Sophie C. Boerman

The effects of brand placement disclosures on skepticism and brand memory

Abstract Recently, the European Union decreed that European countries should use disclosures of brand placement in programs and movies on television to guarantee fair communication. However, an understanding of the effects of disclosing brand placement is lacking. The present study is the first to test the impact of the new TV sponsorship regulations regarding disclosure of brand placement. In an experiment (N = 107), we examine viewers’ opinions about disclosures along with the effects of disclosure timings. Analyses show that brand memory increases when a disclosure is shown. In addition, brand memory is significantly higher when the disclosure is shown during the placement than when it is shown after the placement. Disclosures do not seem to activate critical attitudes. Respondents confronted with a disclosure, regardless of the timing, were not more skeptical towards brand placement than respondents who were not exposed to a disclosure. These findings have important implications for theory and public policy regarding brand placement disclosures.

Effects of Disclosing Sponsored Content in Blogs How the Use of Resistance Strategies Mediates Effects on Persuasion

This article presents two studies examining the effects of disclosing online native advertising (i.e., sponsored content in blogs) on people’s brand attitude and purchase intentions. To investigate the mechanisms underlying these effects, we integrated resistance theories with the persuasion knowledge model. We theorize that disclosures activate people’s persuasion knowledge, which in turn evokes resistance strategies that people use to cope with the persuasion attempt made in the blog. We tested our predications with two experiments (N = 118 and N = 134). We found that participants indeed activated persuasion knowledge in response to disclosures, after which they used both cognitive (counterarguing) and affective (negative affect) resistance strategies to decrease persuasion. The obtained insights do not only advance our theoretical understanding of how disclosures of sponsored blogs affect persuasion but also provide valuable insights for legislators, advertisers, and bloggers.

The Power of Direct Context As Revealed by Eye Tracking: A Model Tracks Relative Attention To Competing Editorial and Promotional Content

ABSTRACT Many previous studies on attention have ignored the eye-catching potential of “direct context”—the entire promotional and editorial content an observer can view at the same time—in print media. In the current study, characteristics of 183 magazine advertisements and their direct context were coded systematically and linked to eye-tracking data, producing more than 19,000 observations. Expanding on earlier research, the authors focused on fixations within an advertisement during the first five seconds and attention paid to the combined main elements of an advertisement. Results showed that direct context diverted visual attention, especially when featuring multiple colors and large amounts of text.ABSTRACT Many previous studies on attention have ignored the eye-catching potential of “direct context”—the entire promotional and editorial content an observer can view at the same time—in print media. In the current study, characteristics of 183 magazine advertisements and their direct context were coded systematically and linked to eye-tracking data, producing more than 19,000 observations. Expanding on earlier research, the authors focused on fixations within an advertisement during the first five seconds and attention paid to the combined main elements of an advertisement. Results showed that direct context diverted visual attention, especially when featuring multiple colors and large amounts of text.

Consumer responses to promoted tweets sent by brands and political parties

This study aims to understand how consumers respond to social media advertising (SMA) by focusing on promoted tweets sent by brands and political parties, and examines persuasion knowledge as underlying mechanism of these responses. Two online experiments with between-subjects designs, comparing the effects of SMA (promoted vs. non-promoted tweet) and the source of the tweet (political party vs. brand), were conducted. Study 1 showed that consumers rarely notice it when a tweet is promoted. Study 2 demonstrated that when a promoted tweet was sent by a political party, the recipients recognition that the tweet was a form of advertisement (i.e., activated persuasion knowledge) reduced online behavioral intention, increased skepticism, and negatively affected source trustworthiness and attitudes. This effect was not present for brands. Although research has shown that social media can be an important platform to engage audiences, this study is the first to study the mechanisms underlying the effects of SMA, and whether there are any boundary conditions to these effects. These findings suggest that political parties should be cautious in their use of social media advertising as it can evoke negative responses. Effects of social media advertising differ for brands and political parties.Promoted tweets can have negative consequences for political parties.An important underlying mechanism that explains SMA effects is persuasion knowledge.

