Master’s programme Communication Science Master’s Thesis, Persuasive Communication Student name: Anne-Catherine Smit
Student number: 10274065 Supervisor: Ewa Maslowska 2nd February, 2018
8190 words
Persuasiveness of Native Advertising: The Effects of
Sponsored Snapchat Lenses on Brand Responses
Abstract
This study gives insight in the effectiveness of sponsored Snapchat lenses as a medium for advertising. Snapchat lenses can be seen as a form of native advertising, which is expected to lower the recognition of advertising and aims to lower resistance. This type of advertising has positive implications for marketers and brand managers, but for consumers this may be discerning due to misleading practices. This study compares the effects of advertising via sponsored Snapchat lenses on consumers’ brand memory and brand attitude between a commercial brand and a political brand. It is examined whether the effect is moderated by the motive for use of the platform. An online survey-embedded experiment was conducted, in which 80 people participated. These participants were randomly assigned to a condition (commercially vs. politically branded lens). Results of this study indicate that advertising a commercial brand via sponsored lenses has a more positive effect on brand recall than a political brand. However, advertising a commercial brand in a Snapchat lens did not have a more positive effect on brand attitude compared to a political brand, and this did not differ between generations. Additional results indicate that not all respondents consider
sponsored lenses as being typically advertising, which is what native advertising aims for. The direct effect of exposure to a sponsored lens on brand responses in this study was not moderated by the motive to use Snapchat for primarily entertainment purposes.
Persuasiveness of Native Advertising:
The Effects of Sponsored Snapchat Lenses on Brand Responses
Consumers are increasingly avoiding commercials in traditional media as well as advertising in new media, so the marketing industry needs new techniques for reaching consumers (Van Reijmersdal, Neijens, & Smit, 2007:403-404). This had led to, amongst others, the emergence of ‘native advertising’. This form of advertising focuses on
minimising disruption to a consumer’s online experience by making the content fit with the publication’s content and format (Campbell & Marks, 2015: 599). Such advertising
practices can be deceiving for consumers who may not realise that the advertising material is paid for by an advertiser whose source is not always clear, and is intended to promote a product (Campbell & Marks, 2015: 599). One example of a platform that makes use of native advertising, and that has only recently started allowing advertising on its platform, is Snapchat. ‘Snaps’ are pictures that people send to their friends that are visible for maximum 10 seconds before they disappear. When taking a snap, users can pick a lens (before taking a picture) or a filter (after having taken the picture), that enhances the photo or adds funny details. These lenses can be sponsored, which means that they contain a brand or advertise a product. From a consumer perspective the sponsored lens can be discerning because it may not be clear to people that they are being targeted by advertising, as often there is no sponsorship disclosure or disclaimer within a sponsored lens. In order to investigate the effectiveness and the implications of this form of native advertising on Snapchat, the research question of this thesis is: ‘What are the effects and implications of sponsored
Snapchat lenses for persuasive advertising purposes?’. The effectiveness of this platform
specify the attitudes and motivations towards this type of advertising, and to help further the academic communication field by preparing for the quick developments in social media possibilities and the possible implications for consumers now and in the near future. In order to investigate persuasiveness of sponsored lenses, brand memory and attitude will be
explored, as well as the motivations for using Snapchat, which is related to uses and gratifications theory and is expected to be a moderator for the relationship between
sponsored content and brand responses. Additional research on attitudes towards advertising through sponsored lenses, which is linked to persuasion knowledge theory is included. The results of this study are insightful for both academics and marketers in the marketing- and communication field.
Theoretical framework
Advertising is all around us both in the real world and in the digital world, and not only commercial ads, but also political ads. The latter are not always as visible to everyone as commercial ads, especially when one is not interested in politics. Interestingly, despite the inherent bias of all forms of advertising according to Iyengar & Prior (1999), they have found in their study that people perceive commercial ads as generally truthful and
interesting, and political ads are found to be dishonest, unappealing, and uninformative. This shows that commercial advertising enjoys more public support than political advertising does. This reputation could be changed through due to the many new advertising
possibilities through social media, making advertising more creative and appealing, but also, more intrusive. According to Zanot (1984) the proliferation of advertisements has led to the avoidance of ads by consumers in traditional media. The same is occurring in the digital world, as Chang (2004) states a cluster-bomb approach of ads on the internet is the main reason for declining consumer responsiveness to internet ads (Chang, 2004: 89).
Snapchat is a relatively new platform that came into being in 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, who founded Snap inc, and only relatively recently have started allowing advertising on the platform. Snapchat has 150 million users per day, of which at least 2.5 million in the Netherlands, and 9000 snaps per second worldwide (van den
Bogaard, 2017). One third of Snapchat’s daily users use and share ‘sponsored lenses’ every day (Newberry, 2017). The platform is mainly used by teenagers and young adults, as 61% of the users are between 18 to 34 years old (eMarketer, 2016). According to Business Insider, 77% of students use Snapchat every day, of which 58% of students say that they would purchase a product or service if they received a coupon on Snapchat (Abono, 2016), leading to the notion that advertising on Snapchat can influence consumer behaviour, making it an effective marketing tool.
