Unguarded against Persuasion and Willing to Share: The Combined Effect of Chronic Regulatory Focus and Disclosure Language on Consumer Responses to Native Advertising

Abstract

While disclosure has been largely investigated within existing native advertising research, consumers’ individual characteristics, which may influence the persuasion process, have not received sufficient academic attention in this area. Through online experiments, this research examined the interplay between chronic regulatory focus and disclosure language on consumer responses to native advertising across two studies. The results from Study 1 indicated that participants with a strong promotion focus were less cognizant of the commercial nature of the native ad when exposed to a native ad using an implicit disclosure label rather than one using an explicit disclosure label. More importantly, in Study 1, these participants expressed a stronger intention to share a native ad using an implicit disclosure label rather than one using an explicit disclosure label, whereas prevention-focused people reacted to native advertisements with an explicit label more positively than one using an implicit label. Study 2 further suggested that perceived persuasion intent could be the potential underlying mechanism that explained such an interaction effect. Theoretical and practical contributions of these findings are discussed.