Graduate School of Communication
Sponsorship disclosures in online review videos
An analysis of the effect of sponsorship disclosure and different disclosure timing on brand attitude and brand recall.
Master thesis
Faculty of Social and Behavioral Science Persuasive Communication Track
Supervisor: Dr. Ester de Waal Student: Yuting Huang Student number: 11204516
Abstract
Online review videos become more and more popular among consumers. Marketers think online review video is good to promote their brands. Therefore, it becomes a trend for brands to sponsor the vloggers and motivate them to make review videos for brands. In order to make consumers be aware of the sponsored content, governments force these videos to disclose sponsorship. This study conducted an experiment to investigate the effect of sponsorship disclosure on consumers’ brand attitude and brand recall and whether this effect is mediated by consumers’ persuasion knowledge. Moreover, the study wants to provides an insight for marketers that whether different timing of sponsorship disclosure have impact on consumers. The results revealed that
sponsorship disclosure did not have a significant effect on brand attitude and brand recall. This effect was not mediated by persuasion knowledge. And the different timing of sponsorship disclosure did not have a significant impact on brand attitude and brand recall. This study has implications for marketers that they can honestly disclose the sponsorship, based on the results from this study. This study proposes that the acceptance of sponsorship in online review videos may be the reason of insignificant effects and this could be further explored in future research.
Introduction
The Internet provides the opportunities to consumers to share their experience and evaluations of products or services online (Chen & Xie, 2008). This kind of posts, also called online consumer review, is a type of product information created by consumers (Chen & Xie, 2008; Wei & Lu, 2013). As a form of social proof, online consumer reviews not only provide product information but also make recommendations (Carter, Brooks, Catalano, & Smith, 2011; Lu, Chang, & Chang, 2014; Wei & Lu, 2013). Because these reviews reflect peer consumers’ real feelings about products, a large number of consumers trust these reviews. According to the report from Google (think with Google, 2016), nearly 90% consumers consider online reviews as important as personal recommendations. Peer consumers value and trust these reviews. The consumer-generated reviews make the brand-centric message no longer as effective as they were offline (Lu et al., 2014). This phenomenon is also in line with the construal level theory that people tend to trust someone who was in the same situation as they were (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Therefore, consumers trust their peer consumers more than brands. For instance, tourists think the information provided by other tourists are much useful and trustworthy (Sparks, Perkins, & Buckley, 2013). Consumer reviews provide new channels for people to get product information.
Since the video technology develops rapidly, online consumer review is no longer limited to text form (Carter et al., 2011). Consumers now can shoot product review videos by their smartphones or cameras (Carter et al., 2011). Therefore, online review videos are increasing in popularity around the world. The number of product review videos grew 50% year by year on YouTube (think with Google, 2016). By this trend, according to previous research of Bausinger (2015), twenty percent of young people, between the ages of eighteen to twenty-fours, are looking for “best to buy” on YouTube. In 2014, views of product review videos took up 40% of
the total views on YouTube. More and more consumers tend to watch online review videos and they are influenced by the review videos, Furthermore, consumers believe that difficulty in making a fake review video is much harder than making fake text review (Carter et al., 2011). The reason behind is quite simple. The video producing process is time-consuming and it also requires the directing skills of making a video. As a channel promoting product information with more and more visibility, online consumer review videos become more and more important for consumers and brands.
By realizing the importance of online review videos, marketers treat online consumer review videos as a “sales assistant” (Chen & Xie, 2008) and sponsor the review videos for effective communication with consumers. Marketers provide different types of compensation to famous vloggers (who have a large amount of subscribers) to post positive reviews of their products (Lu et al., 2014). For instance, Ingrid Nilsen, who has nearly 4 million subscribers on YouTube, posts review videos for her sponsor, Simple Skincare. Ingrid introduced a product from Simple Skincare and recommended it to audience in the video. This type of sponsored videos should be treated as a form of advertising, the sponsored review videos provide positive evaluations of the product and try to influence consumers (Zhu & Tan, 2007). However, the persuasive intention is not clear for consumers, viewers may not be aware of the persuasive intention and process the information less critically (Boerman, Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2012). To that end, governments came up with regulations to instruct online video sponsorship disclosure to prevent unaware persuasion taking place. For example, Dutch Reclame Code Commission asks creators to add notifications of sponsorship and the American Federal Trade Commission requires creators to make the sponsorship transparent in review videos (Forrest & Cao, 2010; Sitchting Reclame Code, 2014). Governments hope the disclosures can help the
audience to be aware of the persuasive intention in online videos and process the information from online videos more critically.
