The Effect of KOL Marketing through Contents and Traffic on Chinese Consumers’ Purchase Intention and Brand Trust

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this study was to analyze how the content and traffic of KOL marketing influence Chinese purchase intention and brand trust on products during KOL live streaming. Design/Methodology/Approach - Four hypotheses containing 10 segmentation hypotheses were developed. 120 valid questionnaire results from Chinese consumers using live streaming platforms like Douyin, Kuaishou, and so on, which conduct KOL marketing, were collected from the Wenjuanxing online survey and data tool from June to July of 2023. With Confirmatory and Regression Analysis to confirm hypotheses and result reliability, SPSS 24.0 was utilized to analyze the results. Findings - Results displayed that KOL content with diversity, good two-way communication, and verticality did occupy an important place in trusting brands and purchasing. Ads from KOLs seemed be the most efficient way to allow Chinese consumers to trust new brands and products. The significance of the traffic strategy could also been seen. Research Implications - Through the investigation, Chinese consumers are developing higher standard toward the content brought by different KOLs. Creativeness, uniqueness, and personalization will be the key to win trust and purchases. Abundant but popular keywords with good indexes should be embedded into dynamic and static ads, posts, and keywords lists to let consumers find what KOLs promote, and target consumer groups can be efficiently developed for Korean companies entering into the Chinese market.