Influencer Marketing – Gender, Disclosure & Creating Positive Emotions

Research on influencer marketing has primarily focused on behavioural outcomes for the brand, most often purchase intentions. This research sought to expand upon this by examining the emotional and cognitive processes consumers experience when seeing an influencer advertisement, and additionally, investigate the outcomes for influencers as well as brands. The present study employed two experimental surveys, one using coffee as the product (n = 282) and the other using a mobile phone as the product (n = 292) to examine the psychological process by which consumers appraise the influencer advertisement. These experiments found that influencer gender moderates the impact of disclosure on the cognitive and emotional appraisals. Additionally, consumers exposed to low involvement products use a single emotional appraisal to determine their behaviour, while those exposed to a high involvement product use dual appraisal with an emotional and cognitive process. These findings provide both theoretical and managerial contributions.