The persuasive effect of social media influencers : a study among University of Malta students

Abstract

Online advertisements are created so as to elicit specific emotions among Internet users, with the intention to increase purchase. The source of these advertisements may impact the way they are interpreted (Wood & Eagly, 1981). Thus, this study aims to measure the persuasive effectiveness of Häagen-Dazs advertisements created by two different sources distributed on social media, which include; social media influencer (SMI) Sarah Zerafa, and the brand itself. This study randomly divided a sample of 150 University of Malta students into three groups. While two groups were shown two different sources of the advertisement, a control group was also included. To compare the effectiveness between advertisements, a quantitative approach was adopted, more specifically an experiment. The respondents indicated their attitude towards the brand (Lee, Byon, Ammon, & Park, 2016), perceived credibility towards social media influencers (Ohanian, 1990,1991; Mir & Rehman, 2013), and purchase intention (Kudeshia & Kumar, 2017). The main findings of this research study are in line with previous findings in the literature that illustrate the importance of attitudes towards the brand (Ajzen, 1985) as well as perceived credibility towards social media influencers (Pornpitakpan, 2004; Iqbal, et al., 2014) on the formulation of purchase intention. Additionally, advertisements created by social media influencers lead to a higher increase in attitude towards the brand, when compared to those advertisements created by the brand itself. The findings can be beneficial to organisations who target University of Malta students since in the case of Häagen-Dazs, social media influencer advertisements are effective.