convenience and snowballing sample was used as respondents were recruited via Facebook, WhatsApp and emails. The survey was available in French and in English, where 47.3 % of respondents took the French survey and 52.7% took the English survey. The online experiment comprised four different experimental groups: respondents

assigned to a sponsored blog post featuring a familiar brand without the presence of a disclosure (n = 43), respondents assigned to a sponsored blog post featuring a familiar brand and a disclosure (n = 43), respondents assigned to a sponsored blog post featuring an unfamiliar brand without the presence of a disclosure (n = 41) and finally respondents assigned to a sponsored blog post featuring an unfamiliar brand and a disclosure (n = 40).

Sample

In total, 182 people filled the online questionnaire. After excluding the incomplete answers from the sample, 167 participants remained. Female participants represented 66.5% of the sample. Furthermore, 85.6% of the sample had a university degree

(bachelor, masters or PhD degree) and 12% of the sample obtained a high school degree. Participants’ age ranged from 17 to 80 years old (Mage = 31.4, SD = 13.4) where most participants were between 17 and 30 years old (74.9%). The sample used in this experiment represents a heterogeneous group of consumers coming from 25 different countries and representing different cultures. The most represented nationalities were French (29.9%), Canadian (22.2%), German (9.6%) and Dutch (7.2%).

Stimulus material

All participants were exposed to a sponsored blog post by a fictitious blogger talking about the preparation of an easy alcohol-free cocktail recipe. The recipe included either the sparkling water brands Perrier or Saratoga. These brands were chosen after

conducting a pre-test on brand familiarity and brand attitude amongst different product types. Respondents of the pre-test (N = 27) indicated higher levels of familiarity towards the brand Perrier (M = 6.36, SD = 1.21) than towards the brand Saratoga (M = 1.64, SD = 1.49), t (27) = 13.07, p = .000). Furthermore, the results showed a small difference in brand attitude between these two brands: attitude towards the brand Perrier was slightly higher (M = 5.40, SD = 1.37) than towards the brand Saratoga (M = 4.20, SD = 1.00), t (21) = 3.46, p = .002. This small mean difference indicates that the results of this experiment would not be compromised by prior very high or very low brand attitudes towards both brands. Hence, Perrier and Saratoga were used in the fictitious blog article.

These blog posts were manipulated in two ways: the no sponsorship disclosure conditions featured the regular blog post with the unfamiliar or familiar brand. In the sponsorship disclosure conditions, the disclosure was placed in the middle of the blog post

(Wojdynski & Evans 2014) and indicated “Perrier/Saratoga paid for this blog to persuade you” (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). The articles were advertising an alcohol-free cocktail recipe that placed the brand’s sparkling water as the main recipient. An emphasis was put on how sparkling water is a refreshing drink during hot summer days and how easy the recipe was. Furthermore, the fictitious blogger gave his own opinion about the drink and suggested that viewers visit the brands’ website for more recipes, by showing a link at the end of the article. Examples of the blog articles can be found the Appendix.

Measurements Dependent variables

Ad Attitude. Ad attitude was measured by asking the participants if their opinion about

the blog post was, on a semantic differential scale from 1 to 7: bad/good,

negative/positive, (based on Hwang & Jeong, 2015), and unfavorable/favorable, unenjoyable/enjoyable, not fond of/fond of, dislike very much/like very much, irritating/not irritating, poorly made/well made and insulting/not insulting, (based on Machleit & Wilson, 1988). The ad attitude score was the average of all nine items (Chronbach’s  = .920, M = 5.30, SD = 1.11).

Brand Attitude. To measure brand attitude, the participants were asked what they think of

the brand Perrier/Saratoga after the exposure to the sponsored blog posts on a semantic differential scale from 1 to 7: bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, dislike/like,

Campbell et al., 2013) The brand attitude score was the average of all six items (Cronbach’s  = .976, M = 2.99, SD = 1.70).

Click Intention. Click intention was measured by asking respondents “What are the

chances that you will click on the link directing to Perrier/Saratoga’s website in a near future?” on a semantic differential scale from 1 to 5: very unlikely/very likely (based on Gauzente, 2010). The click intention score was the average of all four variables in each condition (Cronbach’s  = .957, M = 3.48, SD = 1.89).

Manipulation Check

Brand Familiarity. This experiment aimed to measure the impact of sponsorship disclosures on brand and ad attitude and click intention measures through brand familiarity. In order to measure brand familiarity, the respondents were asked “How

familiar are you with the brand Perrier/Saratoga?” on a semantic differential scale from 1 to 7: completely unfamiliar/completely familiar. The brand familiarity score was the average of all four variables in each condition (M = 3.11, SD = 2.39).

