Instagram Influencers Impact on Customers' Intention on Purchasing Perfume
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Instagram Influencers Impact on Customers’ Intention on Purchasing Perfume BACHELOR DEGREE PROJECT BACHELOR THESIS WITHIN: Business Administration NUMBER OF CREDITS: 15ECTs PROGRAMME OF STUDY: Marketing Management SUPERVISOR: Jenny Balkow AUTHOR: Anh Tran & My Bui JÖNKÖPING May, 2022
Bachelor Thesis in Business Administration Title: Instagram influencers impact on customer’s intention on purchasing perfume Authors: Anh Tran and My Bui Tutor: Jenny Balkow Date: 2022-05-19 Key terms: purchase intention, influencer marketing, celebrity endorsements, source credibility, social media influencers, Instagram. Abstract Background: Celebrity endorsements is a marketing strategy that has been long used by marketers to strengthen brands' reputations. Nowadays, due to the fast growth of social media, number of people using social media increase day-by-day. Hence, the use of digital platforms as marketing channel has increasing. Plus, a changing shift from traditional celebrity endorsement to influencer marketing has also been observed whereby well-known social media users are employed by brands to promote their products. Those people are known as social media influencers (SMIs) and are deemed as non-traditional celebrities. According to advertising and marketing literature, celebrity endorsement is an effective approach to improve attitudes towards brands and raise buying intentions. However, there are limited research on the impacts of different types of celebrities on social media upon customers, especially in the perfume industry. Therefore, this study was created to fill this gap. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of Instagram influencers on Vietnamese customer’s attitude and intentions in purchasing perfume. This paper adopted the Ohanian model of source credibility since the authors aim to examine association between SMIs’ perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise and customer attitude. The relationship between customer attitude and purchasing intention of perfume was then also investigated. Method: The survey method was used as the research method. Online questionnaire was employed to gather primary data from the respondents in Vietnam. A total of 147 sample Vietnamese Instagram users participated in the survey and collected data was analysed using the SPSS 28.0 version. I
Conclusion: The research results showed that all three dimension of source credibility model, attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise, had significant influences on customer attitude. Findings also demonstrated a positive relationship between customer attitude towards SMIs and their buying intention of perfumes. This study made several contributions to both theory and practice, which were also highlighted in this paper. II
Acknowledgement Writing this bachelor thesis is a precious opportunity for us to have self-improvement and practical application of what we studied throughout the last three years. This is also considered an interesting journey full of challenges for us as bachelor students who have the first time writing business research. However, through this paper, we gather for ourselves many different new experiences and rewarding moments through teamwork. We would like to express our sincere thanks to those who helped us to complete this research. First of all, we would like to thank a lot professor Jenny Balkow for being the best supervisor who has patiently given us many different comments, valuable suggestions, and a lot of help in improving our paper. We appreciated all of the valuable feedback, suggestion, discussions, and comments which help us develop the quality of the research. Furthermore, we would like to sincerely thank the students in the seminar group who gave specifically detailed, and useful feedback throughout the seminars which help us complete this research better and improve its quality of it. Finally, we would like to thank the volunteers who gave their valuable time and effort to participate in our survey. Helped us to complete the thesis in the most complete way and showed us many interesting points of view to help us increase the value of this thesis. Anh Tran and My Bui III
Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................ I Acknowledgement ............................................................................. III List of Figure .................................................................................... VI List of Tables..................................................................................... VI 1. Introduction .................................................................................. 1 1.1. Backgrounds .......................................................................................... 1 1.2. Research Problem ................................................................................. 3 1.3. Purpose .................................................................................................. 5 2. Frame of Reference ...................................................................... 6 2.1. Literature Review ................................................................................. 6 2.1.1. Social Media Influencers ..................................................................................... 6 2.1.2. Traditional Celebrity Endorsement and Influencer Marketing...................... 7 2.1.3. Source Credibility ................................................................................................ 8 2.1.4. Consumer Attitude Towards SMIs .................................................................... 9 2.1.5. Purchase Intention ............................................................................................. 10 2.2. Hypotheses Development ................................................................... 10 2.2.1. The Role of SMIs’ Source Credibility on Customer Attitude........................ 11 2.2.2. Purchase Intentions ........................................................................................... 12 3. Methodology................................................................................ 13 3.1. Research Paradigm ............................................................................. 13 3.2. Research Approach ............................................................................ 13 3.3. Research Strategy ............................................................................... 14 3.4. Data Collection Method ..................................................................... 14 3.5. Sample .................................................................................................. 15 3.6. Survey Design ...................................................................................... 16 3.7. Measures .............................................................................................. 16 3.8. Data Reliability and Validity ............................................................. 17 3.8.1. Reliability ............................................................................................................ 17 3.8.2. Validity ................................................................................................................ 17 3.9. Ethical Considerations .......................................................................................... 18 3.10. Survey Introduction Text ...................................................................................... 18 3.11. Survey Items ........................................................................................................... 19 4. Empirical Results and Analysis................................................. 21 4.1. Descriptive Statistics ........................................................................... 21 IV
