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Presumably to reduce cyberbullying and promote mental health, online influencers often limit viewers' ability to post social media comments. In this research, the authors find that influencers incur significant interpersonal and professional repercussions for doing so. Across seven studies, including a Twitter dataset and six experiments utilizing both consequential and hypothetical dependent measures, the authors find that consumers form more negative impressions of and are less persuaded by influencers who disable social media comments. These outcomes are driven by the perception that the influencer is less receptive to consumer voice (e.g., consumers' thoughts, opinions, and suggestions) and, thus, less sincere. However, the authors find that this effect is mitigated in situations where consumers believe that it is reasonable for influencers to prioritize self-protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive monetary compensation and existing contractual agreements of influencers limit the ability of many firms to engage in effective influencer seeding. The authors suggest a forward-looking approach of targeting prospective influencers —while they are still largely unknown (e.g., a few months after their platform registration)—and signing them to endorse the firm in the future (e.g., more than a year later). This approach has the potential to significantly reduce costs. However, as only rarely do newly registered users ultimately become influencers (and as signals are weak), the authors propose a novel framework to cope with this rare-event problem. For empirical demonstration and application, the authors conduct data-based simulations using a data set from a worldwide leading audio platform. Every wave of newly registered users is associated with a profit potential stemming from future endorsements by prospective influencers. With knowledge about the order of magnitude of the return on successful influencer spend, managers applying the framework can extract around 20% of this profit potential (if the return is around three times the spend). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child toy unboxers unintentionally and intentionally participate in paradoxical practices. The child influencer industry, shaped by ideological conflicts, is a foreign topic in the marketing domain despite its popularity. Drawing upon paradox theory, this conceptual article investigates three main paradoxes of child toy unboxers by addressing the following research questions: What are the paradoxical tensions that manifest in child toy unboxing industry? What research directions will prove fruitful for advancing our understanding of these paradoxical tensions and its implications for child toy unboxing marketing? Departing from the traditional perspective that positions opposite elements as separate and exclusive worlds, the disposition of these paradoxes provides new insights into the complex world of child influencers. This paper presents new research prospects and implications that promote socially responsible child influencer marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing concern about the proliferation of radical groups and violent content on social media platforms such as YouTube. These platforms present unique capacities to promote radicalised content, as they allow the flourishing of digital creators who amass large audiences and communicate their ideas in a compelling video format. Notwithstanding, consumer research has not yet provided a conceptualisation of such antagonistic online consumer gatherings in the ephemeral social media context. We investigate this phenomenon by combining netnographic sensibility with digital methods to explore the case of pro-gun YouTubers in Brazil. We propose the notion of online consumer counterpublics, which are online consumer collectives socio-technically shaped and promoted by social media influencers and their audiences on social media platforms based on strong oppositional discourses, ideas, affectivities, and values associated with a consumption topic, and who develop a compelling counter-hegemonic social identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On user-generated content platforms, individuals and firms alike seek to build and expand their follower base to eventually increase the reach of the content they upload. The bulk of the seeding literature in marketing suggests targeting users with a large follower base, that is, high-status influencers. In contrast, some recent studies find targeting lower-status influencers to be a more effective seeding policy. This multimethod article shifts the focus from the follower base of the seeding target to the focal content creator. The authors propose accelerating natural triadic closure by leveraging first-degree followers as interconnectors to target second-degree followers, that is, the nearby (low-status) influencers (who are interconnected with the focal content creator). Empirical studies document that this seeding target is much more effective for building and expanding the follower base, compared with targeting influencers who are not interconnected with the focal content creator—that is, the remote (both high- and low-status) influencers—by 2,300% and 46%, respectively. These studies on the acceleration of natural triadic closure are augmented by a preregistered field experiment to obtain convergent validity of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The metaverse, although yet to be fully realized, offers a compelling vision: a scalable and interoperable ecosystem of virtual worlds that can be simultaneously accessed by multiple users using continuous, user-generated, and embodied identities (i.e., avatars). Since the metaverse will likely achieve widespread user adoption once innovators and early adopters recognize its values, it must evolve in a