In this study, the researchers looked at the emotional appeal and recognizability of gambling content marketing among children. The researchers recruited 58 children between 13 and 17 years old from a school in northeast England. The children were split into a treatment or control group depending on whether they had completed a workshop providing education on gambling advertising. They completed an experiment in which they viewed content marketing and conventional advertisements for gambling. Appeal was based on self-reported rating of each advertisement as negative or positive, and physiological arousal when viewing the advertisement.
Gambling content marketing advertisements were more appealing to the children than conventional gambling advertisements. Most children could not recognize content marketing as advertising. Moreover, the educational program did not reduce the appeal of content marketing nor improve recognition.
