The development and testing of a pictogram signaling advertising in online videos

Although influencer marketing has become an important advertising strategy, it has one major challenge: its lack of transparency. Young people often struggle to distinguish commercial from non-commercial content, making them particularly susceptible to influencer marketing. In response to the Dutch Media Act, we aim to develop and test a Kijkwijzer pictogram that that clearly signals advertising (i.e. influencer marketing) in online videos to minors (8–18 year-olds). The project comprised three phases: (1) an inventory phase including a cocreation workshop, (2) a survey (N = 248) gaining insights into minors’ associations with a selection of pictograms, and (3) a preregistered online experiment (N = 656) to compare the effectiveness of selected pictograms in increasing advertising literacy. The cocreation workshop and the survey resulted in three pictograms that were associated with advertising and sponsored content and deemed appropriate by the minors to signal influencer marketing in online videos. However, results of the online experiment showed no effects of these pictograms on conceptual and affective advertising literacy. Overall, the findings show the difficulty of creating one effective pictogram that is preferred by all age groups, and the value of the different research phases.</p

Development of the Persuasion Knowledge Scales of Sponsored Content (PKS-SC)

Despite the popularity of the Persuasion Knowledge Model, and its persistent relevance given the omnipresence of sponsored content (e.g. brand placement in TV programmes and video games, or paid product reviews in blogs), the way scholars measure persuasion knowledge varies widely. This study aims to develop valid and reliable scales for standardized measurement of consumers' persuasion knowledge of sponsored content. In three phases, we developed the Persuasion Knowledge Scales of Sponsored Content (PKS-SC) that measures nine components: (1) recognition of sponsored content, (2) understanding of selling and persuasive intent, (3) recognition of the commercial source of sponsored content, (4) understanding of persuasive tactics, (5) understanding of the economic model, (6) self-reflective awareness of the effectiveness of sponsored content, (7) skepticism toward sponsored content, (8) appropriateness of sponsored content, and (9) liking of sponsored content. All scales have good to appropriate validity and reliability. Recommendations for future research are discussed.</p

Can an Awareness Campaign Boost the Effectiveness of Influencer Marketing Disclosures in YouTube Videos?

Answering the strong need for insight into how minors can effectively be informed about advertising (e.g., influencer marketing) in online content, we ran an online experiment (N = 623 minors between 8 and 18 years old) testing the effects of two pictograms that were designed in co-creation with minors and the potential of an awareness campaign to boost the pictogram’s effectiveness. Our findings provide three important insights that have implications for theory, practice, and regulation. First, we find that minors are able to distinguish between sponsored and non-sponsored videos, indicating that they have developed some level of advertising literacy in this context. Second, our study shows that the two pictograms informing minors about advertising in online videos went unnoticed by most viewers and did not enhance conceptual or attitudinal advertising literacy. Third, the awareness campaign did not lead to higher recognition of the pictograms nor enhanced advertising literacy. The campaign did increase minors’ understanding of the meaning of the pictograms. However, the majority of minors also understood the pictograms without the campaign. Based upon our findings, we argue that pictograms are unnoticed by most minors and seem ineffective in enhancing minors’ advertising literacy. Although an awareness campaign can familiarize minors with pictograms and their implementation in online videos, it does not seem to boost the pictogram’s effects on advertising literacy

(Un)informed Consent: Studying GDPR Consent Notices in the Field

Since the adoption of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in May 2018 more than 60 % of popular websites in Europe display cookie consent notices to their visitors. This has quickly led to users becoming fatigued with privacy notifications and contributed to the rise of both browser extensions that block these banners and demands for a solution that bundles consent across multiple websites or in the browser. In this work, we identify common properties of the graphical user interface of consent notices and conduct three experiments with more than 80,000 unique users on a German website to investigate the influence of notice position, type of choice, and content framing on consent. We find that users are more likely to interact with a notice shown in the lower (left) part of the screen. Given a binary choice, more users are willing to accept tracking compared to mechanisms that require them to allow cookie use for each category or company individually. We also show that the wide-spread practice of nudging has a large effect on the choices users make. Our experiments show that seemingly small implementation decisions can substantially impact whether and how people interact with consent notices. Our findings demonstrate the importance for regulation to not just require consent, but also provide clear requirements or guidance for how this consent has to be obtained in order to ensure that users can make free and informed choices.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS '19), November 11-15, 2019, London, United Kingdo

