The Impact Of Social Media Influencer Marketing On .

1.1 The Rationale for this StudyThe primary purpose of this study was to examine and understand the impact of socialmedia influencer marketing on purchase decisions from an Irish male perspective. TheIrish fashion industry was used as a case study and Instagram as a source of social mediaplatform. More so, to gain an insight into how best the findings can be utilised as a sourceof social media marketing.The main objective of this research is shown below, and it will present the analysis anddiscussion of the outcome of the focus group and in-depth interviews were conducted bythe researcher for this report. To achieve this, the opinion, perception and feelings of theIrish male millennials were obtained for further improvement of the social mediaadvertising.a.To evaluate the level of engagement between the Irish male millennials and socialmedia influencer.b.To assess the extent to which physical attractiveness of the social media influencercan affect purchase intentions.c.To evaluate the reaction of Irish male millennials towards a sponsored post on asocial media platform.1.2 Organization of the StudyFor the success of this dissertation, and to tackle the issues surrounding the objective ofthis research. There are some measures used, such as; the researcher applied a qualitativeapproach, which comprises of focus group and in-depth interviews. The focus groupconsisted of ten members, eight Irish male millennials, the moderator and observer. Also,the focus group participants were within the age group of twenty-seven to thirty-eightyears old. The in-depth interviews were eight different young individuals within the agebracket of twenty-three to twenty-six. Both groups helped the researcher to gain athorough knowledge of the participant's ́ feelings and perception on the impact of socialmedia influencer marketing, purchase decision and the Irish fashion industry. Thematicanalysis was adopted by the researcher to analyse the results and findings of the entirestudy. The outcome derived from the research has thrown lighter and has gained an8

understanding of the male millennials' perception of influencer marketing for the fashionindustry in Ireland. The next part of this section will present interesting and usefulinformation that will help the fashion industries to create more awareness and promotetheir brands among the millennials and also win their trust.a. The perceptions from the Irish male millennials of this study suggest that theefficiency of a sponsored post determines if it can be considered beneficial,positive or productive, but not subject to Millennial interest.b. The study suggests that producers, brands, and marketers should endeavour towork with influencers who have a significant influence, relationships andengagement with consumers. By so doing, the millennials will be convinced toview the sponsored message by influencers as reliable or trustworthy.c. Irish male millennials look for entertainment online through visual content. Thediscussion shows that social media influencers are the most effective option fortarget market source of entertainment.d. Also, the findings confirm that the target audience prefers digital marketing totraditional marketing. Because they believe traditional marketing is an outdatedsource of advertising while digital marketing is trending and also is visual content.Based on that, Instagram was a preferred social media platform for all theparticipants.This research ended successfully and very educative. The researcher finds the need forfurther research, suggesting that future researchers should explore and concentrate moreon this area of marketing. More so, the Irish fashion industry was used as a case study inthis research. Therefore, future researchers could use other industries like drinks, food,and electronics as a case study. However, this study can be replicated in other countries,such as; South Africa, China, Malaysia and Malta. Since the research used millennials,future researchers can thoroughly assess the perception of Post-Millennials (GenerationZ) towards the social media influencer and purchase intention. Furthermore, a prospectivestudy could be done from the viewpoint of both male and female Irish millennialconsumers, since both have been researched separately in Ireland.This study would not have been successful if other literature were not reviewed, likeacademic journals, books, and past data from other reliable sources. However, thesubsequent section will build insight into more excellent knowledge and understanding9

of the vital themes of the objectives of this study. It includes the impact of social mediaInfluencer Marketing on purchase intention from an Irish male Millennial’s perception,using the Irish fashion industry as the brand focus.2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW2.1 IntroductionThis literature review aims to develop a deeper understanding of the existing bodyof literature related to the study. The study discusses social media platforms such asInstagram, blogs, YouTube, and Facebook. In addition, social media influencers andinfluencer marketing were discussed as well. Furthermore, the millennials, which are alsoknown as Generation Y, were examined too. This chapter explains the themes of thestudy, such as social media influencers, source credibility, influencers physicalattractiveness and influencers product match-up and other related studies, wereadequately reviewed. The next part of this section will give a full insight into theMillennials, influential marketing and social media.2.2 Generation Y/ Male Millennial ́sBolton et al., (2013), Generation Y as the generation who are raised with the internet andare driven with limits online, through their desire to seek influences, involvements anduseful connections (Bolton et al, 2013). Generation Y are endowed purchasers, whopursue a relationship when it comes to social media advertising (Goldgehn, 2004). Theyare active and do not desire direct interaction any longer by brands; instead, they pursueevery-day treasured negotiations, in which they collaborate with brands. It is evident inthe past literature review that generation Y dynamically looks for connection anddistribute information with a significantly large number of liberal groups, than othergenerations (Weber 2017).10