The effect of sponsorship disclosure on consumer brand responses has been studied, including brand attitude and brand recall. Brand recall reflects consumers’ attention to the sponsored brand and it can be an important variable of predicting purchase intention. If consumers consciously processes the brand, they should recall the brand in question and thus, their purchase intention should be greater (Tessitore & Geuens, 2013). On the other hand, brand attitude refers to consumers’ opinions towards the brand. Brand attitude reflects what consumers think about the brand and whether or not consumers like the brand. The goal of marketers is to make consumers’ brand recall and brand attitude higher and, accordingly, their purchase intention is higher. Therefore, it is important to know how sponsorship disclosure affects both, brand recall and brand attitude. However, studies of the effectiveness of sponsorship disclosure show contradicting results. For example, some studies found that exposure to sponsorship disclosure, as compared to no sponsorship disclosure, negatively affects consumers’ brand attitude (Wei, Fischer, & Main, 2008), while others did not find any significant impacts of sponsorship disclosure on brand attitude (Dekker & van Reijmersdal, 2013; Eva Adriana van Reijmersdal, Lammers, Rozendaal, & Buijzen, 2015). Tessitore and Geuens (2013) indicated that the Product Placement (abbreviated as PP) symbol, which is a form of sponsorship disclosure, on television programs is not effective as a warning and did not have significant relation with brand recall. The PP is not no recognized or comprehended by viewers, so it does not trigger the
resistance to content. On the other hand, sponsorship disclosure could increase brand attitude and brand recall under certain circumstances (Campbell, Mohr, & Verlegh, 2012). Sponsorship disclosure can ‘correct’ of brand attitudes and brand recall to levels that occur when are
instructed to avoid persuasive intent (Campbell et al., 2012). In other words, if sponsored contents affect viewers to have higher brand attitude and brand recall toward the products, sponsorship disclosure will correct the abnormal high level of brand responses to normal level, which is similar to the views are instructed to avoid influence in the content. By means of activating persuasion knowledge, sponsorship disclosures ‘correct’ high level of brand attitudes to normal level as well (Boerman, van Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2014; Campbell et al., 2012). Persuasion knowledge is the know-how that people learned from sales tiactics before. They will use the knowledge of persuasive tactics to resist the sponsored content and ‘correct’ the brand responses. Furthermore, the timing of the disclosure plays an important role in the effect of sponsorship disclosure. If the sponsored disclosure is at the beginning of sponsored content instead of at the end of sponsored content, viewers have more processing time to critically consider the sponsored content. The more processing time viewers have, the more likely viewers use persuasion knowledge to resist sponsored content, leading to lower brand attitude compared to sponsorship disclosure at the end of sponsored content (Boerman, van Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2014). However, previous studies that investigated the effect of sponsorship disclosure so far mainly focused on TV programs, games or movies (Boerman et al., 2012, 2014; Boerman, van Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2013; Lu et al., 2014). These media are considered as traditional media because these media were available before the introduction of the Internet and digital media. Although there is research focusing on blogs, which are considered as new media, there is no research studying online consumer review videos. Online review videos provide a new platform for marketers to conduct marketing tactics and are prosperous nowadays (think with Google, 2016).Therefore, this research focuses on how sponsorship disclosures affect brand attitude and brand recall within the context of online consumer review videos.
Therefore, this study focuses on online consumer video. This study is set out to provide insights to marketers that help them to evaluate the effect of sponsorship disclosures within the context of online review videos on consumers’ persuasion knowledge, brand attitude and brand recall as well as the impact of positioning of the disclosures at the beginning or the end of the review video. Based on the discussion above, this leads to the following research question:
RQ: How does the disclosure of sponsored content in online consumer review video affect consumer’s persuasion knowledge, brand attitude and brand recall, and does disclosure at the
beginning or the end of the review video make a difference?
Theoretical Framework
The effect of sponsorship disclosure on brand responses
With more and more marketing tactics and product placements in TV programs, and other traditional media, viewers are easily influenced and could be deceived (van Ulft, 2015). Disclosure as a remedy for covert marketing tactics, it prompts correcting or to adjusting audience’s responses in a certain way (Campbell et al., 2012). According to previous research, brand responses can be positively influenced by product placements when people are not aware of the influence of sponsored content, such as product of sponsored brand placed in a TV Show (Campbell et al., 2012). Another explanation conducted by Wood and Quinn (2003)is that views can consider whether the product is related to themselves or not. The product which is
considered relating to views will have influence their brand responses to corresponding product. Furthermore, brand responses can be influenced by the sales’ selling skills and the sincerity they
show. Therefore, the disclosure is necessary to prevent viewers from the situation where they are unaware that they are facing persuasive content.
However, the disclosure of sponsorship can be an extra cue to make consumers being aware of products they may not have been aware of without disclosure (Boerman et al., 2012). For example, in a TV show, there are lots of products shown more or less at the same time. People will not identify a common seen product as product placement, and they will not consider the product with persuasive intent. Because people usually are reluctant to be influenced by information that sets out to persuade them (Brehm, 1966; Campbell et al., 2012), consumers are expected to respond differently when sponsorship is disclosed then when that is not the case. Without sponsorship disclosure, consumers may not be aware of the persuasive intention and willing to take the advice of, for instance, vloggers. Consumers believe the vloggers’ positive evaluation of the brand is unbiased. If the review video contains a sponsorship disclosure, people are likely to recognize the review video as advertising (Boerman et al., 2012).
When consumers are not aware of that there is product placements, they incline to have more positive attitudes toward the brand because they tend to consent with what the contents conveyed and to reduce the self-image of not being gullible preemptively(Wood & Quinn, 2003). However, once consumers understand that the product placement is advertising, they might ‘correct’ their initially formed brand attitudes. Compared to no disclosure, sponsorship disclosures result in less favorable brand attitudes (Campbell et al., 2012).
Sponsorship disclosures will also increase the brand recall. Recognizing sponsorship disclosure through different ways, such as text, logo, or combined, will prime the brand to consumers and increase the brand recall (Boerman et al., 2012). Disclosures remind consumers the name of the brand with additional text, which could emphasize the target brand and increase
brand recall. Also within the context of radio sponsorship disclosures negatively affects consumers’ brand attitude. Boerman et al. (2013) found that compared to viewers who did not see a sponsorship disclosure in a TV program, those who did notice a sponsorship disclosure have less positive brand attitude and their brand recall is consequently lower. Based on discussion above, the hypotheses can be composed as follows:
H1a. Consumers who watch the online review video with sponsorship disclosure have less
positive attitudes toward the target brand, compared to those who watch the online review video
without sponsorship disclosure.
H1b. Consumers who watch the online review video with sponsorship disclosure have higher
recall of the target brand, compared to those who watch the online review video without
sponsorship disclosure.
The mediating role of persuasion knowledge
Persuasion knowledge refers to the knowledge of persuasion and of how to deal with persuasive intention (Friestad & Wright, 1994). By gaining the persuasive knowledge from their previous experience with persuasive tactics, consumers improve the ability to recognize persuasive
attempts. Accordingly, future persuasive tactics become more and more useless when consumers develops more and more persuasive knowledge (Evans & Hoy, 2016; Wright, Friestad, & Boush, 2005). When consumers are provided additional information about persuasive intent, they are more likely to recognize the persuasive attempts (Evans & Hoy, 2016). Moreover, the persuasion knowledge model implies that recognizing tactics helps consumers to cope with the persuasive information effectively (Friestad & Wright, 1994). Based on previous studies, sponsorship
disclosure helps to activate consumers’ persuasion knowledge to correct their responses to sponsored contents (Boerman et al., 2012; Campbell et al., 2012; Dekker & van Reijmersdal, 2013; Tessitore & Geuens, 2013). Furthermore, only when consumers can recognize the persuasive attempts they will resist the advertising (Boerman et al., 2012; Tessitore & Geuens, 2013).
Sponsorship disclosures give consumers the opportunity to consider how they will be influenced by the sponsored content and it also elicits less favorable brand attitude (Campbell et al., 2012; Tormala & Petty, 2002). Similarly, studies found that sponsorship disclosure activates persuasion knowledge, which results in less favorable brand attitudes (Boerman et al., 2012, 2014; Campbell et al., 2012; Wei et al., 2008). Several studies have shown that persuasion knowledge is mediating the impact of the sponsorship disclosure on brand attitude. Van Reijmersdal et al. (2015) showed that, in advergames, consumers have less positive brand
attitudes when the disclosure activates their persuasion knowledge. Wei et al. (2008) showed that when consumers are told that advertisers pay for the product placement in a radio show,
consumers’ brand attitude become less positive. According to Campbell and Kirmani (2000), when sales use inappropriate sales method or not sincere, consumers start to use persuasive knowledge to defend themselves from persuasive contents, leading to less favorable brand attitude. Based on research of Boerman, van Reijmersdal, and Neijens (2015), consumers using persuasion knowledge to recognize advertising will cause lower brand attitude. The study of Boerman et al. (2012) also pointed out that the longer the consumers are exposed to disclosure the higher persuasive knowledge, leading to lower brand attitude.
Moreover, persuasion knowledge also plausibly impacts brand recall. As discussion above, the sponsorship disclosure effectively increases brand recall by priming the brand to
consumers (Boerman et al., 2012). Furthermore, the activation of persuasion knowledge
increases the attention to the brand (Boerman et al., 2012). In other words, persuasion knowledge increases brand recall. Van Reijmersdal et al. (2015) showed that, in advergames, consumers have higher brand recall when persuasion knowledge is triggered by sponsorship disclosure. According to Boerman et al. (2012), sponsorship disclosure increased brand recall regardless the duration of disclosure. Boerman et al. (2015) also noticed that brand recall increases when consumers recognize advertising during sponsored content through persuasive knowledge.
Accordingly, the brand attitude is lower when sponsorship disclosure activates persuasive knowledge, compared to persuasion knowledge is not activated, and, furthermore, the brand recall is higher when persuasive knowledge is triggered compared to non-disclosure. Based on the reviewing literature above, the hypotheses can be composed as follows
H2a: Sponsorship disclosure in online review videos activates persuasion knowledge, and
consequently results in a more negative brand attitudes than no sponsorship disclosure
H2b: Sponsorship disclosure in online review videos activates persuasion knowledge, and
consequently results in a higher brand recall than no sponsorship disclosure
Disclosure Timing on Brand Attitude and Brand Recall
Some researchers believed that the timing of sponsorship disclosure plays an important role in the processing of sponsored content (Boerman et al., 2014; Campbell et al., 2012; Meyers-Levy & Maheswaran, 1992). The EU also notices this issue regarding timing of sponsorship disclosure, and the EU legislates clear instruction of sponsorship disclosure for programs. “Programmes containing product placement shall be appropriately identified at the start and the end of the
programme, and when a programme resumes after an advertising break, in order to avoid any con- fusion on the part of the viewer.” (Audiovisual Media Services Directive, 2010, p. 17).
Furthermore, the disclosure rules are also needed for the meaning to be clearly conveyed to consumers because disclosures are often unclear and difficult to recognize (Ong, 2010) . If there are no regulations regarding timing of disclosure or no clear disclosure rules, consumers who watch sponsored contents will have difficulties to recognize the sponsorship and don’t have sufficient time to process sponsored content critically (Boerman et al., 2014). Consumers need time to critically process the sponsored content when they are told the content contains
sponsorship. The disclosure will prime the persuasive intention behind the content (Boerman et al., 2014). If disclosure displays at the end of the video, consumers have no time to think about the purpose of this video and more importantly may already have processed the information in the video possibly without having realized the video was sponsored. While when the disclosure is displayed at the start of the video, consumers are more likely to pay attention to the
information with the persuasive intention behind the review video in mind. However, the EU regulations focus on programs such as TV programs and non-commercial editorial contents. Regarding to online video, there is neither clear instruction of sponsorship disclosure nor clear results of timing of disclosure sponsorship.
Furthermore, according to Boerman et al. (2014), since consumers have more time to process the information of sponsorship disclosure critically when the disclosure is displayed before the video than displayed after of the video, consumers have less favorable brand attitudes toward target brand. The more processing time viewers have to consider the sponsored content, the more likely the viewers have lower brand attitude to target brand. Once viewers realize that the TV program is sponsored content and start to defend themselves to be persuaded by the
program, leading to lower brand attitude. However, a contradictiory effect has been shown as well. In the experiment conducted by Campbell et al. (2012), brand attitude appeared to be higher when the sponsorship disclosure was shown at the beginning of the program than at the end of the program. According to Campbell et al. (2012), the disclosure at the end of program corrected the brand attitude gained during the program, which leads to lower brand attitude compared to disclosure at the beginning. Consumers might feel fairly treated or even be
protected when the disclosure displays at the start of the video, leading to higher brand attitude, and their motivation to correct their responses to a product placement is reduced (Campbell et al., 2012). To better examine the effect of timing of sponsor disclosure, this study used the clear instruction to inform participants that the video is sponsored by the target brand. This scenario gives the subject of experiment starting to resist the persuasive content critically. The experiment in this research is in line with the experiments of Boerman et al. (2014) to clearly state the
sponsorship disclosure. Since the experiment of Campbell et al. (2012) is not clearly stated the disclosure of sponsored content, the weak disclosure gives viewer vague information to motivate them to critically process the sponsored content, which will deviate the result of the effect of timing of disclosure sponsorship. Consumers may not easily recognize the sponsored content via a unclear instruction, even in the sponsorship disclosure is displayed before the video. The effect of prior disclosure timing can be diminished. The study proposes that when the sponsorship disclosure is displayed at the start of the video, consumers have less positive brand attitude.
Furthermore, disclosure timing is not really matter to influence consumers’ brand recall. According to Campbell et al. (2012), there is no difference between brand recall when disclosure at the beginning of video or at the end of video. Boerman et al. (2012) also points out that
Accordingly, the different timing of disclosure would exert different effects on consumers’ responses. When the disclosure is at the beginning of the video, it should have a more negative effect on consumers’ brand attitude compared to the disclosure is at the end of the video. Based on discussion above, the hypothesis is constructed as follows:
H3a: Consumers have less positive brand attitude when the disclosure of sponsorship is at the
start of the video, compared to the disclosure is at the end of the content.
H3b: Consumers have same level of brand recall when the disclosure of sponsorship is at the
start of the video or at the end of the content.
Figure 1. Proposed model of the effect of sponsorship on brand attitude and brand recall via persuasion
knowledge and the effect of sponsorship disclosure timing on brand attitude and brand recall.
Method Design Persuasion Knowledge Brand attitude Brand recall Sponsorship disclosure Disclosure timing H1a, H1b H3a, H3b H2a, H2b
To test hypotheses, an online experiment was conducted as a between-subjects experiment. Qualtrics has been used as the tool to conduct the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to 3 groups with different video versions. One group (n=50) was with video that the disclosure displayed at the beginning of the study, the second group (n=53) was with the video that the disclosure displayes at the end of the video and the last group (n=47) was with the video that did not contain a sponsorship disclosure.
