Skip to Main Content
23
Views
0
CrossRef citations to date
Altmetric
 
Translator disclaimer

There are growing discussions of social media influencers and their effectiveness in endorsing products. Further, recent policy regulations are requiring social media influencers to disclose sponsored content when using a form of native advertising. This research examined the effect of macro-influencers (high likes) and micro-influencers (low likes) and their disclosure of native advertising sponsorship on consumer evaluations of products. Results from a 2 × 2 experiment first show that consumers exposed to the micro-influencer condition report higher levels of product knowledge, and consumers exposed to the disclosure condition reported the products endorsed by social media influencers to be more attractive. The results also show that when exposed to micro-influencers who disclose, consumers have higher levels of purchase intentions than when exposed to macro-influencers who do not disclose, as well as higher purchase intentions than for posts where sponsorship is not disclosed by influencers. The important findings of this research for theory, practice and policy are discussed.

Additional information

Author information

Samantha Kay

Samantha Kay is a PhD student within the University of the Sunshine Coast Business School. Her PhD research focuses on native advertising on social media.

Rory Mulcahy

Dr. Rory Mulcahy is Lecturer in Marketing at the USC Business School, University of the Sunshine Coast (USC). Rory's research investigates the use of gamification and digital technologies to assist consumer wellbeing. His work has appeared in journals such as Psychology and Marketing, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Service Management, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, and Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services among others.

Joy Parkinson

Joy Parkinson is a Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Griffith University, and is a researcher working at the Social Marketing @ Griffith research centre. Her research focuses on the adoption and maintenance of pro-social behaviours over time across a range of social marketing contexts including obesity-related behaviours such as breastfeeding, food choice and physical activity, alcohol use, and new technology use to deliver social marketing services.  She has presented her work both nationally and internationally and has published in a variety of academic marketing and health journals. Joy also has over 10 years experience in direct marketing and ran her own fashion business for 15 years. She has a Bachelor of Business in marketing and a Bachelor of Business with Honours in Social Marketing from Queensland University of Technology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at DOI:10.17605/OSF.IO/TPA6U.

Login options

Purchase * Save for later
Online

Article Purchase 24 hours to view or download: EUR 39.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase 30 days to view or download: EUR 139.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable