Response to social media influencers: Consumer dispositions as drivers

Brand managers use social media influencers (SMIs) to influence consumers' attitudes and intentions. However, there is still ambiguity about the mechanisms by which SMIs influence their followers, as well as the metrics by which their performance can be evaluated. The existing literature has restricted itself to consumers' purchase intentions in order to evaluate SMIs influence and is silent on the role of the consumers' individual characteristics in SMIs influence mechanisms. Based on these research gaps and to provide a clearer picture of the SMI influence mechanism to practitioners, the present study assesses the role of consumer characteristics such as their social media attachment (SMA), parasocial relationships with social media influencer (PSR-SMIs), and susceptibility to SMIs influence (SSMII) in driving consumer response to SMIs influence through SMI compliance intentions. Study 1 found the sequential mediational role of PSR-SMIs and SSMII in the SMA-SMI compliance intentions relationship. Study 2 found the same sequential mediation and demonstrated how SMI skepticism negatively moderates the relationship between PSR-SMIs and SMI compliance intentions. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time that this skepticism variable is being explored in the SMI literature.     

The mechanism by which social media influencers persuade consumers: The role of consumers’ desire to mimic

We explore the mechanism through which social media influencers (SMIs) persuade consumers to adopt brands. Guided by the influence framework, we propose and test empirically SMIs’ influence mechanism, which occurs in four principal stages: (a) a SMI's influence attempts (showcasing H1: attractive; H2: prestigious; H3 and H4: expert; H5: informative; and H6: interactive Instagram contents); (b) target consumers’ attitudinal response to the influence exercised (evaluating the SMI as a H7: taste and H8: opinion leader); which, in turn, affects (c) the targets’ desire to comply (the desire to mimic); and ultimately (d) their favorable behavioral outcomes (H9: social media word‐of‐mouth and H10: purchase intentions). On the basis of the survey data from 395 respondents, we used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses and proposed model. We verified the robustness of our results using an ordered probit regression model and analyzed the mediating role of consumers’ desire to mimic SMIs in the influence mechanism. Our results confirm that the five aspects of influencing posts affect consumers’ attitudes positively and significantly, which in turn leads to positive behavioral outcomes through their desire to mimic SMIs. We discuss the results’ important implications for both scholars and practitioners.     

Hedonic and utilitarian use of user-generated content on online shopping websites

The Internet has made it possible for consumers to share reviews, opinions, and thoughts about products and services on online shopping websites. This user-generated content (UGC), which can be considered to be part of social commerce, is likely to influence other consumers’ attitudes toward a product and subsequent purchase intentions. The purpose of this study was to investigate two major uses of UGC: hedonic and utilitarian, and how they impact purchase intentions, along with users’ trust for different types of comments and reviews. Also investigated are associations between hedonic use, utilitarian use, and trust, with purchase behavior at online shopping websites. Results of this study will add to the domain knowledge related to marketing and how it impacts consumer psychology and behavior. From a practitioner perspective, marketers need to understand the impact of UGC so they can monitor this method of marketing communication as it can impact trust and purchase intentions.     

Being True to Oneself: Investigating Celebrity Brand Authenticity

Celebrity brand authenticity is introduced as a construct that represents consumer perceptions of celebrities being “true to oneself” in their behaviors and interactions with consumers. A scale is developed through two purification stages and the scale's predictive validity is assessed. First, the meaning of celebrity brand authenticity to consumers is explored. Second, the Authenticity Inventory from the psychology literature is adapted to develop a scale for consumer perceptions of celebrity brand authenticity. Celebrity brands are perceived as true to self when they appear genuine in their relationships with consumers and behave in accordance with their perceived held values. Evidence of the convergent and discriminant validity of the celebrity brand authenticity scale is provided, which confirms celebrity brand authenticity as distinct from celebrity attachment, despite containing relational items. Finally, the predictive power of celebrity brand authenticity is confirmed through positively influencing consumer intentions to purchase an endorsed brand. Brand managers can use celebrity brand authenticity to position or develop celebrity brands, as well as in the selection of celebrity endorsers.     

Pride in my past: Influencing sustainable choices through behavioral recall

Emotional appraisal research has demonstrated that recalling a past behavior and its associated emotions can influence future behavior. However, how such recalled emotions shape sustainable consumer choice has not been examined. This study examines the role of recalled pride and guilt in shaping sustainable purchase intentions and the mediating role of anticipated pride and guilt. A conceptual model is proposed for motivating sustainable purchase intentions through the emotions associated with the behavioral recall. The model is applied in two experiments with online consumers examining purchase intentions of low carbon cars. Recalling feelings of pride associated with a past sustainability‐related behavior increases sustainable purchase intention, as compared with a neutral recall. This effect occurs through the mediation of both anticipated pride at the prospect of a sustainable behavior choice and anticipated guilt if the future choice is not sustainable. Similar hypotheses relating to recalled guilt at past unsustainable behavior were not supported. The study contributes to research on sustainable consumption, revealing an emotional route by which past behavior can influence future behavior. It also adds to emotional appraisal research by showing the role of specific self‐conscious emotions in forming this route, as prior research has focused more broadly on emotional valence.     

Uniform pricing effect: The influence of uniform pricing on product value judgement and purchase intention

Uniform pricing, which is a pricing strategy that sets a unified price for all products in the store or all products in the same category, is becoming increasingly popular over the past decades. However, scarce attention has been paid to investigating its impact on consumer behaviour. This research investigates the influence of uniform pricing on product value judgements and purchase intentions. Four studies demonstrate that uniform pricing (vs. non-uniform pricing) could induce stronger promotion perception, which leads to more positive product value judgements and purchase intentions. Moreover, price sensitivity and product involvement moderate this effect, and this effect only exists for high price-sensitive consumers and low product involvement consumers.     

With the best of intentions: a large sample test of the intention‐behaviour gap in pro‐environmental consumer behaviour

Many consumers intend to make pro‐environmental purchases; however, this is not always what occurs. A gap exists between consumer intentions to purchase environmentally friendly products and their actual purchase behaviour. The current study uses a large sample of Australian consumers (N = 772) to test Carrington, Neville and Whitwell's (2010) conceptual model of the intention‐behaviour gap. Responses showed that implementation intentions mediated the relationship between intention and pro‐environmental consumer behaviour. Behavioural control and environmental involvement were found to moderate the relationship between implementation intentions and behaviour. Shopping context was found to moderate the relationship between intention and implementation intentions. The findings have theoretical implications for furthering understanding of pro‐environmental consumer behaviour, and practical implications regarding how to generate socially beneficial behaviours.     

闻“香”而悦便会因“情”而买?——消费者涉入的调节作用

嗅觉器官是人类接收外界信息的重要器官,已有大量研究证明在顾客的消费过程中利用环境气味刺激个体的嗅觉能够积极影响消费者对于产品的购买意愿或所在环境的评价。文章基于精细加工可能性模型,通过实验研究方法引入消费者涉入作为调节变量,验证环境气味对消费者情绪的影响以及探讨情绪机制的边界条件。实验结果显示:环境气味能够提升消费者购买意愿,情绪在环境气味和购买意愿之间起中介作用;情绪的中介效应被消费者涉入调节,对同一产品而言,涉入度低时,消费者购买意愿显著增强,涉入度高时,消费者购买意愿差异不显著。本研究对于拓展感官营销的适用边界具有一定的理论意义,也对企业有效采取气味营销、提升感官营销效果具有重要的实践意义。     

An innovation resistance theory perspective on purchase of eco-friendly cosmetics

This study investigates the reasons for consumer resistance towards purchase of eco-friendly cosmetic products using the innovation resistance theory. Thus we extend the theory by exploring the moderating roles of environmental concern and health concern. An online survey method was used to collect the data from 350 consumers through Amazon Mechanical Turk. The findings reveal that all the barriers are significant inhibitors towards adoption of eco-friendly cosmetic products. Among these barriers, tradition and image barriers have the strongest inhibitory force on consumers' purchase intentions. However, environmental concern among consumers indicates that the negative influence of value and image barriers reduce consumers’ intention to purchase eco-friendly items, while health concern reduces the influence of tradition and risk barriers. The study findings have far reaching implications for scholars, cosmetic manufacturers, and retailers.     

