Studying the Effects of Sponsorship Disclosure and Message Complexity on Consumers’ Response Via Text Analysis: An Abstract

TY - CHAP

T1 - Studying the Effects of Sponsorship Disclosure and Message Complexity on Consumers’ Response Via Text Analysis

T2 - An Abstract

AU - Li, Lifeng

AU - (Mia) Cheng, Zixuan

AU - de Regt, Anouk

AU - Hao, Jianyu

AU - Montecchi, Matteo

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Influencer marketing utilizes influential online opinion leaders to disseminate brand related user-generated content and shape audience attitudes through social networking sites (Lim et al. 2017), is currently widely adopted by brands to effectively reach their target audiences (Evans et al. 2017). Despite many benefits of influencer marketing for brands, public policy concerns regarding the covert nature of paid brand endorsements that are masqueraded as unadulterated opinions have risen in the past years (Johnson et al. 2019). Sparking calls for transparency and disclosure of sponsorship information to facilitate the consumers’ ability to differentiate sponsored content from authentic (i.e., non-sponsored) product reviews and editorial content (Veirman and Hudders 2019). Recent guidelines and (self-)regulatory initiatives (e.g., ASA 2018; FTC 2017; IAB 2016) prescribe the disclosure of any commercial relationship between the influencer and the brand in their social media posts. Using automated text analysis (LIWC) on audio-visual branded content, this study explores the role and impact of sponsorship disclosure and message complexity on consumers’ responses. Findings suggest that message complexity and sponsorship disclosure can significantly affect consumers’ tone in their responses. Additionally, sponsorship disclosure significantly affects consumers’ clout. The results also reveal that different levels of message complexity resulted in different levels of consumers’ analytical thinking and clout when posts with or without sponsorship disclosure. This study makes several contributions to the further understanding of the function of disclosures in sponsored Instagram posts as a type of native advertising. The disclosure of sponsorship would generate more confidence for consumers, as it provides information for consumers to arrive at causal explanations for events. However, disclosure of sponsored messages also generates feelings of suspicion and deception for consumers. Our finding further supports previous findings suggesting sponsorship disclosure helps consumer recognize sponsored posts as advertising, and in turn reduce the effectiveness of the persuasive (Evans et al. 2017; Boerman et al. 2017). Moreover, mediums with different levels of message complexity result in different clout levels. Consumers from video posts appeared to have more confidence and a sense of social status because compare with photos, videos provided involve them in a dynamic environment and provide more comprehensive storylines.

AB - Influencer marketing utilizes influential online opinion leaders to disseminate brand related user-generated content and shape audience attitudes through social networking sites (Lim et al. 2017), is currently widely adopted by brands to effectively reach their target audiences (Evans et al. 2017). Despite many benefits of influencer marketing for brands, public policy concerns regarding the covert nature of paid brand endorsements that are masqueraded as unadulterated opinions have risen in the past years (Johnson et al. 2019). Sparking calls for transparency and disclosure of sponsorship information to facilitate the consumers’ ability to differentiate sponsored content from authentic (i.e., non-sponsored) product reviews and editorial content (Veirman and Hudders 2019). Recent guidelines and (self-)regulatory initiatives (e.g., ASA 2018; FTC 2017; IAB 2016) prescribe the disclosure of any commercial relationship between the influencer and the brand in their social media posts. Using automated text analysis (LIWC) on audio-visual branded content, this study explores the role and impact of sponsorship disclosure and message complexity on consumers’ responses. Findings suggest that message complexity and sponsorship disclosure can significantly affect consumers’ tone in their responses. Additionally, sponsorship disclosure significantly affects consumers’ clout. The results also reveal that different levels of message complexity resulted in different levels of consumers’ analytical thinking and clout when posts with or without sponsorship disclosure. This study makes several contributions to the further understanding of the function of disclosures in sponsored Instagram posts as a type of native advertising. The disclosure of sponsorship would generate more confidence for consumers, as it provides information for consumers to arrive at causal explanations for events. However, disclosure of sponsored messages also generates feelings of suspicion and deception for consumers. Our finding further supports previous findings suggesting sponsorship disclosure helps consumer recognize sponsored posts as advertising, and in turn reduce the effectiveness of the persuasive (Evans et al. 2017; Boerman et al. 2017). Moreover, mediums with different levels of message complexity result in different clout levels. Consumers from video posts appeared to have more confidence and a sense of social status because compare with photos, videos provided involve them in a dynamic environment and provide more comprehensive storylines.

KW - Influencer marketing

KW - LIWC

KW - Message complexity

KW - Sponsorship Disclosure

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85127936191&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-89883-0_22

DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-89883-0_22

M3 - Chapter

AN - SCOPUS:85127936191

T3 - Developments in Marketing Science: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing Science

SP - 79

EP - 80

BT - Developments in Marketing Science

PB - Springer Nature

ER -