Reconnect with readers
Does native advertising affect customer’s attitude towards online
advertising?
MASTER THESIS WITHIN: Marketing Communication NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15 ECTS
PROGRAMME OF STUDY: International Marketing AUTHOR: Sunisa Hemphoom & Karina Konrádi Tutor: Sambit Lenka
Master Thesis within Business Administration
Title: Reconnect with readers - Does native advertising affect customer’s attitude
towards online advertising?
Authors: Sunisa Hemphoom & Karina Konrádi
Tutor: Sambit Lenka
Date: 2020-05-18
Key terms: Native Advertising, Entertainment, Informativeness, Irritation, Credibility, Online Advertising, Attitude, Attitude Towards Advertising, Online
Abstract
Background - The thesis topic was selected because of the increased value of ads as a promotional tool and the growing avoidance arising from the exposure rate towards advertising. The principle of native advertising gives marketers a less intrusive pathway. Despite the increased trend and the benefits of using native advertising as a digital marketing tool, native advertising has been criticized for its approach. However, we hope to provide another insight into the positive side of native advertising.
Purpose - We seek to help advertisers improve native advertising content based on individuals' preferences by focusing our attention on what motivates consumers to affect their attitude towards online advertisement in the form of native advertising. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate the factors influencing internet users’ attitude towards native advertising.
Method - The thesis is an exploratory study which is based on a qualitative method along with an abductive approach within the interpretivism stance. Data collection was done through primary. Within the primary data, it is collected through a semi-structured interview with the eleven internet users. Both genders are included in the data collection as well as it consists of several nationalities. Also, the data analysis is done through a thematic analysis method.
Conclusion - Entertainment, informativeness, irritation and credibility were applied to research the attitude of customers towards native advertising. Participants agreed that native advertising itself is not enough to encourage them for consumption, but they find it a smart and new idea that makes it easier to recognize the brand. While all four factors were crucial, we could discover different categories within each type that can influence customers’ attitude. Moreover, participants did not feel overwhelmed or deceived by native ads.
Acknowledgement
In the process of writing this thesis, several people have helped and encouraged us along the way of this thesis journey. We, then, would like to express our sincere gratitude to those that support and contribute to develop this thesis.
First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to Sambit Lenka, who is our supervisor, who has helped, supported, contributed his time, professionalism, experience, and knowledge throughout the development of this thesis. Without his guidance, we would have been lost, we would not have been on the right track and would not be able to produce a quality thesis. We would like to express that we appreciate all the valuable feedback, suggestions, discussions, and critics that helped us to develop quality research.
Secondly, we would like to thank all the participants that contribute their time in this research in which it helps us to produce our results and gain new insights. We honestly appreciate that you spent your valuable time with us and yet provide us your precious thoughts, knowledge, and experience. Without them, it would not be possible to produce this thesis.
Also, we would like to express our sincere appreciation to our fellow students in the seminar group who contribute their time to read and give us thoughtful feedback and suggestions that help us to write our thesis in a well-written and well-structuring way.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction...1
1.1 Background and Motivation...1
1.2 Problem Formulation...3 1.3 Research Purpose...5 1.4 Research Question...5 1.5 Delimitations...6 1.6 Report Structure...6 2
. Literature Review ... .7
2.1.Online Advertising...7 2.2 Attitude...72.3 Attitude Towards Online Advertising...8
2.3.1 Entertainment...10 2.3.2 Informativeness...10 2.3.3 Irritation...11 2.3.4 Advertising Ceredibility...11 2.4 Advertising Effectiveness...12 2.5 Native Advertising...13 2.6 Summary...16
3. Methodology...18
3.1 Research Philosophy...18 3.2 Research Design...19 3.3 Research Approach...20 3.4 Data Collection...21 3.4.1 Primary Data...22 3.4.1.1 Qualitative Interview...22 3.4.1.2 Interview Question...233.4.1.3 Sample Ads Description...24
3.4.1.4 Sampling...25 3.4.1.5 Selection of Participants...26 3.4.2 Literature Review...28 3.5 Data Analysis...29 3.6 Research Ethics...30 3.7 Research Quality...31
4. Empirical Findings...33
4.1 General Thoughts on Online Advertising...33
4.1.1 The Mixed Feelings on Browsing Experience...33
4.1.2 Credibility in Online Advertising...36
4.2 Attitude Towards Native Advertising...38
4.2.1 Entertainment...38
4.2.1.2 Humor...40 4.2.1.3 Storytelling...40 4.2.1.4 Interest...42 4.2.2 Informativeness...42 4.2.2.1 Amount of Information...42 4.2.2.2 Useful Information...44 4.2.2.3 Lack of Information...45 4.2.3 Irritation...47 4.2.3.1 Content...48
4.2.3.2 Purpose of the Advertisement...48
4.2.3.3 Frequency...49
4.2.3.4 Control...49
4.2.4 Credibility...50
4.2.4.1 Credibility Towards the Brand...50
4.2.4.2 Credibility Towards the Source...51
4.3 Thoughts on Native Advertising...52
5
. Conclusion and Discussion...54
5.1 Conclusion...54
5.2 Managerial Implications...56
5.3 Societal Implications...57
5.4 Limitations...58
5.4 Suggestions for Future Reasearch...59
6. Reference List...I 7. Appendices...XVI
List of Figures and tables
Figures
Figure 1 Attitude towards advertising...16 Figure 2 Data Structure...38
Tables
Table 1 List of Interviewees...28
Appendices
Appendix 1 Attitudes toward advertising (Brackett and Carr, 2001)...XVI Appendix 2 “Data Privacy Consumer Survey”, Emarketer.com (2018)...XVI Appendix 3 Interview Questions...XVII Appendix 4 Advertisement Examples...XIX
1. Introduction
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The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of native advertising and the problem discussion. It also includes the purpose, research questions and delimitations. ______________________________________________________________________
1.1 Background and Motivation
The introduction of the Internet has led to the development of several new forms of digital advertising (De Haan et al., 2015). Within online marketing, several researchers note that it leads to the creation of brand awareness, brand recognition, influence on purchase intention as well as increased sales volumes (Drèze and Hussherr, 2003; Keller, 2010; Madhavaram and Appan, 2010; Lewis and Reiley, 2014). This gives marketers an incentive for continuous advertisement of their goods and services. Thus, one can assume that advertisement is a crucial factor for firms (Eze and Lee, 2012). Online marketing has been under transition and improvement over the last decades (Tutaj and van Reijmersdal, 2012). As a result, the perception of digital ads to customers has been challenged, and they have a diverse impact of consumer behavior toward some of the products or websites. Due to the ability of the Internet that opens up a space for companies to advertise their products and services online, the consequence to this opportunity is that people are overflowing with commercials and information due to this exposure (Zhou & Xue, 2019). When people are being exposed to many ads in their daily lives, they develop a feeling of irritation. As a result, ad ignorance occurs as well as they try to find a way to block ads (Zhou & Xue, 2019). The advertisement decade becomes even worse when ad-block technology is implemented where people can enable and block ads automatically. This application acts as a threat to media companies which cause the feeling of desperation in finding a way to combat this innovative technology (Berglez, Olausson, and Ots, 2017; Zhou & Xue, 2019)
However, there is one possible way to advertise without the obstacle posed by ad-block application, which is the use of the so-called native advertising. According to Laursen
(2017), the author suggests that native advertising is considered to be an acceptable form of advertising in which ad-block plus will not be able to block it.