direction that appeals to these groups. However, it remains unsure what aspects of the metaverse innovators perceive as opportunities and challenges when engaging with early adopters. This article describes the opinions of users who influence the metaverse's mass adoption, clarifying their perception of what already works well, holds high potential, and presents challenges. By synthesizing and critically evaluating this information, the article offers guidance for the future development and use of the metaverse and provides insights concerning its diffusion in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As social media influencer endorsement gains significance in marketing communication, an increasing number of influencers have started to incorporate product information into their sponsored content. This study examines the effectiveness of product attribute description in the context of sponsored videos. Using a field dataset of 598 sponsored videos, we demonstrate that influencers' use of product attribute description as an endorsement strategy has a negative impact on video engagement, and this effect is stronger for trial versus awareness campaigns. However, the negative impact is reversed to a positive one when product attribute description is employed for utilitarian products but not for hedonic products. These results reveal that the effectiveness of product attribute description depends on the nature of the product and the campaign objectives. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of influencer marketing effectiveness and sheds light on the nuances of endorsement strategies. Practical implications on how to optimise endorsement effectiveness and video performance are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Direct-to-consumer firms increasingly believe that influencer marketing is an effective option for seeding. However, the current managerially relevant question for direct-to-consumer firms of whether to target low- or high-followership influencers to generate immediate revenue is still unresolved. In this article, the authors' goal is to answer this question by considering for the first time the whole influencer-marketing funnel, that is, from followers on user-generated content networks (e.g., on Instagram), to reached followers, to engagement, to actual revenue, while accounting for the cost of paid endorsements. The authors find that low-followership targeting outperforms high-followership targeting by order of magnitude across three performance (return on investment) metrics. A mediation analysis reveals that engagement can explain the negative relationship between the influencer followership levels and return on investment. This is in line with the rationale based on social capital theory that with higher followership levels of an influencer, the engagement between an influencer and their followers decreases. These two findings are derived from secondary sales data of 1,881,533 purchases and results of three full-fledged field studies with hundreds of paid influencer endorsements, establishing the robustness of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new trend in influencer marketing is livestream commerce, which combines influencers' live video streaming with e-commerce. Little is known, though, about how firms should develop their influencer strategies to maximize product sales. Given a budget constraint, marketers may choose to employ a single, "big" influencer with a large number of followers or several small influencers. They may also employ a combination of both big and small influencers when their budget is adequate. Analyzing data from 1.3 million livestreams on TikTok, the authors find a negative interaction effect between big and small influencers when employed together due to decreased trust in big influencers and substitution effects. Further analysis reveals that livestream sales generated by a big influencer are adversely affected by small influencers who promoted the same product previously, but not the other way around. In addition, big influencers can reach a much larger audience, whereas small influencers are more effective at increasing the audience's conversion rates. Big and small influencers are also different in terms of how product and campaign characteristics moderate their sales effectiveness. Finally, the scenario analysis explores how the profitability of influencer strategies hinges on the influencer mix and their costs. This research is one of the first to investigate the sales effectiveness of influencer marketing and to provide general guidelines for developing influencer mix strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influencer marketing is a popular strategy to connect with consumers. However, influencers' use of overly high-arousal language in promoting products (e.g., "it's totally AMAZING!") has raised questions about their true motivations. This article investigates how high-arousal language in micro- versus macro-influencers' sponsored posts might shape engagement. A multimethod approach, combining automated text, image, video, and audio analyses of thousands of Instagram and TikTok posts with controlled experiments, demonstrates that high-arousal language increases engagement with micro-influencers, but it decreases engagement with macro-influencers, seemingly because it makes micro- (macro-) influencers appear more (less) trustworthy. Yet the negative effect of arousal for macro-influencers can be mitigated if their posts provide counterbalanced valence (both positive and negative assessments) or if they indicate an informative, rather than commercial, goal. These findings deepen understanding of how language arousal shapes consumer responses, reveal a psychological mechanism through which language arousal affects perceptions, and provide actionable insights for crafting more effective social media content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current