The effects of the standardized instagram disclosure for micro- and meso-influencers

Social media influencers – such as the ‘Instafamous’ – are required to disclose any commercial relationship. To achieve transparency, Instagram has introduced a standardized disclosure (‘Paid partnership with [brand]’). This study examined whether this disclosure effectively raises ad recognition, and how this consequently affects consumers' responses to the message, influencer, and brand. Additionally, the effects of the disclosure were compared between micro- (<10,000 followers) and meso- (10,000–1 million followers) influencers. Results of an online experiment (N = 192) with a 2 (no disclosure vs. standardized disclosure) x 2 (micro-vs. meso-influencer) between subjects design showed that the disclosure did achieve its goal of increasing ad recognition. Furthermore, the disclosure positively affected brand recall and intentions to engage with the post, via ad recognition. The parasocial interaction with the influencer was not affected. Moreover, influencer type did not moderate the effect of the disclosure and did not affect people's responses to the message, influencer, or brand

Awareness and Perceived Appropriateness of Synced Advertising in Dutch Adults

This study provides insight into Dutch adults’ awareness and perceptions of cross-media personalized advertising with a focus on synced advertising (SA). A survey among a representative sample of the Dutch population (N = 1,994) shows that the majority of people (>70%) are familiar with the collection, use, and sharing of information about their media behavior. People are less familiar with SA, which involves presenting targeted ads to consumers based on their current media behavior. Less than half of our sample (45%) were familiar with SA, and only 29% had ever experienced SA. The majority (75%) found SA (very) inappropriate. Moreover, our results showed that adults with low conspiracy mentality, those not concerned about their privacy, older adults, less-educated adults, and women are less aware of the collection, use, and sharing of media behavior and are less familiar with SA, and thus could benefit from literacy interventions to improve their understanding and resilience

Understanding which cues people use to identify influencer marketing on Instagram : an eye tracking study and experiment

While influencer marketing is gaining importance as a social media advertising strategy and guidelines require influencers to disclose the practice, it is still unclear whether Instagram users recognize and understand this type of advertising. This study aims to gain insights into the level of persuasion knowledge of influencer marketing on Instagram, and which cues Instagram users use to identify influencer marketing. An eye tracking study (N = 67) and an online experiment (N = 371) reveal that (1) Instagram users seem to be aware of influencer marketing but also make mistakes in identifying it within their Instagram feed, (2) users pay most attention to brand tags in pictures and ‘Paid partnership’ labels and least attention to #ad, and (3) disclosures, brand presence, and influencer type all influence the level of conceptual persuasion knowledge. Although previous research has shown that disclosures can be important drivers of persuasion knowledge activation, this study is the first to reveal that bottom-up factors such as brand presence and the type of influencer can also have this effect. Importantly, our findings signal that the lines between non-commercial and commercial content on Instagram are still blurred

Advertising and privacy: an overview of past research and a research agenda

By looking back at 40 years of research in the International Journal of Advertising (IJA), we provide a state-of-the-art of advertising research addressing (consumer) privacy. A systematic literature review of 84 IJA publications that address privacy in their content shows an increase of attention to privacy in advertising research. The review also reveals that privacy is connected to many different advertising formats and generally discussed in three ways: in the discussion of the context of advertising (i.e. ethics and regulations), in connection to personal traits that distinguish different consumers, and to explain advertising responses and effects. Theoretically, studies often draw upon the privacy paradox, privacy calculus model, personalization(-privacy) paradox, and persuasion knowledge model. Based on this review and current developments, we develop a research agenda for future advertising research addressing privacy, focusing on personalization in the public domain, privacy cynicism, and possible future constraints to personalization

Privacy Concerns Matter, Knowledge Does Not: Investigating Effects of Online Behavioral Advertising among Chinese and Dutch Adults

The present study aims to address (1) the extent to which privacy concerns and online behavioral advertising (OBA) knowledge as consumer characteristics create boundary conditions for the persuasiveness of OBA and (2) if their roles in OBA effects differ for Dutch and Chinese individuals. Results from an online experiment (N = 241) show that OBA is less effective for individuals with high privacy concerns than for individuals with low privacy concerns, while level of OBA knowledge does not influence the positive effects of OBA compared to non-OBA. OBA is also more effective for Dutch consumers than for Chinese consumers, which could be attributed to the finding that Chinese consumers have higher privacy concerns than Dutch consumers