Over time, public and media spaces have become increasingly burdened with advertising, sponsored, and promotional content. Influencers’ recommendations for products, services, and brands on social media, alongside billboards on major highways and ads on radio and television, have become part of the modern advertising landscape. The numerous ads and commercials continuously broadcast through television, radio, and the internet have led to public saturation. More precisely, traditional ads were easy to recognize, which led people to start avoiding them, negatively impacting organizations and corporations.
In an effort to reach target audiences through ads, covert advertising has emerged as a form of indirect promotion—a subtle way of advertising that consumers do not immediately perceive as such. Covert advertising can be found in all forms of content, from movies and TV shows to influencer content. This type of ad is cleverly integrated into organic content or regular programming, making it harder for consumers to identify it as advertising. The goal of advertising or promotional content is to sell a product, or to engage and intrigue consumers with the benefits of a particular product or service, ultimately leading to its consumption.
However, covert advertising cunningly hides this goal, which misleads the audience, meaning that consumers and users are exposed to marketing messages without their knowledge. According to the Media Act of the Republic of Croatia, covert and deceptive advertising is prohibited.
Check your knowledge about hidden advertising.
The goal of the quiz is to help users of the platform learn to recognize hidden advertising.
This quiz was designed as part of the project “Improving the Culture of Fact-Checking,” conducted by HUOJ in collaboration with media experts from Lider Media and the Faculty of Economics, University of Zagreb, with financial support from the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