To be certain that the respondents noticed the presence of the sponsorship disclosure, they were asked the following question: “Was it stated that the brand Perrier/Saratoga paid to be featured in this blog post?” with yes or no as possible answers.

Control variable

Brand attitude measured prior the exposure to the blog post was used as a control variable in order to control for the difference in attitude before and after exposure to the sponsored content. Participants were asked the same question mentioned earlier for brand attitude. This variable controls for prior high or low brand attitudes, and to control for these

effects on ad attitude, brand attitude and click intention after exposure to the blog article (Chronbach’s  = .939, M = 4.74, SD = 1.14).

Results and Analyses Randomization check

In order to see whether the random assignment of participants to each condition was successful, a one-way ANOVA with the four conditions as independent variables and age, education and nationality as dependent variables was conducted. Results showed that the randomization was successful for all variables: age F (3, 163) = .269, p = .848,

η

2 = 0.005, education F (3, 163) = 1.742, p = .160,

η

2 = 0.03. Furthermore, Chi-square tests were conducted with the four conditions as independent variables and gender,

questionnaire’s language choice (French or English), and nationality as dependent variables. Results showed that randomization was successful for gender, X2 (3) = 5.97, p = .113, language choice, X2 (3) = .331, p = .954 as well as for nationality, X2 (72) = 68.076, p = .609.

Manipulation checks and control variables

To check whether the disclosure manipulation was successful, a Chi-square test was conducted in order to see if the participants noticed the sponsorship disclosure when exposed to it. Results showed that the manipulation was successful since 89.2% of the respondents in the disclosure condition indicated that they had seen the disclosure message and only 10.8% of the respondents in the no disclosure condition reported that they had seen a disclosure. The difference was statistically significant X2 (3) = 103.662, p

When checking if the participants were more familiar with the brand Perrier than with the brand Saratoga, a One-way ANOVA showed that the participants in the familiar brand conditions indicated higher levels of familiarity with the brand Perrier (M = 4.90, SD = 2.22 and M = 5.55, SD = 1.77) than with the brand Saratoga (M= 1.14, SD = .42 and M = 1.15, SD = 0.48). The difference between the means was statistically significant, F (3, 163) = 108.207, p < .001. Thus, all three manipulations were successful.

To finish, as brand attitude was measured before exposure to the disclosure, it was essential to verify if prior brand attitude between the unfamiliar and familiar brands significantly differed. A One-way ANOVA indicated that the difference was statistically significant, F (1, 165) = 73.232, p < .001,

η

2 = .016, where the attitude towards the brand Saratoga was a bit lower (M = 4.08, SD = .58) than attitude towards the brand Perrier (M = 5.35, SD = 1.20). As brand attitude between brands was significantly different, it was added as a covariate in the analyses.

Hypotheses testing

To test the hypotheses, a MANCOVA was conducted with disclosure as

independent variable and brand familiarity as a moderator. The dependent variables were brand attitude, ad attitude and click intention, and brand attitude prior exposure was added as a covariate. It was expected that the disclosure would lead to lower levels of brand attitude (H1a), ad attitude (H1b) and click intention (H1c). For H2, it was expected that the impact of a disclosure in a blog post on ad attitude, brand attitude and click intention will be moderated by brand familiarity, such that the effect of a disclosure will be less negative for a familiar brand compared to an unfamiliar brand (H2).

Effects of sponsorship disclosure

With respect to H1, MANCOVA showed no significant multivariate main effect of disclosure on brand measures, F (3, 160) = 0.353, p = .787, Wilk’s Λ = .993,

η

2 = .007. Hence, hypotheses 1a, 1b and 1c are not supported (see Table 1).

Table 1 Direct effect of disclosure on brand responses

Mean scores with standard deviations in parentheses are presented

a, b _{Means with different superscripts differ significantly from each other at p < .01}

Interaction effect of disclosure and brand familiarity

First of all, the main effect of brand familiarity was investigated. A MANCOVA showed a significant multivariate effect of brand familiarity, F (3, 160) = 25.00, p = .000, Wilk’s Λ = .681,

η

2

= .319. The ANCOVA revealed a statistically significant effect of brand familiarity on brand attitude, F (1, 162) = 55.05, p = .000,

η

2 = .254. However, no significant effect of brand familiarity on ad attitude and click intention was found (see Table 2).