4.2. Data Reliability Test ........................................................................... 23 4.3. Testing for Normality ......................................................................... 24 4.4. Hypotheses Testing with Spearman’s Correlation .......................... 25 4.5. Predicting Hypotheses Outcomes Using Ordinal Logistic Regression ...................................................................................................... 25 5. Discussion .................................................................................... 29 5.1. Summary Results ................................................................................ 29 5.2. Hypothesis 1 ........................................................................................ 29 5.3. Hypothesis 2 ........................................................................................ 30 5.4. Hypothesis 3 ........................................................................................ 30 5.5. Hypothesis 4 ........................................................................................ 31 6. Conclusion and Limitation ........................................................ 32 6.1. Conclusion ........................................................................................... 32 6.2. Implication........................................................................................... 32 6.2.1. Theoretical Implications.................................................................................... 32 6.2.2. Practical Implications ........................................................................................ 33 6.3. Limitation and Future Research ....................................................... 34 References .......................................................................................... 35 Appendices ......................................................................................... 40 Appendix 1: Questionnaire (In Vietnamese) .............................................. 40 Appendix 2: Lists of SMIs ............................................................................ 48 Appendix 3: Mean and Standard Deviations of Each Item ...................... 49 Appendix 4: Cronbach’s Alpha of Each Variable ..................................... 52 Appendix 5: Normality test of Each Variable’s Item ................................ 53 Appendix 6: Histogram of Variables’ Distributions .................................. 56 V
List of Figure Figure 1: Conceptual Framework ...................................................................... 12 List of Tables Table 1: Frequencies - Participants’ Behaviors on Instagram ........................... 21 Table 2: Frequencies - Participants' Age ........................................................... 22 Table 3: Frequencies – Participants’ Gender ..................................................... 22 Table 4: Frequencies – Participants’ Main Occupation..................................... 22 Table 5: Frequencies – Participants’ Monthly Income ...................................... 23 Table 6: Means and Standard Deviation of Variables ....................................... 23 Table 7: Cronbach’s Alpha Value ..................................................................... 24 Table 8: Reliability Analysis ............................................................................. 24 Table 9: Normality Test ..................................................................................... 24 Table 10: Spearman’s Correlation Analysis ...................................................... 25 Table 11: Multicollinearity Test of Independent Variables............................... 26 Table 12: Model Fitting of Multiple Regression Model.................................... 26 Table 13: Goodness-of-fit of Multiple Regression Model ................................ 27 Table 14: Parameter Estimates of Multiple Regression Model ......................... 27 Table 15: Model Fitting of Simple Regression Model ...................................... 28 Table 16: Goodness-of-fit of Simple Regression Model ................................... 28 Table 17: Parameter Estimates of Simple Regression Model ........................... 28 Table 18: Hypotheses Testing Results............................................................... 29 VI
1. Introduction In this chapter, the authors will introduce about their topic and research background. Then to create the clearer look, they will introduce about the problem research which they want to focus on and after that will be the thesis purpose aiming to help readers understand about what the authors want to investigate. 1.1. Backgrounds Nowadays, perfume is considered one of the oldest luxury goods and the earliest cosmetic products which existed from the soon time of human civilizations which still being used and sold. According to the evidence that was proven by the scientists, the first form of perfume was invented 4000 years ago by Mesopotamians (Stefania, 2017). After that, the scientists found the first perfume sample in Egypt and Cyprus also (Bellis, 2021). In ancient times, perfume was burned from many varieties of resin and wood at the ancient people's religious ceremonies, it was found that was used by the Egyptian priests; and during the heyday of the Roman Empire, perfume was also used by the wealthy Romans (Aftel, p.19, 2001 and Schwarcz, 2017). Based on this long history, perfume today has become an eternal fashion symbol for not only fashion lover but also for an ordinary people because perfume can create a unique impressive scent for each different body, enhances mood, boosts confidence, create attractiveness for the users, boots health, triggers memories, treats insomnia, and cures a headache (Choudhary, 2022). Based on historical value and benefits from the perfume in recent years, perfume become one of the most lucrative markets that will be increased to more than 49 billion US dollars in 2022 (Statista, 2022). And this industry is predicted that will increased to 52.4 billion US dollars by 2025 (Djurovic, 2022). Among them, Vietnam is one of the most famous countries in Asia and is considered the lucrative perfume market. Indeed, the fragrance market in Vietnam was recorded which created an amount that was more than 103.7 million US dollars in 2022, this market is expected that will growth annually by 1.31% from 2022 to 2026 (Statista, 2022). The fragrance market in Vietnam was considered higher than in the US in 2022 because the Vietnamese population increases stronger yearly and the revenue of people based on per person in Vietnam was recorded that achieve 1.05 US dollars in 2022, based on these two factors, it pushes the perfume purchasing power of Vietnamese customers increased (Statista, 2022). Moreover, in 2022, 62% of sales in the fragrances segment from the normal brand to the high- end brand will be attributed to the non-luxury goods because the income of the middle-class, young adults, and middle ages consumers are increasing stronger daily (Statista, 2022). Hence, the Vietnamese perfume market today is being considered the most profitable market for those perfumes start-up brands, global brands, and domestic brands. Despite the fact Vietnam is an exponentially profitable market, there are only some big perfume brands that have official stores, representative offices, companies, and factories through agents and distribution in this market such as Esteé Lauder, Lancôme, Shiseido, Fendi, Lower, Clarins, Dior, Chanel and L’Oreal (Viet Nam News, 2019). All other perfume brands are imported from companies specializing in selling perfume such as perfume world stores, perfume shop Monaco, perfume TRUTH, or Nam perfume (iAMHCMC, 2019). Based on this situation, the perfumes price in Vietnam is considered not stable. Thus, this situation leads Vietnamese consumers usually purchase perfumes that are possible to be found domestically abroad through international e-commercial platforms like Nordstrom, Fragrancenet, FragranceX, Scentbird, or Ulta (Rud, 2022). Vietnamese consumers could also 1
get their favorite perfume from their family and friends who live abroad by having them bring the products when they have a chance to come back to Vietnam. Therefore, it is safe to say that a large portion of Vietnamese customers would find information online when it comes to purchasing perfume due to the lack of physical stores. Thanks to the fast development of technology and the rise of social networking sites. Nowadays, finding information about perfume has become simpler. However, there is a downside to this phenomenon which is the redundancy of information on those digital platforms. This could lead it even harder for customers to make an informed buying decision. Therefore, customers always seek credible sources of information to form their decision before buying. Based on the element that social media today has grown faster (3.96 billion users daily) (Statista, 2022), this platform become a lucrative place for those considered social media influencers (SMIs) to spread their information, experience, or knowledge to their followers. Especially for the perfume influencers, take advantage of those platforms to increase their numbers of followers and based on their followers convey their message, information, and knowledge about the perfume to the world. Furthermore, based on that knowledge and information, these influencers will intentionally or unintentionally form an idea about perfume in the customers’ minds, which will turn into the motivation for the customers to create the intention to buy that perfume, those reactions can consider as the customers’ intention. After that, based on these factors, the influencers will provide more detail about the perfume’s analysis to motivate customers to buy perfume. Moreover, Instagram is one of the most famous social media channels in Vietnam because this channel allows the users can create videos, statuses, post pictures, and many different operations at the same time. Having more than 7.13 million users in 2020; 8.67 million users in 2022; and is estimated that will achieve from 10.18 million to 10.93 million users in 2024 and 2025, Instagram becomes one of the most popular social media channels which Vietnamese people use and is activated every single day (Degenhard, 2021 and Ngoc, 2021). Additionally, this social media also become the most useful channel which Vietnamese customers use to see about the perfume from the perfume influencers around the world. Therefore, being such a hugely profitable sector, the Vietnamese fragrance market has probably relied on the help from the marketing strategies of SMIs since there are limited official perfumes brands and stores in the country. SMIs mean the individuals who carry the most impact on social media, and generally, these are individuals who have a significant footprint in their social media community (Akash, 2018). SMIs are referred to as people who have built a sizeable social network of people who follow them (Veirman et al., 2017). They are a new type of independent third-party endorser who shapes audience attitudes through their blogs, tweets, and other social media (Freberg et al., 2011). These SMIs can be called digital influencers (Torres et al., 2019). However, digital influencers are being considered more authentic, unique, and credible than traditional influencers, because most of the information or knowledge that they deliver is exclusive, and being analyzed deeper (de Vries, 2012). As, the information or knowledge that they speared will achieve more trust and less resistance than traditional influencers (de Vries et al., 2012). In addition, digital influencers can also be considered online opinion leaders (Casaló et al., 2020). According to the description of Veirman and his colleagues, online opinion leaders can influence others’ behaviors due to their appeal or connection with their audience, as well as their specialized knowledge and authority on a given topic, the way they operate also familiarity with the traditional influencers and social media influencers (2017). 2
Consequently, SMIs also can be understood as non-traditional celebrities. However, in this thesis, the meaning of SMIs will be defined again. Therefore, based on this research and the main topic of it, the SMIs here will be any social media users who gain fame through the usage of these digital platforms and traditional celebrities having social media accounts. The degree of influence of SMIs would be categorized as follows: mega-influencers (> 1 million followers), macro-influencers (100k to 1 million followers), micro-influencers (5k – 100k followers), and nano-influencers (< 5k followers) (Brewster et al., 2020). To sum up, the meaning of SMIs in this paper will be every people who use Instagram, and they have to have related, interesting, connected with perfume and used to talk about perfume. They can influence other people based on their perfume’s knowledge, and also can change or stimulate the customers to create or change their purchasing intentions. In general, those SMIs will be seen as the people who regularly use Instagram to build their reputation and influence the reputation of other people. Besides that, perfume is a sensitive product, which is very difficult to sell and understand if the customers only watch and see the advertisement from the brand only. Therefore, the customer’s purchasing intentions will be created after customers gather as much information which they need based on their personal experiences (having used and are currently using perfume) and the external environment (customers will be affected or stimulated by the knowledge or information about the fragrance of the Instagram’s SMIs) (Instagram’s SMIs example: non- traditional celebrities, perfume expert, perfume seller, celebrities, beauty blogger, or perfume collectors). Then, through the process of evaluation, comparison (checking with other perfume sources), and judgment (based on their own experience to judge the knowledge of that influencer right or wrong), the customers will create intentions on purchasing that perfume (Bhakar et al., 2015). As a result, the customers’ intention of purchasing perfume will not only come from the perfume brand but also will become from the customer's own experience and be affected by the perfume influencers. 1.2. Research Problem In traditional advertising, the use of celebrity endorsements is a popular advertising strategy to enhance brand‐related outcomes (Torres et al., 2019). Those traditional endorsers usually appeared on traditional channels such as television, radio, or newspapers to promote brands’ products. However, social networking sites have recently transformed themselves into platforms whereby brands could promote their products. As a result, celebrity endorsements where traditional celebrities are employed as endorsers have also moved to those digital channels. At the same time, some active users on those networking sites also have built themselves sufficient digital followers and have certain influences on those fellow users. Consequently, organizations and companies have also sought after those digital influencers to enhance their brand awareness. Moreover, Instagram is one of the fastest-growing online photo social networking services, allowing users to share photos from their daily lives with others. Due to the growing popularity of Instagram and its accessibility via smartphones and other devices, electric word-of-mouth (E-WoM) on Instagram has evolved into a compelling and influential information source. Celebrity endorsements are considered credible sources of generating positive word-of-mouth regarding particular products and services (Spry et al., 2011). Thus, it is safe to say that in the context of social media, their effectiveness is even amplified. Although the impact of celebrities as marketing communication tools has been thoroughly studied, there is a scarcity of academic studies on the credibility of various types of celebrities within social networks (Spry et al., 2011). This is especially true for Instagram, which is seeing exponential growth in popularity and might potentially become quite important to marketers (Djafarova et al., 2017). 3
Studies have shown that the use of celebrity endorsements can create a more positive response as well as a higher purchasing intention with fragrances than non-celebrity endorsers (Priyankara et al., 2017 and Mahdavi et al., 2019). The mentioned studies focused on paid/sponsor advertisement with the presence of celebrity endorsers. Those advertisements had content that is generated by marketers/brands, which is opposed to content posted by digital influencers, as known as user-generated content. Those marketer-generated advertisements are considered biased and less credible than user-generated ones since celebrities were paid to convey the information. In fact, according to Wiley (2014), traditional celebrities no longer possess the impactful power they once did; online bloggers’ product reviews are now much more influential as they are perceived to be more authentic and accessible. Similarly, Abdullah and colleagues (2020) claimed that the messages and marketing information posted on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook by SMIs are more credible and trustworthy than sponsorship paid advertising. They also state that most consumers will have the intention to purchase the product recommended by their favorite social media influencer on Instagram. Moreover, Djafarova and Rushworth (2017) concluded in their study that traditional celebrities have less influence on female customers than non-traditional endorsers like bloggers and YouTube personalities. When it comes to purchasing behavior, they also believed that Instagram celebrities had a significant impact on young female users. Nevertheless, celebrity endorsement had greatly influenced perfume buyers' perceptions and purchasing intentions (Djukec et al., p. 230, 2021). Indeed, in the study of Mahdavi and colleagues (2019) about the impacts of endorsers on buyer’s online perfume purchases, they found that although some respondents believed that endorsers are primarily driven by financial incentives offered by brands, consumers still could associate quality aspects of endorsed perfume to the celebrity, which ultimately created a willingness to pay for the endorsed product. Therefore, based on mentioned research gaps, the authors argued that SMIs also have an impact on customer attitude, which could eventually stimulate purchase intention of perfume. Furthermore, Janssens and De Pelsmacker (2009) state that perfume studies in the area of marketing are rare; however, in other disciplines, such as psychology and cosmetics and sensory studies, there is a considerable amount of previous research. Although there are some existing studies about perfume in marketing literature, which were particularly focused on the impacts of celebrity appearance in traditional advertisements (i.e., Television) on consumers (Priyankara et al., 2017 and Mahdavi et al., 2019), to the authors' best of knowledge, attention about the effects of digital celebrities and influencers on customer attitude towards perfume products has been neglected by researchers. In the discipline of influencer marketing, previous studies had investigated the influence of SMIs on consumers in many different industries such as cosmetics and beauty (Rahmi et al., 2017 and Chen et al., 2020), or fashion (Abdullah et al., 2020 and Casaló et al., 2020), but rare studies with the same concerns could be found in the perfume industry. Given the fact that the perfume industry has emerged as a very significant and lucrative business sector in recent years due to improving living standards around the globe and the growing trend of personal care consumption (Barbosa et al., 2021), and marketers have increasingly employed social media platforms to implement their marketing strategies to attract and gain knowledge of consumers, an urgent need to expand the current literature of SMIs’ effectiveness in the perfume industry is required. In the scope of this study, SMIs would be identified as ordinary Instagram users who have gained popularity through social media usage and traditional celebrities using social media. These two kinds of celebrities have two things in common, they have Instagram accounts and generate content related to perfume. 4