How do social media influencers inspire consumers' purchase decisions? The mediating role of parasocial relationships

In recent years, social media influencers (SMIs) have become part of the strategic communication of firms because the traditional form of mass media communication is losing its effectiveness. Thus, it is imperative to study the effects of communication through SMIs on marketing outcomes, such as purchase intentions. Based on the fairness dimensions, that is, information, distributive, interpersonal, and procedural, and dimensions of source credibility, that is, attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, and similarity, this research investigated how technology-oriented SMIs (T-SMIs) foster parasocial relationships (PSRs) with followers. Purposive sampling was employed to collect data from 506 active social media users. Data were analysed through IBM AMOS and SPSS 26. The results of the study suggested that attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, similarity, interpersonal, procedural, and information fairness are positively related to fostering PSR with followers. In contrast, distributive fairness does not strengthen PSR with followers; furthermore, the study findings suggested an indirect positive influence of attractiveness, expertise, trustworthiness, similarity, interpersonal, procedural, and information fairness on the purchase intentions of consumers via PSR. This study is useful for academia and industry since it fills important gaps in the literature and provides recommendations to brand managers of technology companies about selecting appropriate SMIs for the endorsement of their brands.     

Icing on the cake or gilding the lily? The impact of high-modified model images on purchase intention

Marketers had high expectations for modified model images in E-commerce, however, the social movements against photoshopped models suggested the high-modified model images may be harmful to consumers which leads to a contradictory phenomenon. So far, the link between high-modified model image and consumers' behavior is not clearly understood. Drawing on a selective accessibility model (SAM), this study investigates the influence of high-modified model images on consumers' purchase intention by introducing the concept of misrepresentation and identifying consumer trust as a mediator. Based on five experiments, we demonstrate that over-modified model images decrease consumers’ perceived authenticity referring to “misrepresentation”, and further lower their purchase intention. By comparing the level of misrepresentation, the results suggest that high-modified model images decrease purchase intention. Moreover, this negative relationship between misrepresentation of modified model images and purchase intention is mediated by consumer trust. Hence, this study makes a step toward explaining how high-modified model images impacts the behaviors of consumers, shedding new light on the application of image modification in online advertising.     

Consumer Intentions to Buy Front-of-Pack Nutrition Labeled Food Products: The Moderating Effects of Personality Differences

Although the current literature suggests that consumers in general have a desire to eat healthy and also like to obtain nutrition information about food products, there still exists a gap in terms of understanding how consumers utilize nutrition information. Drawing on consumer psychology literature, we examine how self-efficacy, healthy eating intentions, and perceptions about a simple front-of-pack nutrition label affect purchase intentions, and how these effects may be moderated by two information-processing-related personality traits—need for cognition and propensity to self-reference. We find that consumers’ intention to purchase front-of-pack nutrition-labeled products is positively affected by self-efficacy and label perceptions but is not directly driven by a general interest in healthy eating. We also find significant moderating effects from both personality traits considered.     

Customization of online advertising: The role of intrusiveness

This study examines the trade-off between tailoring an ad to an individual consumer’s needs and the demand for personal data required to do so, which is inherent in targeted online advertising. Two scenario-based studies in two different industries reveal the extent to which using personal information with greater distinctiveness affects consumers’ sense of intrusiveness and purchase intentions. We also manipulate ad fit to each consumer’s needs and the presence of a discount to investigate whether feelings of intrusiveness mitigate the potential positive effects of fit and discount. Higher degrees of personalization, such as adding personal identification or transaction information to browsing data, increase feelings of intrusiveness, and negatively affect purchase intentions. These negative effects are not compensated for by offering discounts but can be partly mitigated by presenting an ad with a high fit to consumers’ current needs. The positive effect of tailoring the ad is weakened at higher levels of intrusiveness though. Furthermore, high fit may lead to not only higher purchase intentions but also higher perceived intrusiveness levels. Presenting a consumer with a customized ad can thus be a double-edged sword, leading to higher purchase intentions but also greater perceived intrusiveness, which then negatively affects purchase intentions.     

How Consumer Ethnocentrism (CET), Ethnocentric Marketing,and Consumer Individualism Affect Ethnocentric Behavior in China

This study investigates how the value of consumer ethnocentrism (CET) and ethnocentric marketing affect consumers' purchase intentions for domestic and foreign brands in China. In predicting ethnocentric consumer behavior, past research has tended to focus on consumers' ethnocentric values rather than ethnocentric marketing stimuli. In addition, this study examines how the consumer value of individualism and collectivism (IC) affects ethnocentric choice behavior. An experimental study was conducted on 220 Chinese millennials, using fictitious advertisements. The study found that the CET value has moderate effects on consumer purchase intentions for foreign brands, while it strongly influences consumer purchases of domestic brands. In addition, the findings suggest that ethnocentric advertising may not encourage purchases of domestic brands, but can discourage foreign brand purchases. More significantly, individualistic consumers were found to show a greater preference for foreign brands and also their brand choices were less affected by the CET value and ethnocentric advertising.     

