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

Sophie C. Boerman, Eva A. van Reijmersdal and Esther Rozendaal
Additional contact information
Sophie C. Boerman: Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands / Strategic Communication Group, Wageningen University & Research, The Netherlands
Eva A. van Reijmersdal: Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Esther Rozendaal: Erasmus School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Media and Communication, 2023, vol. 11, issue 4, 140-150

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: advertising literacy; awareness campaign; disclosure; influencer marketing; minors; online video; persuasion knowledge; pictograms; transparency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/7050 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cog:meanco:v11:y:2023:i:4:p:140-150

DOI: 10.17645/mac.v11i4.7050

Access Statistics for this article

Media and Communication is currently edited by Raquel Silva

More articles in Media and Communication from Cogitatio Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by António Vieira () and IT Department ().