Exploring the effects of sponsorship disclosure on
online video platform and the role of parasocial
relationship
Master’s thesis
Graduate School of Communication Persuasive Communication
Author’s Name: Ru Zhang Student number: 12332542 Supervisor: Sophie Boerman
Word counting: 7,028 Date of completion: 31-01-2020
Abstract
Online sponsored videos get universe on social media platforms, like YouTube and are required to disclosure the existence of sponsorship. This study examines how adding a sponsorship disclosure at the beginning of a video affects audiences’ brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) intention. At the same time, this study also investigates the moderated role of parasocial relationship – how audiences regard the relationship (PSR) with the influencer. Results of an online experiment (N=115) with factorial (disclosure vs. non-disclosure) between subjects showed that disclosure could not activate persuasion knowledge and thus not affect audiences’ attitudes and behavioral intention. Also, the moderation effect of PSR could not be confirmed. In addition, results of this study showed that PSR has positive correlation with brand attitude and eWOM.
Keywords: influencer marketing, sponsorship disclosure, parasocial relationship,
Exploring the effects of sponsorship disclosure on online video platform and the role of parasocial relationship
In modern society, online video is an essential component of an individual’s entertaining life worldwide. In the United States, more than 228 million audiences consume online video in 2019 (Statista, 2019). 53% of Internet users in Spain and 42% of Internet users in France watch online video daily (Stastista, 2019). YouTube is one of the most popular online streaming video platforms worldwide (Stein, 2013). A group of people, who create high quality of videos and publish them on YouTube regularly, acquire a lot of followers and even make a living by this and they are called “YouTubers”, “YouTube celebrities”, or “YouTube influencers” (De Jans, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2018). Video blog, also called a vlog, is a prevalent type of video on YouTube. In these vlogs, influencers usually express their opinions, reviews or unbox some new products, and share lifestyles, such as how to spend a day (De Jans et al., 2018; VlogLikePro, 2017). When these YouTube influencers get thousands of even more subscribers or followers, some brands or companies approach them and offer money, free product or service in exchange of influencers advertising the products in the vlogs (Munnukka, Maity, Reinikainen, & Luoma-Aho, 2019). Nowadays,
sponsored vlogs become more popular and popular on YouTube, and are considered as an effective channel in influencer marketing fields (Lee & Watkins, 2016).
According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC, 2015), sponsored video blurs the boundaries between actual content and ads, which leads to the difficulty and confusion for audiences to detect the existence of ads. Moreover, every influencer
deals with sponsored content in different ways on online video platforms. Some influencers disclose the sponsorship when they publish the videos, but some do not. Nowadays, sponsorship has to be disclosed on television among EU countries (Cain, 2011). FTC (2019) released the guidelines on how and when online influencers disclose sponsorship to their followers. Take YouTube as an example. Influencers are supposed to disclose whether the video they publish contains or not contains the sponsored content (YouTube, 2018). In line with previous research, sponsorship disclosure would activate audiences’ persuasion knowledge (Boerman, Van
Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2012; Boerman, van Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2015; De Jans et al., 2018; Evans, Hoy, & Childers, 2018). Persuasion knowledge model and the reactance theory explain that people are triggered to evaluate the message critically and refuse to change their minds after understanding persuasive intent in the message (Friestad &Wright, 1994; Brehm, 1996). Therefore, sponsorship disclosure, as a cue to trigger audiences’ persuasion knowledge, negatively influences their attitudes towards brand (Krouwer, Poels, & Paulussen, 2017; Hwang & Jeong, 2016) and influencers (De Jans et al., 2018) and their intention to electronic word of mouth (eWOM) (Boerman, Willemsen, & Van Der Aa, 2017). But the results are not consistent. Some research could not find any significant difference between sponsorship disclosure and non-disclosure among individuals’ brand attitudes (Boerman et al., 2012; Evans et al., 2018; Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020). Although the number of research about effective advertising in influencer marketing has been increasing in recent year, some researchers like Munnukka et al. (2019) still
call for more investigations on the effects of vlogs and how they influence audiences’ attitudes and behavioral intentions.
Also, this study wants to figure out the relationship between sponsorship disclosure and parasocial relationship. Parasocial relationship (PSR) refers to an imaginary relationship and interpersonal involvement with a media character (Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985; Hwang & Jeong, 2016; Munnukka et al., 2019). The
audience’s viewpoints polarize in terms of advertisements in the videos. Some think it is acceptable because advertisement is the primary way in which influencers can make a living and encourage them to produce more high-quality videos. Others negatively evaluate videos when they found there is an advertisement, especially lacking disclosure because they feel being cheated (Lee &Ahn, 2013; De Jans et al., 2018). PSR could help decrease these negative attitudes because audiences would perceive sponsorship as a way of word of mouth rather than advertising (De Veirman,
Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017; Hwang & Zhang, 2018). Past research found that PSR could moderate the relationship between persuasion knowledge and brand attitudes among children (Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020), and the relationship between persuasion knowledge and eWOM intention on social network sites (Hwang & Zhang, 2018). The current study specifies the moderation effects of PSR in the context of online video platform among adults. Moreover, it also aims to investigate whether the moderation effect of PSR is valid for the relationship between persuasion knowledge and attitude toward the influencer. Specifically, audiences who build up strong PSR with the influencer are expected to have more favorable brand attitude, attitude
towards the influencer and eWOM intention than audiences who have weak PSR with the influencer.
