AAA Annual Conference 2019

Regina Ahn, University of Illinois
Mariea Grubbs Hoy, University of Tennessee
Yoon Ah Lee, University of Illinois
Cecilia Zhou, University of Hong Kong

The evolution of digital technologies and social media have made YouTube unboxing videos a cultural phenomenon. As child influencer sponsored unboxing videos’ popularity increases among children, we also observe growing concerns about children’s unawareness of this new form of native advertising. To help young viewers, the FTC and CARU have provided regulatory and self-regulatory guidelines regarding clear and conspicuous sponsorship disclosure. However, no research has examined the extent to which sponsorship disclosure cues in child influencers’ unboxing videos meet this guidance. We do so in the current study by analyzing sponsorship disclosures for sponsored unboxing video content of the EvanTube HD YouTube Channel. We found that EvanTube HD adhered to CARU’s guidance of including an oral disclosure at the beginning of the video and established their own standardized format of disclosure cues. Nonetheless, there are still other areas that warrant further investigation.