The Disclosure Paradox in Influencer Marketing: A Meta-Analysis of Platform Tools Versus Creator Disclosures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51137/wrp.ijarbm.601Keywords:
Influencer Marketing, Sponsorship Disclosure, Advertising Recognition, Persuasion Knowledge, Meta-AnalysisAbstract
Influencer marketing has become central to digital brand communication, but audiences do not always recognize when creator content is paid advertising. Sponsorship disclosures are intended to solve this problem, yet the evidence is mixed: disclosures generally improve recognition of commercial intent, whereas their downstream effects on brand evaluations are often small or inconsistent. This literature review and open-access meta-analysis synthesizes studies on disclosure formats used in influencer and adjacent social-media advertising, with specific attention to platform-native labels, creator-entered in-text disclosures, and in-video textual overlays. Using a PRISMA-style search of open repositories, publisher open-access pages, and publicly available manuscripts, the review identifies studies that report extractable statistics and compares them on platform, geography, disclosure implementation, and outcome measures. Four studies provide usable quantitative data. Random-effects models show a moderate positive pooled effect on advertising recognition/identification (Hedges' g = 0.60, 95% CI [0.37, 0.83], k = 7, I² = 74%) and a near-zero pooled effect on brand attitude (g = -0.04, 95% CI [-0.23, 0.15], k = 2). The extractable evidence is concentrated in U.S. and Dutch contexts and suggests that standardized platform labels and prominent in-video overlays outperform creator-entered caption labels on recognition. The review distinguishes advertising recognition from broader persuasion-knowledge activation, discusses the selection bias introduced by an open-access-only design, and derives design guidance on wording, placement, and timing. Overall, the findings support a disclosure paradox: transparency improves recognition without consistently harming brand evaluations.
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