research examines consumers' responses to sensory endorsements from virtual influencers. The authors reveal that consumers perceive virtual and human influencers to have similar distal sensory (i.e., visual and auditory) capacities. Consumers, however, perceive virtual influencers as having lower proximal sensory (i.e., haptic, olfactory, and gustatory) capacities. Consequently, when endorsements focus on proximal sensory experiences, consumers have lower purchase intention toward products and services endorsed by a virtual (vs. human) influencer. The findings further reveal that imagery difficulty and perceived sensory capacity serially mediate this effect. Importantly, this effect is mitigated when endorsements focus on distal sensory experiences, when sensory information is not explicitly mentioned, and when consumers are informed of new technology that enables virtual influencers to have proximal sensory experiences. These findings offer actionable insights for marketers to effectively utilize virtual influencers in sensory-driven campaigns, providing practical strategies to improve consumer responses to sensory endorsements and enhance marketing effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influencer marketing, in which companies sponsor social media personalities to promote their brands, has exploded in popularity in recent years. One common criterion for selecting an influencer partner is popularity. While some firms collaborate with "mega" influencers with millions of followers, other firms partner with "micro" influencers with only several thousand followers, but who also cost less to sponsor. To quantify this trade-off between popularity and cost, the authors develop a framework for estimating the follower elasticity of impressions (FEI), which measures a video's percentage gain in impressions (i.e., views) corresponding to a percentage increase in the number of followers of its creator. Computing FEI involves estimating the causal effect of an influencer's popularity on the view counts of their videos, which is achieved through a combination of (1) a unique data set collected from TikTok, (2) a representation learning model for quantifying video content, and (3) a machine learning–based causal inference method. The authors find that FEI is always positive, averaging.10, but often nonlinearly related to follower size. They examine the factors that predict variation in these FEI curves and show how firms can use these results to better determine influencer partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media influencer marketing has grown substantially in the last decade and is a major advertising channel for many brands. Social media influencers weave sponsored posts with organic content into their feeds, which raises concerns among regulators and consumer advocates that users may not be able to clearly distinguish between sponsored and organic influencer content. Thus, regulators often mandate the explicit disclosure of sponsored content. However, there is little empirical evidence based on field data about the effects of explicit sponsorship disclosure. Therefore, we empirically investigate the effects of explicitly disclosing sponsorship in influencers' content on users' engagement using a large-scale field dataset collected from Facebook and Instagram. Our empirical results suggest that explicit sponsorship disclosure increases user awareness of the advertising nature and earns users' favorability by enhancing transparency about the sponsored content. We further designed two online experiments to corroborate our empirical results and directly test the underlying mechanisms. Our findings have novel and important implications for marketers, influencers, social media platforms, and regulators in the influencer marketing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how social media influencers (SMIs) perceive their role in the complex relationships between brands, followers, and society, the moral dilemmas they face, and how they deal with them. The results show that SMIs find themselves in different roles depending on which stakeholders' expectations they fulfil. Using role theory as a theoretical framework, we find that the conflicts between extended expectations (commitment, authenticity, and responsibility) lead to various moral dilemmas: non-disclosure, withholding negative experiences, lack of empathy, promotion of products without genuine experience, sharing opinions on socially relevant issues, and promotion of harmful products. Strategies for resolving these dilemmas which help SMIs manage their complex moral obligations include: spotlighting a role, downplaying a role, customizing a role, and resorting to a role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite firms' continued interest in using influencers to reach their target consumers, academic and practical insights are limited on what levers an influencer can use to enhance audience engagement using their posts. We demonstrate that posting stories with or about people whom they share close ties with—such as family, friends, and romantic partners—can be one effective lever. Content that incorporates close social ties can be effective for several reasons: it may increase perceptions of authenticity, enhance perceived similarity, increase the perception that the influencer possesses more warmth, and could satisfy viewers' interpersonal curiosity. We analyze texts and photographs of 55,631 posts of 763 influencers on Instagram, and after controlling for several variables, we find robust support that consumers "like" posts that reference close social ties. Furthermore, this effect enhances when first-person pronouns are used to describe special moments with these close ties. We supplement the Instagram data with an experimental approach and confirm the relationship between close ties and consumer