Back in 2014, Snapchat still claimed: “We won’t put advertisements in your
personal communication - things like ‘snaps’ or ‘chats’. That would be totally rude”, but as they needed to make money, they have introduced Snapchat ads between Snapchat ‘stories’ (videos and pictures that users create and make visible to watch for all their friends)
(Shontell, 2014). By swiping up on the Snapchat ad, more information is provided and/or the product that is advertised can be purchased online. Then, advertising appeared in a more personal space on Snapchat in the shape of ‘sponsored lenses’. Sponsored lenses or filters (see figure 1) are created by companies to promote their brand or product in a fun way. Wallaroo media reports that the costs of sponsored lenses are $450,000 per day on Sunday through Thursday, $500,000 per day on Friday and Saturday, and $700,000 for holidays and special events (like the Super Bowl) (Snapchat advertising costs, 2017). Geofilters are available by geographical location, so they are only possible to use when you are at a
specific location (e.g. McDonald’s), and lenses can be available for as long as a promotional campaign is running, e.g. when a new movie comes out. Sponsored lenses are completely
voluntary to apply and share with friends. This study will determine whether people realise that sponsored lenses on Snapchat are advertising, and whether this ‘persuasion knowledge’ influences their evaluation of the brand, possibly due to the feeling of invasion of personal space. This depends on the uses and gratifications for Snapchat.
Snapchat is different from other social media platforms in the way that ‘snaps’ are delivered personally from friend to friend, snaps cannot be forwarded and even though a snap could be sent to a whole group of people, it feels special to receive them. Sponsored lenses are usually funny and allow companies to interact with consumers in a humorous way by making people laugh about the snap, and lets companies into this personal space. This way companies form a more personal connection to consumers, compared to advertising through a Facebook ad for example, which is aimed at a wide audience (Shontell, 2014). However, even if Facebook ads are aimed at a broad audience, Beauchamp (2013) describes a study by Insight Strategy Group which shows that consumers are not too positive about companies marketing to them on social media websites like Facebook. In this study, 58% of respondents described social media marketing as ‘invasive’, 60% characterised social media brand communication as ‘annoying’, and 64% of respondents said they ‘hate’
receiving targeted messages on their social media profile (Beauchamp, 2013: 92). Snapchat is allowing more and more advertising, and although it doesn’t let users create a ‘profile’, users are targeted on their own Snapchat accounts. It can be said that this space is more personal than Facebook, and that it is possible that similar feelings can occur regarding advertising on Snapchat. It is an interesting time for marketers and scholars to look into the motivations and attitudes towards Snapchat and advertising, and what the implications are for both brands and consumers.
Fig. 1: Snapchat sponsored lens (left) and sponsored geofilter (right).
Just like any platform, Snapchat has its marketing limitations. The Snapchat app does not collect many demographic data of users, which means that there are limited
possibilities to reach specific audiences, except for geographical targeting. According to van den Bogaard (2017) it is not (yet) possible to schedule snaps, and there are no extensive analytics available, which makes it difficult for companies to measure the results of Snapchat campaigns. The time limit on snaps can be seen both as a problem and an opportunity. The problematic side is that an ad/sponsored lens is only exposed for a few seconds, but the opportunity is that because of the time limit, snaps catch peoples’ full attention, as people know that it will only be visible for a few seconds before it disappears (eMarketer, 2016). Snapchat’s possibilities are evolving and the platform is expected to
keep innovating in order to accommodate the over 300 million people that use the app every day, according to Aslam (2018). However, the average unique viewers per Snapchat ‘story’ has decreased about 40% from August to November in 2016, as Nick Cicero (CEO of creative studio and social video analytics platform Delmondo) has stated after Delmondo analysed 21,500 Snapchat Stories (Constine, 2017), Snapchat’s popularity seems to be decreasing.
Fig. 2: ‘Average Change in Unique Viewers per Snap in 2016’. Source: Delmondo.
It is not the only social network that keeps innovating. Instagram is Snapchat’s main competitor and already has extensive, accessible advertising opportunities, and is copying Snapchat functions, according to van den Bogaard (2017). Also, as Snapchat has been around for a while now, its novelty effect may be wearing off. The novelty effect is a phenomenon that was ‘discovered’ in the 1930’s when the Hawthorne Works factory changed the lighting for its workers to see if it would improve productivity. The results showed that it did not matter whether there was more light or less light, as any change in the
workplace produced a temporary boost in productivity. This is called the Hawthorne Effect, or the novelty effect, in social science (Thompson, 2014).
Native advertising and persuasion knowledge
In order to understand the totality of this study, of which the research question is ‘What are the effects and implications of sponsored Snapchat lenses for persuasive advertising purposes?’, the following literature provides the necessary information.
As previously stated, native advertising is content that is similar to the publication’s content and format, which can be deceiving for consumers who may not realise that the advertising material is paid for by an advertiser whose source is not always clear and is intended to promote the advertiser’s product (Campbell & Marks, 2015: 599). Native advertising has gained a lot of attention lately as it is a very effective means for advertisers to reach consumers and for online publishers to boost their diminishing ad revenues
(Wojdynski & Evans, 2014: 157).