In a nutshell, the current study has two aims. The first is to figure out how sponsorship disclosure affects audiences’ brand attitude, attitude towards the
influencer, and eWOM intention in the context of online video platoforms. Secondly, the study examines the moderation effect of PSR. It is proposed that PSR could decrease the negative effects of sponsorship disclosure via advertising recognition on brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer and eWOM. The negative effect is weaker for audiences who have strong PSR with the influencer.
For brands or companies, they will have a better understanding of how
influencer sponsorship would affect audiences’ attitudes towards brands, which helps them understand the importance of transparency for audience in influencer marketing fields. For influencers, they will know the effectiveness of sponsorship disclosure and the importance of building a parasocial relationship, thus improve its influential power. To this end, a between-subject online experiment was conducted in this study.
Theoretical background Sponsorship disclosure and advertising recognition
Sponsorship in the influencer marketing field refers to popular influencers publish positive posts involving in brands or products to get payments, free products use or other benefits on social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter (Evans et al., 2017; De Jans et al., 2018; Stubb &Colliander, 2019). However,
sponsored content is not easily recognized by audiences without any cues (Boerman et al., 2012; Evans et al., 2017). Influencers usually share their opinions, product
reviews or daily life with their followers on social media, so the contents created by influencers are more likely to be regarded as a type of eWOM rather than commercial advertisements (De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017; Hwang & Zhang, 2018). Therefore, audiences would less critically consider the advertising in the sponsored videos without disclosure, which misleads and deceives audiences (Cain, 2011). Therefore, audiences need sponsorship disclosure to help them identify the existence of advertisements in the content.
On YouTube, influencers are obligated to notify whether the video they publish contains or not contains the sponsored content (YouTube, 2018). Nevertheless, the policy aims to prevent commercial conflicts between sponsored content and pre-rolls assigned by YouTube rather than reminding audiences of ads in the video(Gerhards, 2019). Some influencers disclose themselves by writing down some necessary information such as “affiliate links” in the description box (Wu, 2016; De Jans et al., 2018). However, not all audiences pay enough attention to it or read the video
description, so it is hard to know if audiences know or understand the disclosure (Wu, 2016).
Sponsorship disclosure usually leads to audiences’ persuasion knowledge activation (Boerman et al., 2012; Boerman et al., 2015; Evans et al., 2017; De Jans et al., 2018; Evans et al., 2018; Stubb, & Colliander, 2019; Boerman, 2020). The
knowledge and how to cope with persuasive intent in the advertisement based on their persuasion knowledge (Friestad, &Wright, 1994). Once individuals recognize
advertisements at the very first step, subsequently, they will be triggered to apply for persuasion knowledge and critically process the information (Friestad, &Wright, 1994). The majority of previous research has already proven that sponsorship disclosure could trigger persuasion knowledge among traditional media such as television programs (Boerman et al., 2012; Boerman et al., 2015), music videos (Matthes, & Naderer, 2016), news media (Krouwer, Poels, & Paulussen, 2017). Similar research has also found on social media such as Instagram (Evans et al., 2017; Boerman, 2020) or Facebook (Boerman et al., 2017), YouTube (De Jans et al., 2018; Evans et al., 2018; Stubb, & Colliander, 2019). De Jans et al. (2018) and Evans et al. (2018) mainly discussed the relationship between advertising recognizing and young adults or children on YouTube vlogs. Stubb and Colliander (2019) investigated the effects of disclosure among US residents. Overall, whether in traditional media or social media contexts, there is a positive relationship between sponsorship disclosure and advertising recognition. So it is expected that sponsorship disclosure on YouTube could help the audience distinguish commercial and non-commercial content.
The current study, following previous research, replicates their study design and aims to add more empirical evidence of adults and YouTube sponsored advertisements. Henceforth, this study predicts that audiences on YouTube could recognize the
existence of advertisements after seeing sponsorship disclosure, which leads to the first hypothesis:
H1: audiences who watch a sponsored vlog with a disclosure are more likely to recognize advertising than those watching a sponsored vlog without a disclosure.
The effects of advertising recognition on eWOM, attitudes towards brand and influencer
As mentioned before, sponsorship disclosure would make the audience realize the existence of commercial components in the videos, then trigger persuasion knowledge and induce to critically evaluate the persuasive message (Friestad,
&Wright, 1994). In other words, audiences would have defense mechanisms through the change-of-meaning principle, whereby their understanding of intent is altered fundamentally (Friestad, &Wright, 1994; Evans et al., 2018). Sponsorship disclosure, as a kind of advertisement cue, reminds audiences of persuasive intent one more time, which is more likely to trigger audiences’ defense mechanisms (Boerman et al., 2012). The defensive mechanism usually leads to resistance. According to the reactance theory, people do not want to lose their freedom and be manipulated by others, which leads to their tendency to behave in an opposite way when their persuasion knowledge is activated (Brehm, 1966). When resistance occurs, it usually results in audiences’ increased intention of counter-arguing and less favorable attitude towards the persuasive message (Campbell 1995; Quinn, & Wood, 2004).
