Recognition Versus Understanding
Martin Eisend, Eva van Reijmersdal, Sophie C. Boerman and Farid Tarrahi's meta-analysis separates two events that the disclosure debate usually treats as one. Noticing that a piece of content is sponsored raised recognition without moving evaluation. Understanding what the sponsorship means did move evaluation. The event the industry and most regulators measure is the one that does nothing on its own.
What it is
The synthesis covers 61 papers using 57 distinct data sets, which makes it the only meta-analysis in this area. Its headline findings are that disclosing sponsored content reduced brand attitudes, credibility and source evaluation while increasing recognition, persuasion knowledge and resistance, with disclosure timing, content and awareness, along with product and sample characteristics, setting the boundary conditions. The distinction this page is named for comes from their path model, where recognition of sponsored content increased but did not influence evaluation, consistent with a memory priming effect, while understanding of sponsored content influenced evaluation with memory left unaffected, consistent with consumers trying to correct for persuasion.
In effect
That splits the practical problem in two. A disclosure that is merely seen produces a memory trace and no attitude change, which is a result compatible with both the regulator's optimism and the publisher's complacency and supports neither. A disclosure that is understood produces exactly the correction regulators intend and the cost publishers fear. The distinction also explains the otherwise odd pattern in the single-study literature, where some labels raise recognition sharply with little downstream consequence and others move brand attitude without being especially visible.
What it does not say
It does not say disclosure is useless. The same meta-analysis finds disclosure raising persuasion knowledge and resistance, which is the mechanism the correction runs through, and the authors list named boundary conditions rather than a blanket verdict. It does not supply a recipe for producing understanding, since the moderators it reports concern timing, content and awareness rather than any tested design that reliably converts a seen label into a grasped one. And it is a synthesis of a literature dominated by experiments rather than field data, so the question of what happens where clicks and revenue are at stake is answered elsewhere.
Sources
- Eisend, M., van Reijmersdal, E. A., Boerman, S. C., & Tarrahi, F. (2020). "A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Disclosing Sponsored Content." Journal of Advertising, 49(3), 344-366. doi:10.1080/00913367.2020.1765909. Abstract read in full. 61 papers using 57 distinct data sets.
- Van Reijmersdal, E. A., Brussee, E., Evans, N. J., & Wojdynski, B. W. (2023). "Disclosure-Driven Recognition of Native Advertising: A Test of Two Competing Mechanisms." Journal of Interactive Advertising, 23(2), 85-97. doi:10.1080/15252019.2022.2146991. Full text read. In the total sample the disclosure did not activate conceptual persuasion knowledge.
- Boerman, S. C., Willemsen, L. M., & Van Der Aa, E. P. (2017). "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, 38(1), 82-92. doi:10.1016/j.intmar.2016.12.002. Sample size not established and none is printed.