U.S. tweens’ reactions to unboxing videos: Effects of sponsorship disclosure and advertising training

ABSTRACT

YouTube unboxing videos have become a popular genre among youth, and hosts often receive financial or other incentives for showcasing products. Although sponsored relationships must be explicitly disclosed per legal regulations, not all videos comply. This study assesses US tweens’ reactions to unboxing videos with varying cues of a sponsored relationship between the host and product manufacturer, using a 3 (sponsored; non-sponsored; sponsorship unaddressed cue) x 2 (advertising training; no advertising training) randomized experimental design. The sample consisted of 215 tweens between ages 8–13 years. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to watch an advertising literacy training video before the unboxing video. Tweens detect a higher selling intent within the sponsored video (relative to the non-sponsored video), only after viewing the advertising literacy training video. The training video enhances the positive relationship between perceived informative intent and purchase intention, while weakening the positive relationship between perceived selling intent and purchase intention. Findings suggest tweens may have a unique mental schema for unboxing-style online videos which is a hybrid of informational and advertisement. Brief training videos could be used on video streaming platforms to develop and cue tweens’ advertising literacy.

Impact Summary

Prior State of Knowledge

Children’s advertising literacy develops with age, but identifying native forms of online advertising is especially difficult. Tweens need cues to apply advertising literacy skills. Displaying sponsorship disclosures has shown mixed success at activating their advertising knowledge in online advertising contexts.

Novel Contributions

Tweens differentiate selling intent between sponsored and non-sponsored unboxing videos only after prior training. The training does not help them detect selling intent in videos without sponsorship disclosures, or reduce tweens’ perceptions of the informative intent of sponsored content.

Practical Implications

Embedding advertising literacy training videos within YouTube could help counter vulnerability to native advertising. Advertising literacy training content may need to closely match persuasive tactics within sponsored content, as tweens did not generalize concepts from the training video.

KEYWORDS:

• Experiment
• social media
• advertising
• advertising literacy
• schema theory
• sponsorship disclosure
• tween

Acknowledgments

Thank you to our actors and the families who participated in this research. Thanks also to the High Point University students and colleagues who helped with this project, including Alexa Kummrow, Katie Schoulda, Morgan Carafa, Laura Trueworthy, Nora Bauso, Allison Patrick, Sasha Tarling, Julia Del Viscio, Makayla Utt, and Emily Horvath.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sarah E. Vaala

Sarah E. Vaala Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Nido Qubein School of Communication at High Point University. Her research examines how interactions of audience characteristics and message features within persuasive messages have influence on youth and parents, as well as the ways that families make decisions about media use. She completed her doctoral studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

Francesca Mauceri

Francesca Mauceri M.A., completed her master’s degree in Communication and Business Leadership at High Point University. Francesca’s research interests include the effects of sponsorship disclosure and advertising training on youth navigating the social media landscape, as well as the potential for digital technologies to bolster informal science education.

Olivia Connelly

Olivia X. Connelly B.A., is a graduate of the Nido Qubein School of Communication at High Point University. Her research interest focus on children and advertising media, with a particular emphasis on relationships between digital sponsored content and children’s identification and reactions to message intention. Olivia currently works in the field of digital media marketing.