Figure one: Definition of generations by Pew Research Centre Dimock (2018)The figure one shows different categories of generations, and it was defined byMichael Dimock (2018) of the pew research centre ́s president that Generation Y whichare also known as Millennials are those groups that were born within the 1981 and 1996.As of 2017, the age bracket is between 21-36 years. Even though the study of Pendergast(2010) asserted that the millennial generation is also known as the Generation Y, butargued that millennials consist of people born between 1982 and 2002 and a largerpercentage of this generation are technology savvy, influential, naïve and always activeon any social media platform through content creation, sharing and contributions.According to Shelley Emling (2019) research on millennials, confirms anddefined the group of people born within 1981 to 1996 as Generation Y/Millennials.Twenge, et al., (2010), also stated that Generation Y refers to a selected group ofindividuals that are fashioned by the same norms, values, beliefs, morals andcharacteristics such as technology savviness, flexibility and sociability because they wereborn in the same period Capcito (2016). Besides, Bennett (2014) views generation Ydifferently, stating that Millennials are usually influenced by their peer group, which issometimes called the bandwagon effect; which means that this generation consists ofinfluential personalities where another peer group often influences consumer behaviourand purchase decisions.According to Jade (2018), These Generations were born at a time whentechnological innovations are at the peak of its introduction. Past research shows thatsocial media influencers are mostly exposed to generation Y because of their frequentusage and interest on social media, especially when compared with other generation11

groups (Moore, 2012), and early exposure to the internet and social media platforms suchas Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. Capcito (2016) reported that millennials are theexact target for social media marketing because they spend most of their time on socialmedia, which allows them to afford anything they desire (Henrie and Taylor, 2009), andthey also possess high purchasing power (Klear 2018), of fifty-eight per cent mobileshopper (Buxton, 2019). Valentine and Powers (2013) argue that Generation Y is verydistinctive and a large group of consumers. In addition, most of this generation’spurchases are done online (McGrath, 2016). Thau (2013) also adds that their shoppinghabits override that of the older generations because they have a high fashion taste andhigh purchasing power. Furthermore, Albiniak (2015) confirms that Generation Y is themost extensive set of people with the most powerful purchasing power while Urcelay(2016) reviewed that this generation is known to have adopted digital means ofpurchasing products, most notably when social media platforms have aired them. Also,the price of products or services is another factor they consider before making anypurchase decisions, they usually compare prices and get reviews and recommendationsbefore buying a product or service (Urcelay, 2016).Regarding Roth, Wright and Handley, (2019) study, stated that the ChiefMarketing Officer of Mastercard, Raja Rajamannar, established the fact that millennialsdecline advertisement online. In addition to that, he explained further that surprisingly,two hundred and twenty-five million web consumers use adverts-blockers to preventadvertising (Hirzianto, Yuliati and Kirbrandoko, 2019). It confirms that the study of Nosiet al. (2017) claimed that millennials did not accept the idea of online marketing of oneway dialogue. Contrary to that, Nora Barnes (2019) explained that Millennials’ have wellbuilt tactics measuring and filtering adverts, and it established an understanding of thefact that millennials are obsessed with influencer marketing12