Participants
Because of the limited financial resources and time, this study chose a convenient sampling strategy. The sample of N=223 participants was recruited through the social media websites. The survey was shared on Facebook and WeChat (Chinese social media application) since the
researcher has a large social network in China. Thus, the study was conducted in English and Chinese. Additionally, participants were encouraged to share it with their families and friends. People that did not complete the survey (n= 67) were excluded from the sample. Furthermore, this study excluded 6 participants from the final sample, since there were missing values in the data. One participant’s demographic data were missing, but the data of other variables were in the database. This study did not exclude this participant. Thus, the sample size was 150. The mean age was (M= 27.59, SD= 8.45) and 58.3 percent of the participants were female.
Participants did not receive any incentive for participation. The majority of participants was from China (82%, n= 123); the second large groups were from the Netherlands (2.7%, n= 4) and Taiwan (2.7%, n= 4). As 94.6 percent of the participants indicated that they had completed Bachelor’s degree or higher, most of the sample was highly educated. The frequencies of the age, nationality and the education level of participants are in Appendix A.
Stimulus materials
The stimulus materials in the survey were manipulated versions of three review videos, which contained the review of a smartphone, named One Plus 5T. One Plus is a smartphone brand that is based in China, but they do not focus on Chinese market. This brand is famous among people who are interested in smartphones or have special usage. The researcher used this brand to reduce the chance that people already have an attitude to the brand. Participants were asked to imagine they were going to buy a new cellphone and looked up review videos about the smartphone online. And they found the review video provided in the survey.
This review video was selected from YouTube by the researcher. In order to mitigate the possible effect of famous brands and famous vloggers on participants, the researcher chose a vlogger who was not famous in China and the Netherlands (where most participants came from) and the cellphone brand was One Plus, which was not famous among general consumers. The main study confirmed the assumption that only 42.7 percent of participants (n=64) knew this brand before completing the survey and only 7.3 percent of participants (n=11) watched review videos from the vlogger (Marques Brownlee). Moreover, in this review video, the vlogger also mentioned other cellphone brands, e.g. Pixel.
The material was downloaded from Bilibili.com (a Chinese video website) with Chinese and English subtitles and the duration of the original video was 7 minutes 26 second. The researcher used iMovie to edit the video. To decrease the dropout, the video was shortened to 2 minutes 57 second. The original video did not have sponsorship disclosure. The researcher added the disclosure as a subtitle at the bottom of the video. The subtitle was “THIS VIDEO IS
SPONSORED BY ONE PLUS”. The video had 3 versions for different disclosure timing. In the first version, the disclosure displayed from the start of the video, lasting 3 seconds. In the second version, the disclosure started from 2:52, lasting 3 seconds. The third version did not have a disclosure. The screenshots of different versions are in Appendix B. In order to create the ‘real’ condition, these 3 review videos were uploaded to YouTube and embedded in the survey. The three-version videos were independent variables, which will be discussed in detail in the next part.
Measures
Independent variables
Sponsorship disclosure
Participants who viewed the review videos with a sponsorship disclosure (at the beginning of the video and at the end of the video) were recoded to one group, with disclosure group. Participants who viewed the non-disclosure review videos were recoded to non-disclosure group.
Disclosure timing
The researcher recoded groups into 0 (disclosure at the beginning of the video), 1 (disclosure at the end of the video) and excluded non-disclosure group in the analysis of H3.
Dependent variables
Brand recall was measured by two questions. The same measure was used by Boerman et al. (2015). First, participants needed to answer whether they remember any brands in the review
video. If their answer was yes, they had to indicate which brand among the options. The
researcher coded brand recall as 1 when participants recalled One Plus and as 0 when they could not recall or recalled incorrect brands. 40.7 percent of participants recalled the correct brand (n=61).
Brand attitude was measured by a 5-item 7-point scales. Based on Boerman et al. (2015) and Dekker and van Reijmersdal (2013), the five items were: Bad/Good, Unattractive/Attractive, Negative/Positive, Not trustworthy/trustworthy, Not interesting/Interesting. According to the factor analysis and reliability test, this scale is reliable (Eigenvalue=3.37, explained variance = 67.44%, Cronbach’s alpha=.88). The researcher used the mean of 5 items as the measurement of brand attitude (M=4.57, SD=.97).
Mediator: Persuasion knowledge
This study used a five-item 7-point scale to measure persuasion knowledge, based on Janssen, Fransen, Wulff, and Reijmersdal (2016). Participants used scales to indicate whether they thought the video contained an advertisement (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree); whether One Plus smartphone presented here is an advertisement (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree); whether One Plus smartphone was being shared to stimulate the sales (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree); whether One Plus smartphone was being shown in the video to make people like the brand (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree); whether the video was being shared to influence consumers (1= strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree). The researcher used the mean of these five items to measure persuasion knowledge (Eigenvalue= 3.21,
explained variance= 64.11%, Cronbach’s alpha= .86, M=5.11, SD=1.08), based on Janssen et al.
(2016).