Online Behavioral Advertising: A Literature Review and Research Agenda

Advertisers are increasingly monitoring peoples online behavior and using the information collected to show people individually targeted advertisements. This phenomenon is called online behavioral advertising (OBA). Although advertisers can benefit from OBA, the practice also raises concerns about privacy. Therefore, OBA has received much attention from advertisers, consumers, policymakers, and scholars. Despite this attention, there is neither a strong definition of OBA nor a clear accumulation of empirical findings. This article defines OBA and provides an overview of the empirical findings by developing a framework that identifies and integrates all factors that can explain consumer responses toward OBA. The framework suggests that the outcomes of OBA are dependent on advertiser-controlled factors (e.g., the level of personalization) and consumer-controlled factors (e.g., knowledge and perceptions about OBA and individual characteristics). The article also overviews the theoretical positioning of OBA by placing the theories that are used to explain consumers’ responses to OBA in our framework. Finally, we develop a research agenda and discuss implications for policymakers and advertisers.

Appreciation and effects of sponsorship disclosure

With the continuing growth of the paid inclusion of brands in television programs, the lines between editorial and commercial content are more and more blurred. This has attracted criticism from consumer advocacy groups, public policy officials, the media and consumers, claiming that sponsored content in TV programs is unethical and deceptive (Cain, 2011; Kuhn, Hume, & Love, 2010). They argue that because this form of advertising is embedded into program content, the commercial intent is kept hidden (Bhatnagar, Aksoy, & Malkoc, 2004). Consequently, viewers are not always aware of the commercial and persuasive purpose of sponsored program content, and – as a result – they do not activate their cognitive defences and can be influenced without being aware (Kuhn et al., 2010; Lee, 2008).

An Overview of How Eye Tracking Is Used in Communication Research

Eye tracking gives communication scholars the opportunity to move beyond self-reported measures by examining more precisely how much visual attention is paid to information. However, we lack insight into how eye-tracking data is used in communication research. This literature review provides an overview of how eye tracking is used in communication research by examining published articles from the top-25 ranked communication journals between 2005 and 2015. Our results showed that most eye-tracking research was employed in the field of advertising. Furthermore, most studies used eye tracking to measure (visual) attention and used this as the study’s dependent variable. A wide variety of eye-tracking measures were reported, including fixation time, fixation count, and visual shifts, and a wide variety of eye-tracking devices were used. Our results highlight opportunities for using eye tracking as well as identify other ways of using eye tracking to maximize its potential in communication research.

Attention battle: the abilities of brand, visual, and text characteristics of the ad to draw attention versus the diverting power of the direct magazine context

In the contemporary information jungle, it keeps getting harder for advertisers to be noticed. Advertisements that fail to attract even the lowest levels of the attention cannot be effective. Therefore, advertisers try to find clever ways to catch the eye of the consumer. Especially in magazines, advertisers need to come up with new ideas as the clutter of brands is high and advertisements have to compete with the editorial content surrounding them.

Effects of brand placement disclosures: An eye tracking study into the effects of disclosures and the moderating role of brand familiarity

Developments as advertising clutter and increased aversion towards commercials have led to an increased popularity of brand placements to unobtrusively reach the customer (Cain, 2011; Glass, 2007; Van Reijmersdal, Neijens, and Smit, 2007; Wei, Fischer, and Main, 2008). However, due to its unobtrusiveness, ethical concerns have been raised about the deceptive nature of brand placements (Kuhn, Hume, and Love, 2010).

Understanding the Effects of Personalization as a Privacy Calculus: Analyzing Self-Disclosure Across Health, News, and Commerce Contexts†

The privacy calculus suggests that online self-disclosure is based on a cost–benefit trade-off. However, although companies progressively collect information to offer tailored services, the effect of both personalization and context-dependency on self-disclosure has remained understudied. Building on the privacy calculus, we hypothesized that benefits, privacy costs, and trust would predict online self-disclosure. Moreover, we analyzed the impact of personalization, investigating whether effects would differ for health, news, and commercial websites. Results from an online experiment using a representative Dutch sample (N = 1,131) supported the privacy calculus, revealing that it was stable across contexts. Personalization decreased trust slightly and benefits marginally. Interestingly, these effects were context-dependent: While personalization affected outcomes in news and commerce contexts, no effects emerged in the health context.