Children’s perceptions of sponsorship disclosures in online influencer videos

As sponsoring in online influencer videos is gaining popularity, advertising- and media regulators are tightening the guidelines for commercial content in YouTube videos (e.g., the European Union’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive [AVMSD], and the United States’ Federal Trade Commission). An important part of these stricter guidelines is the obligatory inclusion of disclosures, in order to increase the transparency and fairness of sponsored online influencer videos (European Commission, 2018; Einstein, 2015; Federal Trade Commission 2010). In these videos, persuasive messages are embedded into the entertaining content of influencers which makes it hard for audiences to recognize its persuasive nature. Disclosures can help audiences to better recognize the commercial nature of sponsored online influencer videos and potentially facilitate more critical processing of these videos.