Control variables
To measure the participants’ vlogger familiarity (familiarity with the vlogger), this study asked whether they watched any review video that hosted by this vlogger in the material (1=Yes, 0 =No). Only 7.3 percent of participants (n=11) watched review videos from this vlogger before participating in the survey. Most of these participants watched once or less in a month (n=6, 54.5%).
Brand familiarity was measured by one question. Participants were asked, “Did you know the brand of the smartphone shown in the video before watching this video?” (1=Yes, 0=No). Over half of participants answered no (n=86, 57.3%). Familiar with the brand shown in the review video can affect whether or not participants recall the brand, and their already opinions regarding on the brand plausibly affect their brand attitude as measured after having seen the review video.
Review video involvement was measured by a ten-item 7-point scales. This scale was from Zaichkowsky (1994) Personal Involvement Inventory (Eigenvalue=5.23, explained
variance= 52.31%, Cronbach’s alpha=.90). The researcher used the mean of these scales (M=
4.68, SD=.97) and the same measurement was used by Boerman et al. (2014).
The study asked participants to use a 7-point scale (1= Absolutely not attentive, 7= Extremely attentive) to self-report their attention to the video (M=4.58, SD=1.697). The same measure was used by Boerman et al. (2015).
Product interest was measured by two questions, based on Boerman et al. (2012) and van Reijmersdal, Neijens, and Smit (2007). Participants were asked to use a two-item 7-point scale (1=Strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree) to indicate their level of agreement with the items: “I am interested in smartphones” and “I like to watch videos about smartphones” (Eigenvalue=1.66,
explained variance= 83.11%, Cronbach’s alpha=.79). The researcher used the mean of these two
questions as the measure of product interest (M=4.18, SD=1.47) and the same measurement was used by van Reijmersdal et al. (2007). Product interest determined whether participants have sufficient knowledge of smartphones. People with sufficient knowledge in smartphones may have their own criteria of the smartphone, which could not be easy to be influenced.
Demographic
At the end of the survey, participants were asked to give information about several
demographics. There were four demographics which are age, gender, nationality and education.
Manipulation check
The manipulation was checked by two questions. These questions measured whether participants noticed the disclosure and recalled the correct disclosure timing. Participants were asked to tell whether they saw a sponsorship disclosure during the video. If they had answered yes, they had to indicate when they saw the disclosure. There were four options for them. Participants could choose from at the beginning of the video (option 1), at the end of the video (option 2), in the middle of the video (option 3) and they could not recall the timing (option 4). In order to reduce
effects of the check on participants, this manipulation check was put at the end of the survey but before demographics.
Procedure
Participants were asked to agree with participating in this survey after they clicked the link to the survey. Non-applicable participants were excluded from the study. Next, they were asked to indicate the level of their personal involvement of online review video, using a 5-item scale. Following, they were instructed to imagine that they were going to buy a new smartphone and searched online for the smartphone review videos. And they would find the review video on the next page. They were informed that they needed to watch the video carefully. Afterwards, participants were randomly assigned to three versions of review videos. Qualtrics provided a randomizer in the survey flow. After that, they were asked to recall whether they saw any brands in the video. If they had answered yes, they would answer an additional question to indicate which brand they recall. They were asked to indicate their attitude to the brand by a 5-item scale. Next, they needed to give information of their level of persuasion knowledge. As part of the manipulation check, two questions about the disclosure subtitle were asked. First, they were asked whether they saw the subtitle of disclosure in the video. If they had answered yes, they had to indicate when they saw it. After the manipulation check, participants were asked to indicate whether they were familiar with the brand of the smartphone showed in the video and the familiarity with the vlogger. At the end of the survey, participants were asked for demographic data.
Results
Randomization
In order to test whether randomization of participants to the experimental groups was successful, this study conducted the randomization check. Results revealed no differences between the three groups with regard to gender (χ2(3) =1.49, p=.68), age (M= 27.59, SD= 8.45, F(3) =1.35, p=.26), education (χ2(12)= 20.99, p=.051), brand familiarity(M=.41, SD=.49, χ2(2)=.234, p=.89), vlogger familiarity(M=.07, SD=.25, χ2(2)=4.22, p=.12). There were no differences between the
experimental groups in terms of product interest (M=4.18, SD=1.47, F(2)=.11, p=.90), review video involvement (M= 4.68, SD=.97, F(2)=.21, p=.81), attention to the video (M=4.58,
SD=1.697, F(2)=.45, p=.64). Since 40.7 percent of participants already knew the brand before
the survey, a correlation test of brand familiarity and brand recall was also included. The result showed that brand familiarity was not correlated with brand recall (r=-.06, n=145, p=.50). In order to control for any unexpected effects, gender, age, brand familiarity and smartphone interest were included in analyses as covariates. The results will be presented with analyses below.