engagement. Managerially, this is a useful insight as we also show that sponsored posts tend to be perceived negatively compared to non-sponsored posts; yet, embedding social ties on the sponsored posts can mitigate consumers' negative responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influencer marketing has become big business. But while influencers have the potential to spread marketing messages and drive purchase, some posts get lots of engagement and boost sales, while others do not. What makes some posts more impactful? This work examines how sensory language (e.g. words like "crumble" and "juicy" that engage the senses) shapes consumer responses to influencer-sponsored content. A multimethod investigation, combining controlled experiments with automated text, image, and video analysis of thousands of sponsored social media posts, demonstrates that sensory language increases engagement and willingness to buy the sponsored product. Furthermore, the studies illustrate that these effects are driven by perceived authenticity. Sensory language leads consumers to infer that influencers actually use the product they are endorsing, which increases perceived authenticity, and thus engagement and purchase. These findings shed light on how language shapes responses to influencer-sponsored content, deepen understanding of the drivers of authenticity, and suggest how to develop more impactful social media campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has documented the emergence of embedded entrepreneurs within consumer collectives. This phenomenon is increasingly prevalent as social media enables ordinary consumers to become social media influencers (SMIs), a distinct form of embedded entrepreneur. Whilst research has considered the implications of embeddedness for embedded entrepreneurs themselves, we lack insight into embedded entrepreneurship's impact on consumer collectives. To address this gap, we draw from a longitudinal, qualitative study of the YouTube beauty community, where SMIs are pervasive. Informed by interactionist role theory, we document the Polanyian "double movement" prompted by the emergence of SMIs within the community. We demonstrate that the economy within the community was initially highly embedded, constrained by behavioral norms linked to established social roles. SMIs' attempts to disembed the economy created dysfunctional role dynamics that reduced the benefits of participation for non-entrepreneurial community members. This prompted a countermovement whereby SMIs and their followers attempted to re-embed SMIs' economic activity via role negotiation strategies. Our analysis sheds new light on the negative implications of embedded entrepreneurship for non-entrepreneurial members of consumer collectives, highlights the role of social media platforms in negotiations of embeddedness, and advances wider conversations surrounding the evolution of consumer collectives and the impact of SMIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most collegiate athletes in the United States monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) through social media influencer marketing. This provides an opportunity to examine the factors that impact their social media NIL value. Therefore, we investigate the effects of personal branding factors (quality of Instagram biography, posting frequency, and account verification status) and institutional factors (competition level, university brand, and sport gender) on the social media NIL value of men's and women's college basketball athletes (N = 907) in California while controlling for local market characteristics. A linear regression analysis shows significant relationships between social media NIL value and competition level, university brand, sport gender, posting frequency, and account verification. Our results offer new theoretical and practical understandings of the relationships between brands in the sport brand ecosystem and the NIL value of sport influencer's social media posts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article brings together scholarship on communication theory, influencer marketing, and personal branding to examine a new type of social media influencer—the college athlete influencer. Previous research in the field of sports has not specifically explored the distinct characteristics of college athletes that contribute to their effectiveness as marketing influencers. By adopting a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the source of college athletes' influence via social media. Quantitative results indicate that projecting an athletic identity on social media enhances the influencer's credibility and increases the likelihood of consumers purchasing the products they endorse. Furthermore, qualitative findings indicated that the shared school identity acts as the ultimate impetus for the bond between the influencer and the consumer, which subsequently impacts the consumer's purchasing decisions. This study provides actionable implications for schools, colleges, and brands seeking to build compelling sponsorships in the name, image, and likeness era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media influencers have the ability to impact the behaviours and attitudes of others (i.e. their followers), affecting people's feelings of connectedness, and well-being. This has become particularly apparent during troubled times such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the importance of relationships and social interactions for people's well-being. However, less attention has been paid to influencers' own well-being in a monetised attention economy, which imposes tensions between the desire for authenticity and the self-presentations of influencers in online interactions. Using in-depth interviews and netnography as methodology, in this study we examine how the decision to engage with the topic of COVID-19 on social media