Native advertising is a more disguised type of digital advertising aimed at minimizing the interruption to the user experience of consumers. Another way to explain this concept is that companies pay online publishers to distribute tailored material closely related to the website content (Bakshi, 2015). The design of native advertising aims at creating the identical appearance as the surrounding published editorial contents in which it uses the same font, tone, format as the other editorial contents (Couldry and Turow 2014; Wojdynski and Golan 2016). This form of publicity can be a post, a video, or a mixture of pictures and text. Forbes, Buzzfeed, and the New York Times are a few examples of native advertising publishers (Bakshi, 2015). They are also meant to be more attention-catching, effective, and attractive than banner or conventional ads. As suggested by some research (e.g., Becker-Olsen, 2003; Tutaj and Reijmersdal, 2012), consumers actually enjoy and have positive feelings towards native ads as they are less annoying, and consumers do not perceive the ads as if they are manipulating them (Sahni and Nair, 2018). Thus, it has gained the attention of the advertisers and become a popular advertising tool.
Apart from that, it provides the extensive advantages to media companies as it is considered to be a new income source for online marketing (Carlsson, 2015). Moreover, it is more effective than the traditional banner ad as Ponikvar (2015) claims that it is being viewed 53% more than the traditional one. Yet, several authors (i.e., Ponikvar, 2015; Sterling 2015; Tutaj and van Reijmersdal 2012; Kim, 2017) also suggest that it is more cost effective, more engaging, provide higher message acceptance, generate higher profit, promote positive brand outcome, lead to a higher purchase intention and boost a higher rate of consumer engagement than the traditional banner ads. Therefore, there is no doubt why native advertising is a popular advertising tool due to its functionality to draw consumers’ attention.
Prior studies have suggested that the attitude of customers toward advertisements is negative (Howe and Teufel, 2014). Brackett and Carr (2001) define four factors in
determining the perceived value of ads by consumers, which consists of entertainment, informativeness, irritation, and credibility. So, exploring how consumers view these factors in native advertising is essential, as it will show whether native advertising can be a tool contributing to successful campaigns.
1.2 Problem Formulation
Despite the growing trend and the provided advantages with the use of native advertising as a digital marketing strategy, native advertising has received critics regarding its technique (Ponikvar, 2015). Within the ability to camouflage itself to the surrounding contents, making it looks like editorial contents rather than advertising, some researchers and consumers think of it as a tool that deceives consumers (Han, Drumwright, & Goo, 2018). Native advertising tricks people into reading it and hiding the true intent, which is to advertise. This issue raises several questions to marketers and editorial sites regarding ethics (Campbell & Grimm, 2018). Being blamed as deceptive advertising can lead to two huge consequences.
First of all, native advertising poses a potential risk on sponsored site as it will affect the credibility (Schauster, Ferrucci, & Neill, 2016; Amazeen & Wojdynski, 2018; Austin & Newman, 2015; Federal Trade Commission, 2013; 2015; Lee, Kim, & Ham, 2016; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016). Regardless of the effectiveness of native advertising, in which it draws consumers into reading it due to its ability to look similar to the other surrounding content, it will, however, destroy the trustworthiness of the editorial site (Levi, 2015). This ethical issue causes hesitation in sponsored sites and companies’ minds, whether they should opt for the use of native advertising or not. Campbell and Marks (2015) claim that it is true that native advertising provides a considerable advantage, but that would be for a short term as if consumers realize that the content is just another form of ad. In turn, it would be harmful toward the brand (Campbell & Marks, 2015)
The second consequence of being considered as a deceived marketing tool is when consumers perceive themselves as being misled. Consumers tend to develop a negative
attitude toward native advertising as well as develop the feeling of irritation, and increase the level of ad avoidance and ad skepticism if they know that they are being deceived (Han et al., 2018). Hence, this would lead to the lessen in effectiveness of advertising (Han et al., 2018)
Furthermore, Darke, Ashworth, and Ritchie (2008) and Pollay (1986) suggest that another effect when consumers perceive themselves as being misled by native advertising might lead to distrust feeling toward the editorial sites and advertisers. Moreover, Ponikvar (2015) suggests that normally consumers do not hold a negative feeling toward native advertising, but the issue toward native advertising will occur if they see themselves as being tricked. It is apparent that perception of being deceived causes a huge disadvantage toward organizations in such Li and Wang (2019) state that consumers already distrust media in general, organizations should not take a risk in engaging in native ad practice as they cannot lose any more credibility.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has drawn attention to native advertising as being misleading advertisements. Later on, FTC has published a guideline to raise awareness for marketers to be more transparent and less secrecy so that consumers are not misled into thinking that it is the editorial contents (Jung and Heo, 2019). Being less secrecy would benefit and contribute to a long-lasting relationship with consumers (Campell and Marks, 2015), and people would perceive native advertising as less or none deceptive due to change in practice in accordance with regulation. Therefore, one can assume that consumer attitudes toward native advertising would have changed over time.
Hence, the aim of this study is to re-evaluate consumer perception and how this could influence their attitude toward native advertising. This thesis does not aim at giving a conclusive answer but rather aims at adding new knowledge toward existing literature in the native advertising subject as exploring attitudes has not been widely done. Also, new insights would help in clarifying more in-depth regarding the effectiveness of native advertising.
1.3 Research Purpose
The research topic was chosen because of the significant importance of advertising as a marketing tool and the increasing avoidance resulting from the level of exposure to an ad. The appearance of native advertising is not so positive, although several prior scholars emphasize the effectiveness of native advertising, however, focus on the criticisms more. Therefore, considering the attitude of customers towards this type of advertising does have practical meaning. We believe that it would be an opportunity to provide more insights regarding the positive side of native advertising. Moreover, there was little studies on native ads and the factors that could affect the attitude of customers, which leads to a gap that needs to be further explored. Therefore, we aim at helping marketers to enhance native advertising content based on consumers’ intentions by shedding light on what motivates consumers to affect their attitude on online commercial ads in the form of native advertising.
