The blog and the bountiful: Exploring the effects of disguised product placement on blogs that are revealed by a third party

摘要

This article investigates the effects of a revelation to blog readers that the blog has been sponsored by a company in exchange for favorable reviews of their products. We compare the responses of two groups of blog readers. One group was exposed to a revelation in a tabloid newspaper that the blogger has been sponsored without admitting it. The other group was not exposed to such a revelation. We find that the attitude toward the blog and the credibility of the blog will suffer after the revelation. The attitude toward the sponsoring brand and the purchase intention, however, will not suffer as a result of the revelation. We find that the effects on the blog can be partially explained by parasocial interaction, whereas the effects on the brand can be partially explained by correspondence bias. On the basis of our findings, we provide implications for both bloggers and brand managers.