Previous research has already proven that persuasive knowledge activation affects audiences’ brand evaluation and advertisement evaluation negatively
generate cognitive defense after seeing forewarning of commercial messages (Petty, & Cacioppo, 1977). Besides, some research investigated the negative relationship of sponsorship disclosure and brand evaluation on the radio show (Wei, Fischer, & Main, 2008), television show (Boerman et al., 2012) and YouTube (Stubb, & Colliander, 2019; Boerman et al., 2020). A part of researches indeed found sponsorship disclosure could result in a less favorable brand attitude (Evans et al., 2017) and lower level of purchase intention (Stubb, & Colliander, 2019; Tessitore, & Geuens, 2013). However, other studies did not find a significantly negative effect of sponsorship disclosure on brand attitudes (Boerman et al., 2012; Evans et al., 2018; Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020). Therefore, this study also focuses on the effect of disclosure on brand attitude through advertising recognition. When audiences realize the influencer in the video is trying to persuade them through advertising recognition, they will generate the resistance of the persuasive message and critically evaluate the brand in the video. This study hypothesizes that sponsorship disclosure could activate audiences’ persuasion knowledge hence influence their brand attitude negatively:
H2a: A sponsored vlog with disclosure makes audiences produce more negative brand attitude compared to a sponsored vlog without disclosure, through activation of advertising recognition.
Except for brand attitude, the present study also examines the indirect effects of sponsorship disclosures via advertising recognition on attitude towards the influencer. In line with Campbell and Kirmani (2000), resistance also leads to people’s less favorable attitude towards the influence agent, such as the salesperson. In the context
of influencer video, the influencers, talking in front of the camera, share their daily life with the audiences, show some products and try to convince audiences where they behave like salespersons. When audiences realize the persuasive motives behind the message by sponsorship disclosure, it will raise suspicion towards the salesperson’s behavior (Campbell, & Kirmani, 2000).
According to information source credibility theory, the honesty and authenticity of information providers contribute to audiences’ perceived credibility (Ohanian, 1990; Munnukka, 2019; Stubb &Colliander, 2019). When audiences receive a message that has a bias or intends to promote, their perceived credibility will decrease (Lee & Koo, 2012). Influencers are perceived as an information source and share everything and reviews in the video out of their honest opinions rather than commercial interest (De Jans et al., 2018). Once audiences know there is commercial advertisement placement in the video, they will question the trustworthiness of influencers’ opinions (Lee &Ahn, 2013). Sponsorship disclosure and subsequent activation of persuasion
knowledge result in decreasing trustworthiness (Chu, & Kim, 2011) and lowering the perceived credibility of the influencer (De Veirman & Hudders, 2019). However, little research investigates audiences’ attitude towards the influencer in the context of online video platforms specifically. This study assumes the inclusion of sponsorship disclosure would activate a sense of deception and distrust, which leads to less favorable attitude towards the influencer among audiences:
H2b: A sponsored vlog with disclosure makes audiences produce more negative attitude towards the influencer compared to a sponsored vlog without disclosure,
through activation of advertising recognition.
Electronic word of mouth (eWOM) refers to interpersonal communication about the brand- or product-related information via online platforms specifically (Carr, & Hayes, 2014; Berger, 2014). On social media platforms, users could publish
comments below the posts, click “like” button, forward or share with someone else (Chu, & Kim, 2011). In the influencer marketing fields, eWOM plays an important role. Because when eWOM behaviors occur, the messages could be transmitted and reached out to more population (Hwang & Zhang, 2018). Furthermore, eWOM has positive effects on purchase intention, purchase behavior and brand loyalty (Boerman et al., 2017). The motivation of people sharing is to generate a positive impression on others, so they are less willing to share unauthentic or untrustworthy information (Berger, 2014; Boerman et al., 2017). The majority of consumers have adverse perceptions of advertsing (Calfee & Ringold, 1994), so they would not like to share commercial message when they have skeptical feelings towards the message (Berger, 2014). Therefore, a disclosure in the video would decrease audiences’ perceived credibility towards the persuasive message, thus lower audiences’ intention to eWOM.
Previous research already found that people are less willing to forward online videos when they realized the existence of persuasive intent (Hsieh, Hsieh, & Tang, 2012). Also, audiences are less likely to engage in a marketing campaign on social sites when they noticed persuasive intent (van Noort, Antheunis, & van Reijmersdal, 2012). In the context of social media, advertisement recognition, in combination with the memory of sponsorship disclosure, also could decrease audiences’ intention to
spread eWOM on Facebook (Boerman et al., 2017) and Instagram (Evans et al., 2017). This leads to the next hypothesis:
H2c: A sponsored vlog with disclosure makes audiences produce less eWOM intention compared to a sponsored vlog without disclosure, through activation of advertising recognition.
The moderation effect of PSR
Sponsorship disclosure leads to persuasion knowledge activation and resistant reaction, subsequently influences audiences’ attitude and behavioral intentions. However, the negative effect is different among individuals who have a different extent of PSR with the influencers (Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020). In line with Holbert and Park (2019), the current study assumes that PSR plays a contributory moderator, which means the negative effect of sponsorship disclosure via advertising recognition is weaker for audiences who have strong PSR with the influencer than audiences who have weak PSR with the influencer. PSR means audiences build an imaginary relationship with a media character (Horton & Wohl, 1956; Hwang & Jeong, 2016; Munnukka et al., 2019). Although this relationship is illusionary and one-side, it amplifies or alters audiences’ attitudes and behavioral intentions, such as brand attitude (Yuan, Kim, & Kim, 2016) and purchase intention (Kim, Sohn, & Choi, 2011).