1.4 Research Question
After reviewing some existing literature, it became clear that there is not much research on consumer perception regarding attitude and native advertising subject. Also, there is no prior research that analyzes factors that affect consumer’s intention into reading native advertising. Apart from that, there is a lack of research indicating that native advertising is the ideal approach that can bring back the advertising era. Most work in this area, however, has been undertaken from the viewpoint of advertisers, publishers, and journalists.
We, therefore, proposed four research questions in order to study of the variables which could affect to native advertising:
RQ1: How does entertainment affect consumers’ attitude towards Native Advertising?
RQ2: How does informativeness affect consumers’ attitude towards Native Advertising?
RQ4: How does credibility affect consumers’ attitude towards Native Advertising?
1.5 Delimitation
Certain limitations have been made to narrow down the nature of this study. Firstly, this study only focuses on the role of consumers’ trust in native advertising. This study does not represent the other form of digital marketing. Moreover, this research aims at unveiling the thoughts from consumers within an age group of 18-34 years old. The reason for this is that individuals in this age range are considered to be highly exposed to internet advertising due to the use rate of their Internet and that they are reading news actively (Smith, 2012; Bolton et al., 2013; Kim, Youn, and Yoon, 2019). Further explanation regarding age selection will be presented under the selection of participants section in the methodology chapter.
1.6 Report Structure
The thesis is divided into six parts. It begins with an introduction, which provides information on the subject on native advertising, the phenomenon of ad blocking, past research as well as results in this area of studies, and addresses current challenges. The next chapter is the literature review that introduces the reader to the theory and model that will be used, and also describes native advertising as comprehended throughout this study. The methodology included in this study is described to the reader in part three that initially leads to the next section which summarizes the empirical findings. Where the result will be connected and explained together with the existing theory. Then the subsequent phase will lead us to the final part that responds to the initial research questions and highlight once more the key findings. Besides that, the thesis will be concluded with the limitations, the managerial implications of this study and suggestions for future research.
2. Literature Review
______________________________________________________________________
This section provides the definition of native advertising, as well as related theories and information about consumers attitude towards online advertising.
______________________________________________________________________
2.1 Online Advertising
Companies generally advertise to pursue any or all of the potential objectives: to educate, convince, recall, create brand recognition or loyalty (Ratliff & Rubinfeld, 2010). Be it an online or offline advertising the same specific marketing targets will be fulfilled. However, the exponential advancement of technology, Internet, and the enormous information flow achieved by the Internet, had changed the advertising business. Rodgers and Thorson (2000) have highlighted the changing nature of ads both for the advertiser and the user in an online setting. Digital advertising's most popular formats include banners, pop-ups, keywords, and audio ads (Rejón et al., 2012). Today, surfing the web without first seeing online ads is impossible, mostly in the form of digital display ads on web pages or descriptive ads (Ratliff & Rubinfeld, 2010). It was estimated that global spending on online advertising reached $209 billion in 2017 and made up of 41% for all advertising expenditure (Kafka and Molla, 2017). However, since customers are likely to become subjected to various types of ads, the customer path to an online purchase has become much more complex (Ghose & Todri, 2015). Organizations are better educated regarding customers now than ever, having gathered huge piles of their personal information. However, most of those people, detest advertisements just that much that they may pay to avoid them. When ads attack customers through sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, billboards or more, users try to escape, subscribe for ad blockers (Hsu, 2019). As a result, the industry now faces a need for transformation.
2.2 Attitude
Given their value for this report, a special attention was given to attitude towards the brand and attitude towards the ad. Attitude as a phenomenon has been extensively
researched in various fields, for many years. According to Hoyer and Macinnis (2010), attitude is centered around cognitions and beliefs. Which means that it can be formulated on the basis of thoughts and beliefs we have about the received information (Hoyer and Macinnis, 2010). Attitudes can be based on emotions too, which indicates that a person may have positive feelings regarding information or a product (Solomon, 2010).
Attitude toward brand is described as a tendency to react favorably or unfavorably to a specific brand after the person has seen the advertisement (Phelps and Hoy, 1996). Past studies showed that attitude toward the brand and the attitudes toward the advertising are not viewed as one element since they vary from one another, and are used as independent indicators (Lafferty et al., 2002). A brand is defined as name, symbol or design meant to recognize products and distinguish them from competitors (Kotler and Keller, 2016). Moreover, in accordance to Assael (2004), the attitude towards a brand corresponds to the propensity of customers to assess products in order to develop an opinion if the brand is favorable.
Another concept which is often in marketing studies' focus is the attitude towards the advertisement. The focus of assessment here is inevitably the commercial itself. When the study aims at understanding attitude towards the brand, the development of attitude towards to the advertisement has been of importance as well (MacKenzie, Lutz, and Belch, 1986; Gardner, 1985). Messages in ads might affect the relationship between advertising attitude and brand attitude, especially if customers are unfamiliar with the marketed product given the little background knowledge which they build their attitude-towards-brand perception (Sallam et al., 2016). Therefore, when shaping brand attitude, people are often more likely to be based their evaluation on attitudes toward advertising (Sallam et al., 2016).
2.3 Attitude Towards Online Advertising
Studies generally have recently claimed online advertising is unmemorable, unsuccessful, and invasive (McCoy et al., 2007). Even so, Edwards et al. (2002) argue
that creative advertising is interpreted as less bothering, bringing value to the customers. Zeff and Aronson (1999) concluded that although online advertising became more widespread in its use and more profitable along with a sharp increase in marketers ' expenses, user responsiveness and interest are declining. Over the years, attitudes concerning advertising have been examined in different contexts as these have been found to have an important effect on the perception towards brands and towards certain advertisements as well as on buying intentions.
The concept attitudes-towards-advertising has been used for the last decades in almost every academic source as a standardized definition and so is described and generally referred to as a learned tendency to respond to ads in a generally favorable or unfavorable manner (Lutz, 1985). Thus, attitudes were seen to contain different elements, that are believed to serve as antecedents and can affect advertising perceptions either negatively or positively (Ducoffe, 1996). Ducoffe (1995) presents a new concept, the importance of ads, based on various dimensions. He defines Advertising Value as “a subjective evaluation of the relative worth or utility of advertising to consumers” (Ducoffe, 1995, p. 1). Ducoffe (1995) highlights three driving factors that might be the key elements for anticipating consumer responses to traditional advertising. Namely entertainment, informativeness, and irritation. In later studies, these parameters have also been examined in a web environment (Ducoffe, 1996) and social networking sites (Taylor et al., 2017) as scales for customer value assessment and indicators of attitudes. Findings suggest that in an online setting, the same factors defined for traditional advertising contribute too and that approach depends heavily on the advertising value (Ducoffe, 1996).
