Abstract:
While there is an increase in influencer marketing budgets attempting to affect users' purchase intentions, the relationship between influencer marketing and users' purchase intentions among Generation Z and Millennial consumers in South Africa has not been explored.
The focus of the study is on Instagram and YouTube. YouTube has 2.291 billion active users and Instagram has 1.386 billion active users, 62.1% of which are between 18-35 years of age and are regularly exposed to influencers. It is against this backdrop that this paper sought to understand whether influencers can, through the relationships with their audiences, shape consumers’ purchase intentions in the lifestyle, finance and beauty segments. In particular, the study analysed two aspects of this relationship, influencers’ perceived credibility and the parasocial interactions between influencers and their audiences. The study used a mixed method approach (survey (quantitative) N=177 and in-depth interviews (qualitative) N=8) to explore the causal relationships and to add further nuance to the argument by exploring the variation of these relationships across product categories. The main findings of the paper show that consumers who perceive influencers to be credible, and/or had strong positive parasocial interactions with an influencer, were most likely to consider a product that is advertised by the influencer.
