Bianca Harms, Janny Hoekstra and Tammo Bijmolt win Journal of Interactive Marketing Best Paper Award

Bianca Harms, Janny Hoekstra and Tammo Bijmolt have won the Journal of Interactive Marketing Best Paper Award 2022. They received the award for their article ‘Sponsored Influencer Vlogs and Young Viewers: When Sponsorship Disclosure Does not Enhance Advertising Literacy, and Parental Mediation Backfires.’

Bianca Harms obtained her PhD at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) in 2021 and is currently a professor at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. Janny Hoekstra was associate professor at the faculty and recently retired. Tammo Bijmolt is professor and chairman of the Department of Marketing at FEB.

The Paper

In their paper, Harms, Hoekstra and Bijmolt focus on an important and often not explicitly considered target group of influencer marketing—kids and teens. The paper contributes to the understanding of how influencer marketing can be both effective and ethical. Using unique data from 609 parent - daughter dyads, the authors examine antecedents of young viewers’ cognitive advertising literacy in an online experiment. The results show that policy makers’ and parental measures to safeguard young consumers from negative consequences of sponsored vlogs can lead to unanticipated effects. Whereas the combination of written and spoken sponsorship disclosure information as well as an active parental mediation style increase cognitive advertising literacy, restrictive parental mediation negatively affects cognitive advertising literacy. Additionally, cognitive advertising literacy negatively affects young viewers’ evaluation of the vlogger and positively affects the attitude toward the sponsored brand. The award-winning article is based on one of the chapters of Bianca Harms' PhD dissertation.

About the award

The Journal of Interactive Marketing Best Paper Award honors the best Journal of Interactive Marketing article published in a given calendar year. The award is given to an article that has made a significant contribution to the advancement of the practice of marketing. First, Editorial Board Members, Associate Editors, and Advisory Board Members vote for the best paper and then a smaller committee consider the papers that have received the most votes and finally chooses the winner. Harms, Hoekstra and Bijmolt’s article will be honored at the Summer American Marketing Association (AMA) Academic Conference.

More information:

Harms, B., Hoekstra, J. C., & Bijmolt, T. H. A. (2022). Sponsored Influencer Vlogs and Young Viewers: When Sponsorship Disclosure Does not Enhance Advertising Literacy, and Parental Mediation Backfires. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 57(1), 35–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/10949968221075834

Read more about Bianca Harm’s research and her professorship Transformational Media.

Questions? Please contact Tammo Bijmolt.