It does seem apparent that advertising perceptions play an important role in models of how advertising works. In later studies, Brackett and Carr (2001) expanded the model based on the one Ducoffe created. They added credibility and relevant demographics as two other dimensions to extend the previous model (Brackett and Carr, 2001). According to the authors, credibility plays a big role determining advertising value and advertisement attitude (Brackett and Carr, 2001). The participants of this thesis are internet users among generation Y with similar demographic characteristics, therefore
in this study the authors didn't focus on the demographic component and it was not included in the following sections below.
This model is intended to help in determining the key drivers of the attitude of customers towards online ads. According to Ducoffe (1995, 1996) and Brackett et al. (2001), these determinants in the existing literature such as entertainment, informativeness, irritation, and credibility show solid and consistent connection with the attitude of individuals towards advertising. Therefore, the authors were focused only on those four factors and they adapted the existing model to their own preference, which is shown below.
2.3.1 Entertainment
When advertising is viewed by the customer as amusing, it might enhance the customer experience (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989). Entertainment provides value through its ability to satisfy viewer needs like visual and emotional pleasure (McQuail, 1999). The amount of entertainment is defined as the degree for which they involve amusing and playful content that tends to make the industry interesting to watch (Elpers et al., 2003). Other researchers have described entertainment as vibrant, entertaining, creative or smart material in advertising (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985). Because advertising represents a major amount of media content, we consider entertainment to be an effective beneficial driver of consumer advertisement interest (Ducoffe, 1995).
2.3.2 Informativeness
Informativeness primarily means the ability of advertisements to properly communicate and provide the information to customers (Ducoffe, 1996), where customers use the internet mostly for knowledge and self-education (Zhou and Bao, 2002). Bauer and Greyser (1968) have already emphasized the importance of informativeness by stating that data and information is one of the main reasons for customers. Therefore, to customers who are driven by knowledge, their expectations of online advertising rely on if they could provide relevant information (Zhou and Bao, 2002). Pasadeos (1990)
indicates that it's less likely to create frustration or avoidance when an advertisement is viewed by customers as valuable and useful. However, Ducoffe (1995) also suggests that misleading marketing, if understood as such, can reduce the presumed value. If the information provided to the customer meets some key quality requirements, such as newsworthiness and utility, it actually contributes to the consumer because it meets the user experience which is one of the fundamental reasons why people are using the web (Siau and Shen, 2003). However, the internet can have both beneficial and unfavorable effects (Zhou and Bao, 2002). Online users can obtain information endlessly if they wish, but, on the other hand information overload is becoming ever more intense (Zhou and Bao, 2002).
2.3.3 Irritation
The advertising is called annoying when it creates frustration and is provoking (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985). If a commercial uses distracting, provocative, offensive or unnecessarily deceptive tactics, customers are more likely to recognize it as an unwelcome and frustrating force (Ducoffe, 1995). A few of the main reasons, advertisements can be found to be irritating are: ad intensity, positioning, lack of relevance and ad size (Brown, 2018). Another source of frustration is when pop-up ads overtake a website even before people could read any information (Brown, 2018). In a study conducted by Janrain, the most common answer given was that advertisements were too aggressive (Appendix 2) (Benes, 2018). Researchers suggest a decline in advertisement efficiency if irritation levels rise (Aaker and Bruzzone, 1985).
2.3.4 Advertising Credibility
Information in advertisements can shape how customers obtain this content and how they feel about both the goods and brands seen in the commercials (Jaworski and MacInnis, 1989). One big driver that could affect the perceptions and information processing of a brand or an ad is advertising credibility. Credibility is the customer's reactions after the message is seen and analyzed, which impacts attitudes towards advertisements (Jaworski and MacInnis, 1989). Advertising credibility is described as the
extent at which the viewer sees statements presented throughout the commercials for being genuine and trustworthy (Lutz, 1985). In other words, it applies to consumers ' expectations of the degree in which customers consider the advertisement messages to be truthful and the degree to which the customer trusts the source (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989). This is about the connection between the trustworthiness of the sender and the understanding of the audience's mind (Adler and Rodman, 2000). Advertising credibility is a crucial element that affects customer perceptions and behavior (Ling, Piew, and Chai, 2010). Advertising credibility, therefore, has a positive effect on advertising behavior, which then influences customer purchase motives (MacKenzie, Lutz and Belch, 1986). Thereby, advertising credibility and impressions of ads are linked to one another (MacKenzie and Lutz, 1989).
Advertising credibility was also pursued in an opposite direction, one that called advertising skepticism (Soh et al., 2009). It is defined as an inclination to disbelief of advertisement (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998). In their studies, they stated that advertising skepticism is not dissimilar from advertising credibility. It is still the same concept, but it was just looking at advertising credibility from yet another point of view. Consumer skepticism is, in particular, negatively corresponding to attitudes regarding ads (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998).
Advertising credibility relates mostly to generalized perceptions about the credibility of advertisements, like sincerity, openness, and trust (Soh et al., 2009). This method is determined by different factors. It can be impacted by both the credibility of brands and by the one which provides the message (Ling, Piew, and Chai, 2010). Blackshaw (2008) addresses six key relevance drivers which advertisers want to try to achieve. Those factors are: Trust, Transparency, Listening, Authenticity, Responsiveness, and Affirmation (Blackshaw, 2008).
2.4 Advertising Effectiveness
Advertising effectiveness questions if and to what level ads affect people and what responses they may evoke (Eisend and Taharri, 2016). It is impacted by three variables:
stimuli characteristics, personal characteristics, and advertising context (de Pelsmacker et al., 2002). Stimuli characteristics link to features found in ads, like those for photos, illustrations, and color (de Pelsmacker et al., 2002). Personal characteristics are attributes or behaviors of the consumer, defined within his or her level of engagement in a type of product (Greenwald and Leavitt, 1984). Context relates to contributing factors of the ad as well as the individual who can affect efficiency of the advertising (de Pelsmacker et al., 2002). The assumption is that content impacts the reactions of customers to a degree that personality and environment should be taken into account when trying to explain behavior (Fleeson, 2004). Studies have shown that a marketer providing the same message to the same audience can create different impacts depending on the environment (Aaker and Brown, 1972). Context can affect individual attitudes of the commercial (Choi and Rifon, 2002). If the advertised item suits well with the environment, it is highly possible that the public will consider the advertisements more interesting and insightful (Choi and Rifon, 2002). Another key aspect is the level of involvement the user feels (Moorman et al., 2012). It is based on an assumption that an increased attention on a media context that meets a high level of engagement positively influences advertising effectiveness (Moorman et al., 2012; Segev et al., 2014).
