The blogs and the barriers: the effect of blog
source on brand attitude and the moderating
influence of brand familiarity.
Marleen Kampinga 11194758 Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Communication Science
Stephan Winter 30 June 2017
Abstract
Blogs are increasingly popular. Consequently, marketers more and more recognize the value of blogs for commercial purposes. However, the understanding of the persuasiveness of this way of promoting is scarce. This study draws upon the knowledge that the source of a message plays an important role in explaining persuasion outcomes and investigates whether the persuasive intent is explaining this relationship when brand familiarity varies. More specifically, it is tested whether blog source predicts brand attitude with perceived persuasive intent as the underlying mechanism and whether brand familiarity moderates this relationship. In an experiment, 235 participants filled in a survey about a blog concerning a recipe of ‘Caramel Kissed Brownie’. The results show
unexpected, however interesting outcomes. It is found that blog source, with or without sponsorship disclosure, has no effect on brand attitude, direct nor through perceived persuasive intent.
Furthermore, when brand familiarity increases, perceived persuasive intent also increases and unexpectedly, the higher a blog is perceived as persuasive, the more favorable the attitude is towards the exposed brand. Thereby, this study adds new perspectives to the understanding of marketing communications within blog campaigns.
Introduction
Consumers’ everyday lives are filled with advertising in such a way that we developed mental shortcuts to deal with them (Dahlen & Edenius, 2008). In other words, when consumers encounter an advertisement, so-called persuasion knowledge is activated (Friestad & Wright, 1994, 1995) helping us to interpret the advertisement as a persuasive attempt (Hoch, 2002). Due to the increasing advertising clutter, consumers’ attitudes are becoming more negative (Speck & Elliot, 1998). These negative attitudes towards the advertising can, in turn, lead to negative attitudes towards the targeted brand (Gardner, 1985; Ketelaar, Van Gisbergen, Bosman & Beentjes, 2010).
In order to deal with these negative attitudes, marketers try to think of new ways to distinguish from the advertising clutter, such as creativity and new media. The World Wide Web gave these marketers enormous new possibilities. In September 1993, the first online advertisement was sold (Nielsen, 2013) and throughout the years, websites, banners and social media pages were discovered as fundamental channels for marketers to increase sales.
Nowadays, blogs have become a popular medium, providing a user-friendly interface allowing internet users to create their own content (Ho, Chiu, Chen & Papazafeiropoulou, 2015). They are often used to share product-, brand- or company-related information as well as
experiences (Hsu, Lin & Chiang, 2013) and therefore are discovered by brands as a useful tool for commercial purposes. Also, they are highly popular as indicated by their readership. For example, Dutch food blogger Leonie ter Veld reaches 90.000 unique readers per month with her blog
gewoonwateenstudentjesavondseet.nl and Reisjunk.nl, a Dutch blog of a couple writing about their travels, reaches 100.000 unique readers a week (adfactor.nl, 2017).
Recently, an interesting shift is made. That is, companies write blogs themselves sharing content with their consumers. These blogs contain content from, for example, their own employees and are placed on their own websites. For instance, the employees of Dr. Oetker create recipes with Dr. Oetker products and the company posts these recipes on its website in a blog format (Dr.
Persuasive intent of blogs has been studied solely within the context of sponsorship
disclosure (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). This study revealed that sponsorship disclosure activates persuasion knowledge, which negatively influences brand attitude due to resistance. However, it is not yet clear whether a blog written by a blogger has a more positive influence on persuasion than a blog written by the brand of the exposed product and whether it varies when sponsorship disclosure is mentioned. Therefore, this study focuses on the blog source and its persuasiveness. More
specifically, the aim of the current study is to fill this knowledge gap by studying the relationship between the source of a blog and brand attitude.
It will be systematically investigated whether perceived persuasive intent of a blog mediates the relationship between blog source and brand attitude. In the current study, blog source is
categorised in three different levels: 1. a blog with a brand as the source, 2. a blog without
sponsorship disclosure with a blogger as the source and 3. a blog with sponsorship disclosure with a blogger as the source. Additionally, this study examines the influence of persuasive intent on brand attitude, meaning to what extent a message is perceived as persuasive by the receiver (Friestad & Wright, 1994) and whether this influences the favorable or unfavorable responses towards the exposed brand (Lutz, 1985). Moreover, it is convenient to know what kind of communication tool is most effective for what kind of brand, since rise of new companies and growth of existing
companies in the world is extensive. Therefore, this study examines how brand familiarity moderates the influence of blog source on perceived persuasive intent with brand familiarity reflecting on the direct and indirect brand-related experience of a consumer (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987). Hence, the study aims to answer the following research question: How does blog source influences consumers’ attitude towards the brand of the targeted product and what is the role of perceived persuasive intent on this relationship? Do familiar or less familiar brands benefit more from blogs as a marketing tool?