Persuasion knowledge theory by Friestad and Wright (1994) is explained as knowledge that lets the consumer recognise, analyse, interpret, evaluate and remember persuasion attempts, as well as knowledge that lets consumers use coping tactics to avoid the persuasion. Through experience, consumers understand and respond to these messages in different ways (Friestad & Wright, 1994: 3). The more people recognise a message as being persuasive, the more they use coping strategies like scepticism, resistance and counterarguing, which lead to negative attitudes and behavioural intent (Evans & Norman, 2003: 6). Consumers may also disengage altogether from the advertisement, which is called the ‘detachment effect’ (Friestad & Wright, 1994). Boerman, van Reijmersdal and Neijens (2012) state that when viewers recognise a persuasion attempt, they may also realise that the platform and the brand are not neutral, but have an ulterior motive to persuade, which can
make the viewer more sceptical towards the sponsored content. This effect that can be explained by the reactance theory (Brehm, 1966), according to which people want to keep their freedom, and do not want to be manipulated by advertising.Van Reijmersdal, Smit, and Neijens (2010), posit that advertising in social media formats (also known as ‘native
advertising’) is less recognisable as being persuasive than advertising on traditional media, which influences attitudes and intentions positively and leads to less ‘ detachment’.
However, Bang and Lee (2016), state that when social media users do recognise the
advertisements’ persuasive attempt, they are less patient and are inclined to avoid it. To get a better grip on ‘persuasion knowledge’, Boerman, van Reijmersdal & Neijens (2012) separate it into two components: conceptual- and attitudinal persuasion knowledge, and they propose that the activation of ‘conceptual persuasion knowledge’ will result in higher ‘attitudinal persuasion knowledge’. Conceptual persuasion knowledge is when a person has the understanding that they are being targeted by advertising, and attitudinal persuasion knowledge is how sceptical that understanding makes them, or simply said, how far people think that the advertisement is honest, trustworthy, convincing, biased, and credible. The understanding of persuasion by advertising starts to develop already during childhood, meaning young people have the ability to distinguish commercial content from editorial content. This ability is joined by the ability to use cognitive defenses against advertising persuasion attempts (Brucks, Armstrong & Goldberg, 1988). When new advertising formats are introduced, or when advertising is integrated with editorial content in a way that it is not immediately recognisable as advertising, even though ‘persuasion knowledge’ is assumed to be established at adulthood, people need to adjust or update this knowledge to recognise when they are being targeted by advertising. When consumers are exposed to commercial messages and they are not able to recognise them as ads, consumers cannot guard
lenses may not be recognised as typically advertising, leading to higher persuasiveness. In order to investigate this further, the survey asks respondents to indicate to what extent they agreed that ‘The Snapchat lens is advertising’. It is expected that sponsored lenses are not immediately recognised as advertising, and are seen more as a ‘fun’ feature of Snapchat.
This may be especially so for political brands, as they may not be immediately recognised as typically advertising at all. Branding is similar for both commercial and political actors/products, but consumers are expected to be way more experienced with commercial brands as they are all around them, and because some citizens do not have affinity with politics, this leads to less experience with political brands. However, Snapchat and political brands could possibly be a fruitful combination for reaching a younger
audience and getting them acquainted with political brands, giving this study a larger societal relevance.
In short, I have chosen to compare a commercial brand and a political brand, as they are similar in necessity and meaning to the consumer, but it is expected that consumers do not immediately relate political brands to ‘advertising’, whereas commercial brands will be interpreted more as typical targeted advertising. It is expected that different types of brands in sponsored lenses will lead to differing brand responses, and I hypothesise that:
H1: Advertising a commercial brand in a sponsored lens has a more positive effect
on consumers’ brand memory, than advertising a political brand.
At the same time, people are becoming increasingly more experienced with, and knowledgeable of, social media, especially younger generations. This means people get more used to native advertising and learn to recognise it even without sponsorship disclosure (conceptual persuasion knowledge). Even so, brands in sponsored Snapchat lenses must have an impact on Snapchat users one way or another, in terms of brand
memory and brand attitudes, which is the focus of this study. Nevertheless, for now, it is expected that the younger generations have higher conceptual persuasion knowledge and are better at recognising advertising on social media than older generations, because they are simply more experienced with social media, use social media differently, and simply have a greater understanding of it, leading to more positive brand attitudes. I hypothesise that:
H2: Advertising a commercial brand in a Snapchat lens has a more positive effect on
brand attitude than a political brand, with Millennials and Generation Z expressing more positive attitudes than Generation X.
The Uses and Gratifications of Snapchat and how it moderates the effect on brand attitude
The Uses and Gratifications theory explains why people use certain media,
concluding that people use the media they use in order to satisfy their needs and to achieve their goals (McQuail, 1984). Marketers aim to play into those consumers’ needs and wants, and put brands in media to become part of people’s surroundings and interests according to Sousa Garnica (2017).Traditional perceptions of the needs that drive motives for using traditional media are information seeking, entertainment, social interaction, relaxation, habit, passing time, escape, and surveillance (Cortese & Rubin, 2010). However, it is expected that consumers who use social media platforms may have other motives, too. The following uses and gratifications are based on a study Gao and Feng (2016), and have been previously used for Snapchat research by Sousa Garnica (2017). The first motive they have identified is information seeking. This is the motive that drives the need for resources and helpful information, for example, information about a product. This motive is useful for marketers as advertising can provide information to consumers who want to learn more about a product or service. The second category is entertainment, which is expected to play
an important role in why people use Snapchat, and is the reason why marketers should focus on the fun experience of the platform more than when advertising in traditional media (Sousa Garnica, 2017). The third category is social interaction. Social media allows
interaction, initiation, and maintenance of relationships among users who share information, knowledge and resources. Self-expression is the fourth category; digital platforms allow individuals to express their thoughts freely, to present who they are and what they like. Behaviors that reflect self-expression are necessary to build our own identity, which is important to for gaining social acceptance and support. last moment that was identified by Gao & Feng (2016) is impression management; social media provides a space to present who we are, and to build an image (Sousa Garnica, 2017).