2.5 Native Advertising
Since online content is becoming more engaging for viewers, marketers have to look for new ways to draw attention and to reach their customers (Foster, 2016) and native advertising has become a very prominent solution. Native ads can significantly improve the interaction and efficiency of campaigns by combining interesting content into stunning editorial environments (Foster, 2016). But there are still plenty of unanswered questions on how these types of advertisements operate, and also what helps them to be successful.
Native advertising's past usage, before the internet, consisted of video and radio platforms. One of the earliest known examples had been in the 1950s, with NBC's nightly news program promoted by Camel cigarettes (Oliver, 2014). Such previous forms were usually referred to it as Video News Releases and Cash-for-Comment for Radio until the
current definition of Native Ads (Carlson, 2014, Oliver, 2014). The word, native advertising, has been active in the marketing fields since 2011 (Lee, Kim and Ham, 2016). It is hard to define because there can be found many variations of it, but in this study, we are going to use the term: “The practice by which a marketer borrows from the credibility of a content publisher by presenting paid content with a format and location that matches the publisher’s original content” (Wojdynski & Golan, 2016, p. 1403). We can distinguish many types as well. The first one is a form of online advertisement meant to look similar to the rest of the site on the platform to which it operates (Pike, 2014). It provides quality material that takes the same look as the blog or website, giving more and useful information to the viewer (Laird, K., 2013). It can be seen in different forms of online marketing communications, such as search ads, sponsored tweets on Twitter, and recommended posts on Facebook, most of which enable user encounters and involvement, for example, likes and shares. The second type is articles published either by an author or by a company in collaboration with an editor (Seligman, 2015). How well a native ad is incorporated into the content, tailored for the audience, adjusted for the platform, and linked to the website or article background is very crucial (Foster, 2016). The third type of native advertising is material that seems like recommendations put on the website of a publisher (Seligman, 2015).
A further popular study theme is how the issue arose. The typical business concept for publications composed of physically delivered newspapers with advertisements about world events (McPhillips and Merlo, 2008). The emergence of the internet as a platform for news organizations, however, has revolutionized the industry's model. Native advertising has also been fueled by decreasing physical journal profits, and this is balanced by web visitor traffic (Leth et al., 2015). Native advertising is best suited for creating equity and brand recognition (Becker-Olsen, 2003).
Native advertising gives customers a better digital experience and motivates them to connect more to brands (Celiceo, 2013). Tutaj and van Reijmersdal (2012) also suggest that people interpret it as less intrusive. According to Campbell and Marks (2015) the greatest forms of native advertising are consumer-invited and source-transparent. Without them, the message and the publishers could seem unfavorable to the readers
(Campbell and Marks, 2015). The need for transparency and disclosure in advertising campaigns enables the public to make a smarter and more equitable decision about the source influence (Leth et al., 2015). Although native advertisements usually imitate the website layout, there should be some sign that they have been paid for (Greene, 2018). After the rise of native advertising in 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a guide for businesses to help individuals deal with aggressive brand advertising (Maškarić, 2019). In this guide, they examine ad manipulation through both the language and format of how authors should write native ads. There are 10 ways in which people would be able to recognize them, most of which contain keywords like paid advertisement, sponsored content, or advertised content (Maškarić, 2019). An interesting example would be that because of the emergence of influencers, FTC was forced to develop a new set of rules for the material promoted on Instagram, which resulted in introducing the Paid Partnership feature on the platform (Maškarić, 2019).
Marketers have been conscious for a long time that control has moved towards customers. This is also just becoming relevant to advertising (HubSpot, 2016). Today, consumers take control of their interactions and try to prevent disruptive commercials. They unsubscribe from mails, ignore ads, close websites and, most worrisome to the media industry, ad blocking. HubSpot found that native advertising is clearly preferred by digital consumers. The advertising industry has already encountered various attempts to measure efficiency and influence of native advertising for brands, and consumers. The move to native ads seems to have been speeding up as networks have broadened their emphasis through in-platform marketing (HubSpot, 2016). Online viewers are conscious that commercial texts are pestering them (HubSpot, 2016). Researchers noticed that if the ad was compatible with news content, the content was recalled better (Hervet, Guérard, Tremblay, and Chtourou, 2010). Native advertising establishes a mutually beneficial relationship between the companies and editors. According to HubSpot (2018), 41% of the readers believe publishers even more if they're working with a reputable brand and 31% of the readers say that after seeing their native ad, they are more likely to buy from a brand. T Brand Studio, the native ad business of the New York Times, created paid ads which apprehended as much commitment as some of the top performing publications of nytimes.com (HubSpot, 2018). A structure
formulated by Greenwald and Leavitt (1984) for consumer behavioral theories of viewer active participation speaks for the efficacy of native advertising and they identified that a higher involvement leads to higher cognitive and attitudinal effects. A Sharethrough study note that viewers looked a similar amount of time at the original news content and the native advertising (IPG Media Lab, 2013).
Native advertising, as we have seen, could be a very useful tool for marketers as it raises brand awareness in periods when educated internet users are inclined to avoid
consciously advertising contents. Publishing companies such as BuzzFeed are moving publishing techniques closer to content marketing, challenging the foundation of the standard two-sided advertising market; rather than drawing attention to the news content, that is then marketed to advertisers, advertising on its own is starting to capture viewers (Carlson, 2014). In summary, almost all of the analyzed academic articles addressed the misleading and immoral essence of native advertising. There is still a lack of qualitative research which would examine the special nature of native advertising that delivers brand messages to the consumer.
2.6 Summary
To sum up, native advertising can enable brands to share their knowledge naturally and interact with customers searching in-depth information of a potential service or
product. Rather than just being deceptive, this new ad format may be authentic and genuine in some ways (Greene, 2018). The proposed theoretical structure is built according to Figure 1, to demonstrate the factors which could affect the attitude of customers towards native advertising. In this thesis, we concentrate on the four independent coefficients: entertainment, informativeness, irritation, and credibility towards the dependent variable, that is the attitude of individuals towards native advertising in order to define and analyze the relationship between them.
3. Methodology
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This chapter describes the methods used for this study as well as the reasons for the decisions made.
