Native advertising and digital natives: The effects of age and advertisement format on news website credibility judgments

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Native Advertising and Digital Natives: The Effects
of Age and Advertisement Format on News Website
Credibility Judgments
Patrick Howe and Brady Teufel
This study examines the effects that both age and the presence of native advertisements have
on credibility judgments toward a news website. The results suggest that the presence of native
advertising had no signicant effect on the viewer’s perception of credibility. Participants who
were exposed to traditional banner-type ads were more likely to report having noticed advertising
on the website as compared to those who were exposed to native advertisements, and younger
respondents were more likely to notice advertising in general. Older respondents judged the site,
regardless of the advertising type shown, as more credible than did their younger counterparts.
For nearly as long as there has been news published in America, it has been paid for in
part by advertising revenue. As news consumption and publishing have moved online,
traditional print news providers have struggled economically, nding themselves able
to make only a fraction of the revenue from digital ads that they can from their legacy
platforms (Pew, 2013). Print news outlets have traditionally been careful to differentiate
their editorial content from advertising messages (Soley & Craig, 1992). In the digital
realm, however, there has been growing interest from traditional news publishers
(Sebastian, 2013) in offering integrated forms of advertising known as sponsored
content, or native advertising (American Press Institute, 2013).
Examining primarily older integrated advertising examples such as advertorials, studies
have indicated that such content may mislead readers and impact the credibility of
traditional news organizations (Cameron & Curtin, 1994, Sandler & Secunda, 1993;
Barban, Kim, & Pasadeos, 2001). More recent work, however, has found that online
audiences respond positively to native advertising, nding it, for example, less annoying
than banner advertisements (Becker-Olsen, 2003; Tutaj & Reijmersdal, 2012).
While these and other studies have examined the effects of native advertising from
the perspective of advertisers, relatively little work has examined the effects from the
perspective of online news publishers.

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One important question is whether audience members feel tricked by native advertising
and subsequently nd a news site less credible. Another is whether any such attitudes
differ based on the age of a given audience member. The purpose of this research is
to examine the effects that both age and the presence of native advertisements have
on credibility judgments toward a news site. This was accomplished using a 2(age) x
2(advertising type) between-subjects experiment using undergraduate students and
older web users who responded to an online survey.
Literature Review
Attitudes toward advertising
Most researchers who have explored the question of whether people like or dislike
advertising in general have assumed they do not (Zanot, 1981; Kaiser & Song, 2009).
Looking at six decades of survey research, Calfee and Ringold (1994) found that the
majority of consumers generally considered advertising useful but assumed it to be
untruthful.
Attitudes are more negative toward online advertising than ofine advertising (Ha &
McCann, 2008). Brackett and Carr (2001) found that U.S. college students reported
nding Internet ads irritating. Several studies have shown increasing avoidance of
Internet advertising (Cho & Choen, 2004; Drèze & Hussherr, 2003), and these ndings
are backed by declining click-through rates on banner ads (Chan Yun, 2009).
We dene native advertising as advertiser-sponsored content that is designed to appear
to the user as similar to editorial content. Some studies have reported positive audience
reaction to online native advertising.
Tutaj and Van Reijmersdal (2012) found that users display lower ad skepticism toward
native advertising as compared to banner advertisements, and nd the content less
irritating and more informative and amusing. Becker-Olsen (2003) found that users
perceive websites with native ads as more responsive to their customers than websites
with traditional banner ads (although attitude was most positive when there was no
advertising at all).
There is evidence, however, that positive benets of native advertising are at least
partially explained by readers having failed to identify the ads as advertisements
(e.g. Barban et. al, 2001; Van Reijmersdal, 2009). This makes sense, as research
in traditional formats has shown that readers are less motivated to read commercial
messages as compared to editorial content and subsequently pay more attention to
editorial content (Cameron, 1994).
Credibility
Credibility is one of the most important aspects of journalism and, thus, one of the
most studied aspects of news (Cassidy, 2007). Yet the concept has no single agreed-