impacted influencers' well-being during the pandemic. We build on self-determination theory to reveal how the contentious nature of the subject led to internal struggles of influencers' self-presentation, and elucidate how influencers navigated the boundaries of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in a quest for well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the development of the market for influencer marketing in Sweden. It does so by focusing on the issue of 'stuff' sent to influencers. Such exchanges can be framed in different ways: e.g. stuff sent for the purpose of earning media, or as compensation for a marketing service. Drawing on the notion of framing in Callonian economic sociology, the paper identifies three 'framing practices': (1) framing the sending of stuff to influencers in individual exchanges, (2) reframing exchanges to put them in new light, or (3) preframing how exchanges ought to be performed. In efforts to frame exchanges of stuff, their broader context, and how stuff should be taxed, influencers, marketing professionals and the Swedish Tax Agency contribute to shaping the market for influencer marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper advances a subcategory of influencers who mobilise their audiences towards consumption-driven change; we label them 'ethical influencers'. Using netnography and an archival dataset on ten ethical influencers, we delineate their unique challenges and positioning. Ethical influencers legitimate their accounts via a close-up of personal practices, as opposed to an articulated persona, and connect with divergent audiences to advocate for the needed change. Our paper describes the divergent audience groups and engagement styles: allies, inquisitives, detractors, and enigmatics. We also identify the ethical influencers' linking strategies to connect these audiences with other market actors (e.g. ethical businesses and other ethical influencers) which include acting, humanising, framing, pivoting, and evangelising. This research advances influencer marketing literature and offers important managerial and public policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attention economy is often used to describe the market conditions of influencers on social media platforms. It suggests new economic logics and marketing strategies governed through accumulating attention. Critically examining this concept, this paper asks: how do influencers understand and manage attention on Instagram? Through 41 in-depth interviews with fitness influencers, this paper found that attention is not always desirable, nor the basis of new forms of economic logics. Further, as participants moved from working part-time to full-time in the online fitness industry, attention-mitigating strategies often replaced attention-seeking ones. This paper critically extends the concept of the attention economy and refocuses influencer marketing efforts on the contextual, rather than universal, use of attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relations and dynamics between influencers, brands and marketers, social media digital platforms and consumers are indeed complex and can be analysed through the contrasting perspectives of parasitism and symbiosis. The influencer marketing symbiosis/parasitism framework One unique way of looking at the relationship between influencers, marketers and brands, consumers and social media platforms is to consider who is exploiting whom and to what ends. Recent contributions in this regard include special issues and sections in advertising scholarship that explore the efficacy and consumption of influencer marketing (Hudders & Lou, [46]) and how advertisers can best leverage influencers (Rosengren & Campbell, [93]), with in press special issues in business and marketing dedicated to examining virtual influencers (Koles et al., [60]), implications of influencers and influencer marketing for consumers and society (Mardon et al., [74]) and the ways influencers can be leveraged for the "greater good" to encourage sustainable and pro-social behaviours (Gerrath et al., [40]). In academic marketing research, the abundance of scholarly work to date centres on practical aspects of influencer marketing: how brands can profit from influencers (Hughes et al., [47]; Ki & Kim, [58]; Leung et al., [67]; Lou & Yuan, [70]; Martínez-López et al., [76]; Reinikainen et al., [91]), the functional components of influencer marketing (Brooks et al., [19]; Campbell & Farrell, [23]), roles and categorisations of influencers (Ouvrein et al., [84]; Rundin & Colliander, [94]), disclosure implications in influencer marketing (Audrezet & Charry, [10]; Chen et al., [26]; De Jans & Hudders, [29]; Giuffredi-Kähr et al., [42]; Karagür et al., [54]), and consumer perceptions of influencers (De Veirman et al., [30]; Lee & Eastin, [64]; Yuan & Lou, [114]). [Extracted from the article]

Disability is one of the largest minority groups, with a spending power of approximately £273bn every year. Consequently, many advertisers are now weaving people with disabilities into brand narratives. These narratives often evoke feelings of pity or portray people with disabilities as inspiring, solely or in part on the basis of their disability. Meanwhile, social media has emerged as a vessel for social change. Through the netnographic study of twelve influencers with visible impairments, complex personhood is proposed as a social ontology by which disabled lives are acknowledged in less confined terms. Our findings illustrate how social media influencers with disabilities may draw on narratives based on empowerment, playfulness, resistance, and responsibility to present themselves as neither victims nor superhuman agents but as complex human beings. We thus bring forward a complex model in market-mediated representations of disability, beyond the misrepresentational narratives based on pity