Native Advertising as a New Public Relations Tactic

Using a pretest and posttest online experiment (N = 105), this study empirically explored the impact of native advertising sponsorship disclosure on organization-public relationships (OPR), credibility, brand attitude, and attitude toward the advertisement. Credibility and brand attitude predicted the two OPR factors; however, OPR was not affected by participants' cognizance of ad sponsorship/disclosure. Brand attitude for obviously sponsored (e.g., ad disclosed) content decreased slightly. However, the presence or absence of sponsorship did not significantly influence either credibility or attitudes toward the advertisement itself. The study also examined perceived information utility.