1.3. Purpose The gaps identified in the literature motivated the authors of this present study to focus on perfume products. Additionally, the major attention is paid to non-traditional celebrities who become popular through social media platforms, as known as SMIs, and traditional celebrities gaining digital influences by generating content. In other words, this paper will focus on any individuals who use perfume, have experience with it and then transfer their knowledge or experience to the other people on social media The purpose of this thesis is to examine the effects of SMIs upon customers regarding perfume products. Particularly, the impacts of SMIs on Instagram to customers’ purchasing intention of perfumes were explored. By using source credibility model, this thesis investigates the effectiveness of SMIs’ characteristics in social media contexts, including trustworthiness, expertise, and attractiveness, on customer attitude. Based on the explored link between consumer attitude and Instagram SMIs, the relationship of consumer attitude and purchasing intention of perfumes was also examined. 5
2. Frame of Reference Previous literature which are relevant to this study will be reviewed and discussed in this chapter. The authors will introduce the literature of SMIs, celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing, the source credibility model, customer attitude, and purchase intention. All those concepts will then be factors helping the authors to serve this study’s purpose. The second section of this chapter will be dedicated to propose testing hypotheses. 2.1. Literature Review 2.1.1. Social Media Influencers Because of the growing use of the Internet, a new generation of social networking sites has emerged as a mainstream platform for communication and engagement. The significance of those sites in today's society is also growing as a result of the large amount of information that users can receive from them. Thus, the number of social media influencers (SMIs) is continuously increasing. Since SMIs are popular by first making and sharing creative content that provides their audience with insights into their lives, experiences, and opinions, SMIs are first and foremost content generators (Lou et al., 2019). In this sense, traditional celebrities (i.e. actors, musicians, or athletes) can also develop some digital influences only after they have become regular content creators (Lou et al., 2019). SMIs are also defined as individuals who have developed sizeable social networks of followers and their popularity is measured by an increase in the number of followers (Abdullah et al., 2020). Therefore, they could be considered micro-celebrities who are well-known by using social networking sites. However, digital influencers are likely to be relatable and accessible since they share their personal lives and directly interact with their followers. Freberg and colleagues (2011) stated that SMIs can shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets, and the use of other social media. Hence, SMIS can also be seen as online opinion leaders (Casaló et al., 2018). According to the literature, opinion leaders can influence others' behaviour based on their attractiveness or connection with their audience, as well as their specific expertise and/or authority on a given topic (Torres et al., 2019). Indeed, recent statistics from Twitter and Annalect revealed that approximately 40% of polled Twitter users have made a purchase as a result of an influencer's post (Karp, 2016). Moreover, previous studies showed that the messages and marketing information posted on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook by SMIs are more credible and trustworthy than sponsorship paid advertising (Abdullah et al., 2020 and Abidin, 2016). This implies the impactful influence of SMIs on customers’ perceptions and behaviours. Since there has been a rise in the popularity of social networking sites in recent years, marketing professionals have begun to use social media to engage with customers. Recognizing the persuasiveness and influence of SMIs, many brands have started using SMIs to disseminate good E-WoM, which often takes the form of endorsements on social media platforms. In this regard, the importance of understanding what makes SMIs "influencers" and how they successfully use E-WoM to persuade consumers should not be overlooked. SMIs usually do not get their influences by establishing a relationship with brands. Instead, they usually obtain trust and respect from audiences by creating content related to their personal lives which could include sharing information and opinions about brands or products used by them. Indeed, many SMIs do not use their influence on promoting and marketing products of a certain brand; most only provide honest and unbiased reviews, helping them gain consumers’ trust (Freberg et al., 6
2011). As a result, SMIs are extremely beneficial to consumers when it comes to receiving useful product reviews since SMIs can act as references to help them make informed decisions. 2.1.2. Traditional Celebrity Endorsement and Influencer Marketing Celebrity endorsements are a prominent advertising tactic in traditional advertising to improve brand-related outcomes (Torres et al., 2019). This is done because it is assumed that celebrities have a powerful effect on the affluence of the brands they endorse (Priyankara et al., 2017). According to McCracken (1989), a celebrity endorser is described as a recognizable individual contracted to advertise for a product or brand who is used by companies to improve a brand’s appeal (as cited in Mahdavi et al., 2019). Celebrity endorsers are also defined as individuals who are well-known for their achievements and have the potential ability to attract a large targeted audience (Priyankara et al., 2017). Celebrity endorsements are considered credible sources in generating a positive E-WoM regarding particular products and services (Spry et al., 2011). Previous studies have revealed that celebrity endorsements can generate favourable attitudinal and behavioural responses among consumers. Djafarova and colleagues (2017) believed that unknown products could be transferred to well-known ones through endorsements by celebrities advertising such products. This belief can also be supported by the study of Priyankara (2017) which revealed that consumers prefer the advertisement or the product in general that showcases celebrity, unlike non-celebrity commercials. However, mass communication channels such as television stations, radio stations, and newspapers are no longer the primary sources of information for consumers in today's media landscape. Instead, for knowledge exchange and relationship development, customers