and 'inspiration porn'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interdisciplinary nature and rapidly expanding literature stream devoted to influencer marketing makes it difficult to stay abreast of the current research while simultaneously moving the field of knowledge forward. The goal of this article, then, is to take a look back, reviewing the disparate literature, in order to look ahead, guiding future research towards fruitful underexplored avenues of discovery. Using a framework-based scoping review, a retrospective examination of 150 articles is provided with emphasis on identifying publication trends, theories, contexts, constructs/concepts, and methodological approaches. These findings allow for a thorough discussion of gaps in extant knowledge, emerging themes and trends, and directions for future research. As such, this review provides a sound theoretical and practical basis for continued development within the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst social media influencers (SMIs) excel at establishing positive parasocial relationships with their followers, they can also provoke intense negative responses, as evidenced by the prevalence of SMI-focused anti-fan communities. Prior research does not explain how consumers' parasocial relationships with SMIs become negatively charged, nor does it explain why this shift may fuel anti-fan community participation. Drawing from a netnographic study of two SMI anti-fan communities, we reveal that eroded reciprocal and disclosive intimacies, as well as exploitative commercial intimacies, can lead consumers' positive parasocial relationships with SMIs to become negatively charged. We demonstrate that anti-fan communities provide opportunities for consumers reluctant to sever ties with the SMI to sustain their negative parasocial relationship by rebuilding eroded intimacies whilst avoiding and/or retaliating against their exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis study explores how social media influencers (SMIs), acting as digital entrepreneurs, shape followers’ parasocial relationships, flow, and attachment. It also examines how the perceived authenticity of SMIs moderates these effects. The research involved 749 participants from India who interacted with or followed SMIs on social media. Using AMOS 26 for data analysis, the findings reveal a strong positive link between source credibility and attachment, especially for non-authenticated SMIs. These influencers build trust and emotional connections through transparent collaborations. The study also highlights the role of parasocial relationships and homophily in driving attachment. As the digital landscape evolves, this research offers key insights into the dynamics of influencer-follower relationships, providing a foundation for future studies on digital entrepreneurship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractBackgroundMethodsResultsConclusionsTobacco brand sharing or brand stretching involves the placement of tobacco brand names, logos, or other distinctive elements of tobacco brands, on nontobacco products, e.g., merchandize, such as clothing, sunglasses, or sporting goods. The Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) imposed major restrictions on tobacco company marketing practices in 1999, including banning the sale and distribution of merchandize with combustible cigarette or smokeless tobacco brand names or logos. However, the MSA does not include restrictions on e-cigarette marketing, as these products were not yet on the market at the time of the settlement. Exposure to or use of e-cigarette branded merchandize advertised on social media could contribute to normalization of e-cigarette use by youth.We estimated the prevalence of merchandize (e.g., t-shirts, caps, and key chains) with e-cigarette brand names or logos in 2000 TikTok videos (2021–2022) that featured U.S. and international micro-influencers (content creators with about 10,000–100,000 followers) who promoted e-cigarettes on behalf of e-cigarette brands.Of 152 (8%) promotional videos had merchandize with e-cigarette brand names or logos. Of 125 (6%) featured micro-influencers wearing branded clothing items, i.e., t-shirts, caps, beanies, hoodies, and sweatshirts; and 27 (2%) featured influencers wearing or showing branded accessories, i.e., face masks, stickers, pins, mugs, car air fresheners, lanyards, and key chains.Tobacco control authorities should consider adopting provisions banning the sale, distribution, and direct (e.g., by e-cigarette brands) or indirect (e.g., by influencers) advertising of merchandize bearing e-cigarette brand names or logos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the gendered politics of "getting it wrong" on social media, focusing on the persistent critique of women being labeled as "fake." It explores how young women face hyper-scrutiny on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, leading to anxieties about meeting beauty standards and projecting authenticity. The text highlights the societal pressures and risks faced by women, especially those from marginalized communities, in navigating online spaces where authenticity policing is rampant. The author calls for a deeper understanding of gendered and sexualized disinformation as a form of digitally networked online abuse that aims to deter women from participating in the public sphere. [Extracted from the article]

