Native Advertising - Don't Mislead Don't Misread : A Research of Brand Disclosure Effect on Consumers’ Native Ad Recognition Ability

Abstract: Background: Online marketing tactics designed to have a minimized impact on consumer experience have emerged recently whereas native advertising is one concept. Native advertising is an approach designed to decrease interruptions in consumers’ online experience by matching the form and functions of the platform in which the advertisement appears. It occurs online, with the one characteristic in common that it should not disrupt or negatively affect consumer experience. The desire to minimize consumer disruption has led to that native advertising in its most effective nature can be difficult for the reader to identify, which leads to the discussion of whether the tactic is deceptive. It is found that ad disclosures are frequently the only thing that separates native ads from commercial content. Unexplored areas in the literature exist, which include if native ad disclosures can be made more efficient with the use of brand disclosures.  Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if brand disclosure in native advertisements affects consumers’ native ad recognition ability.  Method: Data was collected through an eye-tracking experiment, exploring if brand disclosures affect the native ad recognition ability. The experiment was created in Tobii Pro Lab which tracked participants’ real-time physiological reactions. Results were complemented with a questionnaire and data was analyzed in SPSS. The sample consisted of 60 students at Jönköping University.  Findings: The analysis illustrates that the experimental test group which received brand disclosures of high prominence showed an increased ability to recognize and identify native advertisements as promotional content compared to the control group. By implementing Mann-Whitney U tests and a Chi-Square test in order to test the hypotheses, results were found significant. The hypotheses were supported and could not be rejected, which resulted in the conclusion that brand disclosures increase the native ad recognition ability.