PSR is usually interchangeable with another term, parasocial interaction (PSI). Nevertheless, PSR refers to a long and enduring relationship, which could be formed without interaction and last beyond watching (Dibble, Hartmann, & Rosaen, 2016;
Munnukka et al., 2019). PSI refers to a simultaneous sense occurring during watching (Dibble et al., 2016).
Social media provide a perfect platform for users to develop PSR with
influencers. Influencers frequently expose themselves on social media platforms and communicate with followers via comments or private messages, where people learn about influencers’ life details (Colliander, & Dahlén, 2011). During the process, audiences could satisfy their emotional needs, like decreasing the feelings of
loneliness or improving self-esteem (Hwang & Jeong, 2016). After repeated exposure and continuous interaction, audiences build up an intimate friendship based on
proximity, similarity, and attraction (Yuan et al., 2016).
For influencers on YouTube, they publish videos periodically. Audiences spend more time watching the influencers’ videos, know influencers better and form a sense of closeness, thus build up PSR with YouTube influencer (Munnukka et al., 2019). The process is time-consuming, so PSR is a long enduring relationship. The closer audiences feel with the influencer, the more time they spend on consuming media content (Quintero Johnson, & Patnoe-Woodley, 2016). Therefore, the process is also mutually enhanced. PSR gets built at an individual cost of time, so PSR could not be damaged by single exposure (Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020).
On social media, PSR has a powerful influence on behavioral intentions, like purchase intentions (Kim et al., 2011) and reshape their evaluations towards the brand (Yuan et al., 2016). Even though disclosure activates advertising recognition,
consequently they may neglect or mitigate uncomfortable feelings from disclosure. For those who have a high extent of PSR with influencers, it is expected they are more forgiving towards the influencers than those with a low extent of PSR with influencers. Therefore, the negative effect of disclosure via advertising recognition would be weaker for audiences with high PSR. The current study henceforth
hypothesizes that PSR can moderate the negative effect of advertisement recognition via sponsorship disclosure, which is depicted in Figure 1. So this leads the following hypothesis:
H3: Sponsorship disclosure through advertising recognition has negative effects on (a) brand attitude, (b) attitude towards the influencer, and (c) intention to eWOM: This negative effect will be weaker for audiences who have higher PSR than those who have lower PSR.
Figure1. Conceptual Model
Method Research design and sample
Sponsorship disclosure
Advertising recognition
Brand attitude
Attitude towards influencer Intention to eWOM
The study conducted a factorial (sponsorship disclosure vs no sponsorship disclosure) between-group design to test three hypotheses. The sampling procedure was a convenience sample. In total, 122 participants took part in this study, of which 115 agreed and completed the questionnaire. Their age ranged from between 18 and 60 years old (M=24.14, SD= 5.06) and 95.7% of them were between 18 and 30 years old. 73.9% of them were females. Most of them were Chinese (44.3%). Furthermore, the Dutch took up 16.5%, and German took up 5.2%. They were randomly assigned to disclosure condition (n= 59) or non-disclosure condition (n= 56).
The original questionnaire included a YouTube video, but many participants from China mainland could not have access to YouTube. Therefore, another
questionnaire was copied several days later. The only difference was the videos in the new questionnaire from BiliBili – a popular online video platform in China mainland and similar to YouTube.
Procedure
An online experiment was created in the Qualtrics for this study. Most of the participants (85.2%) usually completed a questionnaire within 20 minutes. The questionnaire starts with an informational sheet and informed consent. All of the participants were informed they could leave at any time if they do not want to go on the study. Only if they agreed to participate in this study, they could continue with the study. Participants were assigned randomly to one of the conditions: a video with sponsorship disclosure and a video without sponsorship disclosure. They were informed that there was a video from a YouTube influencer and could not return the
video page afterwards. Both videos were the length of almost five minutes. The sponsored content appeared after two minutes. To secure everyone was exposed to sponsored content, every participant had to watch the video at least 180 seconds before answering the questions. The following questions were about attitudes towards influencers, eWOM, PSR, advertising recognition and brand attitude. Then, they were also asked the frequency of watching videos, influencer familiarity, and brand
familiarity. The final part of the questionnaire was the manipulation check and
participants’ necessary information, including gender, age, nationality, education level, and language proficiency.
Stimuli materials
The study used an edited version of an existing video from a Korean American YouTuber – Michelle Choi with more than 350 thousand followers. The video was edited and cut down from about the fourteen minutes to five minutes. The video with sponsorship disclosure has the same duration as the video without sponsorship disclosure. The disclosure was shown at the right top of the video for ten seconds from the beginning (see as Appendix A). Therefore, the disclosure text in this study was “this video is sponsored by GlassesUSA.com” based on guidelines from FTC concerning disclosure on social media (FTC, 2019). In the non-disclosure conditions, there was no text at the start.