AbstractCompanies seek to demonstrate their commitment to social issues, such as supporting the LGBTQ community, through their advertising. When a company engages in advertising that suggests a corporate commitment to the LGBTQ community but does not actually implement it, this is known as rainbowwashing. In two studies, we investigate when individuals perceive this type of woke washing in a social media influencer (SMI) context and the role played by influencer-message congruence and the identity of the recipients. Study 1, an online experiment (N = 113), shows that influencer-message congruence influences the perception of rainbowwashing, which leads to further consequences for the SMIs themselves. In Study 2, a second online experiment (N = 178), we were able to replicate these results and found that members of the LGBTQ community are generally more critical in evaluating advertising that relates to their community, while nonmembers perceive strong rainbowwashing especially when there is a mismatch between influencer and message. Based on our sample, our study provides important insights into the group of people affected by rainbowwashing. Public trust in advertising promises is low due to recent corporate scandals, especially among those directly affected. Companies should provide concrete evidence of their social commitment to restore this trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory content analysis examines how well-known social media influencers (SMIs) refer to alcohol in their Instagram stories and feed messages. Guided by the attention, retention, and motivation processes of social cognitive theory, we explore the occurrence and frequency of alcohol depictions, product centrality (background vs. foreground), the type of use (implicit vs. explicit), and behavioral incentives (positive vs. negative outcomes). Stories and feed messages from 120 SMIs were coded over a four-week period. Four conclusions were drawn. (1) The majority of SMIs share alcohol in their feed messages, and even more do so in stories. (2) SMIs depict a larger number of alcohol references in stories than in feed posts. This, however, reflects a general trend whereby SMIs use ephemeral messages more often to share any type of content. (3) SMIs showcase alcohol use in an attention-grabbing way, independent of the message type under consideration. They emphasize the positive outcomes related to alcohol use and foreground the beverages in half of their alcohol depictions. (4) Some alcohol depictions from SMIs contain a clear brand name or logo, potentially indicating that these references are commercially driven. However, these depictions oftentimes do not explicitly reveal a partnership with the alcohol industry. Based on the findings, practical guidelines for media literacy interventions and future research are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental influencers have gained immense popularity on social media, promoting a sustainable lifestyle by interweaving environmental topics with their everyday content. Drawing from the theoretical approach of parasocial opinion leaders, we investigate, for the first time, the implications of environmental influencers for different dimensions of youth's participation behavior, and whether parasocial relationships (PSRs) with influencers moderate these associations. We used data from a cross-sectional (N = 576) and a two-wave panel survey (N T2 = 496) among German 16- to 25-year-olds. Findings across both studies showed that following influencers who address green topics was related to higher engagement in political sphere-oriented participation (e.g. signing a petition) as well as cause-oriented participation (e.g. politically motivated consumerism). In the long term, low to moderate PSR increased the impact of environmental content on cause-oriented participation, while high PSRs seem to overshadow the environmental content directing more attention to relational rather than informational content aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses an exhibition at the Chazen Museum of Art that focuses on the work of Israhel Van Meckenem, a fifteenth-century printmaker. Van Meckenem was known for his business savvy and branding, often appropriating and reissuing the work of his contemporaries. The exhibition showcased a selection of 50 prints from Van Meckenem's collection, including loans from major American museums. The article highlights Van Meckenem's use of branding and his copies of engravings by other artists. It also mentions his creativity in depicting everyday life and animals. The author argues that while some may consider Van Meckenem a pirate, making copies of prints was common at the time and played a significant role in the print market. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for further investigation into the business of prints during this period. [Extracted from the article]

This study, based on social impact and regulatory mode theories, investigates the mechanisms of engagement intention through scenario experiments. The results indicate that: (1) there exists an inverted U-shaped relationship between travel influencers' follower size and consumers' predictive expectations, as well as engagement intention; (2) predictive expectations serve as an instantaneous mediator; (3) compared to the locomotion-mode consumers, assessment-mode consumers enhance the inverted U-shaped relationship as described above. This study offers a novel theoretical perspective on marketing undertaken by travel influencers and provides specific recommendations which tourism companies can use in relation to influencer marketing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consumer profile has undergone evolutions and transformations over the years due to the evolution of new generations of individuals, such as Generation Y. Social media has revolutionized the way in which consumers can search and find information about products in general, which has impacted how brands relate to their consumers. In this context, this study tries to understand how digital influencers are being used to influence Generation Y in the consumption of banking services from fintechs in Brazil via social media platforms. The specific objectives include profiling these consumers, identifying the most relevant influencers, and measuring the impact of influencer marketing. The results pointed