Building Brand Authenticity on Social Media: The Impact of Instagram Ad Model Genuineness and Trustworthiness on Perceived Brand Authenticity and Consumer Responses

Abstract

This study builds on the growing literature of social media and brand authenticity literature through an exploration of the impact of Instagram images’ expressive facial and visual aesthetics on consumers’ evaluation of a source (i.e., model in the image) and brand. The findings showed that a smiling (versus nonsmiling) facial expression and a snapshot (versus studio) photography aesthetic resulted in higher perceived source genuineness. Following the theoretical rationale of the meaning transfer model, our findings further revealed the positive effect of perceived source genuineness on an endorsed brand’s perceived authenticity via mediation of perceived source trustworthiness. Moreover, this positive effect of model genuineness was found to carry over to consumers’ brand attitudes and behavioral intentions.

Keywords:

• Brand authenticity
• social media advertising
• source genuineness
• source trustworthiness

Supplemental Material

A supplemental online appendix (Sample Stimuli: Example of Evaluated Images) is available on the publisher's website at https://doi.org/10.1080/15252019.2020.1860168.