The vlog started with the YouTube influencer talking about her next trip for Korean and Bali. For the trip, she went to a doctor and got a vaccine shot because she worried about sickness. Next, she started to package and sat down to explain that
some followers asked where she got her glass frames in the comment area. She mentioned a glass shopping online retailer website and explained her experiences in detail, such as shipping and return policies, virtual mirror feature technologies and some products. When she talked about the virtual mirror feature, a sort of screen recording popped in the right top of the video and showed how she used this feature to choose glasses (see as Appendix B). She showed her several glass frames and
sunglasses. The brand name – GlassesUSA.com - is mentioned once. The total
duration about the brand lasted one minutes and 40 seconds. In the remaining part, she was doing other routines like going to yoga class, cooking and doing errands. At the end of the video, she was leaving for the airport.
Measures
Advertisement recognition
Advertisement recognition was measured by asking participants to indicate what extent they agreed (1=strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree) with the following
statements on seven-point scale: “The video I just watched contained advertising”, “The YouTuber was paid by the brand in the video”, and “The video I just watched was sponsored by the brand” (Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020). The mean score of the three items was used as a measure of advertisement recognition (eigenvalue = 2.47, explained variance = 82.43%, α = .93; M = 5.14, SD = 1.61).
PSR
PSR was measured by asking participants to indicate whether they agree (1=strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree) with eight statements on seven-point scale
from Munnukka et al, (2019): “I look forward to watching other videos on her channel”, “If she appeared on another YouTube channel, I would watch that video”, “When I'm watching her, I feel as if I am part of her group”, “She makes me feel comfortable as if I am with friends”, “When she shows how she feels about a brand, it helps me make up my mind about the brand”, “I think she is like an old friend”, “I would like to meet her in person”, “If there were a story about her in a newspaper or magazine, I would read it”. The mean score of the eight items was used as a measure of PSR (eigenvalue = 4.69, explained variance = 58.66%, α = .92; M = 3.28, SD = 1.23).
eWOM
To measure eWOM, five items on seven-point scale (1=strongly disagree, 7=
strongly agree) were used in the study, “I think this video is worth sharing with
others”, “I will recommend this video to others”, “I would ‘like’ this video”, “I would comment below the video”, “I would add it to my ‘watch later’ file or ‘my favorites’”. The first two items were used to measure participants' sharing intentions, and the remaining was intended to measure their engagement (Boerman et al., 2017). The mean score of the five items was used as a measure of eWOM (eigenvalue = 3.31, explained variance = 66.29 %, α = .91; M = 2.52, SD = 1.21).
Brand attitude
Seven seven-point semantic differentials were used to measure participants’ brand attitude. The question description was like “The YouTuber mentioned GlassesUSA.com in the video when she showed her glasses. What is your opinion
about this brand?” The answers were: unfavorable/favorable,
unfashionable/fashionable, bad quality/good quality, dislikeable/likable,
negative/positive, bad/good, foolish/wise, following Evans et al (2018) and Boerman
et al (2012). The mean score of the seven items was used as a measure of brand attitude (eigenvalue = 4.98, explained variance = 71.13%, α = .94; M = 4.48, SD = 1.07).
Attitude towards the influencer
Four seven-point semantic differentials were used to measure participants’ attitudes towards the influencer. “In my opinion, I feel this YouTuber is:”
dislikeable/likable, boring/interesting, unappealing/appealing, unpleasant /pleasant
(Evans et al., 2018). The mean score of the four items was used as a measure of attitude towards the influencer (eigenvalue = 3.64, explained variance = 60.73%, α = .90; M = 4.65, SD = 1.21).
Manipulation check
As a manipulation check, participants were asked: “Could you recall the statement in the video?” The options included “The video is not sponsored”, “The video is sponsored by GlassesUSA.com”, “The video is paid by GlassesUSA.com”, “The video is sponsored by GlassesKorean.com”, “The video is paid by
GlassesKorean.com”, and “None of the above”. In the disclosure group, the second and third answers, “The video is paid by GlassesUSA.com” and “The video is sponsored by GlassesKorean.com”, were coded as correct. In the non-disclosure group, “none of the above” option was coded as correct.
38.98% of the participant in the disclosure condition correctly recognized sponsorship disclosure. For the non-disclosure group, 78.57% of them indicated they did not see any disclosure text. The disclosure recognition difference between two groups was significant, χ2 (1) = 18.52, p<.001. Therefore, the manipulation was successful in general.
Control variables
Participants were asked questions about influencer familiarity: “Did you know the YouTuber - Michelle Choi- before the study?” and brand familiarity: “Had you ever heard about GlassesUSA.com before the study?” (1=yes, 2=no). Also, watching frequency was included: “How often do you watch videos on YouTube or any similar other platforms?”(1= Every day, 2= Weekly, 3=Monthly, 4=Yearly, 5= Never). Other variables were like education level “What the highest degree have you received so far?” (1= less than high school, 2= high school, 3=bachelor, 4=master, 5= MBA, 6=Doctor/phD), English proficiency “What is your proficiency level of English language?”(1= basic, 2= intermediate, 3=advanced, 4=native). Participants also answered questions about their gender, nationality, and age. The majority of
participants never heard the influencer (94.8%) and the brand (93.9%). Among these participants, 52.2% of them watched YouTube or other similar platforms every day, and 32.2% of them watched weekly. Most of the participants indicated their English level was above basic (94.8%) and their education level between high school and
master (97.4%). 95.7% of them were between 18 and 30 years old. Most of
participants were from China (44.3%), Netherlands (16.5%) and Germany (5.2%).
Results Randomization check
For these two experimental groups, they did not differ in terms of sex,χ2 (1) = 1.23, p = .268, influencer familiarity,χ2 (1) = 3.04, p = .081, brand familiarity,χ2 (1) = 1.02, p = .750, watching frequency, F(1,113)=.01, p=.921, education level, F
(1,113)= 1.58, p=.212, nationality,χ2 (31) =29.10, p = .564, English proficiency, F (1,113) = .37, p=.543. Only age between two groups was significantly different, F (1,113) = 5.03, p=.027. Participants in the disclosure group (M=25.16, SD=6.51) were older than participants in the non-disclosure group (M=23.07, SD=2.49). Therefore, age would be used as a covariate in the following analysis.
Effects of disclosure on the advertisement recognition
For H1, an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was applied to compare between two experimental groups, with advertisement recognition as dependent variable and age as covariate. The results showed no significant effect of the sponsorship
disclosure on the advertisement recognition, F (1,111) =.94, p=.334. Participants in the disclosure group (M=5.28, SD=1.57) are not different from recognizing the advertisement than participants in the non-disclosure group (M=4.98, SD=1.64). The Table1 shows the comparison of dependent variables between both conditions. The H1 was rejected.
Table1.
Effects of disclosure (vs. no disclosure) on ad recognition, brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer, eWOM
No disclosure(n=56) Disclosure(n=59)
Ad recognition 4.98(1.64)a 5.28(1.57)a
Brand attitude 4.33(1.05)a 4.63(1.08)a
Attitude towards the influencer 4.60(1.10)a 4.70(1.31)a
eWOM 2.48(1.17)a 2.56(1.26)a
Notes: a,a Means with a same superscript do not differ significantly at p < .05.
Mediation effects on brand, influencer, eWOM
To test H2, a mediation model was run for every dependent variable, including brand attitude, attitudes towards the influencer and eWOM. Model 4 with 5000 bootstraps was used in the PROCESS version 3.2 by Hayes (2017). The disclosure condition was the independent variable and advertisement recognition was the mediator. Age was a covariate in all the analyses. Table2 presents an overview of mediation results.
With respect to brand attitude, there was no significant effect on advertisement recognition between non-disclosure condition and disclosure condition, b=.30, se=.31,
p=.334, 95%CI [-.31, .91]. The effect of advertisement recognition on brand attitude
was not significant, b=-.02, se=.06, p=.747, 95%CI [-.15, .10]. Also, sponsorship disclosure did not have a significant effect on brand attitude, b=.34, se=.21, p=.102,
95%CI [-.07, .75]. Overall, the results indicated there was no indirect effects of advertisement recognition on brand attitude, indirect effect=-.01, se=.04, 95%CI [-.10, .06]. Therefore, H2a was rejected.
Table2.
Mediation effect of Ad recognition on brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer, eWOM
Disclosure> Ad recognition
Ad recognition >DV Total effect Direct effect Indirect effect
Brand attitude 0.30(0.31) -0.02(0.06) 0.34(0.21) 0.34(0.21) -0.01(0.04) CI-.10, .06 Attitude towards the influencer -0.13(0.07) 0.17(0.23) 0.17(0.23) -0.04(0.06) CI-.19, .05 eWOM intention -0.19(0.07) 0.17(0.07) 0.17(0.23) -0.06(0.07) CI-.22, .62
Note. DV = dependent variable, CI = 95% bootstrap confidence intervals.
With respect to attitude towards the influencer, the effect of advertisement recognition on attitude towards the influencer was not significant, b=-.13, se=.07,
model showed that there was not significant indirect effect= -.04, boot se=.06, 95%CI [-.19, .05]. Thus H2b was rejected.
The mediation effects of advertisement recognition on the relationship between sponsorship disclosure andeWOM was not significant either. There was not effect of advertisement recognition on eWOM intention, b =-.19, se=.07, p=.007, 95%CI [-.33,-.05]. Sponsorship disclosure did not influence intention to eWOM among audiences, b =.17, se=.23, p=.471, 95%CI [-.29, .62]. Furthermore, the mediation analysis showed that indirect effect = -0.06, boot se=0.07, 95% CI [-.22, .62]. So H2c was rejected.
The moderation effect of PSR
The moderated moderation effect was tested with model 14 and 5000 bootstraps in the PROCESS version 3.2 by Hayes (2017). This study ran three analyses for every dependent variable, including brand attitude, attitudes towards the influencer and eWOM. Similar to analyses for H2, the disclosure condition was the independent variable and advertisement recognition was the mediator. PSR was a moderator between advertising recognition and three dependent variables. And age was a covariate in all the analyses. Table3 presents an overview of moderated mediation results.
For H3a, the analysis showed the effect of advertisement recognition on brand attitude do not depend on PSR, b=-.09, SE=.05, p=.061, 95% CI [-.18, .00]. The index of moderated mediation for the effect of the disclosure on brand attitude via
[-.11, .04]. There was no indirect effect for low levels of PSR (16th percentile,
PSR=2.00), indirect effect=.04, se=.06, 95%CI [-.09, .18], for moderate level of PSR (50th percentile, PSR=3.13), indirect effect=.01, se=.03, 95%CI [-.07, .08] and also for high levels of PSR (84th percentile, PSR= 4.63), indirect effect=-.03, se=.04, 95%CI [-.13, .04]. This indicated no indirect effect of the sponsorship disclosure on brand attitude was moderated by PSR, so H3a was disproved.