Knowledge of the effectiveness of various blog sources can be of great value to marketing communication, as choosing an effective communication tool that fits the specific company’s
characteristics may increase revenue. As for a scientific point of view, it is interesting to investigate how the source of a blog can be perceived differently while the message stays the same and whether perceived persuasive intent influences consumers’ persuasion outcomes, such as brand attitude.
Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses Development
Message source
The current study draws upon previous research about influence of the message source on the perception of the message. According to the communications model of persuasion (Hovland, Janis & Kelley, 1953), the characteristics of the messenger, the audience, and the context as well as the message itself influences the effectiveness of communication. From this vantage point of view, it is not solely about what is being said, but who sends the message and to whom.
When focused on the ‘who’ of this model, scholars have extensively examined credibility. Source credibility is defined as judgments of the receiver regarding the believability of a
communicator (O’Keefe, 1990). As key dimensions, most studies on source credibility have used expertise and trustworthiness (Fogg & Tseng, 1999). Former studies on message sources were focused on traditional media, such as public speakers, newspapers and tv commercials. For instance, Hovland and Weiss (1951) revealed that material of a high credible source was more accepted than material of a low credible source, even when the material was perceived as
untrustworthy. In that study, the same text was shown within different communication sources (e.i., quality newspapers compared to gossip magazines). Furthermore, Petty, Cacioppo and Goldman (1981) showed that individuals are more likely to agree with a source that is perceived as expert than with a source that is perceived as non-expert, under low involvement. This was tested with pre-information about the function (e.i., report prepared by a university professor vs. a high school class) of a male speaker they would listen to later.
developments, mainly professional agencies controlled information that was communicated to consumers by media tools, such as newspapers, tv commercials and billboards. Nowadays, partly due to the rise of online communication tools, such as review websites and social media, consumers are able to deliver information to other consumers. Scholars have investigated these new
communication tools and discovered the influence they can have on the decision making of
consumers. Focused on product reviews for instance, Pan and Chiou (2011) found that even though consumers did not know each other personally, the perceived social relationship that exists among reviewers is an important cue with which to judge the credibility of the information posted. Another interesting study shows that the higher the perceived credibility of the writer behind social media posts (which included product advertising), the higher the attitude towards the brand of the product (Ghosh, Varshney & Venugopal, 2014). Besides online product reviews and social media posts, blogs have been shown to be important online consumer to consumer communication tools sharing product information and influencing consumer behavior (Kapitan & Silvera, 2016).
Blogs
The term blog is derived from weblog, which is a combined word from 1990 of ‘web’ in the sense of World Wide Web and ‘log’ in the sense of regular record of incidents (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.). Blogs have existed for several years now and became widely known by Jorn Barger. He defined weblogs as a way to present personal logs on webpages (Wright, 2006). During the years, the content as well as the number of blogs changed rapidly due to the increasing channels for publishing. Nowadays, bloggers not only write about their personal incidents, they are also used to share information about products, brands or companies as well as their experiences with them (Hsu, Lin & Chiang, 2013). Former research shows that consumers browse, adopt and trust information written on popular blogs (Bansal & Voyer, 2000), and recent research shows that blogs affect persuasion outcomes, such as brand attitude and purchasing behaviors due to, for example, blog type (Ho, Chi, Chen & Papazafeiropoulou, 2015) and credibility (Kapitan & Silvera, 2016),
showing that a blog is a powerful advertising medium and promising for marketing purposes. In practice, several ways are shown of how organizations use blogs as a marketing medium. First, they provide bloggers with a sample of a (new) product, hoping that bloggers use the product and write about them positively. Second, organizations give bloggers a specific amount of money to write about their product or brand positively, so-called advertorials — sponsored messages written in the form of editorial opinions (Senft, 2008). Third, brands can write blogs themselves and place them on their own websites. For example, co-founder, CEO and chairman of the electrical car brand Tesla, Elon Musk, writes blogs about new developments in the field (Tesla, 2017).
In general, bloggers’ opinions are perceived as non-commercial (Hsu, Lin & Chiang, 2012). Due to an increasing level of credibility, individuals treat bloggers like friends (Ballantine & Yeung, 2015). Therefore, consumers usually relate to the recommendations from them positively (Hsu, Lin & Chiang, 2012). Due to source credibility and behavioral intention derived from
bloggers which require that blog readers perceive it as unbiased (Pan & Chiou, 2011), it is expected that blogs written by bloggers are perceived as messages with a lower persuasive intent than blogs written by brands. Furthermore, compared to traditional advertising, such as billboards, tv
commercials and magazine advertisements, blogs do not explicitly show cues that could influence readers’ perceptions that bloggers want to persuade them. In contrary to a blog written by a brand, showing cues that could activate individuals’ persuasion knowledge, such as logos, slogans (Friestad & Wright, 1994) and the context in which the message is placed (Dahlen & Edenius, 2008). There is, however, a way blogs might activate persuasion knowledge of the reader, so-called sponsorship disclosure.
