Influencer marketing: brand control, commercial orientation and post credibility

ABSTRACT

Leveraging social media influencers allows companies to provide information on their products in a more social and interactive way. Yet, scholarly research on the implications of the effect of influencers on consumer trust, their interest and the purchase decision process is still in its infancy. This study proposes a theoretical model to explain how perceived brand control over an influencer’s post and the perceived commercial orientation of such a post affects consumer trust in influencers. Results show that trust of the influencer is reduced more by the post’s perceived commercial orientation than perceived brand control of the influencer’s post. Although perceived brand control also reduces the willingness to search for more information. The results also show that trust of the influencer is salient in predicting post credibility, which in turn predicts interest and willingness to search for more information.

KEYWORDS:

• Influencer marketing
• perceived brand control
• influencer
• perceived commercial orientation
• trust
• post credibility

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Francisco J. Martínez-López

Francisco J. Martínez-López is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Granada (Spain) and Associate Editor of the European Journal of Marketing. He has been visiting researcher at the Zicklin School of Business (CUNY, USA), Rutgers Business School (Rutgers University, USA), Aston Business School (Aston University, UK), the University of Chicago Booth School of Business (USA), the Michael Smurfit School of Business (University College Dublin, Ireland), and LUISS Business School (Rome, Italy), among others. He has co-edited several international journals’ special issues and research books for leading publishers of business and management research as Springer and Elsevier. Likewise, he has extensively published in international journals.

Rafael Anaya-Sánchez

Rafael Anaya-Sánchez has a Ph.D. in marketing and is Assistant Professor of marketing at the University of Málaga, Spain. His research interests are in online brand communities, social networks, retailing and branding.

Irene Esteban-Millat

Irene Esteban-Millat is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Spain. She has a Ph.D. in Information and Knowledge Society (2012) and her primary research interests are in the areas of online consumer behaviour, the interface of marketing/e-learning and Internet flow experiences. Her work has been published in national and international conferences’ proceedings and journals. She has been a visiting scholar at Baruch’s Zicklin School of Business (CUNY, USA).

Harold Torrez-Meruvia

Harold Torrez-Meruvia is Head of the Methods of Evaluation Area at EAE Business School (Barcelona, Spain). He has a Ph.D. from the University Ramon Lull (Barcelona) and also lectures at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.

Steven D’Alessandro

Steven D’Alessandro is Professor of Marketing at the University of Tasmania, Australia. He has published more than 100 refereed papers in leading international journals (including The European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, International Marketing Review, Psychology and Marketing, Marketing Letters, Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Macromarketing, International Journal of Consumer Studies, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Studies, Accounting and Finance, Food Quality and Preference, Applied Economics and Journal of Environmental Management), books and conferences.

Morgan Miles

Morgan Miles is Professor of Entrepreneurship at Charles Sturt University, Australia. Prior to that, he was at the University of Canterbury, the University of Tennessee-Martin, the University of Tasmania, and Georgia Southern University. He has been a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech, Cambridge University, University of Stockholm, the University of Otago, University of Auckland, and an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury. He holds a D.B.A. in Marketing from Mississippi State University, an M.S. and B.S. in Agricultural Economics from Virginia Tech and Mississippi State University respectively. Currently, he is working with the Department of Industry on entrepreneurial support program policies dealing specifically with accelerator and incubators. He has published in marketing papers in journals such as Tourism Management, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing, Psychology and Marketing, Journal of Business Ethics and Journal of Business Research.