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, 2022Bachelor 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.
IConclusion: 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.
IIAcknowledgement
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
IIITable 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
IV4.2. 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
VList 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
VI1. 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
1get 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).
2Consequently, 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).
3Studies 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.
41.3. 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.
52. 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.,
62011). 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
7female 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.
8As 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
9evidence 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.
102.2.1. 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
11SMIs 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
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