Sponsorship disclosure
When using blogs by providing bloggers with either a (new) product or money, the blogger is able to choose whether he or she wants to show the readers that the blog is sponsored by a brand,
several ways to add sponsorship disclosure are mentioning the collaboration with the sponsoring brand, writing that the blog is sponsored or placing a hashtag on the social media posts on which the link of the blog is shown, such as #spon, #sp and #sponsored (ter Veld, n.d.; de Boer, n.d.). When sponsorship is explicitly disclosed, the recognition of sponsored content as advertising increases (Boerman, Van Reijmersdal & Neijens, 2012) and persuasion knowledge is activated (Van
Reijmersdal et al., 2016), meaning that consumers perceive the blog as if the writer tries to persuade them. Therefore, it is expected that the perceived persuasive intent of a blog with sponsorship disclosure does not differ with a blog written by a brand.
H1: a) Consumers exposed to a blog written by a blogger will perceive the persuasive intent lower as those exposed to a blog written by a brand, b) though only when sponsorship disclosure is not explicitly shown.
Brand attitude
When persuasion knowledge is activated, people attempt to be either persuaded or resist persuasion (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). This is explained by the persuasion knowledge model of Friestad and Wright (1994), which is applied in this study to understand the underlying mechanism of the relationship between blog source and brand attitude. This model assumes that during their lives, people have developed an understanding of the persuasive nature of a message and learned how to cope with it. When people try to resist persuasion, they respond with for example reactance (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). Reactance is defined by people responding negatively towards a message by trying to resist the persuasion attempt when they feel that their freedom of choice has been threatened. In contrary, if a message is not perceived as persuasive it positively affects persuasion outcomes.
For instance, Matthes, Schermer and Wirth (2007) examined that tv programs with brand placement compared to no brand placement increase persuasion knowledge which, in turn, affects
attitude towards the brand more negatively, even when memory of the brand placement is low. In that study, frequency of brand placement was included within three levels (e.i., no brand placement, seven times brand placement or thirteen times brand placement). Furthermore, Dahlén and Edemius (2008) showed activation of persuasion knowledge with traditional compared to non-traditional media (e.i., magazine vs. egg) and examined that non-traditional advertising was perceived as less persuasive, increasing ad credibility and ad attitude, since individuals identified the message not as advertising. Also, within the context of blogs, Van Reijmersdal et al. (2016) revealed that activation of persuasion knowledge triggers cognitive and affective resistance which, in turn, leads to a
negative attitude towards the sponsoring brand compared to when persuasion knowledge was not activated. In that study, a sponsored blog either with or without sponsorship disclosure was exposed to students.
These studies show positive changes in attitude when persuasive intentions of a message were perceived as low. However, Boerman, Van Reijmersdal and Neijens (2012) show no significant differences between perceived persuasive intent and brand attitude. In other words, perceived persuasive intent did not mediate the relationship between tie strength of the messenger and attitude towards the exposed brand.
Activation of persuasive intent of consumers mainly leads to negative persuasion outcomes, though scholars show different results. The current study replicates testing the relationship between perceived persuasive intent and brand attitude and expects that high perceived persuasive intent compared to low, leads to a more negative attitude towards the brand, due to mainly negative outcomes in previous research.
H2: A higher perceived persuasive intent leads to a more negative brand attitude, whereas a lower perceived persuasive intent leads to a more positive brand attitude.
Brand familiarity
As a brand, it is beneficial to know when to use what kind of marketing tools to promote its products. Within public relations, using blogs in campaigns have been shown to have a positive influence on brand attitude (Pan & Chiou, 2011; Ballantine & Yeung, 2015). However, there is not much known about what type of brands could benefit most by using blogs in their campaigns. The current study looks at the moderating role of brand familiarity.
Brand familiarity reflects on the direct and indirect brand-related experience of a consumer (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987), usually derived from using the brand. It captures the brand knowledge structure of consumers, meaning the existing associations within a consumers’ memory. Consumers are usually familiar with an advertised brand. However, the associations in a consumers mind can be less when they are not exposed to a brand before or when a brand is new to a marketplace (Stewart, 1992).
Within the elaboration likelihood model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1981) a consumer adopts a different route of information processing when being exposed to a familiar brand compared to being exposed to a less familiar brand (Campbell & Keller, 2003). As for familiar brands,
consumers have already formed attitudes through their prior encounters (Kumkale, Albarracin, & Seignourel, 2010). Therefore, a consumer is likely to process an ad, for example, more cognitively by updating their existing knowledge (Snyder & Stukas, 1999). In other words, brand familiarity entails brand connections existing within the consumer’s memory (Stewart, 1992). In contrary, when exposed to a less familiar brand, a consumer exerts less cognitive effort in evaluating and comprehending a message than individuals who do not have as much information about that brand, for example because they have not used the brand before. Therefore, consumers process exposure to a less familiar brand more heuristically (Kumkale, Albarracin & Seignourel, 2010). In forming their opinion judgment, individuals use external information, such as source credibility. For instance, expertise is a factor consumers rely on when exposure to a less familiar brand is processed with the knowledge that an expert source is trustworthy (Chaiken, 1980). In addition, when consumers have
not much prior knowledge about a brand and are unable or unmotivated to think about the message, the number of arguments, message length and attractiveness are factors they rely on (Petty & Wegener, 1999). Specifically, messages with more arguments, longer messages and higher source attractiveness are more persuasive.