It is expected that people who use Snapchat for entertainment seeking purposes enjoy sponsored lenses more than people who e.g. use Snapchat solely for staying in touch with friends, as they may find sponsored content in the personal space more intrusive than people who use Snapchat for enjoyment. Therefore, the motive for using Snapchat is expected to have a moderating role in on the relationship between exposure to a sponsored lens and brand attitude, which has led to the following hypothesis:
H3: The effect of the exposure to a sponsored lens on the brand attitude is moderated
by the motive for use, with consumers using Snapchat for entertainment purposes expressing more positive attitudes than consumers using Snapchat for social interaction purposes.
This thesis aims to provide more knowledge about advertising on Snapchat, how people’s motivations for using said platform influences their brand responses, and how effective sponsored lenses are for advertising ends. In order to research the direct effects of native advertising through sponsored Snapchat lenses, an experiment is useful for gaining
insight in the comparison between seeing a commercial brand, and seeing a political brand, and whether this influences brand responses. Further insight into persuasion knowledge and the persuasiveness of sponsored lenses are gained through the questionnaire. It is expected that people recognise commercial brands more as advertising than political brands, even though there is no sponsorship disclosure present, which undermines the concept of native advertising which is believed to be difficult to recognise as advertising. In short, it is expected that most people recognise sponsored content as advertising, but more for commercial brands than for political brands.
In this study I will take another look at whether people recognise native advertising in Snapchat sponsored lenses by conducting a small experiment comparing a sponsored lens with a commercial brand, and a sponsored lens with a political brand, and look at peoples’ brand memory and attitudes. Additional analysis is expected to show how persuasion knowledge influences consumers’ attitudes. The results of this study will shed light on how persuasive sponsored lenses are for advertising purposes for different kinds of brand and different kinds of consumers, who have varying motives for using Snapchat.
Fig. 3: Conceptual Model with hypotheses
Methods Design
This study has a 2x2 between subjects design. The effect of the independent variable sponsored Snapchat lens (commercially branded vs. politically branded) on the dependent variables brand memory and attitude is researched in this study. This study also focuses on the moderating effect of the motive for using Snapchat, for which is focused on two
motives; entertainment seeking and social interaction. The model is relevant to the research question as it visualises the relations between the various concepts which together explain the effectiveness of sponsored lenses for persuasive advertising purposes regarding commercial and political brands. To research these effects, an online survey-embedded experiment was conducted, which allows the causal effects of the independent variable sponsored lens on brand responses, as well as the moderating effect of the motive for use on brand attitude, to be measured with high internal validity.
Sample
The total number of respondents who successfully participated in the study is 80 participants (N=80), of which 22,5% are male and 77,5% are female. The majority (90%) of respondents were born in between 1980 and 2000, also representing a group known as ‘Millennials’. 3.8% of respondents are from ‘generation X’, which ranges from 1961 to 1980, and 6.3% of respondents are from ‘generation Z’, which ranges from 1998 to 2016 roughly. It is a very international population sample. The majority of the people in the sample are Dutch citizens (n=63), and all other respondents (n=17) live in Albania, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the United Kingdom. and the United States of America. Most respondents are
University graduates (n=58), after which most are high schoolers (n=14), and several have a professional degree (n=8).
Materials
The subjects are randomised to one of two experimental conditions, which consist of a sponsored lens on Snapchat with a commercial brand in it (Jalapeño Fresco), which 39 people were exposed to, or a political brand in it (Liberal party), to which 41 respondents were exposed. The brand names are explicitly stated in the lenses (See appendix), however there is no explicit sponsorship disclosure.
Measured variables
The questionnaire begins with control variables regarding the platform (i.e. platform recognition and familiarity, sponsorship disclosure recall) and then asks about the brand responses (i.e. brand memory, brand attitude) and respondents’ motives for using Snapchat, as well as their conceptual and attitudinal persuasion knowledge (i.e. whether they thought
the sponsored lens is advertising or not). The survey ends with demographic questions (age, gender, education and residential country).
Dependent Variables
Brand memory. Brand memory is measured by asking participants whether they
remember seeing a brand in the screenshot of a sponsored Snapchat lens. When respondents answer yes, they are able to fill out which brand they had seen. As this was an open ended question, it complicated the analysis a little as some people only partially recalled the brand name. Therefore, I have recoded the brand memory variable into a dichotomous variable, 0 for no brand recall, and 1 for partial or full brand recall.
Brand attitude. To measure brand attitude, several items are measured that are
based on a study by Van Reijmersdal, and Neijens (2012). The brand attitude is measured by asking ‘My overall feeling about the brand is...’ with a 7-point scale, anchored by Good-Bad, Unpleasant-Pleasant, and Favourable-Unfavourable. Items are recoded so they measure in the same direction. The scale has a reasonably high level of internal consistency with this specific sample, Cronbach’s alpha = .701. The mean score of the scale was calculated to represent the respondents’ attitudes toward the brand (M= 11.95, SD= 2.89). In order to ensure that the questions that were asked relate to the construct intended to measure (brand attitude) a principal component factor analysis is done. Three factors were selected and it was found that the KMO measure of sampling adequacy is .556, which is an acceptable value. This means that patterns of correlation are relatively compact and factor analysis should yield reliable factors. For these data, Bartlett’s test is highly significant (p < .001) and therefore factor analysis is appropriate. The scree plot shows that there is one factor above 1 eigenvalue before the drop; one factor was extracted, the solution cannot be rotated.
