Wear in or wear out

How consumers respond to repetitive influencer marketing

Bibliographic Data

ID12420729
AuthorsRuibin Geng (0000-0002-7540-6780, Xidian University, corresponding author), Xi Chen (0000-0002-2058-0351, Zhejiang University), Shichao Wang (0000-0003-3493-3653, Hangzhou Normal University)
Year2023
Volume34
Issue3
Pages810-848
Publication date2023-04-14
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternet Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1066-2243 • E-ISSN: 2054-5657
PublisherEmerald Publishing Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1108/intr-01-2022-0075
OpenAlexW4365814411
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited84

Purpose Endorsement marketing has been widely used to generate consumer attention, interest and purchase decisions among targeted audiences. Internet celebrities who become famous on the Internet are dependent on strategic intimacy to appeal to their followers. Our study aims to examine how multiple exposures to Internet celebrity endorsements influence consumers’ click and purchase decisions in the context of influencer marketing. Design/methodology/approach Based on a unique and representative dataset, the authors first model consumers’ choices for clicks and purchases with two panel fixed-effect logit models linking clicks and purchases with the frequency of exposure to Internet celebrity endorsement. To further control the endogeneity produced by the intercorrelation between the click and purchase models, the authors also adopt the two-stage Heckman probit structure to jointly estimate the two models using Maximum Likelihood Estimation. Robustness checks confirm the effectiveness of the models. Findings The results suggest that Internet celebrity endorsement plays a significant role in bringing referral traffic to e-commerce sites but is less helpful in affecting conversion to sales. The impact of repetitive Internet celebrity endorsements on consumers’ click decisions is U-shaped, but the role of Internet celebrities as online retailers will “shape-flip” this relationship to a negative linear relation. Originality/value Our study is the first to investigate the repetitive exposure effect of Internet celebrity endorsement. The results show a contradictory pattern with a wear-out effect of repetition in the advertising literature. This is the first study to show how the endorsing self, which is a common business model in influencer marketing, moderates the effectiveness of influencer marketing

Advertising · Business · Context (archaeology · Econometrics · Economics · Endogeneity · Online advertising · Originality · The Internet · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification · Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing · Digital Marketing and Social Media · Psychology · Social Psychology · Marketing

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