In sum, it is expected that a blog is perceived as less persuasive and that this effect is stronger when a less familiar brand is exposed, since exposure to a less familiar brand is processed more heuristically and consumers are less able to rely on cognitive factors and thus, it is less likely that persuasion knowledge is activated.
H3: A blog written by a blogger results in lower perceived persuasive intent than does a blog written by a brand as well as a blog with sponsorship disclosure when consumers are exposed to a less familiar brand than to a familiar brand.
H4: Combining Hypotheses 1a, 1b, 2 and 3, a moderated mediation model is proposed, shown in figure 1, to test the relationship between message source and brand attitude; the model incorporates perceived persuasive intent as mediator and brand familiarity as a moderator.
Brand Familiarity Brand Attitude Blog Source Perceived Persuasive Intent H1 H4 H2 H3
Method
Sample and procedure
To test the hypotheses, an online experiment was conducted. A total of 254 participants were taking part in this study. Participants between 21 and 35 years old were asked to participate in this research through links on Facebook and via email. Adults of this age are chosen, since research shows that they read blogs the most (Sysomos, 2016) and influence their decision regarding the experience the blogger had with the product (Ho, Chiu, Chen & Papazafeiropoulou, 2015). Three participants were excluded of the analysis, because they did not meet the age requirements. Furthermore, sixteen participants were excluded, because they did not completely fill out the questionnaire.
The analysis was done among 235 participants with age ranged from 21 to 35 years (M = 24.8, SD = 3.64) and from which 71.9% were female. Median educational level was university degree, 58.3% had obtained a University bachelor’s degree or higher. To check if random
assignment to conditions was successful, first, an ANOVA was conducted with conditions as the independent variable and age as the dependent variable. Analyses showed no main effect of condition on age, (F(5, 229) = 1.04, p = .394, η2 = .02), meaning that randomization was successful.
Second, to check randomization between conditions for gender and education, a Chi-square tests was conducted. Analyses revealed no significant differences between conditions on gender, (Χ2 (20) = 16.78, p = .411), nor on education (X2 (30) = 35.56, p = .223) and therefore, it can be
assumed that randomization was also successful for both gender and education. In conclusion, the experimental groups did not differ from each other with respect to age, gender and education.
Experiment
Participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions. A 3 (blog source: brand, blog or blog with sponsorship disclosure) x 2 (brand familiarity: familiar or less familiar) between subjects factorial design was used. The participants were exposed to a recipe of ‘Caramel Kissed Brownies’. The introduction of the experiment stated that their opinion about a webpage would be asked, that the questionnaire takes approximately 5 minutes and that the gathered data remains anonymous.
In the six conditions, the written text showed which ingredients were needed to create the dish, how to create the dish and that the dish was tasteful (see appendix 1). The recipe was visually manipulated in three ways. First, the recipe contained source characteristics of either a brand or a blog. These cues included a logo, a slogan, the URL and the specific link of the
Facebookpage of the source. The blog was called ‘Sweetblog’ with the slogan ‘Food blog for your lovely sweet snacks’, a fictitious name and slogan to make sure that the participants did not have created an opinion about the blogger prior to the experiment. Second, sponsorship disclosure was manipulated within the blogs conditions. Sponsorship disclosure was exposed in two ways. First, aside to the title of the blog the word ‘sponsored’ was placed and second, at the end of the blog it was stated that the blog is written in collaboration with the brand. Both ways are seen at blogposts of popular Dutch bloggers (ter Veld, n.d.; de Boer, n.d.).
Third, the branded brownie mix was manipulated. Dr. Oetker, chosen to be the familiar brand, describes itself as “The branded goods company Dr. Oetker is represented in the retail food trade by roughly different products 3,500 internationally (Dr. Oetker, 2016).” In Europe, Dr. Oetker has a leading position in the frozen pizza, dessert and baking sectors.
itself as “offering consumers quality products that bring families together to share memorable meals and moments’’ (Pillsbury, 2016). In North America, Smucker is a leading marketer and
manufacturer of consumer food and beverage products as well as of pet food and pet snacks. Pillsbury is similar to Dr. Oetker when it comes to baking products. Since the brand is mainly sold in North America, this brand is chosen for the less familiar brand condition.
Measures
Perceived persuasive intent. To create an indication of the participants’ perceived
persuasive intent of the message, they were asked to what extent they agreed with the statement “This webpage is created to persuade” on a seven-point scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree). This wording is in line with the existing studies (Rozendaal, Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2010; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016; M = 4.34, SD = 1.45).