Manipulation check
It was examined whether participants remembered they saw a disclosure subtitle and correctly recalled disclosure timings. In the disclosure after the video condition, 56.60% participants correctly recalled the timing. In the disclosure before the video condition, 44% participants correctly recalled the timing. The results of independent-samples T-tests revealed that there were significant differences of the two manipulation check, whether they saw the disclosure subtitle
(F(143)=8926.58, p=.00)and correctly recall disclosure timing among different groups
(F(54)=3.63, p=.00). This confirmed the manipulation was successful. 5 participants in the non-disclosure condition, falsely remembered there was a non-disclosure in the video, were excluded from the analysis. The final sample size was 145.
Sponsorship disclosure effect
To test whether sponsorship disclosure has effect on brand attitude, the researcher conducted an ANCOVA analysis with brand attitude as the dependent variable, sponsorship disclosure as the independent variable and five covariates. The results revealed that there was no significant main effect of sponsorship disclosure (M=.71, SD=.46) on brand attitude (M=4.57, SD=.96, F(1)=8.23,
p=.93). H1a is rejected. The analysis showed significant differences of the covariate level of
brand familiarity (M=.41, SD=.49, F(1)=5.79, p=.017) and product interest (M=4.18, SD=1.47,
F(1)=8.98, p =.003) in brand attitude.
A logistic regression analysis was conducted to predict the impact of sponsorship disclosure on brand recall and gender, age, education, brand familiarity, vlogger familiarity and smartphone interest were included as covariates. There was no main effect of sponsorship disclosure (b=-.37, OR=.69, p=.64) on brand recall (M=.41, SD=.49). So, sponsorship disclosure does not affect whether participants’ brand recall. H1b is rejected. The logistic regression
showed a significant difference of the covariate variable, product interest, b=.26, OR=1.29,
p=.04. Participants with high interest in smartphone tended to recall the correct brand.
To test hypothesis 2a and 2b, two mediation analyses was conducted with PROCESS macro, model 4 (Hayes, 2012). PROCESS macro can include dichotomous variables as independent and dependent variables in the analysis. Since brand recall has been recoded as a dummy variable, brand recall could be included in PROCESS macro. In the analyses, brand recall and brand attitude were dependent variables, sponsorship disclosure was independent variable and persuasion knowledge was the mediator.
The results revealed that there were no significant indirect effect of sponsorship disclosure on brand recall and brand attitude through persuasion knowledge (brand recall: b=-.23, 95% CI[-.61,.16], p=.25; brand attitude: b=-b=-.23, 95% CI[-.61,.16], p=.25). Therefore, persuasion knowledge did not mediate the relationship between sponsorship disclosure and dependent variables (brand attitude and brand recall). H2a and H2b are rejected.
The effect of disclosure timing
To test hypothesis 3a and 3b, the researcher conducted an independent T-test. Brand attitude and dummy variable brand recall were dependent variables and disclosure timing was the
independent variable. For independent variable, disclosure timing, the researcher first excluded participants in non-disclosure condition and recoded the other two conditions into dummy variable.
The results revealed that there was no significant difference between participants who watched the sponsorship disclosure at the beginning (brand attitude: M=4.51, SD=1) or at the end (brand attitude: M=4.66, SD=.97) of the video on brand attitude, F(101)=.05, p=.46. Thus, H3a is rejected. The results also showed that there was no significant difference on brand recall
(F(101)=.06, p=.91) between participants who watched the sponsorship disclosure at the beginning (brand recall: M=.39, SD=.49) or at the end (brand recall: M=.40, SD=.50) of the video. H3b is rejected. Thus, disclosure timing did not have effect on brand attitude and brand recall.
Discussion
This study aimed to investigate how sponsorship disclosure affect consumers’ brand attitude and brand recall and whether this relationship is mediated by persuasion knowledge on online review video. Moreover, this study investigated how the timing of sponsorship disclosure influences brand attitude on online review video.
This study expected to find a negative main effect of sponsorship disclosure on brand attitude, however, participants in the disclosure condition did not report a significantly higher attitude and recall to the target brand than those in the non-disclosure condition. The result could be caused by the factual information in the review video. The review video provides information on all aspects of the product (in this study is a smartphone). Participants may perceive the
content as informative rather than persuasive, although they saw the sponsorship disclosure. This result is also in line with the earlier researchers that they also failed to find a significant effect of sponsorship disclosure on brand attitude in a television program and video news release,
respectively (Dekker & van Reijmersdal, 2013; Nelson, Wood, & Paek, 2009). The mere disclosure may not have an effect on people’s susceptibility to persuasion. Dekker and van Reijmersdal (2013) and Nelson et al. (2009) found that although participants’ perceived credibility of the newscast has been negatively affected, participants did not take the negative
credibility into account when they value the target brand and sponsored content. However, in this study, the researcher did not measure the perceived credibility of the review video, it was unclear what kind of effect that perceived credibility of the review video has on brand attitude. Future research can include perceived credibility in the research and investigate the effect of perceived credibility in the research.