Integrating Multiple Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior Toward Organic Foods: The Role of Healthism,Hedonism, and Trust in Consumer Purchase Intentions of Organic Foods

Consumer awareness about organic foods has been growing. However, this trend is not always translated to consumer organic food purchases. It is argued that when it comes to assessing organics, one should expect consumers to use multiattribute evaluations due to credence attributes and organic standards that organic foods need to adhere to. A thorough review of the existing literature on consumer buying behavior of organic foods identifies healthism, hedonism, and trust among some factors that enhance consumer experiences with organic foods and therefore can affect their purchase intentions. This article is one the few studies that integrated multiple factors in one research framework to empirically evaluate their role in explaining consumer purchase intentions of organic foods. Results from a demographically representative sample completed by an online survey in Australia (N = 1011) provides support for the research hypotheses by revealing positive and statistically significant effects of healthism, hedonism, and trust on consumer purchase intentions. The study concludes with implications and suggestions for future research.     

Brothers in blood,yet strangers to global brand purchase: A four-country study of the role of consumer personality

Although personality traits have repeatedly been shown to influence consumer behavior, their impact on willingness to buy global brands has yet to be empirically investigated. Based on a four-country sample (N = 4539) of South East European consumers, we test alternative pathways linking consumer personality traits to global brand purchase intentions. Our findings show that extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to experience impact purchase intentions mediated through consumers' global brand associations, domestic country bias and price sensitivity. Implications of the findings for theory and practice are considered and future research directions identified.     

Can Consumers Forgo the Need to Touch Products? An Investigation of Nonhaptic Situational Factors in an Online Context

Touch is an important source of information for consumers, and there is much to learn about its role in an online purchase decision context where the ability to touch products is not (at least currently) possible. The present investigation examines three nonhaptic situation‐specific factors that moderate the relationship between haptic motivation and consumer responses. The results indicate that positive mood, price promotions, and level of situation‐specific product expertise are influential, yielding greater purchase intentions and product judgment confidence when touch is not available. Additionally, the findings of the investigation suggest that imagining a Web site is comparable to actually viewing a Web site. Several implications for consumer behavior research and online marketers are discussed.     

Positive and Negative Antecedents of Purchasing Eco-friendly Products: A Comparison Between Green and Non-green Consumers

This study aims to analyze what drives and prevents the purchasing of eco-friendly products across different consumer groups and develops a conceptual model embracing the positive altruistic (care for the environmental consequences of purchasing), positive ego-centric (green self-identity and moral obligation), and negative ego-centric (perceived personal inconvenience of purchasing eco-friendly products) antecedents of eco-friendly product purchase intention and behavior. We empirically validate the conceptual model for green (n = 453) and non-green (n = 473) consumers (i.e., consumers who engage in a set of pro-environmental behaviors for environmental reasons versus consumers who do not engage in these behaviors). Data are analyzed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis of the two groups. The results confirm the relevance of the determining factors in the model and show significant differences in eco-friendly product purchasing patterns between green and non-green consumers. Altruistic motives are more important for green than for non-green consumers. Negative ego-centric motives affect the purchase intentions of non-green consumers more than the intentions of green consumers, whereas the impact of negative motives on behavior is stronger for green than for non-green consumers. The first contribution of this paper is the development and testing of a parsimonious model of eco-friendly products purchasing that embraces both positive (altruistic and ego-centric) and negative (ego-centric) antecedents, which have been theoretically suggested in the past but have rarely been empirically tested together. The second contribution of this study is that it develops insight into the specific antecedents of eco-friendly products purchasing for green and non-green consumers to assess potential similarities and differences in eco-friendly products purchasing process, the hypothesized antecedents, their impact on eco-friendly products purchase intention and behavior, and the intention–behavior relation.     

Culture, product type, and price influences on consumer purchase intention to buy personalized products online

With personalization, consumers can choose from various product attributes and a customized product is assembled based on their preferences. Marketers often offer personalization on websites. This paper investigates consumer purchase intentions toward personalized products in an online selling situation.The research builds and tests three hypotheses: (1) intention to purchase personalized products will be affected by individualism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and masculinity dimensions of a national culture; (2) consumers will be more likely to buy personalized search products than experience products; and (3) intention to buy a personalized product will not be influenced by price premiums up to some level. Results indicate that individualism is the only culture dimension to have a significant effect on purchase intention. Product type and individualism by price interaction also have a significant effect, whereas price does not. Major findings and implications are discussed.