Unrotated factor loadings show high positive loadings on the first factor (Eigenvalue = 1.91; explained variance = 63.69%).
Control variables
A number of control variables are measured to make sure that effects are not caused by other differences between the experimental groups. To measure platform familiarity and platform use, participants were asked ‘Have you ever seen a sponsored lens before?” with a Yes or No option. The majority of the participants (78.8%) stated to be familiar with
Snapchat sponsored lenses and had seen a sponsored lens before. The frequency of the respondents’ Snapchat usage was measured by using a 5-point scale asking how often they check their Snapchat accounts (1 = Several times per hour, 2= several times per day, 3 = Once a day, 4 = Less than once per day, 5 = I don’t use it at all). The items have been recoded so that the highest number accounts for the highest amount of Snapchat usage. 37.5% of respondents stated that they check their Snapchat account several times per day, and 12.5% said they checked their accounts several times per hour. 18.8% use Snapchat less than once per day and 20% of respondents said they do not use Snapchat at all.
Randomisation check
Respondents were asked to answer the following demographic questions, and Pearson’s chi square test was performed as to check if the distribution of cases in
experimental groups are equal. The first demographic question was “What is your gender?”, with answer possibilities ‘Male’, ‘Female’ or ‘Other’. Then, “In which country do you currently live?”, with a list of all the countries in the world to choose from, followed by “What is your highest accomplished education level?”, for which answer options were ‘High school’, ‘professional degree’, ‘University graduate’ and ‘Doctorate/PhD’. The final demographic question was open ended; “Which year are you born in? (Please fill in a
number e.g. 1990”. Pearson’s chi square test results show that the experimental groups did not differ with respect to gender; χ2 (1) = .904, p= .342, education level; χ2 (2) = .805, p= .669, and residential country; χ2 (13) = 14.30, p= .353.
‘Platform familiarity’ was measured by asking ‘Which platform do you think the screenshot comes from?’ and answer options were ‘Instagram’, ‘Snapchat’, ‘Facebook’ and ‘None of the above’. ‘Frequency of use’ was measured by asking ‘How often do you use Snapchat?’ with answer options ‘Several times per hour’, ‘several times per day’, ‘once a day’, ‘less than once per day’, ‘I don’t use it at all’. These measurements were included in the randomisation check to make sure that they do not confound effects, and it was found that they do not; platform familiarity; χ2 (1) = .877, p= .349, and frequency of platform use; χ2 (4) = 2.72, p= .604.
Independent variables
Conceptual Persuasion Knowledge. Conceptual persuasion knowledge is measured
by asking participants to indicate to what extent they agree with the statement “The
Snapchat lens is advertising” on a 7-point scale of agreeableness. This single item measure has been used in previous studies to estimate consumers’ ability to recognise advertising according to Boerman, Van Reijmersdal, and Neijens (2012) and Ham, Nelson, and Das (2015). The scale has been recoded so that all items measure in the same direction (M=2.55, SD=1.48). The reliability of this single item scale is unknown and unknowable as there was no possibility for a test-retest analysis.
The moderating role of the motive for use. In order to determine the which
motives for using Snapchat are most relevant, this study has included the main uses and gratifications observed in previous research about social media use and applied them to the circumstances that surround Snapchat. The survey included a question asking participants
“What are the different reasons why you use or would use Snapchat?” and participants reported their level of agreement to statements such as “I can get useful information” and “I can express my feelings.” on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly disagree”, in total the scale included 8 items which are based on literature by Gao and Feng (2016) who identified motives for using social networks; 1= information seeking, 2= self-expression, 3= Staying in touch with friends close by, 4= Staying in touch with friends far away, 5= entertaining myself, 6= entertaining others, 7= to show people what I look like, 8= to show people what I am doing. The items measure in the same direction. Reliability for the scale is acceptable, Cronbach’s alpha = .770. If the first item ‘information seeking’ were deleted, the Cronbach’s alpha would become slightly better; .808. The
Corrected Item-Total Correlation is low for this item too, which has led me to decide to remove this item. It seems that the scale is internally consistent in measuring the motives for using Snapchat. A principal component analysis is performed to show that the items in the 7-point Likert scale form a single unidimensional scale. The KMO measure of sampling adequacy is .802 which is a great value. Bartlett’s test is significant (p < 0.001) and
therefore factor analysis is appropriate for these data. It was found that the items load on the first factor (Eigenvalue = 3.45; explained variance = 49.29%). This scale measuring
motives for use has been previously administered in a study by Sousa Garnica (2017), however, as it is expected in this study that people who use Snapchat primarily for
entertainment-seeking purposes will have a more positive brand attitudes than people who use Snapchat for social interaction purposes, because they may find brands in their personal space intrusive and annoying, This study will only look further into the entertainment-seeking and social interaction motives. A new scale is created using items 3 and 4 to compute ‘social interaction motive’ (Cronbach’s Alpha= .553, M= 5.56, SD= 2.80), and
item 5 and 6 were used to compute ‘entertainment-seeking motive’ (Cronbach’s Alpha= .678, M= 5.23, SD= 2.67).