Table 2 Direct effect of brand familiarity on brand responses

Disclosure No disclosure

Brand attitude 2.93 (1.68) 3.05 (1.73)

Ad attitude 5.22 (1.03) 5.39 (1.19)

Mean scores with standard deviations in parentheses are presented

a, b _{Means with different superscripts differ significantly from each other at p < .01}

Furthermore, the MANCOVA showed a significant multivariate interaction effect of disclosure and brand familiarity, F (3, 160) = 3.04, p = .031, Wilk’s Λ = .946,

η

2 = .054. The ANCOVA revealed a significant interaction effect on click intention, F (1, 162) = 4.83, p = .029,

η

2 = .031. When comparing conditions, a marginal significant difference was found for click intention when no disclosure was present: the familiar brand

condition people had higher clicking intentions than in the unfamiliar brand condition, F (1, 162) = 3.081, p = .081,

η

2 = .019. However, the other conditions did not differ

significantly from each other. Thus, H2 is partially confirmed, as a blog article featuring a familiar brand without the presence of a disclosure led to higher click intentions from respondents. Refer to Table 3 for comparison between conditions.

Table 3 Interaction effect of disclosure and brand familiarity on brand measures

No Disclosure Disclosure

Brand attitude

4.01a (1.70) 1.90b (0.77)

Ad attitude 5.44 (1.09) 5.15 (1.13)

Familiar Unfamiliar Familiar Unfamiliar Brand attitude 4.15 (1.63) 1.89 (0.85) 3.87 (1.78) 1.92 (0.70)

Ad attitude 5.54 (1.31) 5.22 (1.05) 5.35 (0.82) 5.08 (1.21) Click intention 4.19 (1.99)a 2.83 (1.61)b 3.56 (1.90)ab 3.30 (1.85)ab

Mean scores with standard deviations in parentheses are presented a, b

Means with different superscripts differ significantly from each other at p = .08

Discussion

The main aim of this study was to understand the moderating role of brand familiarity in a sponsored blog post featuring a sponsorship disclosure. The results revealed a main effect of brand familiarity on brand attitude, as well as an interaction effect of disclosure and brand familiarity on click intention.

Surprisingly, and in contrast to previous research, this study’s results showed that the disclosure had no statistically significant effect on ad attitude, brand attitude or click intention. Unlike many scholars’ findings, the present results contradict the negative impact of sponsorship disclosures on brand attitude (Boerman et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2013; van Reijmersdal et al., 2016, Wei et al., 2008), ad attitude (Hwang & Jeong, 2016) or behavioural intentions (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016).

Even though this study used a disclosure tested in previous research (van Reijmersdal at al., 2016), and concordant with Wojdynski and Evans’ study on disclosure positioning (2014), the current results did not lead to the expected results. Possible explanations for this finding may be that the current study used a very diverse sample, with respondents from different age groups. In the studies mentioned above, only a population of

in the current study. Furthermore, young adults represent the biggest blog users, where 24% of 18 to 29 year olds use blogs or are blogging, compared to only 7% for the thirty and older (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith & Zickuhr, 2010). They are therefore more used to going on blogs and using social media, and therefore the stimulus used in previous studies might have been less confusing for students and led to a better processing of the disclosure. Furthermore, the blog post and products used in this experiment were not customised for a specific target audience (as in van Reijmersdal et al.’s study targeted at students). This may have resulted in participants feeling indifferent towards the brands discussed or the blog post.

Moreover, the blog article was written in an entertaining way, attempting to recreate a real blog article that focussed on the summery vibe of the cocktail recipe more than the brand itself. Reasons for this was to make the stimulus realistic and not make the persuasive nature of the blog post too obvious for participants. This strategy might have backfired, the participants not recognising the persuasive nature of the sponsored content, and therefore not reacting toward the persuasive attempt, even in the presence of a

disclosure.

The findings on brand familiarity’s main effect, as well as the interaction effect of disclosure and brand familiarity revealed significant effects on brand attitude and click intention, respectively. Participants expressed more positive attitudes towards the familiar brand than towards the unfamiliar brand. On top of that, in the no disclosure condition, the familiar brand brought consumers to express higher levels of click intentions than in the presence of an unfamiliar brand. These results can be explained by the way

effect, consumers are more likely to be attracted to and to choose brands they have been exposed to and have had experiences with (Baker, 1999; Grimes & Kitchen, 2007). Moreover, consumers may also feel less concerned about forming judgments or opinions about a familiar brand, and therefore express fewer counter arguments or unfavourable evaluations (Wei et al., 2008).

Conversely, Smink (2014) did not find any significant results of the moderating role of brand familiarity on the impact of sponsorship disclosures. However, it is important to note that Smink’s research was executed in a different context and had a different goal. It focussed on consumers’ visual attention to disclosures in television shows, and

hypothesised that familiar brands led to more visual attention, increasing the negative effects of disclosures. However, television and blogs do not require the same visual attention, as blogs articles can be read and reviewed according to the consumers’ pace, as opposed to television shows.