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3.1 Research Philosophy
Research philosophy or research paradigm is a philosophical method that acts as a researcher’s guideline for how to conduct the research (Collis & Hussey, 2014). Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill (2016) mention that research philosophy that researchers adopt in their study consists of assumptions of how the researchers portray the world in which these assumptions assist them in deciding research strategy and method by underpinning research strategies and techniques regarding data collection (Saunders et al., 2016). Two ways of thinking that belong to research philosophy which is ontology and epistemology (Saunders et al., 2016). Therefore, the type of ontology and epistemology must be selected in order to anticipate the best approach.
For ontology, it reflects how researchers see the world work and it consists of two ways of thinking, namely objectivism and subjectivism (Saunders et al., 2016). The chosen stance for this research is subjectivism, as it views the nature of reality as the way that behaviors are shaped by perception (Saunders et al., 2016). Our objective is to uncover the motivation and thoughts regarding native advertising, attitude, and intention on reading native advertising. Our way of thinking is that people's perception shapes the intention behind consuming native advertising and their thoughts shape the way they perceive native advertising. Whether they like and want to consume more native advertising or advertising in general or not, it depends on how they think and feel about the ads. In contrast, objectivism is more likely to view the world as people with the same duties are likely to be the same (Saunders et al., 2016). However, in our case, we believe that even though our participants are human with the same duties, as they are all internet users, they do not hold the same thoughts and feelings toward native advertising or advertising in general. Hence, it is apparent that subjectivism is the appropriate standpoint in this study.
Furthermore, Collis & Hussey (2014) suggest that epistemology relates to the measurement of knowledge in what is considered as acceptance of knowledge. The epistemology consists of four paradigms, namely positivism, relativism, pragmatism, and interpretivism (Saunders et al., 2016). Positivism is said to be associated with quantitative research as it discovers the world or the interesting topic based on observation and experiment (Collis & Hussey, 2014). Within this paradigm, knowledge is gained due to the fact that it can be verified in a scientific way, such as mathematical proof (Collis & Hussey, 2014; Walliman, 2011). Also, behaviors are explained by external factors, and it aims to discover universal principles (Guba & Lincoln, 1994).
On the other hand, interpretivist view social reality in which it is shaped by perceptions that make it highly subjective rather than objective (Collis & Hussey, 2014) and that knowledge is gained from the subjective clue. Furthermore, conducting research that emphasizes humans instead of objects refers to interpretivism (Saunders et al., 2016). Additionally, attempting to understand perspective, emotion, or behavior are said to be associated with interpretivism (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2012) and that the suitable research method is qualitative (Collis & Hussey, 2014).
Looking upon our research objective, the most appropriate research paradigm that will assist us in answering our research question is interpretivism with the subjective stance as it is equivalent to our belief. Our focus is placed on how people behave, the meanings they assign to their actions, and how emotional and beliefs come about. We emphasize collecting a different view on our topic. Therefore, we, as researchers, believe that social construction shapes reality
3.2 Research Design
Research design represents a plan of how researchers produce their research such that it indicates source to collect the data, how to answer research questions as well as guide the ethical aspect in research activities (Saunders et al., 2016). The first step is to decide the type of study based on research purposes. Research purpose is assorted into three categories, namely, exploratory study, descriptive study, and explanatory study
(Saunders et al., 2016). Adopting a descriptive study is inappropriate in this research context as it aims at testing theory that is contrary to what we aim for. Since the aim is to investigate perspective on native advertising with the expectation to unveil the positive side, which is the new insight on native advertising that is considered to be scarce research. Therefore, we employ exploratory study due to its nature, aiming at developing, creating new knowledge, and to investigate the unexplored research topic (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2009, 2012).
In alignment with the research philosophy, as we opt for the interpretivism paradigm, the appropriate research design is a qualitative method. A qualitative method allows us to gain more in-depth knowledge regarding our subject and it is likely to be used for exploring, and discovering purpose to discover a new phenomenon, probing for connotation and building theory which aligns with the aim of this study (Rudestam & Newton, 2014). Quantitative method, as opposed to qualitative method, aims at clarifying relationship among two or more factors by using quantified data, such as numeric data, whilst qualitative method uses to develop a deeper understanding regarding perceptions, attitudes, or behavior (Creswell, 2013; Bryman & Bell, 2011). For that reason, a quantitative method would not be proper as numeric or statistical data cannot deeply explain the perception in native advertising.
3.3 Research Approach
There are three major forms of research approach, namely inductive, abductive, and deductive approach (Saunders et al., 2016; Bryman, 2016). Research approach is also considered as a crucial step as it associates with how researchers design their research that is whether to use theory or to build theory. Deductive approach leans toward the side of positivism while inductive is more toward the interpretivism. Apart from that, deduction aims at testing theory and hypothesis, which one could say that it is suitable for a quantitative method. Saunders et al. (2016) also suggest that explanation is made based on law, in other words, based on theory, in which it allows researchers to predict the outcomes based on the theory used in the study. Furthermore, the alternative approach is an inductive approach in which it refers to building a theory that derives
from the collected data (Saunders et al., 2016). Within the inductive approach, it is said to be suitable for qualitative study, a study that has not been well-developed as well as a study that aims to develop a new insight (Saunders et al., 2016). The procedure is that researchers, first, collect the data then analyze to generate a theory that can explain the new finding phenomenon (Saunders et al., 2009). However, to choose either stance would be too conclusive for researchers. Then, the third choice, the abduction, is to combine both approaches. Abduction allows researchers to combine the existing theory with the gathered data.
Despite the fact that our subject is relatively new as there is a lack of empirical study investigating the effectiveness of native advertising from consumers’ perspective. However, some past studies develop theories regarding attitudes toward advertising in general and there are some existing literature explaining factors that influence the effectiveness of advertising. Therefore, an abductive approach will be used in this study in the sense that we apply theory to develop the interview questions, which is considered to be deductive reasoning, along with collecting data within the qualitative stance to explore participants’ perception regarding research topic, which is associated with an inductive approach. To illustrate, we will combine our theoretical foundation with the collected data, which will validate our research question as well as providing an extension of knowledge toward the used theory in this study. We open up for new insights rather than depending on what theory claims. Our thought aligns with what Dubois and Gadde (2002) suggest that is abduction is best for researchers that aim to constitute a new concept, new idea, or new theory rather than validate the existing theories. In this manner, within the use of abduction, we will be able to analyze the gap between our data and the elected theory.