frequently turn to social media platforms or virtual communities (Lou et al., 2019). The rise of social networking sites has signalled a shift in celebrity endorsements on those platforms. SMIs have taken advantage of those new mediums of connection and have also boosted marketers' capacities to connect with their target clients, as social media has significantly transformed the way people interact and share personal information (Leite et al., 2021). Consequently, influencer marketing has been expanding. Influencer marketing is a marketing approach in which brand managers invest in selected SMIs to increase brand awareness and purchase decisions among customers (Lou et al., 2019). Influencer marketing is similar to traditional celebrity endorsements in the sense that marketers want to leverage the existing popularity of endorsers (SMIs or celebrities) to drive brand development. The factor distinguishing between the two marketing strategies is that celebrities are only “actors” who appear in advertisements and follow prepared scripts describing endorsed products’ attributes. In some cases, celebrities do not even have prior knowledge about the products and brands. Although customers might prefer celebrity-related advertisements over non-celebrity ones, this type of advertising becomes less persuasive (Li et al., 2021). On the contrary, since the majority of SMIs get their public recognition from creating content about certain areas, marketers would choose to collaborate with SMIs that have knowledge and experience in brand-related areas. By incorporating endorsed products into their real and personal usage, SMIs visually explain to their audiences, which are brands’ potential customers, the process of using the products, their main attributes and even compare them with other brands’ products. This recommended method instils a strong sense of reality and brand association in target consumers (Li et al., 2021). Additionally, compared to the exorbitant costs of signing contracts with one or more well-known celebrities in the traditional advertisement, marketers can work with SMIs at a more affordable price (Lou et al., 2019). Previous studies looked into the aspects that contributed to the effectiveness of influencer marketing in a variety of contexts. To explore the effects of celebrities and influencers on buying decisions, Djafarova and Rushworth (2017) conducted in-depth interviews with young 7
female Instagram users. They claimed that influencers were more influential, credible, and relatable to young female users than traditional celebrities. Torres (2019) carried out an exploratory study to examine the effect of SMIs’ attractiveness and the effect of the congruence between an SMI and a brand on consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. They concluded that both SMIs’ attractiveness and their congruence with brands have positive effects on brand attitudes and purchase intention. Similarly, Li and colleaugues (2021) investigated SMIs’ source characteristics using a sample of 510 Weibo users in China and argued that the expertise, originality and homophily of influencers positively affect two attitudes of consumers, which are image satisfaction towards SMIs and advertising trust. Veirman and colleagues (2017) looked at how the number of followers of Instagram influencers and product divergence affected brand attitudes. They came to a conclusion that while designing an influencer marketing plan, the number of followers, influencers' "followers/followees ratio," and product type should all be considered. In line with the perspective of the discipline’s insights, this study focuses more on SMIs who have gained fame through social media usage and content generators who are also celebrities. There are no specific SMIs chosen as research objects but they randomly appeared through the survey based on participants' responses. Therefore, there are possibilities that some SMIs were endorsers at the moment the survey took place and some were not. However, this concept of influencer marketing would still be taken into consideration for the purpose of this study. 2.1.3. Source Credibility Source credibility (SC) is a well-known concept that is frequently used as an enhancer tool in celebrity endorsements to analyze the effectiveness of endorsers (Ohanian, 1990). SC was introduced by Hovland, Janis, and Kelly in 1953 (Ballentine, 2006). They proposed two determinants of source credibility which are expertise and trustworthiness. McGuire (1985) as cited in Lou and colleagues (2019) suggested a third component of source credibility: attractiveness, referring to a source’s physical attractiveness or likeability. Consequently, drawing from previous literature, Ohanian (1990) defined source credibility as a three- dimensional construct, including trustworthiness, expertise, and attractiveness. According to Ohanian (1990), SC indicates the communicator's positive characteristics that affect the recipient's acceptance of a message. In the area of celebrity endorsements, SC is used to examine the consumer perception of the celebrities' source characteristics based on attractiveness, trustworthiness and attractiveness (Ohanian, 1990). In particular, a credible endorser generally generates a positive effect on consumers’ perception (Goldsmith et al. 2000). Information conveyed by a credible source can affect consumers’ beliefs, opinions, attitudes and behaviors (Wang et al. 2017). According to Metzger (2003), consumers' indifference toward the advertising message leads to better acceptance of the conveyed message when the endorser is viewed as highly trustworthy and expert. As a result, the credibility of a celebrity endorser positively impacts the credibility of the endorsed brand (Spry et al., 2011). Although SC is a traditional construct in the celebrity endorsement literature (Ohanian, 1990), this concept is considered to be relevant in influencer marketing since SMIs are new brands' spokespersons in the setting of social media. Indeed, in digital settings, the traditional influence of attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise has been widely discussed (Weismueller et al., 2020). Therefore, SC is addressed in this study in order to examine the current study's purpose: the impact of source credibility of Instagram SMIs upon consumer attitude. 8
