ABSTRACT
In recent years, marketers have used social media as their marketing communication platform, which is caused by the growth of social media users. Instagram, as one of the fastest growing social media platforms, enables its users to share photos or videos through their platform. Ads on Instagram can be categorized as In-Feed Native Advertising, which has been proved by recent studies as the promising solution for ad avoidance. However, consumers’ acceptance of native advertising can be a double-edged sword due to the potential of consumer deception because of consumers’ inability to recognize the ad. Thus the Federal Trade Commission enforces the marketer to disclose if the post is an ad. Recent studies about advertising disclosure have focused on position, language, duration, and timing, while the study for implementing disclosure in social media ad was limited. This study examined the effect of Instagram ad disclosure position on attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand, and intention to share via e-WOM. An experimental study was conducted to test the effect of top (Group A) and bottom (Group B) disclosure position among 220 Instagram users. Results indicated that the response for Group A had lower attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand, and intention to share via e-WOM due to the activation of persuasion knowledge model than Group B. This study provides an empirical contribution and strategic implication for marketers’ decision-making process in implementing the ad disclosure on their Instagram ad.