Results Exposure to a sponsored lens on Snapchat
Of the people who saw the commercially sponsored lens by Jalapeño Fresco, 36.3% stated that they remember seeing a brand, of which 26.3% recalled the brand correctly, and 10.0% recalled the brand impartially. Of the people who were exposed to the politically sponsored lens by the Liberal party, 11.2% stated that they remembered seeing a brand, of which only 3.8% remember the brand correctly. All other respondents (52.2%) failed to recognise that they had seen a brand and/or failed to recall the brand name. So, it can be said that brand recall is higher for a commercial brand than for a political brand in sponsored lenses.
The direct effect of exposure to sponsored lenses on brand memory
First, H1 “Advertising a commercial brand in a sponsored lens has a more positive effect on consumers’ brand memory, than advertising a political brand” was tested. As the independent variable ‘sponsored lens type’ (commercial vs. political) and dependent variable ‘brand memory’ (yes vs. no) are both categorical variables, A chi-square test was performed; χ2 (1) =35.40, p= < .05, which shows that there is a statistically significant association between the type of brand advertised and brand memory, and that a political brand and a commercial brand do not have equal effect on brand memory, but that the commercial brand has been recalled better (by 36.3%) than the political brand (opposed to 11.2%). H1 is supported.
Conceptual persuasion knowledge of sponsored lenses
Respondents were asked whether they considered the sponsored lens to be advertising and 30% ‘strongly agreed’ that it is advertising. 27.5% ‘simply agreed’, and 17.5% ‘somewhat agreed’. 12.5% ‘neither agree nor disagree’ (See Appendix B). All in all, it seems that although the majority in this sample does consider a sponsored lens to be advertising, it seems there are also many people who do not consider it as typical advertising. For more insight into whether commercial brands and political brands get different evaluations, results show that of the people who saw the commercial brand 16 people said they ‘strongly agreed’ that it was advertising, as opposed to 8 people who saw the political brand. Interestingly, 10 people who saw the commercial brand simply ‘agreed’ that it is advertising, and 12 people who saw the political brand also ‘agreed’ it is
advertising.
In order to test H2 “Advertising a commercial brand in a Snapchat lens has a more positive effect on brand attitude than a political brand, with Millennials and Generation Z expressing more positive attitudes than Generation X”. A Two-way ANOVA was
conducted that examined the effect of the type of brand in the sponsored lens (commercial brand vs. political brand) and ‘age’ that was recoded into generations (generation X,
millennials and generation Z) as independent variables, on ‘brand attitude’ as the continuous dependent variable. There is no statistically significant interaction between the effects of the branded lens and the generations on brand attitude, F(2, 1.92) = .652, p = .524. The effect of the treatment (sponsored lens type) on brand attitude does not differ between generations; Gen X (M= 4.50, SD= .70), Millennials (M= 4.20, SD= 1.27), Gen Z (M= 4.50, SD= .70) (F(2, 36) = .103, p= .903), so in the context of this study, it cannot be said that the younger generation recognises Snapchat lenses more as advertising than the older generation. H2 is rejected.
The moderating effect of the motive for use of Snapchat
H3 proposed that the effect of the exposure to a sponsored lens on the brand attitude would be moderated by the motive for using the platform, with consumers using Snapchat for entertainment purposes expressing more positive brand attitudes than consumers using Snapchat for social interaction. A moderation analysis was performed in SPSS using PROCESS-macro by Hayes, with exposure to a branded lens as independent variable (0 = commercial branded lens, 1= political branded lens), brand attitude as dependent
continuous variable, and the motives for use (entertainment seeking and social interaction) as a continuous mediation variable as it is measured on 7-point Likert scales.
Results showed no significant moderation of the effect of the type of sponsored lens on the brand attitude by the entertainment seeking motive for using Snapchat R² = .00, F(1, 76) = .24, p= .62, nor by the social interaction motive R² = .01, F(1, 76) = 2.31, p= .13. Probing the interaction showed that respondents with high entertainment seeking motive for use, had a significantly more positive brand attitude after exposure to a commercially sponsored lens compared to a politically branded lens (Mdiff= -3.03, t= -10.63, p= .000). Respondents with high social interaction motive for use also had a significantly more positive brand attitude after exposure to a commercially branded sponsored lens compared to a politically branded lens (Mdiff= -3.63, t= -9.87, p= .000). It can be said that brand attitude is altered by both the entertainment seeking motive, and the social interaction motive, but that the entertainment seeking motive has a stronger mediation effect, however, these results were not significant. The hypothesis is rejected.
Limitations of the study
The population sample consisted mainly of females and millennials, which leads to limitation in the outcomes and the results cannot be generalised to a greater population.
Further research is needed with a more extensive and balanced sample to fully comprehend the effects of advertising on Snapchat. When it comes to making comparisons across generations and drawing conclusions in this study, however interesting the results for answering the research question, the amount of respondents belonging to generation Z are too low to make generalisations to the larger population based on this study. Brand memory and brand attitudes were accurately measured, although the operationalisation of the brand memory variable was more complex than necessary, and the scale used for measuring brand memory was not internally consistent. This was solved by creating a one-item scale, but reliability of this one item scale is unknowable due to the fact that there was no opportunity and time for a test-retest analysis. Nevertheless this study is internally valid in the sense that the concepts are measures are based on previous academic literature and analysis. The research instrument used for this study covers the necessary content with respect to the variables. The stimulus used for the experimental condition ‘commercially sponsored lens’ could have influenced participants negatively as the image portrays a distressed person, possibly leading to negative connotations. For future reference a more neutral image could be chosen in order not to confound effects. The study is reliable in the sense that the research instrument, the stimuli and questionnaire are repeatable and will yield similar results depending on the targeted sample and distribution thereof.
