The effects of media type and brand prominence on attitudes of digital immigrants and digital natives toward native advertising

Native advertising is a type of online advertising coherent with other contents of the platform in terms of design, form, and interactivity. It is thought that attitudes toward native ads, emerged as a revenue source model for publishers, are influenced by attributions to media type and prominence of some cues which indicate that the content is advertising. The aim of this study is to reveal the effects of media type and level of brand prominence on attitudes of digital immigrants and digital natives toward article-style native advertising. By conducting an experimental research with 2x2x2 factorial design, data were collected from 195 participants with digital native-immigrant scale, recall test and attitude scale. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-tests, ANOVA and binary logistic regression methods. According to results of the research, the independent variables do not have a significant effect on advertising message recall, attitudes toward publisher website and sharing tendency. However, media type has a significant effect on attitudes towards native ad content and recognition of sponsor disclosure. There is a significant difference between media types in terms of source credibility. Brand prominence has a significant effect on recognizing that a brand is mentioned in the content and recalling brand elements. The study further reveals that daily Internet usage, Internet experience and the breadth of online activities are also effective in evaluating digital technology competencies of individuals in addition to age.