Brand attitude. To understand the brand attitude after exposure of the stimuli, participants
were asked to answer the question “To what extent do you think Dr. Oetker/Pillsbury is…” on a seven-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree) on six items: bad/good, unpleasant/pleasant, unfavorable/favorable, negative/positive, unlikeable/likeable and of poor quality/of high quality (Bruner, 2009; M = 5.06, SD = 1.11). The reliability analysis of this scale yielded favorable results. The value was .83 and therefore exceeded the recommended value of Cronbach’s alpha of 0.7 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1995).
Blog likability. To understand the likability of the blog, participants were asked to answer
the question “To what extent do you think the webpage is…” on a seven-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly disagree) on four items: pleasant to view/unpleasant to view,
unlikable/likable, unenjoyable/enjoyable and unattractive/attractive (Artz, Tybout & Kehret-Ward, 1993; M = 5.18, SD = 1.20). Accordingly, the items were found to be reliable on blog liking (α = 92).
answering the question on a 7 point scale from 1 (never) to 7 (daily).
Blog source. To check whether the participants perceived the source as coming from a
blogger or a brand, the participants were asked to answer the statement: “Please indicate the source of the message”. They were given three answer options: 1. a brand’s website, 2. a food blog and 3. none of the above.
Sponsorship disclosure. To check whether the participants recognized the sponsorship
disclosure within the blog condition, the participants were asked to answer the statement: “Please indicate whether this webpage was sponsored or not”. They were given three answer options: 1. sponsored, 2. not sponsored and 3. I don’t know.
Brand familiarity. To check participants’ familiarity with the exposed brand, the participants
were asked to indicate their familiarity with Dr. Oetker/Pillsbury, to indicate to what extent they feel they have enough information to make an informed judgement about Dr. Oetker/Pillsbury and to indicate their previous experience with Dr. Oetker/Pillsbury. They answered these questions on a seven-point Likert scale: 1. very familiar, no information and no previous experience to 7: not familiar at all, a great deal of information and a lot of previous experience (Kent & Allen, 1994, M
= 3.60, SD = 1.81). The reliability analysis of the this scale yielded favorable results (α = 91).
Results
Manipulation checks
Each stimulus was created by manipulating blog source, sponsorship disclosure and brand familiarity. First, to understand whether participants were aware of the fact that they were exposed to a blog written by a blogger or to a blog written by a brand, a Chi-square was conducted with conditions as independent variable and source as dependent variable. A significant main effect was found (X2 (8) = 76.87, p < .001), meaning that the participants recognized the source of the blog
Second, a Chi-square revealed that participants exposed to the blog with sponsorship disclosure stimuli mentioned that they recognized the sponsored content (X2 (8) = 35.56, p < .001)
(see table 2). Third, the results of an independent t-test revealed that Dr. Oetker (M = 5.21, SD = .92) was rated higher in familiarity than Pillsbury (M = 1.93, SD = .59), significantly (t (233) = 46.23, p. < 0.001). In conclusion, results of the manipulation checks imply that blog source, sponsorship disclosure and brand familiarity were successfully manipulated.
Condition Brand’s
website Food blog None of the above Total
Brand 53 16 6 75
Blog 11 61 9 81
Blog with sponsorship
disclosure 12 57 10 79
Table 1
Overview of the manipulation of independent variable blog source. The columns show the participants’ answers of the manipulation checks, rows represent the actual conditions they were exposed to.
Condition Sponsored Not Sponsored I don’t know Total
Blog 29.. ..9 26.. 64.. Blog with sponsorship disclosure 40 12 7 59 Table 2
Overview of the manipulation of independent variable blog source. The columns show the participants’ answers of the manipulation checks, rows represent the actual conditions they were exposed to.
Blog source on perceived persuasive intent with moderator brand familiarity
To test whether exposure to a blog written by a blogger leads to a lower perceived persuasive intent than exposure to a blog of a brand only when sponsorship disclosure is not explicitly shown and whether this relationship is moderated by brand familiarity, a two-way ANOVA was conducted. Analyses revealed no significant main effect of blog source (F (2, 229) = .92, p = .398, η2 = .01), a significant main effect of brand familiarity
(F (1, 229) = 19.61, p < .001, η2 = .08) and no significant interaction effect between these two factors (F (2, 229) = 2.10, p = .125, η2 = .02). In other words, exposure to a blogpost of a blogger does not lead to a lower perceived persuasive intent than exposure to a blog of a brand, neither does exposure to a blog with sponsorship disclosure. This effect is not influenced by brand familiarity. A visualization of this non-significant interaction effect is shown in figure 2.
Interestingly, main effects analyses on brand familiarity demonstrated significant
differences between the conditions. Participants who were exposed to a blog showing a familiar brand perceived it as more persuasive (M= 4.73, SE = .18) than those exposed to a less familiar brand (M = 3.92, SE = .18).
