Sponsorship Disclosure on social media: literature review and future research agenda

Sponsorship disclosure is now mandated for social media marketing, influencer marketing, and brand-sponsored content (pictures, videos, posts, etc.). This study reviews the research conducted on sponsorship disclosure using bibliometric techniques and Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methods (TCCM) framework. The study includes 119 published articles (2715 citations) on sponsorship disclosure in 45 journals (marketing and consumer psychology, business, management, and information systems) between January 2011 and September 2022. Through the analysis, this study extends the discussion on sponsorship disclosure to highlight persuasion knowledge, psychological reactance, and source credibility theory as the theoretical foundations of the domain. At the confluence of marketing, psychology, and information science, the literature on sponsorship disclosure encompasses paid partnerships, influencer marketing, advertising literacy, trust, native advertising, and sponsorship transparency. Also, this review contributes to the existing literature by presenting a comprehensive structural model for the domain of sponsorship disclosure and suggesting novel future research directions.