Exploring the impact of beauty vloggers’ credible attributes, parasocial interaction, and trust on consumer purchase intention in influencer marketing

Abstract

The growing usage of digital platforms has made influencer marketing the most cost-effective marketing tool, especially for products consumed by young digital natives. Among other products, these include fashion and beauty-related items such as cosmetics, whose online marketing has created a particular category of influencers called ‘beauty vloggers.’ By applying the source credibility model, this study investigates whether beauty vloggers’ credible attributes (trustworthiness, expertise, and attractiveness) help consumers build trust towards them and whether followers’ trust leads to desirable marketing outcomes (increased purchase intention). Prior literature used the source credibility model in a fragmented manner. However, this study enhances the holistic framework of social media influencers’ impact on purchase intention by investigating all three credible attributes. It specifically addresses the significance of cultivating trust between beauty vloggers and followers, exploring the impact of vloggers’ credible attributes on consumer purchase intention. Additionally, beauty vloggers periodically engage in parasocial interactions to increase closeness with their audiences, affecting consumer behaviour. This study addresses the limited research on the consequences of parasocial interactions in an emerging market context, examining the impact of beauty vloggers’ repeated interactions on consumer behaviour, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of purchase intention using parasocial interaction as an antecedent. The research was conducted on consumers belonging to the age group of 16–45 who use social media platforms daily. Using structural equation modelling via SmartPLS software, the statistical analysis was done on 357 North Indian respondents. The study explores the influence of beauty vloggers on consumers’ purchasing behaviour in the Indian context. The results demonstrate that beauty vloggers’ credibility traits help in influencing consumer behaviour. The findings also revealed that trust partially mediates the impact of credible attributes of beauty vloggers and consumers’ purchase intention. Additionally, the results show that customers’ purchasing decisions might be influenced by repeated parasocial interactions done by beauty vloggers if they perceive them as credible information sources. The findings of the study contribute to help industrial marketers and practitioners of cosmetic companies use influencer marketing strategically in order to increase market sales.