As there are three factors of credibility according to the Source Credibility Model developed by Ohanian, which are expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness, these factors are described based on Ohanian (1990) in detail as follows: - Trustworthiness refers to the consumer’s confidence in the source for providing information in an objective and honest manner (Ohanian, 1991). It is also the trust paradigm in communication is the listener’s degree of confidence in, and level of acceptance of the speaker and the message (Ohanian, 1990). The trustworthiness will also change the attitude of the listener (Ohanian, 1990). This term will also relate to the perceived honesty of the speaker’s perceived caring about his/her audience (Skokolova, 2020). Trustworthiness was argued important to examine SMIs’ impact by the authors because they usually share or promote product information after actually using the products and audiences prefer such recommendations. Ohanian (1990) specifies more about source trustworthiness by using five adjectives to test the confirmatory phase of celebrities. The mentioned adjectives are dependable, honest, reliable, sincere and trustworthy. These five items are also used to test the celebrity's trustworthiness in this study. - Expertise: this dimension is defined as a high level of knowledge or skill. According to the description of Hovland and his colleagues (as cited in Ohanian, 1991), expertise means the extent to which a communicator is perceived to be a source of valid assertions. It also could be defined as the knowledge and experience an individual possesses in a particular field (Huang et al., 2020). This factor will bring a positive impact on the attitude change (Ohanian, 1990). Expertise was argued important to examine SMIs’ impact because SMIs often generate content relating to a topic or area that they have knowledge about. Ohanian (1990) describes further source expertise by using five adjectives developed in her exploratory phase of research to explain the expertise dimension. These five adjectives are expert, experienced, knowledgeable, qualified, and skilled. Consequently, these items were used to measure the celebrity's expertise in this paper. - Attractiveness: Ohanian (1990) suggested physical attractiveness is a crucial indicator in an individual's initial judgment of another person (i.e., celebrity). Consumers' opinions and product evaluations are influenced by celebrity physical appeal. As a result, the celebrity's attractiveness has a good impact on the endorsed product. This dimension was also proposed as crucial to examine SMIs' impact since in the beauty sector, specifically perfume, SMIs are expected to be attractive to fit the sector's unspoken requirements. Many researchers showed that to create attractiveness, the influencers need to have many different factors. According to Ohanian (1990), physical, facial, and physical attractiveness expressed in terms of model attractiveness, content attractiveness, elegance, sexiness, sexualness and likability are the main factors that create the attractiveness to the audience. Therefore, Ohanian (1990) specified that this dimension consists of five items including attractive, classy, beautiful, elegant, and sexy, which were also tested in this study. 2.1.4. Consumer Attitude Towards SMIs According to Bohner and Dickel (1997), an attitude refers to the general evaluation and response tendency of a consumer to a specific object (as cited in Li et al.,, 2021). Customer attitudes have long been used to predict consumer behavior. Many research has used Ajzen's theory of planned behavior (TPB) to predict behavior based on attitude (Phang et al., 2018). The well-known TPB proposed that individuals' behavior intentions are influenced by their attitude toward the behavior (Phang et al., 2018). Moreover, previous studies established 9
evidence of a positive relationship between the attitude toward the celebrity and the attitude toward the brand (Torres et al., 2019), thus enhancing the possibility of forming potential purchase intention of endorsed products. Particularly, Chan (2013) found a positive correlation between attitude and credible endorsers as well as purchase intention. In their study, Li and colleague (2021) also proved the positive effect of SMIs' image satisfaction and advertising trust on purchase intention. In the social media context, the contents posted by SMIs must initially include personal information in building SMIs' image to satisfy the audience and gain followers as a result, which in turn could bring endorsement deals to those SMIs. According to previous literature, when target consumers show two main attitudinal responses, which are satisfaction and trust, the influence can work successfully (Li et al., 2021). This inferred that the successful implementation of influence marketing is positively related to consumer satisfaction with SMIs (Li et al., 2021). Therefore, in this study, consumer attitude relates to favorable beliefs towards SMIs including following SMIs and enjoying content posted by them. The authors believe that an SMI’s source characteristics may stimulate target consumers’ attitude, thus affecting purchase intentions 2.1.5. Purchase Intention According to Ajzen's TPB (1991), a person’s behavior is influenced by his/her intention or willingness to try and the amount of effort he/she is willing to contribute in order to carry out the behavior. This indicates the stronger the individual’s intention to carry out a behavior, the greater the likelihood of that behavior to be performed (Phang et al., 2018). In line with this is the behavior of purchase intention, which is a vitally important concept in marketing. Purchase intention refers to the conscious decision of consumers in planning or striving to purchase brand products (Spears et al., 2004). Purchase intentions are good predictors of actual buying behavior (Wu et al., 2012) because they include the possibility or likelihood that consumers will be willing to acquire a specific product. Moreover, technological advancements and market unpredictability, have made the research of purchase intention more sophisticated and crucial than in the past (Phang et al., 2018). Previous study demonstrated relationships between purchase intention and consumer attitudes toward commercials and brands, E-WoM, and/or brand awareness (Lou at al., 2019). Particularly, Dao and colleagues (2014) found that perceived advertising value positively affected online purchase intentions among social media users in Vietnam. Additionally, Phang (2019) discovered a positive relationship between attitude towards bloggers' recommendations and purchase intention. Similarly, main findings of a study examining the relationship between source characteristics of SMIs and consumer purchase intention revealed likability, trustworthiness and familiarity has greater influence on buying intention towards fashion products (Abdullah et al., 2020). However, Johansen and colleagues (2017) failed to establish a positive effect of influencer marketing towards purchase intention when tested on blog content. Plus, no significant effect of YouTube beauty vloggers on consumers’ purchase intention of Indonesian local cosmetic was found (Rahmi et al., 2017). Therefore, further research in different contexts was deemed appropriate to gain clearer insights about SMIs and purchase intention. 2.2. Hypotheses Development Based on the source credibility model, this study explores the impact of SMIs’ characteristics on consumers’ attitude and purchase intentions. The research model is as shown in Figure 1. The hypotheses are explained as follows. 10
