Abstract: Facing the rising trend of sponsored product reviews posted on social media, government regulatory agencies have published industry guidelines requiring disclosure of sponsorship in social media product reviews. However, research about the effects of online product review sponsorship disclosures, especially in the social media context, is still limited. To address this problem, the current study tested the effects of sponsorship disclosure in YouTube product reviews on consumers’ persuasion knowledge and attitudinal responses to the product, brand, and the reviewer. Persuasion Knowledge Model and expectancy violations theory were applied to form the theoretical foundation for the study hypotheses. Results from an online experiment revealed: (1) sponsorship disclosure increased consumers’ perceived persuasive intent and appropriateness of a sponsored product review but not their perceived effectiveness of the content; (2) sponsorship disclosure had no significant effect on viewers’ attitudes toward the reviewed product, brand, or the reviewer; and (3) viewers’ expectancy moderated the effects of sponsorship disclosure on persuasion knowledge. Implications of the study findings and limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Tag: attitudinal responses
How level of personalization affects the effectiveness of personalized ad messages: The moderating role of narcissism.
ABSTRACT: This study examined the effects of two different levels of personalization strategies (individual-level vs. group-level) on consumers’ visual and attitudinal responses to personalized advertising. The study further investigated the moderating role of recipients’ narcissism in the effect of personalization. Results showed that individuals higher in narcissism pay greater and more frequent attention to advertisements personalized on an individual level than those personalized on a group level. while those low in narcissism had no such differences. Regarding attitudinal responses, consumers with a high level of narcissism tended to have more favorable attitude toward the individual-level personalized ad compared to those with a low level of narcissism while consumers with a low level of narcissism tended to have a more favorable attitude toward the group-level personalized ad compared to those with a high level of narcissism. The study shed light on the underlying mechanism of interaction effect by demonstrating the suppressing mediating role of attention, ad creepiness and ad intrusiveness. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.