Additional measurements and analysis
Attitudinal Persuasion Knowledge. In order to measure attitudinal persuasion
knowledge, the questionnaire included a question asking participants to indicate whether they agree with the statement, “I think the Snapchat lens was…”: honest-dishonest, trustworthy-untrustworthy, convincing-unconvincing, biased-unbiased and credible-not credible on a 7 point scale which was previously used by Boerman, Van Reijmersdal, and Neijens (2012) and Ohanian (1990). For this study the measured Cronbach’s alpha = 0.19,
which is incredibly low. After deleting the ‘convincing-unconvincing’ item, the Cronbach's alpha value becomes slightly better (Cronbach’s alpha = .423). Items were recoded so that all items measure in the same direction, and high scores of attitudinal persuasion knowledge means high scepticism towards the Snapchat lens. The mean was measured as to indicate the average level of attitudinal persuasion knowledge (M= 14.56, SD= 3.24). Expectations are that high attitudinal persuasive knowledge influences brand attitude negatively.
The effect of attitudinal persuasion knowledge. As attitudinal persuasion
knowledge is measured on a 7-point Likert scale this is a continuous variable. It is expected that people who are sceptical towards native ads, indicating a high level of attitudinal persuasive knowledge, will have a more negative, or lower level of, brand attitude. The relationship between the continuous independent variable ‘attitudinal persuasion
knowledge’ and the continuous dependent variable ‘brand attitude’ was analysed by running a Pearson product-moment correlation. There was a strong, positive correlation between how sceptical people are of sponsored advertising and brand attitude for this sample (r = -.319, n = 80, p =.004). It can be said that the higher the level of scepticsim, or attitudinal persuasion knowledge, the more negative the brand attitude.
Sponsorship disclosure
For more insight in what respondents think of sponsorship disclosure, the survey asked whether people “preferred sponsored content with or without sponsorship disclosure and why?” and 47% said they preferred seeing sponsored content with disclosure, claiming that ‘transparency’ and ‘fairness’ is important, ‘honesty is better’, ‘that way you can stay critical’, ‘it drives more trustworthiness’ and ‘it allows me to identify the source and the purpose of a social media post’ etc., as opposed to 13.8% of respondents who prefer
sponsored content without disclosure because they find it is ‘annoying’ and ‘not appealing’. 38.8% said that it did not matter to them, which is also an interesting find on its own.
Feelings attributed to sponsored lenses
In order to find out more about what consumers think of sponsored lenses in general, the questionnaire included the question “Which feelings describe yours best when it comes to sponsored Snapchat lenses? Multiple answers possible.” People were able to choose between the followings feelings: Happy, Annoyed, Inspired, Enthusiastic, Sad, Interested, Angry and Sad. The majority of respondents found sponsored lenses to be annoying, but the next most indicated associations were ‘interested’ and ‘happy’. In total 65% indicated that sponsored lenses are annoying, 30% say they are interested, 17.5% of respondents replied that sponsored lenses make them ‘happy’, 10% say sponsored lenses make them sad, 6.3% are inspired by them, and 7.5% say sponsored lenses make them stressed. Overall it can be said that the majority of respondents in this study are annoyed by sponsored lenses, but many are also inspired by them and feel happy due to sponsored lenses.
Discussion and Conclusions
It was expected that ‘advertising a commercial brand in a sponsored lens has a more positive effect on consumers’ brand memory, than advertising a political brand’, which has been confirmed. It was found that exposure to a commercial brand in a sponsored lens significantly increased the odds of recalling the brand. As the sample of this study is relatively young, these respondents are expected to have more experience with and
knowledge of native advertising and likely recognise native advertising better than most. As previously theorised, the results may be also explained by the fact that people are
surrounded by commercial advertising all the time, and this experience with commercial advertising makes it easier to realise when one is targeted by a commercial ad (Friestad &
Wright, 1994). This is in opposition to political ads, which are not visible all around us all the time due to political advertising being limited to certain time frames like elections, and leads to generally less experience with political advertising. This in turn could be the reason for lowers consumers realisation that the sponsored lens with a political brand in it is in fact, also advertising. This may be especially so amongst citizens who have a low involvement with party politics overall as they tend to avoid the surroundings of political elections because gathering political information is costly in terms of the effort versus the motivation necessary, and thus they may realise even less that the sponsored lens with a political brand is also advertising (Smith & French, 2010: 4). This leads to the conclusion that political brands could have a lot to gain from native advertising, and sponsored lenses in this case, as people may not recognise that they are being targeted by an ad, thus the detachment effect may not occur.