2.2.1. The Role of SMIs’ Source Credibility on Customer Attitude The source credibility model has been used in many studies in different industries such as fashion (Casaló et al., 2020), and cosmetics (Rahmi et al., 2017) to investigate the effects of characteristics of communicators on receivers’ acceptance of messages. Three dimensions of source credibility are trustworthiness, expertise, and attractiveness (Ohanian, 1990). Previous studies have found that perceived source credibility can increase the persuasive power of a message, which leads to a change of attitude (Ohanian, 1990). Therefore, the authors wanted to investigate the relationship between these three characteristics of digital influencers and customers' attitudes towards their messages. Specifically, the source attractiveness mainly derives from such aspects as a good appearance and a sexy body (Ohanian, 1991). The physical attractiveness of social media influencers is perceived to have a high tendency in driving the acceptance rate of advertising (Lim et al., 2017). It is safe to say that communicators who are attractive could generate visual enjoyment, which draws audiences' attention. Similarly, when SMIs are attractive, the two-way interactions between them and consumers would be more enjoyable, and customers might create a satisfied attitude toward SMIs (Li et al., 2021). Several past research have investigated the relationship between source attractiveness and consumer attitude as well as purchase intention are positively correlated. Particularly, Till and colleagues (2000) suggested that consumers could be more affected by physically attractive celebrities endorsing products relating to attractiveness (i.e., cosmetics or perfume). They further stressed that the attractiveness of the endorser could be irrelevant for more technology‐related products. On contrary, Torres (2019) studied the impact of digital influencers' attractiveness on consumer attitude and purchase intention in two different categories, “entertainment and video games” and “fashion and beauty”. They found no significant differences between the two categories, which suggested that attractiveness is key to SMIs' effectiveness in any category. Therefore, the authors hypothesized that: H1: SMIs’ perceived attractiveness has a positively impact on customer attitude Trustworthiness is related to honesty, integrity, and the degree of confidence in an endorser (Ohanian, 1990). When a source is regarded as trustworthy and knowledgeable, the message will be more effective in altering an individual's attitude than when the source is seen as less trustworthy (Ohanian, 1990). In digital environment whereby engaging with strangers is a norm, trust is vitally important due to several environmental risks. Moreover, in the context of redundant information at disposal, customers tend to seek product information from different sources. Since SMIs are also fellow customers, their provided information is deemed as user- generated, which is relatable and specific to customers' concerns. Consumer-generated reviews for specific content are viewed to be more trustworthy than manager-generated content (Phang et al., 2018). Moreover, the two-way interactions between customers and SMIs could eventually enhance customers' trust, which implies customers' positive attitudes towards SMIs. Furthermore, Phang (2018) proved that trustworthiness was the most important antecedent factor that can influence consumers’ attitudes towards blogger recommendations. Abdullah (2020) also found that trustworthiness had a greater influence on attitude, which in turn enhanced purchase intention towards fashion products. Therefore, the authors hypothesized that: H2: SMIs’ perceived trustworthiness has a positively impact on customer attitude Expertise refers to a communicator's ability to provide valid information (Ohanian, 1991). Luthie (2004; as cited in Rahmi et al., 2017) stated that an individual is considered an expert when the person is seen as having substantial experience and knowledge about a product. Since 11
SMIs first and foremost create content from their knowledge of certain areas and usually use endorsed products before reviewing them to audiences, they were argued to have certain expertise in the areas. SMIs with strong expertise are more likely to provide professional and detailed content about products, which could help customers gain useful information from two- way communication with SMIs. Hence, customers could feel the capability of SMIs to recommend products and form a positive attitude towards SMIs. In fact, Till and colleagues (2000) stressed that expertise has a positive influence on both attitude and purchase intention. Moreover, in sports marketing, professional athletes are typically having depth knowledge of products relating to their fields. As a results, their endorsement in these fields are often widely accepted (Till et al., 2000). Therefore, the authors hypothesized that: H3: SMIs’ perceived expertise has a positively impact on customer attitude. 2.2.2. Purchase Intentions A positive customer attitude could strengthen buying intention and an increased positive attitude will lead to increased behavioral intention (Phang et al., 2018). Attitude and purchase intention exhibit a parallel relationship in consumer studies (Ting, 2015). Relatively, Chu and colleague (2013) revealed a significant relationship between attitude toward social media advertising and behavioral response. This implied that a positive attitude toward social media advertising can lead to greater engagement with company messages and information-seeking efforts, which eventually evoke buying intention. Similarly, according to Chen (2007), a favorable attitude toward a certain product is a significant predictor of consumers' purchase intention. Consequently, a positive attitude toward a product that has been recommended by social media influencers will result in a higher likelihood of purchase intention. In an exploratory study, Torres (2019) examined the effect of digital influencers in two categories, “entertainment and video games” and “fashion and beauty”, and concluded that the attitudes toward the endorsement impact the attitudes toward the brand, which, in turn, impact purchase intentions. Moreover, in an attempt to examine the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumer buying intention in relation to the television advertisement for perfumes, Priyankara (2017) concluded that the consumers’ likability toward the celebrity used in the perfume brand is highly significant in the perfume buying intention. Especially, results in the study of Lim and colleagues (2017) suggested that consumers with a favorable attitude towards SMIs would generally harbor an intention to purchase the influencers' endorsed product. Therefore, the authors hypothesized that: H4: There is a positive relationship between customer attitude towards SMIs and buying intention. Attractiveness H1 H2 H4 Trustworthiness Customer Attitude Purchase Intention H3 Expertise Figure 1: Conceptual Framework 12
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