Furthermore, main effects analyses on blog source revealed no significant differences within
0, 1,5 3, 4,5 6,
Brand Blog Blog with
Sponsorship Disclosure Per ce iv ed Per sua si ve Int ent Blog source
Less familiar brand Familiar brand
Figure 2. Visualization of the (non-significant)
interaction effect on brand attitude between experimental condition blog source and brand familiarity.
= 4.24, SE = .22, p = 1.00), participants perceived the persuasiveness of the blog similar as those in
the blog with sponsorship disclosure condition and in the brand condition (M = 4.25, SE = .22, p = .791). Also, participants in the brand condition perceived the persuasive intent of the blog similar as those in the blog with sponsorship disclosure condition (M = 4.25, SE = 2.23, p = .854). Due to the non-significant results it can be concluded that hypotheses 1a, 1b and 3 are rejected.
Perceived persuasive intent on brand attitude
Linear regression analysis was used to test if perceived persuasive intent of a blog significantly predicted participants’ attitude towards the exposed brand. The results of the
regression indicated that perceived persuasive intent predicted brand attitude (b = .11, Beta = .15, p
< 0.05) and that perceived persuasive intent accounted for 1.8% of the variance (R2 = .02, F(1,
233) = 5.19). In other words, the higher the perceived persuasive intent, the more positive the attitude towards the exposed brand. This result is not in the expected direction and thus, hypothesis 2 is not supported.
Moderated mediation
Being interested in a moderated mediation effect and dealing with a multicategorical independent variable (i.e.,I allocation to one of three experimental conditions), indicator coding of Hayes and Preacher (2013) was followed resulting in k - 1 variables (two in this case). This allowed for the following comparisons of two conditions: 1. blog versus brand and 2. blog versus blog with sponsorship disclosure. A statistical model including coefficients of both comparisons can be found in figure 3.
A PROCESS macro analysis was conducted to investigate whether perceived persuasive intent mediates the effect of blog source on brand attitude differently depending on the brand familiarity. First, the relative effect of blog source on perceived persuasive intent was tested. Results show that blog source did not predicted perceived persuasive intent significantly. In other
words, participants did not perceive a blog written by a blogger significantly different than a blog written by a brand (a1a = -.59, SE = .65, p = .361). Also, a blog without sponsorship disclosure was
significantly not perceived different than a blog with sponsorship disclosure (a1b = -0.30, SE = 0.62,
p = .628). Therefore, it does not depend on the source of the blog whether it is perceived as
persuasive. Thus, similar as the results of the ANOVA, hypothesis 1a and 1b are rejected. Second, when looking at the results of perceived persuasive intent on brand attitude, analysis revealed that perceived persuasive intent was a significant predictor of brand attitude (ba = .11, SE = .05, p <
0.05). In other words, when perceived persuasive intent of a message is higher, attitude towards the brand increases. However, this effect is not in the predicted direction and thus hypothesis 2 is rejected, showing similar results as with the linear regression test.
Third, the relative direct effect of blog source on brand attitude was tested. These results indicated that the direct coefficients were not significant for both variables blog compared to brand (c’a = -.07, SE = .18, p = .712) and blog compared to blog with sponsorship disclosure (c’b = -.21,
SE = .18, p = .712). In other words, brand attitude does not depend on the source of a blog.
Fourth, the relative moderation effect was tested. Similarly to the ANOVA results, PROCESS macro analysis, model 7, revealed that brand familiarity significantly predicted the perceived persuasive intent of a blog within the blog compared to brand variable (a2a = .61, SE =
.22, p < 0.01), showing that when brand familiarity increases, perceived persuasive intent also increases. Furthermore, brand familiarity also predicted perceived persuasive intent significantly within the blog compared to blog with sponsorship disclosure variable (a2b = .72, SE = .23, p <
0.01), also showing that when brand familiarity increases, perceived persuasive intent increases. However, the interaction effect between blog source, brand familiarity and perceived persuasive intent was not significant for both blog compared to brand (a3a = .58, SE = .39, p = .144) and blog
compared to blog with sponsorship disclosure (a3b = .21, SE = .39, p = .588). Therefore, the
Lastly, the relative moderated mediation effect was tested. The results showed that blog source on brand attitude through perceived persuasive intent was similar with exposure to a less familiar brand as to a familiar brand and the index of moderated mediation is also similar for both blog compared to brand (c’a = .07, 95 % IC = -.01 to .25) and blog compared to blog with
sponsorship disclosure variables (c’b = .03, 95 % IC = -.06 to .15). As can be seen, the confidence
intervals did contain zero, meaning that there is no significant relative moderated mediation effect of blog source on brand attitude through perceived persuasive intent with brand familiarity as a moderator and thus, hypothesis 4 is rejected.
In sum, this study showed that the source of a blog does not influence the perceived persuasive intent of consumers and that this relationship is not moderated by brand familiarity. Results revealed that the brand attitude becomes more positive when perceived persuasive intent increases, which was an unexpected outcome considering previous research.
