The depth of influencer marketing

Abstract

The advent of social media has led to the emerge of influencer marketing as a strategy of interest to marketers in recent years. As companies increasingly utilise influencers for advertising purposes, regulatory frameworks have been established to assist consumers in differentiating between content and advertising. One of the social media platforms that has implemented these regulations is Instagram. Influencers are now required to either disclose their sponsorship through a tag or clearly state it in their content. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the impact of disclosure of sponsorship on consumer trust, expertise, authenticity, and purchase intention. This was analysed through four research questions, in order to analyse these questions four hypotheses were developed, to determine whether there was a negative effect on each aspect from a disclosed sponsorship. The study employs a quantitative method, and the data was collected through two online surveys. One of the surveys included a manipulation, and the other one was sent out to a control group. The four different aspects, expertise, authenticity, trust, and purchase intention were measured by asking respondents to indicate their level of agreement with statements based on the Instagram post they saw. The analysis found that there were no significant differences between the disclosed sponsorship and the non-disclosed sponsorship in all the four different aspects. Therefore, by combining the literature review and the empirical findings, it can be concluded that there was no statistical difference between disclosed and non-disclosed sponsorship.