Figure Two: Analysis of millennials sponsored posts. Klear, (2019)Furthermore, Figure two shows the analysis of 2019 statistics of feed post made in 2018by Klear, (2019), confirmed that millennials are the highest number of sponsored postsonline. In addition to that, he also stated that “Millennials maintains the key to theinfluencer community to have created over fifty per cent of all sponsored feed post”.Cakim (2010) further explains that Generation Y always relies on their counterparts’advice on social media, and as such, their decisions are usually influenced by others’opinions. Various studies have shown that each generation has its own differences, corevalues, interests, desires, skills and expectations (Chatzigeorgiou, 2017).In the same vein, Viswanathan and Jain (2013) explain that Generation Y is ofteninfluenced by western culture. They are conversant with new brands and always ready toadopt a new brand. However, some of the millennial generations are not loyal to anybrand; instead, they follow trends, reviews, recommendations and endorsements fromtheir peer groups. Also, this generation is less susceptible to traditional methods ofmarketing, and as such, they consider the perception of influencers to inform theirpurchase decisions and buying behaviour. Also, it is more reliable than traditional mediawhen determining the worth of a product or service, because, on social media, they cansee fashion trends (Valentine and Powers, 2013).Furthermore, Albiniak (2015) reveals that Generation Y is the most extensive setof people with the most powerful purchasing power while Urcelay (2016) reviewed thatthis generation is known to have adopted digital means of purchasing products, mostnotably when social media platforms have aired them. Also, the price of products or13

services is another factor they consider before making any purchase decisions, theyusually compare prices and get reviews and recommendations before buying a product orservice (Urcelay, 2016). Subsequently, being able to establish a vast knowledge andunderstanding of millennials and their connection with marketing communication, it isessential to create an understanding of how marketing has changed within some time now.So, the next section will bring a clearer understanding of the evolution of marketingcommunication.2.3 The Evolution of Communications in MarketingFigure two displays a diagram of the evolution of marketing communicationswhich was developed by Armano in 2009. It specifically revealed that there are changesin the web field of marketing since the introduction of Web 1.0 in 1991 (Bryant, 2011).Before the introduction of web 2.0, marketing has been characterised with passive, lowengagement marketing environment (Aghaei et al., 2012), and as such, the introductionof web 2.0 has afforded an interactive, hyper-connected and proactive marketingenvironment. In addition, the introduction of web 2.0 also enables a flow of connectionsbetween people, consumer, technology and brands through mutually created dialoguesand networks (Armano, 2009), and as such, these developments have disrupted andrendered the traditional advertising strategies ineffective. In the work of Berthon et al.(2012), Web 2.0 can be referred to as technical infrastructure and platform that enablesthe social phenomenon of collective media and facilitates consumer-generated content.Thus, Web 2.0 enables the creation and distribution of content through social media. Inaddition, Web 2.0 paved the way for social media and users that can adapt, modify ortransform its usage other than the purpose for which it was created (Berthon et al., 2012).Dinesh (2017) also argues that the increase in the use of social media has led to an increasein advert aversion among users and this menace has caused paid advertisements on socialmedia to be ineffective in reaching out to many consumers.14

Figure Three: Evolution of Marketing Communications (Armano 2009)According to Daniel Newman (2015), emphasised that “traditional marketing has nowbeen twisted by Millennials” and therefore, it is not applicable any longer with theseyoung groups. The attempt of moving from web 1.0 to web 2.0, the digital means ofcommunication among consumers and brands, has become a necessity. The evolution ofthe internet has also inspired these changes. Simon Kemp, (2019), study, revealed thatthe internet has increased and developed to the highest rate over the last ten years. Withmore than four billion population in the world, that consumes or use the internet in theirhomes (Kemp 2018). Also, the Central Statistics Office (2017), stated that Ireland isestimated at eighty-nine per cent of Irish households using an internet connection. Core’sOutlook Study (2018) also discovered that radio advertising has drastically declined byfourteen per cent print and dropped by five per cent in 2017. In regard to this, it alsoconfirms that in the nearer future, the top advertising channels for marketers in Irelandwill have no choice but to invest in digital marketing (Mediacom 2018). This part hasgiven a clearer picture and a better knowledge of the evolution of marketingcommunication in the modern age. With regards to that, it will be ideal for comparingand reviewing different studies to understand social media more as a communication andmarketing source. The subsequent section will build insight into the social mediaplatform.15

2.4 Social Media As A Marketing PlatformAccording to Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), social media is defined as a group ofinternet-based platforms developed on the ideological and technical foundation which

Marketing, Social Media Influencer, and Influencer Marketing. 2 . 7.1 Appendix One Thematic Question guide: _ 77 7.2 Table One- Table of participants (In-depth Interview)_ 79 . influencer marketing as a strategy in marketing. More so, since social media started, it has been apparent, the rise of social media .