New Study Quantifies Impact Of Native Ads, And How To Mitigate The Damage
Many major mainstream media outlets sell sponsored content as a form of native advertising, creating what looks like the outlet’s reported content but is in reality a paid commercial placement.
“To what extent does exposure to misleading native advertisements impact people’s misperceptions,” a new study published in Environmental Communication asks, “and how can such misperceptions be mitigated?”
For “Beyond the Greenwash: Understanding and Mitigating the Impact of Misleading Native Advertisements from Fossil Fuel Companies,” Boston University’s Arunima Krishna, Michelle Amazeen and Chris Wells tested how native advertisements are interpreted by 2,000 people, and then measured the effects of three potentially corrective messages.
They found that most effective were pairing a call-out of it being an ad with a validation that some authority had also deemed it misleading, for example via legal action.
So while we can be suggesting that the Society of Professional Journalists warn more strongly against sponsored content while updating their Ethics Code (hint hint, they’re taking comments!) we can also counter the climate disinformation in ads directly by calling out when and where they’ve been brought to court and reminding people when content is likely being posted in bad faith because it’s already been fact-checked.
For those wondering about the impact of what co-author Dr. Amazeen has termed “Content Confusion” created by the practice of native advertising or sponsored content, the study found that exposure to advertisements (falsely) claiming Exxon is part of the energy transition “had significantly greater misperceptions about Exxon’s efforts” while exposure to an ad that is greenwashing gas as a climate solution resulted in “significantly greater misperceptions” about the supposed benefits of methane or “natural” gas.
Just pointing out that it’s an ad wasn’t enough to counter that influence of exposure, though also calling out that it’d been fact checked before seemed to help.
Most effective though, at reducing the misperceptions induced by exposure, was the comment explaining how the energy transition example Exxon ads had been the subject of a lawsuit brought by the Massachusetts Attorney General for misleading consumers, or that the gas ad was ruled misleading by the Dutch Advertising Code Authority.
“The takeaway,” Dr. Amazeen said, is that “When transparency is paired with accountability, people resist misperceptions.”
People need to know not only that it’s an ad, but that those public officials entrusted with protecting the public have also recognized the deception and harm and are willing to take action.
“As greenwashing narratives flood social and digital media,” Dr. Amazeen continued, “this work underscores why media literacy alone isn’t the answer. We need systemic tools—visible corrections, regulatory enforcement, and public awareness of industry track records—to help people navigate content confusion and make informed choices about energy and climate.”