For H3b, this model showed no effect of advertisement recognition on attitude towards the influencer was dependent on PSR, b=.01, SE=.04, p=.752, 95% CI [-.07, .09]. From the moderated mediation model, the index for the effect of the disclosure on brand attitude via advertisement recognition was not significant, index=.00, boot se= .02, 95%CI [-.03, .07]. There were not indirect effects for low levels of PSR (16th percentile, PSR=2.00), indirect effect=-.01, se=.06, 95%CI
[-.18, .06], for moderate level of PSR (50th percentile, PSR=3.13), indirect effect=-.01, se=.04, 95%CI [-.10, .04] and for high levels of PSR (84th percentile, PSR= 4.63), indirect effect=-.00, se=.03, 95%CI [-.06, .06]. H3b was rejected.
With respect to eWOM, the results showed PSR did not moderate the
relationship between advertising recognition and eWOM intention, b=-.04, SE=.04,
p=.283, 95% CI [-.12, .03]. The index of mediated moderation effect of the disclosure
on eWOM via advertisement recognition was not significant, index=-.01, boot se= .02, 95%CI [-.05, .03]. For all levels of PRS, the indirect effects were not significant. For low levels of PSR (16th percentile, PSR=2.00), indirect effect=-.01, se=.03, 95%CI [-.09, .02]. For moderate level of PSR (50th percentile, PSR=3.13), indirect effect=-.03,
se=.04, 95%CI [-.11, .03]. And for high levels of PSR (84th percentile, PSR= 4.63), indirect effect=-.05, se=.02, 95%CI [-.05, .03]. This indicated no indirect effect of the sponsorship disclosure on brand attitude was moderated by PSR. Therefore, H3a, H3b and H3c were rejected.
Table3.
The moderated mediation of ad recognition and PSR on brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer and eWOM
Interaction Indirect effect of different levels of PSR Index
16th Percentile 50th Percentile 84th Percentile Brand attitude -0.09(0.05) 0.04(0.06) CI[-.09, .18] 0.01(0.03) CI[-.07, .08] -0.03(0.04) CI[-.13, .04] -0.03(0.03) CI[-.11, .04] Attitude towards the influencer 0.01(0.04) -0.01(0.06) CI[-.18, .06] -0.01(.04) CI[-.10, .04] -0.00( 0.03) CI[-.06, .06] 0.00(0.02) CI[-.03, .07] eWOM -0.04(0.04) -0.01(0.03) CI[-.09, .02] -0.03(0.04) CI[-.11, .03] -0.05(0.02) CI[-.05, .03] -0.01(0 .02) CI[-.05, .03]
Note. 16th Percentile PSR= 2.00, 50th Percentile PSR= 3.13, 84th Percentile PSR= 4.63, CI = 95% bootstrap confidence intervals.
Discussions and conclusions Conclusion
Sponsored advertisements get more and more universe in online videos. The present study investigated how disclosure of sponsored content could affect audiences’ advertisement recognition and subsequently influence audiences’ attitudes and
behavioral intention in the context of online videos. Besides, the study compared the effects of sponsorship disclosure on audiences who have different levels of PSR with the influencers. The results lead to the following four conclusions.
Firstly, sponsorship disclosure could not increase audiences’ advertising recognition significantly compared to no disclosure, which is very different from previous studies. Many previous pieces of research proved that sponsorship disclosure in the online video could increase advertisement recognition among audiences (De Jans et al., 2018; Evans et al., 2018; Stubb & Colliander, 2019; Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020). This gap could be explained by manipulation in this experiment. The sponsorship disclosure texts were placed on the right top of the video at the beginning for 10 seconds. When participants played the video, the YouTube ribbon bar had covered the sponsorship disclosure texts. If participants did not use full-screen or the ribbon did not disappear (which could happen sometimes), they may have the chance to miss it. For the second questionnaire on BiliBili, there was a similar issue. This gap may explain why 61.01% of participants in the disclosure group did not recognize the advertisement in the video.
The second conclusion is that advertising recognition cannot mediate the
relationship between sponsorship disclosure, attitudes, and behavioral intention. This study could not find any significant difference between the disclosure group and the non-disclosure group concerning brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer and eWOM intention. Prior researches showed sponsorship disclosure via advertisement recognition negatively affected brand attitude (Stubb, & Colliander, 2019), behavioral intention (De Jans et al., 2018). Other research could not find that disclosure affects negatively brand attitudes (Boerman et al.,2012; Evans et al., 2018; Boerman & van Reijmersdal, 2020) and behavioral intention (Stubb, & Colliander, 2019). Video content should be responsible for such differences. For the current study, the length of the videos was 5 minutes, and the advertisement was shown after 2 minutes.
Audiences may feel bored and not pay enough attention. One participant said, “The video was just boring, and I could not watch it more than a half”. A disclosure is useful for advertising recognition only when audiences pay attention to sponsored content (Boerman et al., 2015). If audiences did not pay attention to the video, it would be hard to influence their attitudes and intentions.
