AdIntuition: Automatic Sponsorship Disclosure on Social Media

Abstract

Social Media’s ability to connect people has provided a ripe opportunity for brands to effectively market their products. However, when creating sponsored content, some social media influencers fail to disclose that they are receiving compensation for their endorsement of a product. This lack of disclosure is deceptive and leaves viewers questioning the authenticity of an endorsement. I created a Google Chrome extension called AdIntuition that detects and discloses the presence of affiliate marketing, a type of social media marketing, on YouTube in an effort to provide video viewers insight into deceptive marketing practices. Using a list of known affiliate marketing link patterns and URL query parameters, AdIntuition checks all links in a YouTube video’s description for affiliate marketing content. Additionally, each sentence in a YouTube description is checked against a pre-trained classifier for the existence of coupon codes, which are also used in affiliate marketing campaigns. In order to test the project’s success, I designed and ran a user study that found that participants were able to better determine the existence of affiliate marketing in a YouTube video when using the extension.