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upon denition. Researchers have explored credibility perceptions using numerous
concepts including believability, fairness, professionalism, objectivity, accuracy,
and comprehensiveness. The most common aspects of credibility denitions are
trustworthiness and expertise (Hilligoss & Rieh, 2008).
Online news sites are generally judged to be about as credible as their traditional
counterparts, although credibility rates have fallen across all media (Cassidy, 2007).
Scholars have taken varied approaches to the examination of credibility perceptions of
online information. Researchers have, for example, examined perceptions based on the
type of information, the genre of the website, the particular attributes on display on the
site, and the characteristics of audience members. Johnson and Kaye (1998) found that
Web users looking at political information judged online media as more credible than
traditional media, although both were judged only somewhat credible.
Examining website genres, Flanagin and Metzger (2007) explored credibility perceptions
across four types of websites, nding that those of news organizations were rated higher
than commercial or personal websites.
Some studies have proposed that users make credibility judgments of Web information
in multiple stages of processing. Wathen and Burkell (2002) proposed that users rst
rate a medium on surface characteristics such as appearance, interface design, and
information organization and then rate the source of the message based on the expertise
and trustworthiness of the source. Similarly, Fogg’s Prominence-Interpretation Theory
(2003), based on research at the Stanford Web Credibility Research Lab, argues that
prominence (the noticing of something, such as an attribute) must happen before
interpretation (a judgment).
There are also potential differences in how people from different age groups perceive
media. Young people may nd the Internet a more credible source of information as
compared to older respondents (Bucy, 2003) but those with more experience on the
web have been shown to rate online information more positively than those with less
(Flanagin and Metzger, 2000, Johnson and Kaye, 2000).
Theoretical Framework
This study explores the relationship between the dependent and independent variables
through the information processing approach. It does not presume that subjects are
making their choices in a conscious manner that they could articulate and defend; in fact,
it presumes that their attitudes may be inuenced even if they cannot explicitly point to
advertising as a variable. In other words, people may not notice advertising and yet it can
still impact their credibility perceptions. The information processing approach can explain
this relationship.
Originally drawn from psychology, information processing has been an important topic
in mass communication research (Fleming & Thorson, 2006). It has its roots in articial
intelligence as well as information theory—which conceptualizes communication as

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81
similar to a mechanized process—and linguistics (Rodgers & Thorson, 2000). Like uses
and gratications, information processing keeps its focus on audience members as
paramount, but instead of asking why and how individuals use a medium, it is asking the
related questions of whether they remember, comprehend, and like the content of the
medium, regardless of whether or not they can articulate their perceptions.
A great deal of work has been done on information processing and advertising, as the
theory proposes some hope of answering important questions such as what exactly goes
on in the brain that makes one advertisement effective and another not at all. Some of
the foundational research into information processing in advertising was devoted toward
dening various hierarchy-of-effects models (e.g. Krugman, 1965; Preston, 1982) that
conceptualized the steps consumers take in making purchasing decisions. Subsequent
work began to focus on the role of emotions; (Rodgers, Thorson, & Jin, 2009). Relevant
to this study is work that has explored how the type and format of ads affect cognitive
processes. Rodgers and Thorson, for example, in articulating their Interactive Advertising
Model (2000) predicted that different ad formats result in different processing and
outcomes. People may, for example, process ads as information or entertainment and
may not distinguish between news and advertising messages in terms of how they
process and make use of information (Sundar, 1999).
Given the body of work that suggests people often fail to see native ads as actual
advertising, the following hypothesis is formed:
H1: Ad type will have minimal effect on credibility judgments toward the news site.
One common critique voiced about the increased interest in native advertising is that it
blurs or ignores the traditional line between advertising and editorial content and thus
risks undermining audience trust. Prensky (2001) popularized the idea that there are
stark differences in how younger people, or “digital natives,” and older people, or “digital
immigrants,” use and process digital media. Since, there has been considerable debate
over the idea. Selwyn (2009) suggested that young people’s use of digital media is more
varied and less spectacular than Prensky suggests.
Studies have reached different conclusions as to whether reliance on online information
affects credibility perceptions. Flanagin and Metzger (2000) found an inuence but
Johnson and Kaye (2002) found that reliance on internet information did not inuence
credibility perceptions.
Nonetheless, younger news consumers may well be more comfortable with advertising
schemes that ignore this line as they have grown up in a world where movies, reality
television, and social media sites have long used integrated advertising schemes such
as product placement and branded content to fund their content. Thus, the following
hypothesis is offered:

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H1a: If type of ad has a signicant effect on credibility perceptions toward the
news site, older respondents will nd native advertising less credible than
younger respondents.
Finally, the study sought to understand whether respondents noticed advertising. Given
previous research suggesting people are less likely to notice native advertising, the
following hypothesis was offered:
H2: Respondents exposed to the banner-style ad will be more likely to notice
advertising on the site than will those exposed to the native advertising.
Methodology
Sample
To determine the effect that certain design decisions have on attitudes toward credibility,
emails were sent to approximately 400 California Polytechnic State University students
and 150 respondents over the age of 45, who were contacted via an online commercial
survey facilitator. Respondents were asked to complete an eight-item online survey.
Method
The online survey was conducted from November 10 to December 1, 2013. The study
was conducted according to guidelines set forth by The Cal Poly Human Subjects
Committee, which found the project to be in compliance with Public Health Service
guidelines for the use of human subjects in research.
Instrument
In order to gauge whether or not the presence of native advertising impacts the
perception of a news website’s credibility, one of two static images mimicking an online
news website’s homepage were randomly presented to the viewer. They differed only in
that one homepage mockup displayed a native advertisement while the other homepage
mockup displayed a traditional banner-style advertisement.
To ensure that both the non-native and native advertising present on the mockup
pages were representative of what is being most commonly deployed by popular
news websites, a content analysis of 54 current news websites, including the top
24 newspaper websites based on trafc, were analyzed. Advertisements that t the
denition of native advertising, that is they displayed commercial content generated by
the sponsor in the same style as the publication’s editorial content, were identied on 10
of these 54 websites. These 10 samples helped inform the size, style, and placement of
the native ad presented on the homepage mockup.
In order to closely match reality in terms of visual presentation, the two homepage
images were identical to a popular news website’s homepage, albeit with the name of

Native Advertising and Digital Natives: The Effects of Age and Advertisement Format on News Website Credibility Judgments
83
the publication changed. The banner-style advertisement displayed on one homepage
was an actual advertisement (for sports apparel) from a similar news website. The native
advertisement displayed on the other homepage was an actual native advertisement (for
the same sports apparel) that appeared on the news website’s homepage. The ads were
placed in the identical location on the page, used the same colors, and were the same
size.
After viewing one of these two images, viewers were then asked to respond to directional
statements aimed at measuring the respondent’s perception of the online news site’s
credibility. Credibility was operationalized based on extant literature from a seven-
question construct designed to measure expertise and trustworthiness. There was space
provided for an open-ended comment regarding the factors that the respondent thought
contributed and/or detracted from the perceived credibility.
The survey, which takes about 10 minutes to complete, also included questions about
the respondent’s news consumption habits as well as basic demographic information
(e.g. age, sex, education level) in order to be able to accurately describe the general
traits of the respondents.
Respondent prole
A total of 257 people participated in the survey and 92% completed it. Over half of the
respondents were female (60%). In terms of age, 46.6% were between 18 and 24,
10.1% were between 45 and 54, 19% were between 55 and 64, 11.2% were between 65
and 74 and 3.8% were older than 75.
Racial makeup included 81.7 % white, 5.4% Asian American, 1.9% Native Hawaiian or
other Pacic Islander, 1.1% African American, 8.5% “other.” In terms of educational level,
3.6% had a high school education, 49.3% had attended some college but did not yet
possess a degree, 9.7% possessed associate degrees, 16.3% possessed bachelor’s
degrees, and 15.9% possessed graduate degrees.
When asked about the mediums used in their news consumption during the previous two
days, 77% responded that they had read “any news online,” 19.8% responded that they
had read “any news on a tablet [such as an iPad],” 46.3% responded that they had read
“any news on a smartphone,” 50.2% had read “any news in print,” 59.9% responded that
they had watched “any news on television,” 37.7% responded that they had watched
“any video news online,” and 44.7% responded that they had read “any news shared
through social media.”
In terms of differences between the two groups, 98% of the younger group were between
the ages of 18–24, while the most frequent strata of the older group was 55–64, at 43%.
On education, 100% of the younger group reported some college compared to 92% of
the older group (34% reported holding a graduate degree). On race, 85% of the younger
group described themselves as white compared to 93% of the older group.