Indicator coding
Variable Blog Brand Blog with sponsorship
disclosure
A 0 1 0
B 0 0 1
(b) blog versus blog with sponsorship disclosure variable (a) blog versus brand variable
Exploratory analysis
Since previous research examined that less familiar brands are more heuristically processed compared to familiar brands which are processed more cognitively and therefore consumers rely more on other factors, such as likability (Snyder & Stukas, 1999). An exploratory analysis tested whether likability of the blog was higher for less familiar brands than for familiar brands.
The results of the current study indicated that blogs exposing a familiar brand were significantly (t(233) = 2.24, p < .05) more likeable (M = 5.35, SD = 1.18) than blogs exposing a less familiar brand (M = 5.00, SD = 1.21). Thus, even though consumers might process exposure to a less familiar brand more heuristically, that does not depend on whether a blog exposing a less familiar brand is perceived as more likeable than a blog exposing a familiar brand. Additionally, looking at the high means, it can be concluded that (food) blogs are liked on an average basis.
Previous research has been done on blog types (e.g. expert vs. celebrities) (Ho, Chiu, Chen & Papazafeiropoulou, 2015), however, not on topic interest. Therefore, another exploratory analysis whether participants who are interested in food blogs (the topic of the stimuli), were more favorable towards the brand attitude than participants who were not interested in food blogs. Results of an independent t-test revealed that participants who often read food blogs (M = 5.10, SD = .09), do not significantly (t(232) = -.67, p = .501) have a more positive attitude towards the exposed brand than participants who do not read blogs often (M = 4.99, SD = .13). Thus, the current study shows no prove that brand attitude is positively affected when a consumer shows more interest in a specific topic.
Discussion, limitations and future research
Figure 3. Statistical model of both k - 1 variables including regression coefficients resulting from indicator coding.
Model A. shows the outcomes of blog versus brand variable, whereas B. shows the outcomes of blog versus blog with sponsorship disclosure. Notes. * p = < 0.05, ** p = < 0.01
familiarity can have on this relationship, a study that provides the first comparison between a blogger and a brand within the message source context.
It was expected that a blog written by a blogger would be perceived as less persuasive than a blog written by a brand as well as a blogger mentioning sponsorship disclosure and that when the blog would be perceived as more persuasive, consumers would yield a less favorable attitude towards the exposed brand. This difference was expected to be especially pronounced for blogs exposing a familiar brand, as individuals process familiar brands more cognitively than less familiar brands (Snyder & Stukas, 1999). To test these assumptions, a fictitious blog was developed
including a recipe of ‘Caramel Kiss Brownies’ with manipulated blog source, brand familiarity and sponsorship disclosure. Overall, the outcomes of the experiment show results that do not align with previous research. Explanations for these contrary outcomes are proposed.
First, results revealed that whether a blog is written by a blogger or a brand, it does not differently affects the persuasive intent of the blog. A blog is similarly perceived as persuasive when it is written by a blogger as when it is written by a brand as well as when sponsorship disclosure is explicitly mentioned. Surprisingly, since previous research revealed that brands’ advertisements (Friestand & Wright, 1994) and sponsorship disclosure activates persuasion knowledge of individuals (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016) and therefore clearer differences were expected. The contrary results may be explained by the non-traditional way the promotion was executed. Dahlén and Edenius (2008) revealed that when a brand promotes a product in a traditional way (e.g. an editorial content in a newspaper) consumers routinely identify the message as
advertisement due to experience, increasing the perceived persuasive intent of a message. A blog is a relatively new marketing communications tool for organizations, which could be the explanation of why participants did not identify the persuasive intent of the blog.
Additionally, perceived persuasive intent affects brand attitude, though in a different direction than expected. Findings show that when perceived persuasive intent of a message increases, attitudes towards the exposed brand become more positive. This is not in line with
previous studies showing negative attitudes towards a brand when a blog is perceived as highly persuasive due to activation of persuasion knowledge (Matthes, Schermer & Wirth, 2007; Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016), neither with a previous study showing no effect of perceived persuasive intent on brand attitude (Noort, Antheunis & Van Reijmersdal, 2012). Differences in results may be assigned to the absence of measuring persuasion knowledge activation and its corresponding
responses (Van Reijmersdal et al., 2016). Furthermore, differences might be explained by the assumption that persuasion intent increases awareness of the brand, strengthening the positive affects a consumer has with the brand prior to the exposure of the specific blog (Rozendaal,
Lapierre, Van Reijmersdal & Buijzen, 2011). Another explanation for the contrary results might be assigned to brand familiarity, described more extensively in the next paragraph.
