Native advertising is a kind of advertising that matches the form and style of the platform upon which it appears. Advertisers and publishers have embraced this new format of advertising, but regulators concern about the possibility of consumer deception and require the disclosure of sponsorship in native ads. In this paper, we conducted an experiment to investigate the impact of sponsorship disclosure on the effectiveness of native advertising. In contrast with prior research, most of which suggests a negative relationship between sponsorship disclosure and the effectiveness of native advertising, results from our experiment show that sponsorship disclosure could increase consumers’ purchase intention and ad sharing intention when the native ad is salient in advertising intent....[ Read more ]

Native advertising is a kind of advertising that matches the form and style of the platform upon which it appears. Advertisers and publishers have embraced this new format of advertising, but regulators concern about the possibility of consumer deception and require the disclosure of sponsorship in native ads. In this paper, we conducted an experiment to investigate the impact of sponsorship disclosure on the effectiveness of native advertising. In contrast with prior research, most of which suggests a negative relationship between sponsorship disclosure and the effectiveness of native advertising, results from our experiment show that sponsorship disclosure could increase consumers’ purchase intention and ad sharing intention when the native ad is salient in advertising intent. We also find that the positive relationship between sponsorship disclosure and the effectiveness of native advertising is mediated by consumers’ attitudes toward the advertised brand.

Keywords: Native Advertising, Sponsorship Disclosure, Advertising Effectiveness, Brand Attitude, Experiment