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There were differences in how the groups described their media use. For example, 91%
of older respondents said they’d watched any news on television in the past two days
compared to 43% of younger respondents. And 27% of younger respondents said they’d
read any news on a smart phone, compared to 75% of those in the younger group. But
the groups were similar in terms of reading news online, with 86.7% of older respondents
reporting having read news online in the prior two days compared to 85.5% of younger
respondents. Given the relatively small differences in racial makeup, education, and
internet news consumption, the authors feel these groups are comparable.
The older respondents were contacted via a commercial online survey facilitator. The
facilitator described the sample as reective of the U.S. population with the exception
that it is composed of people with Internet access who have joined a program to
take surveys. The authors do not feel that these factors signicantly skew the results
(especially given that the research is centered around the online experience).
Results
The design of the study required the performance of a two-way ANOVA. Age and ad-type
were entered as the independent variables and the credibility and self-reported noticing
of advertisements were, alternatively, used as dependent variables.
H1: Ad type will have minimal effect on credibility.
Credibility change scores were subjected to a two-way analysis of variance. The
main effect of ad type yielded an F ratio of F(1,219) = .002, p>.05, thus there was no
signicant effect. The denition of minimal effect was operationalized as less than a
10% variation in attitude. This denition was chosen in an attempt to reect the level
of difference that would concern a publisher and was based on examination of a
series of interviews with prominent news publishers on the topic of native advertising
(American Press Institute, 2013). If there were more than a 10% difference in credibility
assessments based on the type of ads shown, the authors believe publishers would be
concerned; but at levels below that, the authors believe concerns would be minimal. A
least-squares mean table reported upper condence limits on the combined credibility
measure of 1.66 on a 35-point scale with a 95% degree of condence, thus a less than
ve percent variation in reported attitude. H1 is supported.
H1a: Given the ndings above, H1a does not apply.
H2: Noticing of advertising on the site will be higher for those exposed to the
banner-style ad.
The two-way analysis of variance revealed statistically signicant effects for age and ad
type. The main effect of age yielded an F ratio of F(1, 219) = 8.89, p < .003. The main
effect of ad type yielded an F ratio of F(1, 219) = 21.6, p <.001. The interaction effect
was non-signicant F(1, 219) = .012, p >.05.

Native Advertising and Digital Natives: The Effects of Age and Advertisement Format on News Website Credibility Judgments
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Participants of both age groups exposed to the traditional banner-type ad were, at
a statistically signicant level, more likely to report having noticed advertising on the
webpage as compared to those exposed to the native advertisement, although young
people were more likely to notice either type of advertising. The second hypothesis
is supported. As Figure 1 shows, this effect displays roughly equally across both age
groups, with means of both younger and older respondents increasing about .7 (from M
= 3.10, SD = 1.25 to M = 3.83, SD = 1.07 for older and M = 3.57, SD = 1.28 to M = 4.27,
SD = .84 for the younger group) when comparing exposure to the native ad to exposure
to the banner-style ad.
Figure 1. Estimated Marginal Means of Noticed Ads.
Beyond the hypotheses tests, additional analysis found signicance in the question of
age on credibility. As presented in Table 1, the analysis of variance yielded an F(1, 219)
= 6.24, p < .013, indicating that those in the older group judged the site, regardless of
the advertising type they were shown, as more credible than did younger respondents.
Results are presented in Table 1.