It was also expected that ‘advertising a commercial brand in a Snapchat lens has a more positive effect on brand attitude than a political brand, with Millennials and
Generation Z expressing more positive attitudes than Generation X’ but this hypothesis was rejected. It was expected that as previous literature implied that brand recall stimulates related brand associations which may be positive, neutral or negative (Smith & French, 2010: 7), and as the first hypothesis showed brand memory was influenced, brand attitudes would be influenced too. Results showed that brand attitude was not higher for commercial brand compared to the political brand amongst the generations so they did not differ
amongst each other in this respect. As theorised earlier by Brucks, Armstrong & Goldberg (1988), conceptual persuasion knowledge is joined by an understanding of the persuasive intent of an ad which can lead to the use cognitive defences against advertising, which did not occur here in this study and sample. Even though it was expected that because younger people are thought to have more experience with native advertising, that they would have
more positive attitudes compared to older respondents, it may be that the generations simply do not judge brands differently and have a similar understanding of conceptual persuasion knowledge. It may also be that results were not in line with the expectations because the sample consisted of mainly millennials and the other groups were too small for making adequate comparisons between generations. The findings cannot be generalised to a larger population due to this fact.
Lastly, it was hypothesised that ‘the effect of the exposure to a sponsored lens on the brand attitude is moderated by the motive for use, with consumers using Snapchat for entertainment purposes expressing more positive attitudes than consumers using Snapchat for social interaction purposes’, which was rejected, too. As stated earlier, media marketing strategies aim to focus on the fun experience of the platform more than traditional media (Gao & Fench, 2016). It was expected that people who use Snapchat for entertainment purposes would be more open towards the advertising in a Snapchat lens as they are usually humorous ads, and this would influence one’s attitude more positively than for people who use Snapchat for social interaction purposes primarily. The latter would be expected to be less open to sponsored lenses as this is considered a hyper personal space, based on
theorisation by Beauchamp (2013) that social media marketing is perceived as ‘invasive’ in her study. Advertising may feel more like an intrusion when the motive for use is social interaction as connecting with a friend is to be considered a personal space, making advertising in this space though sponsored lenses feel like an intrusion, which could affect brand attitudes negatively. However, analysis results showed that the motive to use
Snapchat primarily for entertainment purposes has slightly stronger altering effects on the relationship between viewing a sponsored lens and brand attitude, than the motive to use Snapchat primarily for social interaction purposes. Although, because the mediation effect was not significant, it cannot be said that this is true for this study and sample. It may be that
the results were not in line with the hypothesis because Snapchat users may not consider Snapchat a hyper personal space, or they are simply understanding of the need for advertising on Snapchat, in which case the motive for using Snapchat simply does not influence one’s brand attitude. It can be concluded that this result leaves room for further research.
Additional results for this sample and study are that a correlation is found between how sceptical people are of sponsored advertising and their brand attitude; the higher the level of scepticism, or attitudinal persuasion knowledge, the more negative the brand
attitude. Results regarding sponsorship disclosure preferences are that the majority (47%) of the sample claimed to prefer seeing sponsored content with disclosure, for transparency and honesty reasons.
This research has useful implications for scholars and marketers who are trying to understand the potential of marketing communication tools like Snapchat. The findings of this study offer insight into the pro-active attitudes towards marketing and brands on social media in today’s marketplace. Due to the overload of information and cluster bomb
approach to advertising online, in order to stand out and ad has to be relevant, touching or at least special. Native advertising has been around for a little while now and people get used to seeing brands on social media in different shapes of sponsored content. Advertising on Snapchat is effective for reaching a young demographic, but many respondents of this study with a relatively young sample attribute feelings of ‘happiness’ and ‘inspiration’ to
sponsored Snapchat lenses. But, the majority of respondents also find sponsored lenses annoying. For marketers and brand managers this means that they need to keep sponsored lenses fun and creative, in order to keep from annoying Snapchat users.
It is recommended for future analysis to investigate influencer marketing through Instagram and Snapchat stories, as this was not possible to include in the scope of this study but is thought to be extremely influential and persuasive for native advertising practices. In this study it was expected that the younger generations are better at recognising advertising on social media than older generations, because they are thought to be more experienced with social media, use social media differently, and simply have a greater understanding of it. However this sample included very few respondents belonging to generation Z, leading to limited conclusions. It would also be interesting to find out whether more experience with social media automatically means that young people disengage from native advertising or sponsored lenses more quickly.. Also for future reference, for the operationalisation of studying brands, in order to do a manipulation check it can prove more salient to provide people with an image of several brands and have respondents pick the one they had seen. This would make analysis simpler than the open ended question this study used to check what people had seen.
In conclusion, sponsored lenses seem to be rather persuasive in terms of brand memory and a substantial amount of respondents attributed positive feelings to them, but the majority also stated that sponsored lenses are ‘annoying’. They do not regard sponsored lenses typically as advertising, however that did not influence their brand evaluation in this study. Theoretically, the findings provide new insights into how different types of brands, and motivations for using Snapchat influences the persuasion process and the role of
persuasion knowledge within this process. The first hypothesis of this study was confirmed; ‘Advertising a commercial brand in a sponsored lens has a more positive effect on
consumers’ brand memory, than advertising a political brand’, but all other hypotheses have been rejected, which leaves room for further research on the effects of sponsored lenses on brand evaluations. Nevertheless, for this study and sample, the research question ‘How
effective are sponsored lenses on Snapchat for persuasive advertising purposes?’ has been sufficiently answered. Some useful insight into the uses and gratifications of Snapchat, and the larger discussion of how brands can play into this have been provided.
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Appendix A Experimental Conditions
On the left: the sponsored Snapchat lens screenshot with Liberal party brand, and on the right: the commercially sponsored Snapchat lens screenshot with Jalapeno Fresco brand.
Appendix B