3.4 Data Collection
In order to fulfill the aim of this study, data must be collected to analyze people’s perceptions regarding the interplay of native advertising and trust and well as intention on native advertising. Data that we will use to generate and analyse to answer our
questions is collected through primary data. Also, we also use literature review in terms of knowledge regarding attitude toward advertising and native advertising.
3.4.1 Primary Data
Primary data represents the collected data that is gathered from first-hand experiences such as own experience or original data from the interview or focus group (Collis & Hussey, 2014; Babin and Zikmund (2016). Primary data collection can be done through several ways, such as one-on-one, through the Internet, or questionnaires (Saunders et al., 2016).
There are several ways to collect the primary data in the qualitative study. The common techniques are focus group study, communication, semi-structured interview, observation, collages, thematic apperception, and word associations (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). These methods have their own advantages, disadvantages, and suggestions for the appropriate type of research (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). Therefore, some considerations need to be taken to evaluate the most suitable techniques, such as the nature of the purpose of the study (Saunders et al., 2016).
3.4.1.1 Qualitative Interview
Interview, in general, enables the researchers to gather data that are relevant, reliable, and fit the purpose of the study (Saunders et al., 2016). An interview is a process of gathering primary data through the interaction of two or more people (Saunders et al., 2016) as well as the chosen participants are asked to express their idea or feelings (Collis & Hussey, 2014). As stated in the previous section, there are various ways to collect primary data for a qualitative study. Looking upon the purpose of the study that aims at having an depth understanding, exploring people’s perception, we then choose in-depth interviews. Furthermore, adopting In-in-depth interview will aid the researchers to discover new insights (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, Jackson, Jaspersen, 2018)
Moreover, there are three forms of in-depth interviews, namely, structured, semi-structured, and unstructured (Saunders et al., 2016). Structured interview represents the question, and interview procedure where it goes according to the predetermined plan. Saunders et al. (2016) also suggest that structured interviews are more suitable for quantifying data such as quantitative study. On the other hand, a semi-structured in-depth interview is classified as a non-standardized method. Within the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews, it allows the researchers to prepare the questionnaires before the interview takes place to ensure that the questions cover the area of interest of this study (Collis & Hussey, 2014; Wengraf, 2001). Apart from that, the questions used during the interview might be varied depending on the context and the situation (Saunders et al., 2016). For example, it allows researchers to ask additional questions spontaneously or skip some questions during the interview as if it is needed, which will depend on the flow of the conversation (Saunders et al., 2016). Lastly, an unstructured interview represents the interviewing style in which preparing the questionnaire ahead of time is not required, and it is considered to be an informal style (Saunders et al., 2016).
Taking into consideration the aim of this study, a semi-structured in-depth interview is the most appropriate method. This method provides the opportunity to the participants as they can elaborate their answers more as well as allowing us to gain more profound knowledge (Collis & Hussey, 2014). Also, within the use of a semi-structured style, it provides us the flexibility regarding questions as we can promptly ask the interviewees regarding some detail that interviewees bring up during the interview.
3.4.1.2 Interview Question
Since we choose semi-structured with in-depth interviews, questionnaires can be prepared prior to the interview taking place. It is of utmost importance to ask questions that are relevant to the scope of the study. Our study aims to observe how four factors, entertainment, informativeness, irritation, and credibility, affect consumers’ attitudes toward native advertising. Then, our interview questions are developed based on the discovered literature mentioned in the literature review section, along with the theory
used in this study. Also, the primary purpose is to examine the effectiveness of native advertising, whether or not it can bring back the advertising era. Our interview questions are divided into four parts. The first part is to gather demographic data. The second part relates to general attitude toward advertising to get an overview picture on how our participants think about advertising. Before the third part of the interview question begins, examples of native advertising are shown. This is done to make sure that our participants gain some knowledge regarding native advertising and to ensure that they know native advertising. We also provide a clear definition of what is native advertising to avoid misunderstanding. Apart from that, showing examples will help us to analyze their perceptions toward native advertising better right after the exposure to provided native advertising. We selected two types of native advertising, which one of them requires some interactions whilst another requires some reading. The examples that were used during the interview are provided in the appendix 4. Native advertising that indicates themselves as sponsored or paid ads are chosen. The reason being that we want to avoid participants from the feeling of being deceived as our goal is to evaluate how native advertising affects consumers’ attitudes as well as if it can recover the advertising era after the call for being more transparent by FTC. After our participants are done reading, interacting with native advertising. The third part of the interview question begins. The third part of our questions is linked with our literature review, which is investigating their perception toward native advertising. The last part of the interview questions relates to their perception toward advertising after being exposed to native advertising. This part will help us to capture if there is any difference before and after consuming native advertising.
3.4.1.3 Sample ads Description
To analyze participants’ attitude toward native advertising and to get a true insight, during the interview, we decided to show some examples of native advertisements. The reason being that giving participants a chance to interact with real ads will better aid interviewees to express their real time thoughts rather than assuming how they feel and express their attitudes. Native advertising that is used to evaluate in this study is those that are more transparent and less secrecy. In other words, we selected native
advertising that indicates itself as being paid or sponsored. By doing this, we eliminate the feeling of deception and evaluate a clear link, without any moderator, between attitude and native advertising. Furthermore, since there are various types of native advertising, we, then, have chosen the one that requires less time to read as that might bore the participants and time consuming. The first example came in a type of blogpost, sharing life-experience, regarding tourism particularly in Croatia. The brand or the sponsor of this post is Yacht Week and the content is posted on a student life-sharing site “The tab” which the content also matches with other contents posted on the website. The second example requires a little engagement as it comes in a quiz. The reason we selected this as an example was to reveal to our participant that native advertisement does not generally come as a content, blog post or social media recommendations, but it can also come in as a quiz or a mini game. The second example is sponsored by Ikea which is posted on the well-known site “Telegraph”.
3.4.1.4 Sampling
Before proceeding to gather the data, it is crucial to decide whether or not sampling is needed or which population is the most suitable for this study (Saunders et al., 2016). The authors suggest that sampling is needed if it is unrealistic for the researchers to survey all people in the world, lack of budget and time limitation. Applying these suggestions with our condition, it is evident that within the time-fixed, limited budget and the impossibility to interview the entire population. Hence, sampling allows us to determine our potential participants.
Sampling plans can be classified into two approaches, namely, probability and nonprobability sampling (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). Probability sampling represents the technique of selecting population in the way that all populations have an equal chance of being selected (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). In other words, the researchers randomly select the participants within the assumption that all populations are the same, and all can be the representatives. In contrast, the non-probability sampling plan represents the method by which researchers are not randomly choosing the participants. Moreover, the selection of participants relies solely on the judgmental of
the researchers (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). In essence, the process of choosing participants depends on some criteria that researchers assume that these participants fit best with the purpose of their study. Furthermore, these two sampling methods consist of various types of sampling techniques.
