Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul;49(7):1531-1544.
doi: 10.1007/s10964-019-01191-z. Epub 2020 Jan 18.

How Age and Disclosures of Sponsored Influencer Videos Affect Adolescents' Knowledge of Persuasion and Persuasion

Eva A van Reijmersdal  1 , Sophia van Dam  2
Affiliations

How Age and Disclosures of Sponsored Influencer Videos Affect Adolescents' Knowledge of Persuasion and Persuasion

Eva A van Reijmersdal et al. J Youth Adolesc. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

This study examines the effects of age (early versus middle adolescence) combined with the content of disclosures for sponsoring in online influencer videos on adolescents' knowledge of persuasion and on persuasion. An experiment was conducted among a sample of 406 adolescents (167 early adolescents aged 12-14 years, mean age 12.85, SD = 0.14, 53% female; and 239 middle adolescents, aged 15-16 years, mean age 14.36, SD = 0.13, 59% female). The results show that early adolescents need extensive information (disclosure of advertising and of its intent) to activate their knowledge of persuasion regarding sponsored influencer videos, whereas middle adolescents' knowledge of persuasion is activated by disclosure of advertising alone. This indicates that early adolescents' knowledge of persuasion is less well developed and that their information processing is more limited than that of middle adolescents. Moreover, only middle adolescents showed more negative brand and influencer attitudes in response to the disclosure. Interestingly, purchase intention remains unaffected by the disclosure for all adolescents. These findings add to the research on adolescence as they show that adolescents' responses to influencer marketing are a function of their developmental stage in combination with disclosure content. As such, this study has implications for theory on persuasion among adolescents and for regulations aiming to empower adolescents to deal with online sponsored influencer videos.

Keywords: Adolescents; Advertising; Disclosure; Influencer marketing; Persuasion knowledge; Product placement.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Interaction effects between disclosure type and age on recognition of sponsored content as being advertising
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Interaction effects between disclosure type and age on understanding persuasive intent
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Albert D, Chein J, Steinberg L. The teenage brain: peer influences on adolescent decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2013;22(2):114–120. - PMC - PubMed
    1. An S, Jin HS, Park EH. Children’s advertising literacy for advergames: perception of the game as advertising. Journal of Advertising. 2014;43(1):63–72.
    1. An S, Stern S. Mitigating the effects of advergames on children. Journal of Advertising. 2011;40(1):43–56.
    1. Batra R, Stayman DM. The role of mood in advertising effectiveness. Journal of Consumer Research. 1990;17(2):203–214.
    1. Boerman SC, Willemsen LM, Van der Aa, Eva P. “This post is sponsored:” effects of sponsorship disclosure on persuasion knowledge and electronic word of mouth in the context of Facebook. Journal of Interactive Marketing. 2017;38:82–92.

LinkOut - more resources