Native advertising - a deceptive package
Despite clear warnings, most media users do not recognize native advertising. This was recently confirmed once again by Bartosz W. Wojdynski, assistant professor of journalism (University of Georgia, USA), and David A. Hyman, professor of law (Georgetown University, USA), in separate studies.
Both researched how different forms of presentation in native advertising influence whether users recognize this form of advertising. They investigated the effects that design and presentation features in digital media have on the attention, perception and attitude of users.
Native advertising is now more popular than ever among advertisers and media companies. Many media users ignore conventional advertising in the form of banners or pop-up pages. This is why more and more media companies are offering native advertising as an indirect form of advertising. However, the media user is usually led around by the nose: In any case, journalistic information and advertising are simultaneously foisted on them with the content, often without them realizing it.
According to previous scientific findings, references to native advertising play an important role: how such references are positioned and formulated, and whether and how prominently a logo comes into play, all play a role in determining perception.
Sobering results
In his study, Wojdynski tested four factors that influence the recognition of sponsored online articles. To do this, he created 24 versions of an online news story and varied the disclosure notice in the sponsored article. The disclosure clarity was presented as high ("Paid advertising from XYZ - name of sponsor") or low ("Partner content from XYZ"). The logo of the advertising company was sometimes present and sometimes not. In order to vary the visual prominence of the notice, it was once presented in a light gray on a white background with font size 12 and the same font as the article (weak condition), and varied in size 16, black on a white background and in a font that clearly differed from that of the article (strong condition). In addition, the disclosure note was placed either above the title of the story, at the beginning of the article to the right of the body text column or directly in the text after the second paragraph (embedded condition).
The participants in Wojdynski's experiment had to read an article online in one of the 24 versions and then fill out a questionnaire. The results are sobering. Overall, more than two thirds (67.9 %) of the test subjects were unable to recognize the article as native advertising despite the information provided. 14.6 % even identified the disclosure notice itself as a classic advertisement (display advertisement). Only 17.5 % of respondents recognized the advertising in the article itself.
Wojdynski was only able to determine an influence on the recognition of the advertisement for two factors. The presence of the logo of the advertising company and the strong variant of the disclosure notice significantly facilitated whether the native ad was perceived as such.
The researcher also found that test subjects who were already familiar with native advertising were more likely to recognize the sponsored article. Finally, Wojdynski was able to show that test subjects who recognized the article as advertising considered it to be of inferior quality compared to other users and were less willing to share the article.
The study conducted by David Hyman and his colleagues investigated whether test subjects can distinguish between native ads, display ads and free posts.
To do this, the research team created a collection of 18 real online posts, 8 of them with native ads, one modified native ad, 3 classic ads and 6 ad-free posts. They came from various US platforms (The Atlantic, BuzzFeed, Facebook, Forbes, Gawker, Mashable, The New York Times, The Onion, and Vanity Fair). Subjects had to click through all 18 examples online and indicate whether they thought they were advertising/paid content or not directly ad-supported content (with a "don't know" option for those who were undecided).
What emerged was once again disappointing. Almost half (49 %) of the participants thought native ads were unpaid content, 14 % could not decide, and only 37 % recognized what they were about. In contrast, they were much better at recognizing display ads: 81 % were correct, while 19 % answered incorrectly, thought they were unpaid content or were undecided.
Both studies show that native advertising therefore remains a deceptive maneuver that is likely to damage the credibility of journalism and media companies in particular.
The author: Georgia Ertz is a doctoral student and research assistant at the Università della Svizzera italiana in Lugano. She conducts research in the field of branding for media companies and has been project coordinator of the European Journalism Observatory (EJO) since September 2017. Ertz holds an MA in Corporate Communication. She was born in Ticino in 1990 and has German roots.
This article was published in Werbewoche 1/2018.
The studies
Hyman, David A., David J. Franklyn, Calla E. Yee, and Mohammad Rahmati. 2017: "Going Native: Can Consumers Recognize Native Advertising? Does it Matter?" The Yale Journal of Law & Technology 19:77-112, University of San Francisco Law Research Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2957956
Wojdynski, Bartosz W. 2016: "The Deceptiveness of Sponsored News Articles: How Readers Recognize and Perceive Native Advertising." American Behavioral Scientist:1-17.