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Table 1. Two-way ANOVA for credibility
_____________________________________________________________________
Source SS (Type III) df F p
_____________________________________________________________________
Age 256.53 1 6.24 .013
Ad .10 1 .00 .961
Age*Ad 121.44 1 2.96 .087
_____________________________________________________________________
Note: Credibility is combined 7-question score. N=223
Conclusions and Discussion
Marketing-oriented research has found that users display lower ad skepticism toward
native advertisement as compared to banner advertisements (e.g. Tutaj & Van
Reijmersdal, 2012), but the study results here suggest that the presence of sponsored
versus traditional online advertising had no signicant effect on the viewer’s perception
of a news website’s credibility.
Also signicant was the fact that participants exposed to the traditional banner-type ad
were, at a statistically signicant level, more likely to report having noticed advertising
on the webpage when compared to those exposed to the native ad. Finally, those in the
older group judged the site, regardless of the advertising type shown, as more credible
than did their younger counterparts.
The results are consistent with the primary assumptions from the information processing
approach, that information made available by the environment is processed by a series
of systems (e.g. attention, perception, short-term memory) and that these processing
systems transform or alter the information in systematic ways (McLeod, 2008).
Applied to the study, the presence or absence of native advertising in an online news
environment inuences how we process what we’re seeing. Perception, thus, can impact
how the information presented on a news website is processed (such as whether it is
perceived as editorial or commercial content) and ultimately whether or not the viewer
thus interprets the information as credible or not.
As with all experiments, examination of the stimuli was not performed in a completely
natural setting. Participants were not casually reading the news, for example, but rather
examining a static image presented amid an online survey.
The authors chose to offer a static image as opposed to a fully functional web site.
It’s possible that if participants were able to explore the web site, they would have, for

Native Advertising and Digital Natives: The Effects of Age and Advertisement Format on News Website Credibility Judgments
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example, noticed that the native advertisement was in fact an ad. The authors made this
choice in order to control for other potentially distracting, changing and/or misleading
variables vis a vis website content, layout, and presentation. In addition, the authors
chose to offer only one image representing native advertising. A preliminary study (N =
110) among undergraduates did explore four variations of native advertising, selected
from a content analysis of existing native ad styles found in 10 top-50-by-trafc news
websites. A fth group was exposed to conventional online advertising. Results indicated
no signicant differences in credibility scores between the groups, but the study was
underpowered based on small sample size and deemed insufcient for additional
analysis.
Given the ndings it is conceivable that, because some respondents exposed to the
native ads did not notice them, native ads could have an impact on credibility that was
not recorded in this study. Further research could explore this possibility, although post
hoc tests did not nd a signicant relationship between noticing of ads and credibility
perceptions. It is possible, however, that, if respondents had been alerted to the fact
that the native advertisement they initially perceived as editorial content was actually
commercial content, they would have offered different assessments of the news site’s
credibility. Additionally, the effect of other native advertising formats, such as sponsored
sections, on audience reactions could be tested in order to offer publishers more
information on format implications. Finally, the fact that there was signicance based on
age in both credibility and noticing of advertisements and that these results are contrary
to other studies, suggests that additional research could fruitfully explore the differences
in how young vs. older people process advertisements.
News publishers, in a quest for increased digital advertising revenue, are increasingly
interested in exploring native advertising options. Publishers may nd our results a
cause for optimism, as they indicate that people do not nd any difference in credibility
based on the presence of native advertisements. Given our research and past studies,
however, publishers should be aware that, even when native advertising is labeled, a
signicant number of audience members may not perceive it as such. It is possible that,
once they discover that what they perceived as content is in fact advertising, they may
lose trust in the news site.

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Patrick Howe is an assistant professor of journalism at California Polytechnic State University,
where he teaches multimedia and data journalism and advises the student newspaper, Mustang
News. He has worked as an investigative reporter and political correspondent in Washington D.C.
and statehouse newsrooms and his work has appeared in hundreds of newspapers, magazines and
digital news sites. He covered Congress and the Clinton White House for the Arkansas Democrat
Gazette and wrote about politics and government for The Associated Press. Howe has won state
and national-level awards for investigative reporting, public affairs reporting, column writing and
layout and design. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a dual major in journalism
and political science and earned his master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-
Columbia. His research has focused on online news and advertising.
Brady Teufel teaches courses in multimedia journalism, news reporting, visual communication
and photojournalism at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Teufel earned
his bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and his master’s
degree in journalism from University of Missouri. Teufel has worked for magazines, newspapers
and Internet startups. Most recently, his website digitaljournalism.org was named one the 105 Vital
Resources for Journalists by journalismdegree.org.