to Generation Y's preference for mobile applications and personal recommendations when making decisions to purchase financial products. Fintechs stood out for the agility and autonomy they offered, as well as for being on the forefront in leading practices, innovations, and product offerings that drive sustainability forward. The study concluded that digital influencers play a crucial role in the awareness phase, but additional factors influence Millennial consumption decisions, highlighting the complexity of the decision process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By applying the two-step flow theory, this research examines if the level of brand equity impacts consumers' attitudes toward social media influencers and consumers' visit intention, and if influencers' recommendation type plays a moderating role in the process. This research employs a scenario-based experimental design. Study 1 examines the main effect of brand equity on consumers' attitudes toward the influencer and consumers' visit intention. Results demonstrated that high brand equity enhances consumers' positive attitudes toward the influencer and visit intention. Study 2 examines the moderating effect of recommendation type on consumers' attitudes and visit intention. Findings revealed that while explicit recommendations of high-equity brands yield higher visit intention and attitudes towards the influencer, explicit recommendations of low-equity brands backfire, resulting in lower attitudes toward the influencer. Additionally, trust emerges as a significant mediator when recommendations are explicit rather than implicit. When the recommendation is implicit, there is no (indirect) effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the ever‐increasing digitalization of society, a growing number of people are inspired to start up their own digital ventures. Within this context, a specific aspect of content entrepreneurship stands out—social media influencers. These influencers attract brands due to their attentional capital and persuasive power. Currently, the development of such influence is not instantaneous but a progressive journey, with influencers exhibiting varying degrees of influence at different stages. For brands aiming to foster effective collaborations, understanding these stages is crucial. However, existing literature lacks a comprehensive theoretical structure that encompasses the full spectrum of the influencer's journey. As such, drawing from the entrepreneurship literature, this paper proposes a model that delineates how social media users develop and enhance their brand as influencer‐entrepreneurs and how their roles transform across the various stages of entrepreneurial progression and facilitate strategic marketing engagement. The proposed model comprises five stages: influence potential, influence formulation, influence competence, influence monetization, and influence reward. In light of the collaborative dynamics between influencers and brands, the model further provides strategic guidance for brand managers and marketers on engaging with influencers at various stages of their journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Popular personalities like social media influencers (SMIs) and traditional celebrities can not only be used in the context of for‐profit marketing, but also help non‐profit campaigns address young audiences. Across three experiments (NTotal = 1233), we compared the effectiveness of SMIs' mobilizing appeals in relation to a humanitarian issue to those made by traditional celebrities. Inspired by meaning transfer theory, we expected SMIs and their endorsements to be perceived as particularly authentic, elucidating their possibly unique influence on young people's participation. In Study 1, mobilizing appeals from popular personalities generally increased participation intentions among young people, but SMIs were not more effective in this role than celebrities. Study 2 and Study 3 showed that effects of the two source types are dependent on gender. Controlling for source and endorsement authenticity, we found that SMIs were better at directly mobilizing young women for political participation than celebrities. In contrast, young men were more easily convinced by celebrities to engage in political action, due to higher authenticity attributed to celebrities' endorsements. While SMIs were not consistently perceived as more authentic than celebrities, the success of popular personalities' mobilizing appeals can generally be well explained by perceived source authenticity and perceived authenticity of endorsements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prosocial consumer behaviours, or actions taken by consumers intended to benefit others, are essential for society's stability. Thus, marketers need to systematically develop strategies that promote such intentions among consumers. Influencer marketing is a particularly effective strategy. We systematically review and propose how to encourage prosocial consumer behaviour, depending on consumers' capability, opportunity, and motivation. In Study 1, a scoping review of 15 articles on influencer marketing encouraging prosocial consumer behaviour yields a research map that confirms the relevance of influencer marketing in encouraging such behaviour. In Study 2, a bibliometric review of 867 articles on prosocial consumer behaviour results in a keyword map that identifies critical factors influencing prosocial consumer behaviour. The findings offer future research directions on influencer marketing to encourage prosocial consumer behaviour. More importantly, we propose practical digital interventions for encouraging prosocial consumer behaviour. This research provides a state‐of‐the‐art overview of prosocial consumer behaviour and illustrates how influencer marketing can promote prosocial consumer behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]