The present findings show evidence that brand familiarity plays a role in the relationship between sponsorship disclosures and behavioural intentions, and that known brands will influence consumers to adopt more positive attitudes in response to sponsored content. In fact, and similarly to the research by Wei et al. (2008), significant results on click

intentions have only been found in the no disclosure and familiar brand condition.

Because no significant results were found between the familiar and the unfamiliar brands when a disclosure was shown, we can say that sponsorship disclosures do not necessarily lead to the use of resistance strategies from the consumers (Wei et al., 2008) and that consumers’ recognition of sponsored content may be not enough to alter the persuasive effect of the message (Boerman et al., 2012).

This study contributes to the literature in several ways. Firstly, it is the first research investigating the moderating effect of brand familiarity on the effectiveness of sponsorship disclosures in sponsored blog articles. Second, it was also the first study to include click intention as an outcome variable for behavioural intentions. Following, the present findings, we now know that consumers are much more willing to engage with familiar brands when this one appears in sponsored content.

Limitations and Future Research

This study however holds important limitations that have to be kept in mind when assessing the aforementioned results. First of all, current results can only be applied to the low involvement products that have been used in this experiment (the sparkling water brands). High involvement products like electronic devices lead to different results, such as demonstrated in previous studies. In fact, using a high involvement product in a blog post led to significant negative brand measures and behavioural intentions when

consumers were exposed to a disclosure (van Reijmersdal et al., 2016).

Second, even though the sample of this study was very diverse (at least 25 different nationalities and different age groups), it remains a convenience sample (participants consisted mainly of immediate entourage), due to the limited amount of time to conduct the experiment and limited budget. A probability sample in future research could lead to stronger or different results, as findings derived from a probability sample can be

generalised to the whole population (Bryman, 2012).

Third, this online experiment was not conducted in a realistic context, as the blog articles were fictitious and the participants could have been biased by the choice of product (one might have really liked sparkling water while the other does not at all). Further research

could verify current results by using articles that have been published in real blogs. On top of that, the disclosure did not show any significant effects on brand attitude, ad attitude and behavioural intentions. It might have been relevant to measure the effect of a disclosure through persuasion knowledge, in order to verify the impact of PK on

participants. Indeed, previous research found significant results only for the indirect effect of disclosures via the activation of persuasion knowledge on brand attitude and purchase intentions (Boerman et al. 2012, van Reijmersdal et al., 2016; Wei et al., 2008). This indicates that disclosures do not have a direct effect on brand measures and

behavioural intentions, but only indirectly through PK. It becomes clear that future research should measure PK in order to find significant results of disclosures on different outcomes.

To finish, future research could fill the gap on sponsorship disclosures literature by focussing on different brand or product attributes such as high versus low involvement products or brand liking. While we know that brand familiarity plays an important role in sponsored content responses, it remains unclear what is the moderating role of other different product attributes on consumer attitudes towards disclosures.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

The current study holds several theoretical implications and contributes to previous research, as it gives new insights into how disclosures affect consumer brand evaluations and behavioural intentions. Even though the negative effect of sponsorship disclosures on brand measures due to persuasion knowledge had already been stated in several studies, this is the first study to focus on brand familiarity and provide new insights into how consumers cope with sponsored content when they are exposed to

familiar and unfamiliar brands. First of all, the findings confirm that disclosures do not have a direct effect on brand measures and behavioural intentions, and that PK plays a leading role in these relationships. Second, findings show that brand familiarity has an impact on click intention when no disclosure is present, showing that consumers will be much more inclined to interact with a brand that they already know.

Concerning legislators and policy makers, the significant effect of brand familiarity is the proof that showing a familiar brand in sponsored content enhances brand attitude. The presence of sponsorship disclosures in sponsored blogs is therefore essential to inform the audience of the presence of advertising in sponsored content. Furthermore, this may also be applied to other social media platforms such as Instagram or Facebook that do not commonly use disclosures yet.

For marketers and advertisers, brand familiarity might appear as a promising asset for native advertising. Blogs have several advantages, especially when it comes to reaching large audiences (van Reijmersdal, 2016), as well as the power of the bloggers’ persona into persuading its audience. The FTC asking bloggers to reveal the persuasive nature of sponsored content might appear as an issue for marketers in achieving persuasive goals. However, being ethical and transparent might be acknowledged by blog readers who usually trust the bloggers they like and follow (Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015). As explained by van Reijmersdal et al. (2016), the current study only shows negative short-term effects of disclosures for brands. Long-short-term effects have not been investigated yet, where consumers’ resistance might be moderated as they get used to seeing disclosures.

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APPENDIX Stimulus Material