With respect to brand recall, the feature of online review videos may explain the insignificant effect of sponsorship disclosure. Unlike product placements in other media, an online review video is filmed specifically for one or more products. The possibility for a viewer to notice the brand is high. To some extent, sponsorship strategy is accepted for some consumers on review videos. Thus, sponsorship disclosure not have influence on their brand recall and brand attitude. Future research could include the acceptance of sponsorship to investigate the impact on brand attitude and brand recall.
However, this study found significant effects of control variables. Brand familiarity has a positive significant effect on brand attitude, which means participants who were familiar with the target brand had more positive brand attitudes than those unfamiliar with the target brand.
Product interest also had a significant effect on brand attitude, which means people who had more interests in smartphone had a better brand attitude. Future research should take the effects of these control variables into account.
This study did not find a significant mediation effect of persuasion knowledge on the relationship between sponsorship disclosure and brand attitude, brand recall, contrary to the previous research. As the discussion above, persuasion knowledge could be activated only when consumers recognize the persuasive intent (Boerman et al., 2015; Tessitore & Geuens, 2013). Kim, Pasadeos, and Barban (2001) suggested that consumers recognize the persuasive intent,
which is based on the content of the message rather than a sponsorship disclosure. Thus, consumers appear to have their own criteria of whether a message contains persuasive intent. Participants in non-disclosure and disclosure condition may have experienced the content of the review video in a similar way. Participants’ persuasion knowledge did not significantly differ across participants in the disclosure condition. Accordingly, the mediation effect was not supported. Based on results, there was a high possibility that participants in non-disclosure and disclosure condition all thought the review video contained a sponsorship. This result could be that participants thought sponsorship strategy in review video is proper. This assumption is in line with the study of Campbell and Kirmani (2000), when salesman use proper strategy to approach consumers, consumers tend not to resist them. Future research can measure whether people perceive the sponsorship strategy is proper and whether this thought have impact on brand attitude and brand recall.
The effect of disclosure timing on brand attitude and brand recall was rejected, which means the main effect of disclosure timing on brand attitude and brand recall was not significant. This result is not in line with the previous research. Previous researches found the significant main effect of disclosure timing on brand attitude, though they had contradicting results
(Boerman et al., 2014; Campbell et al., 2012). A reason for the current result could be that unlike the television programs, online videos allow people to determine the pace of watching a video. When people watching the online video, they can choose which part they want to repeat and which part they want to skip. They do not need to watch the video continuously. Thus, the effect of timing could also be mitigated. The result could also be explained by the acceptance of the sponsorship strategy. Since sponsorship disclosure and the timing of sponsorship did not have
impact on brand attitude and brand recall, participants may have thought there was a sponsorship, based on their own criteria rather than the sponsorship disclosure.
Limitations and Implications
Several limitations of this study should be recognized. First, in order to decrease participants’ drop-out rate (30%), this study used a shortened version (3 minutes) of the review video. This short version may cannot fully present the vlogger’s opinion, which could influence consumers’ thought of the video. Thus, to some extent, the short version could have a different impact on participants, compared to the full version. Since hypotheses of this study have been rejected, future research should try to use full review video to make it more natural to the real situation. This study did not measure participants’ acceptance of sponsorship in review videos. Since the sponsorship strategy has become more and more poplar, consumers are getting more and more familiar with sponsorship. Vlogger as a special profession has been accepted by people. Most people know vlogger need the sponsorship and they also know the compensation from the sponsor motive vloggers to make more high-quality videos. Thus, for some people they are more likely to accept the sponsorship in a review video. This could influence the brand attitude and brand recall. There are not many theories focus on this part. Campbell and Kirmani (2000) had the similar finding on salesman strategy, which was mentioned in theoretical framework. Future research can investigate the effects of acceptance of sponsorship on brand recall and brand attitude.
The findings from the present study has implications for marketers and vloggers. Consumers may have adapted higher acceptance of sponsorship in online review videos, compared to
television programs. Though sponsorship disclosure is a prime of sponsored content, it did not have much impact on consumers’ brand attitude and brand recall. Marketers and vloggers can honestly disclose the sponsorship.
The evidence from this study provides inspiration for future research to improve theory of acceptance of sponsorship. Future research of sponsorship can investigate whether the acceptance of sponsorship could influence people’s brand response, since there is a lack of research focus on the acceptance of sponsorship.
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Appendix A
Table 1
Frequencies of participants’ age
Age Frequency 18-20 8 21-30 110 31-40 7 41-50 16 50+ 3 Total 144 Table 2
Frequencies of participants’ nationality
Country (region) Frequency
Cook Islands 1 China 118 Germany 2 Estonia 1 Greece 1 Ireland 1 Netherlands 4
Peru 1 Romania 1 Turkey 1 Taiwan 4 United States Total 3 144
Table 3 for Appendix a
Frequencies of participants’ education level
Education level Frequency
Lower than high school 1
High school graduate 6
Bachelor’s degree 73 Master’s degree 58 Doctorate or higher Total 6 144
Appendix B
Screenshots of sponsorship disclosure subtitles
Screenshot 1: sponsorship disclosure at the start of the video (Timeline)