Though, the moderation effect of brand familiarity on the influence of blog source on perceived persuasive intent showed no difference in outcome, the main effect of brand familiarity on the perceived persuasiveness of a blog revealed interesting findings. That is, when a familiar brand was exposed, participants perceived the blog as more persuasive than when a less familiar brand was exposed. First of all, this effect may be explained by individuals processing familiar brands more cognitively than less familiar brands (Kumkale, Albarracín & Seignourel, 2010). When exposed to a familiar brand, consumers rely on their prior knowledge and experience with the brand, stored in their memory, which could provoke activation of persuasion knowledge. In contrary to less familiar brands, which are processed more heuristically and make consumers rely more on other factors, such as source credibility, likability, message length and number of
arguments. However, this study revealed that blogs exposing a familiar brand were significantly more liked by participants than blogs exposing a less familiar brand. Future research is needed to investigate what factors influence persuasiveness according to brand familiarity. Second of all, this effect might be explained by the results of the current study showing that brand familiarity predicts perceived persuasive intent and that perceived persuasive intent predicts brand attitude. A mediation
of the relationship between brand familiarity and brand attitude.
Combining both the mediation and moderation effects, the relative direct effect of message source on brand attitude as well as the relative indirect effect through perceived persuasive intent is similar with exposure to a less familiar brand as to a familiar brand. These findings show no
difference on attitude towards the brand between a blog with a blogger as the source (with or
without sponsorship disclosure) or a blog with a brand as the source, direct nor indirect. The current study is the first to examine the moderated mediation model with these variables. These results do not align with previous studies which examined a direct effect of a negative attitude towards the blog after exposure of sponsorship disclosure compared to no sponsorship disclosure (Campbell, Mohr & Verlegh, 2013; Colliander & Erlandsson, 2015). Interestingly, these findings are in line with Noort, Antheunis and Van Reijmersdal (2012) also showing no mediation effect of perceived persuasive intent on brand attitude, though with strength of tie as independent variable.
In this study, perceived persuasive intent was selected as mediator based on the persuasion knowledge model. This approach aligns with the study by Noort, Antheunis and Van Reijmersdal (2012), but contrasts with the study by Van Reijmersdal et al. (2016) in which the activation of persuasion knowledge is explicitly tested including responses, such as resistance. When looking at campaign attitude, campaign relevance and forwarding intentions, the current approach has been shown to be significant (Noort, Antheunis & Van Reijmersdal, 2012). However, when looking at brand attitude, no significant results have been found in the study of Noort, Antheunis and Van Reijmersdal (2012) and unexpected significant results in the current study. Therefore, it is
suggested for future studies to investigate the persuasion knowledge model comprehensively and its influence on brand attitude including activation of the persuasion knowledge and corresponding responses.
Exploratory analysis revealed that brand attitude is not influenced when consumers show interest in the topic of the blog. This results does not confirm previous findings that topic interest increased positive attitude (Schraw & Lehman, 2001). Contrary results may be explained by the fact
that frequency of reading is perhaps not the same as showing interest in a topic. Consumers might read blogs for other reasons than interest, such as for work, for school or to get information about a product they need which might be a product they not necessarily like to read about. Also, when a consumer finds a topic interesting, it does not mean that the consumer has a positive attitude towards the exposed brand, due to for example, a negative experience with the brand. Further research is needed to understand whether topic interest within blogs might influence persuasion positively.
Lastly, it is important to note that the current study predominantly included young, female students. To be able to generalize, future studies may consider a representative sample of blog readers. More research is needed to find out whether blog sources that stress persuasion outcomes vary in effectiveness between different genders and age groups.
Managerial implications
The research findings can help marketers to select appropriate communication tools according to their familiarity and to use blogs as a medium for spreading product information. Suggestions for planning blog marketing campaigns are as follows:
(1) Use blogs as a medium to promote your product. Whether brands write blogs themselves or ask bloggers to do it for them, blogs are liked. Therefore, it is advices to use the medium to promote products. Giving bloggers a sample of a (new) product, pay them to write about the product or let an employee write the blog and put it on the website of the organization, it does not differ on how consumers perceive the message as persuasive. It is suggested to look at the costs or number of readers on the website of the blogger or organization to choose in which way a blog can be used most effectively.
(2) Be aware of own brand familiarity. A blog of a familiar brand is perceived as having a higher persuasive intent than a blog of a less familiar brand. Since the current study shows that an
the signals that increase or decrease the persuasiveness. Examples of such signals are sponsorship disclosure, the context in which the advertisement is placed and visibility of source cues such as logos, slogans and URL’s.
Conclusion
The current study adds to the understanding of how brands could use bloggers for promoting their products. Whether a brand asks a blogger to write about a product or if the brand writes the blog itself, it does not differ on the perceived persuasive intent of the blog for both familiar and less familiar brands. The findings indicate that marketers should keep in mind that brand familiarity has influence on the perceived persuasive intent of a blog which positively influences brand attitude. This is an unexpected finding and further research is needed to investigate whether brand
familiarity explains brand attitude through, for example, perceived persuasive intent. Even though the current study provides barriers for future studies about blogs due to contrary findings, they are a popular and successful medium for marketers to use and highly recommended for commercial purposes.
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Appendix 1
