The effect of influencer ad disclosures on influencer perception and advertising effectiveness on Instagram

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to bring insights to the new field of social media influencer advertising. Our findings provide knowledge about how the clarity of different influencer ad disclosures affects influencer perception and the advertising effectiveness on Instagram. These findings are useful for researchers within the field but also influencers themselves, companies and legislators. This quantitative study was conducted as an experiment through an online questionnaire with N = 195 participants who were active Instagram users. The experimental manipulation was the ad disclosure which was shown in a sponsored post by a fictional influencer on Instagram. The post featured products from a phone case brand as this is a common product used in influencer advertising on Instagram. The findings show that when influencers use clearer ad disclosures on Instagram it does not lead to significantly different effects on influencer perception and advertising effectiveness compared to if unclear ad disclosures were used. It is in the influencers interest to clearly disclose sponsored content in order to follow the law that requires explicit ad disclosures and an additional analysis from the study showed indications that clearer ad disclosures can positively affect influencer perception. Companies should also encourage influencers to use clear ad disclosures as this does not have a negative impact on brand attitudes and consumer purchase behavior, and it further ensures that they stand for ethical marketing practices in line with current legislation. Legislators need to provide more direct rules and guidelines specific to today's modern social media platforms such as Instagram as the findings further indicated low ad disclosure recognition. The findings lead to the conclusion that even though influencers may have more to win, both the influencer and brand have nothing to lose from using clearer disclosures for sponsored content on Instagram.