Thirdly, PSR could not moderate the relationship between advertisement recognition, attitudes, and behavioral intention. Diverse levels of PSR with the influencer do not affect audiences’ attitudes and eWOM intentions differently. Boerman and van Reijmersdal (2020) found that PSR played a moderation role in advertisement recognition and brand attitudes among children. Hwang and Zhang (2018) found a moderation effect of PSR on eWOM intention on social sites. In this
study, the PSR extent of participants was not strong in general based on the statistics. For example, the high extent of PSR was 4.63, and the scale for PSR was from 1 to 7. Overall the extent of PSR is neutral, so the lack of variance among PSR results in moderation failure.
Fourthly, PSR did influence positively audiences’ brand attitude, attitude towards the influencer and eWOM intention. More specifically, PSR has a strong positive relationship with the attitude towards the influencer and eWOM. Also, PSR has a moderate positive relationship with the brand attitude. In line with the definition of PSR, PSR and attitude towards the influencer both reflect audiences’ opinions towards the influencer, which could explain the positive correlation between PSR and attitude towards the influencer. Yuan et al. (2016) proved that PSR could influence users’ attitude and behavioral intention, like using more social media positively. This study further provides evidence of PSR influencing positively on brand attitude and behavioral intention.
Limitation and future research
The first limitation in the current study falls in external validity. The form of sponsorship disclosure in the study is not the same as the disclosure in real life. Most videos do not disclose the sponsorship by adding a sentence in the video in real YouTube contexts. YouTube influencers usually disclose themselves in the video title or the description area, the places in which not everyone pays attention. Therefore, in real life, even though there is a sponsorship disclosure, some audiences still ignore it. Moreover, some influencers disclose the sponsorship in detail involving brand, offer,
and discount, while others use “the video is sponsored by [brand]”. Therefore, future research could create a more real experimental environment for participants and investigate how articulating a sponsorship – extensive sponsorship disclosure or simple sponsorship disclosure – could influence audiences’ attitudes and eWOM intentions.
Secondly, experimental materials in the current study comprised a new website selling glasses. Brand and product type have diverse effects on audiences’ attitudes and behavioral intention. In some experiments, ads about some well-known and popular brands like Coca-cola or Starbucks have negative effects on attitudes and eWOM intention (Evans et al., 2017; Boerman et al., 2017). In line with Boerman (2020), the introduction of a new brand or product can positively affect people’s engagement behavior. Therefore, future research should further investigate how brand type and product type in sponsorship disclosure affect audiences’ attitudes and
behavioral intentions.
Thirdly, this experiment was conducted with a single exposure, and the mean of PSR among participants was 3.14. As mentioned before, it takes time to establish PSR with the influencers, so single exposure is hard to build up strong PSR. It is proved that PSR is an influential factor in this study which affects brand attitude and eWOM intention in a positive way. Therefore, future research could recruit participants who already have strong PSR with the influencer to investigate further the effects of sponsorship disclosure on audiences with a high level of PSR and low level of PSR, like followers vs non-followers. Also, the number of influencer does influence
audiences’ perceptions of credibility and likeability towards the influencer (De Veirman et al., 2017). Future research could focus on the effects of different type of influencers.
Theoretical and practical implication
The findings of this research have some theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, the current study provides empirical evidence that the negative effects of persuasion knowledge and reactance theory do not always apply to brand attitudes, attitude towards the influencer and eWOM intention. The negative effects of
sponsorship disclosure are affected by brand type, product category and influencers (Stubb &Colliander, 2019). This finding in the present study calls for further
investigation of how sponsorship disclosure affects audiences’ attitudes and behavior intention in the context of different brand, product and influencer categories.
Furthermore, this study showed that PSR has a positive relationship with audiences’ brand attitude and behavioral intention. The stronger PSR audiences feel with the influencer, the more positive attitude they feel towards the brand and the higher intention they participate in eWOM action. This finding adds experimental evidence of the effects of PSR on attitude and behavioral intention in the influencer marketing fields. A positive relationship between PSR and brand attitude also eWOM intention provides theoretical insights for PSR mitigating negative effects of
persuasion knowledge activation.
Moreover, this study provides practical implications for regulation, marketing professionals and influencers. For regulation and policy developers, this study implies
that not all disclosure could make audiences recognize the advertisement in the video and subsequently activate persuasion knowledge. Therefore, policymakers should consider which kind of disclosure is the most effective to increase transparency and build up a set of standards to regulate the sponsorship disclosure on online video platforms.
For marketing practitioners, on the one hand, some studies have already proven that sponsorship disclosure could negatively affect audiences’ brand attitudes and product attitudes. Moreover, they need to take the content of the video into account. The content of advertisements is too dull to catch the attention and interest of audiences. Thus their attitude towards brand and product would not be affected positively. On the other hand, this research found that there is a positive correlation between PSR and brand attitude, also for eWOM intention. If someone has a higher PSR with the influencer, he/she will have a more positive brand attitude and higher intention to engage in marketing campaigns. For marketers, they should pick up the influencers whose followers have stronger PSR to advertise their products and brands.
For influencers, this study implies that disclosure has no negative effect on attitude towards the influencer. Therefore, influencers do not need to worry that being transparent would damage the relationship with their audiences. Moreover, the
significant relationship between PSR and attitude towards the influencer was found in the study. Therefore, they should attach much importance to building a relationship with their followers. Also, they should focus on the quality of posts, whether
sponsored or not. High quality of content is a crucial element to attract more audiences, which determines the success of the influencer.
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Appendices
Appendix A. disclosure video vs. non-disclosure video
Disclosure
