Story versus info: Tracking blog readers’ online viewing time of sponsored blog posts based on content-specific elements

Advertising researchers have compared the persuasiveness of a storytelling message appeal to an informational message appeal in different advertising contexts. A majority of these studies confirm that stories are powerful since they “capture audience attention”. However, no previous research has measured whether storytelling message appeals actually capture audience attention differently than informational message appeals in an everyday life setting. This study attempts to fill this gap by comparing the influence of a storytelling message appeal and an informational message appeal on audience real-time attention in a blog context. The sample consists of 94 sponsored blog posts from a current blog with 15,000 weekly readers. The results reveal that the sponsored blog post format has a direct effect on blog readers' online viewing time of the content. Using a storytelling message format compared to an informational message format when a blogger reviews a sponsored product increases the blog readers’ viewing time of the sponsored blog post. This has important implications for advertising attention, since increased attention towards an advertisement can result in enhanced brand recall and purchase intentions.