The effects of celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing : a study among University of Malta students

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate whether or not social influencer credibility has a stronger effect on consumer behaviour in comparison with a celebrity endorser. The focus was on source credibility and the relationship it has with attitude, likability, and purchase intention extrapolating data from three structured questionnaires with effective constructs and measures. The questionnaires were distributed and performed on 150 University of Malta students. The three questionnaires were split into a controlled advert, a celebrity endorser advert and a social influencer advert. Each advert was distributed amongst 50 different students and the results were analysed separately and together. The analysis of statistical data showed the social influencer to be significantly more credible than the celebrity endorser. This statical significance did not affect the participants’ likability towards the advert, attitude towards the product or their purchase intention. However, the means for each construct related to the social influencer advert was found to be higher than any other advert. These findings indicate a strong argument in favour of further research using a larger sampling size and hence the study may form the basis of a masters research project. Whilst this study was carried out on a health care product, one could also repeat the same study using different product types. i.e fashion, IT, automotive and so on.