The Backfiring Effect of Nativeness for In-stream Sponsored Content Presentation

Platforms often present in-stream sponsored content with high levels of nativeness, i.e., in a way that matches user experience, to facilitate recipients’ initial processing. Although IS literature has widely acknowledged presenting information congruent with the context to be beneficial for consumer responses, nativeness can mislead consumers on multiple-layer webpages where advertisers’ intent is revealed until landing pages. This study defines nativeness with three dimensions, including topic, design, and style nativeness. Drawing from the persuasion knowledge model (PKM), we investigate how nativeness affects recipients’ persuasion knowledge on multiple-layer webpages. The results of one laboratory experiment reveal that three dimensions of nativeness reduce ad recognition on front pages, but increase inferences of manipulative intent (IMI) on landing pages. This study provides implications to present and regulate in-stream sponsored content.