Abstract

Despite industry and academic attention to disclosures in sponsored content over recent years, questions remain concerning how consumers process message and context-related characteristics. Primarily building upon the covert advertising recognition and effects (CARE) model, this study investigated the effects of disclosures (present versus absent), brand placement type (text versus picture), and ad–context congruence (lower versus higher) on ad recognition provoked by top-down versus bottom-up processing styles. Through an online experiment, we found that (1) disclosure directly increased ad recognition in a top-down manner, (2) in-text brand mention indirectly increased ad recognition by facilitating brand recognition in a bottom-up style, and (3) lower ad–context congruence further moderated the mediation effect of brand recognition observed in the in-text brand mention condition. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

摘要

尽管近年来行业和学术界关注赞助内容的披露，但关于消费者如何处理信息和上下文相关特征的问题仍然存在。本研究主要基于隐蔽广告识别和效果 (CARE) 模型，调查了披露（存在与不存在）、品牌放置类型（文字与图片）和广告上下文一致性（较低与较高）对引发的广告识别的影响。通过自上而下与自下而上的处理方式。通过在线实验，我们发现（1）披露以自上而下的方式直接提高了广告认知度，（2）文本内品牌提及通过促进自下而上的品牌认知度间接提高了广告认知度，(3) 较低的广告上下文一致性进一步缓和了在文本品牌提及条件下观察到的品牌识别的中介效应。讨论了理论和实践意义。