Collis and Hussey (2014) mention that when conducting the interpretivism paradigm, researchers do not need to select the participants randomly. The researchers can narrow down the area of the study to a specific context. In that sense, our study relies upon interpretivism paradigm and explicitly focuses on native advertising, factors affecting attitude toward native advertising. Hence, the non-probability sampling plan is the most suitable for our research.
In addition, the non-probability sampling plan consists of several techniques - for example, convenience sampling, judgment or purposive sampling, and quota sampling (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). The chosen sampling technique for this study is judgment or purposive sampling. Judgment or purposive sampling technique represents the selection method that the research uses her or his own judgment to define participant characteristics (Babin and Zikmund, 2016). Since this study is hinged, particularly on a specific term such native advertising, we then choose our participants based upon our judgment. We define and come up with a specific characteristic of our participants. Further explanation regarding the selection of participants will be explained in the following section.
3.4.1.5 Selection of Participants
As suggested above we have chosen a purposive sampling technique, however, we still need to define our target group, which it will be based on our judgment. Since the scope of this study is to explore people’s perceptions on native advertising. Then, we made assumptions that the characteristic of our participants is those who are likely to be exposed to a high number of digital advertisements. One way to measure that is to evaluate based on the usage rate on the Internet. We assume that the higher usage of Internet, the higher chance to be exposed to several Internet ads. Therefore, our criteria
for choosing the participants in this study are those who use a lot of the Internet on their daily basis. To best represent the result and diminish the error by choosing the appropriate participants, we first read through articles to analyze which group of the population fits our criteria the most.
According to Sołtysik-Piorunkiewicz, Strzelecki, and Abramek, (2019), the authors suggest that older adults tend to block unwanted content less than younger people. Younger people that came to our mind are the generation Y. Moreover, generation Y actively access to the Internet in their everyday life and that the exposure to the Internet is very intense (Smith, 2012; Bolton et al., 2013). Also, it is noteworthy that the ages span that Bolton et al. (2013) use in their study is those that were born in 1981 - 1999 and the ages span of 18 - 23 years old were used in Smith (2012) research. Moreover, millennials (17-34 years old) instantly access the Internet for activities that cannot be done through traditional media (Tanyel, Stuart, & Griffin, 2013). However, to be more specific for choosing our participants, we narrow down to a specific age group that is 18 - 34 years old in accordance with the previous research above. The reason being of using the age limit is because Graham (2018) suggests that generation Z are those that were born in 1995 - 2010 while generation Y are those that were born in 1981 -1999 (Bolton et al., 2013). Hence, for this matter, we cannot base on a specific generation as those age ranges are considered to be the one that use a lot of Internet. Hence, based specifically on the age limit is the most appropriate way as regardless whatever their generation is, as long as they are Internet users, they are appropriate for this study. Moreover, we aim at interviewing several nationalities as we value the differences in each culture. Gathering data from several nationalities will provide a wide range of insights as each culture might not possess the same thoughts toward advertising and native advertising. Since we aim to contribute to existing literature as well as organization, exploring thoughts from several cultures is very valuable. Moreover, we approached the participants through direct interaction. As a result, we contacted 14 people, only 3 did not respond to the scheduling for the interview. Therefore, the total number of the joined participants is 11, which four of them are male while the rest are female. Our sample size is considered as appropriate and sufficient, as Saunders et al. (2012) suggest that the number of participants or the sample size for an in-depth
interview is between 5 to 25 participants. Furthermore, we also had a chance to conduct an interview with both Asian and European people. The total length of the interview is approximately 650 minutes, in other words, 10 hours 50 minutes. Regarding details of our chosen participants, we have created the following table representing that summarized all crucial details.
Participant Age Gender Nationality Date of Interview
Length of Interview
1 30 female China 04.03.2020 72:30 mins
2 26 female China 04.03.2020 69:10 mins
3 24 male Pakistan 05.03.2020 45.19 mins
4 23 female Vietnam 09.03.2020 64:24 mins
5 24 female China 09.03.2020 88:51 mins
6 25 male Sweden 04.03.2020 49:05 mins
7 23 male France 04.03.2020 35:52 mins
8 23 female Germany 08.03.2020 44:51 mins
9 25 female Hungary 08.03.2020 81:06 mins
10 18 female The
Netherlands 06.03.2020 30:08 mins
11 29 male France 07.03.2020 70:50 mins
Table 1: List of Interviewees
3.4.2 Literature Review
Within this research, we also made use of literature reviews. We revisit past studies to generate the purpose of this study and to observe new ideas or uncover the issues within our interest topic. It also leads us to find a gap in the existing literature regarding the relationship between native advertising and consumers’ trust as well as intention. The type of literature review that we use are peer-reviewed articles, journal articles, conference papers, reports, and books. The strategy used to search for relevant studies
and to prevent time-consuming is that we use keywords on the search engine. The keywords are native advertising, attitude toward online advertising, attitude, effective advertising, and online advertising. Furthermore, sources that we use to search for secondary data are web of science, google scholar, and primo.
3.5 Data Analysis
Thematic analysis will be used as a tool to analyze our data. This approach enables us to identify similarities and contrasts that emerge from the data collection and group them into groups based on their characteristics (Ryan & Bernard, 2003). Thematic analysis includes six crucial steps (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The initial step is to be familiar with the collected data. We both listen through the recording several times and interpret them by jotting down each word on our electronic document. The transcript from the audio recordings was written in English, the same language that was used during the interview and we transcribed them as soon as possible so that we would remember respondents' reactions and other gestures that could not be documented through our phone recording. Generating initial codes is the second step in Thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). What we did was that we grouped similar, and dissimilar characteristics of the transcribed data and attempted to assign them into themes according to its characteristics. Exploring themes (Braun & Clarke, 2006) is the third step, and this was done in consort with the second steps where we searched for themes and allocated each characteristic into the right categories. Also, we only chose to present themes with interesting parts and most relevant from the interview. It is noteworthy that the first three steps were done individually, as we expected to find a different aspect regarding our data collection. After the individual did coding for characteristics and came up with the ideas of the possible themes, we then combined our findings and created themes. The fourth and fifth step is to review, define, and appoint names for the themes. We then reviewed the themes once again to ensure that they were relevant to the research purpose. Once we were certain, we assigned names to each theme, which will make it easier for us and the readers to understand what will be discussed under that particular theme. These themes are presented in the analysis part. The last step is the production
