Influencer marketing is more effective when the popularity of the social media personality matches that of the brand — with one exception.
A study published in the International Journal of Advertising found that, across four experiments, participants were more willing to purchase a well-known brand when it was endorsed by an influencer with a large following, and more willing to purchase a less well-known brand when it was endorsed by an influencer with a smaller following.
The exception concerned consumers who like to demonstrate their individuality through the products they use. These people, defined in the study as those with a high need for uniqueness, tend not to take cues from endorsers, so they don’t pay much attention to brand-influencer fit.
But for participants who weren’t hipsters, the effect of brand-influencer congruence on willingness to buy was fairly large. In one experiment — involving fashion brands — the fit between endorser and brand had an effect size of .65. (The metric used was Pearson’s R, where 1 is a perfect correlation and 0 is no correlation.)
Previous research papers investigating whether micro or macro influencers made more effective brand endorsers have returned conflicting results, suggesting that follower-count isn’t the only determining factor. This new study supports the idea that congruence is a determining factor, too. And while there are already studies that indicate brands should work with influencers whose persona is relevant to the product or service, this is the first (that we’ve seen, anyway) to advocate for congruency in terms of popularity.
The researchers — Melis Ceylan and Ceren Hayran — conducted four experiments (each with a sample size of roughly 120-170) as part of the study, investigating participants’ responses to endorsements for museums, fashion labels and accessory brands. They didn’t use real brands or influencers in the studies, though, and the participants were all undergraduate students.
Main image from 22 Jump Street (2014)
