Fake news, real problems for brands: The impact of content truthfulness and source credibility on consumers’ attitude toward in-page ads

News websites are at the centre of a growing controversy over misinformation on the internet. As a consequence, big brands are in real danger of losing the control on their communication strategy. To date there is no attempt to investigate whether a fake content on a news webpage negatively affects the source credibility only, or negative attitudes also spill over the advertised brand. We present an empirical study where we experimentally manipulate news truthfulness and source credibility of a fictitious webpage and observe individual reactions and attitudes toward a brand advertised in the same webpage. Results of our research highlight that consumers’ perceptions about the advertised brands are (negatively) affected by the presence of scarcely credible news only when the news are published on a source whose a priori credibility is low or unknown, while the result no longer hold when individuals had a priori positive beliefs about the source.