Zijn sponsorvermeldingen in televisieprogramma’s effectief?

Due to concerns about the possible deceptiveness of sponsored content in television programs, the EU decided to make sponsorship disclosure obligatory. The goal of sponsorship disclosure is to raise awareness of sponsored content so viewers can guard themselves against persuasion. This study explores how sponsorship disclosure influences persuasion knowledge, and to what extent recall of a disclosure influences its effect. An experiment (N = 208) shows that a disclosure leads to greater recognition of sponsored content as advertising (i.e. activation of conceptual persuasion knowledge), which consequently makes the viewer evaluate the sponsored content more critically (i.e. higher attitudinal persuasion knowledge). This effect is only manifest for viewers who recalled the disclosure. Theoretically, this shows the importance of sponsorship disclosure and the recall of disclosure for effects on persuasion knowledge. As regulations are still in development in several countries, the findings are important for the practical implication of sponsorship disclosure.