Influencer Authenticity Cues, Connectedness, and Purchase Decisions

Social media has fueled the creation and growth of influencer marketing, and at the same time brought to light the role of authenticity in impacting decision making, but little work examines specific authenticity cues that might impact purchase decisions. In other words, can influencers use signals of authenticity to shape consumer actions? And for whom does this matter? In this paper, we examine an e-commerce platform that leverages influencers to sell beauty products. More specifically, we investigate the impact of signaling authenticity through transparency cues, including openness in brand affiliations, unedited presentation of content, and objectivity in product experiences, on consumers’ purchase decisions. We argue that the presence of these cues positively impacts purchase decisions, and, importantly, that this impact depends on the level of connectedness between influencers and consumers, that is, that authenticity signals are needed less in the presence of connectedness. Interestingly, our findings suggest that consumers are less likely to purchase in the presence of openness cues and that this impact is amplified when connectedness is higher. However, unedited content and objectivity are positively related to purchase intentions, and these cues are attenuated by connectedness. This suggests that there is a substitution between the depth of connectedness and the need for authenticity signals for two of the cues—unedited content and objectivity—whereas the negative reaction to openness is amplified when there is a deeper influencer–consumer relationship. We further find that this negative moderating effect of connectedness is attenuated as the diversity of influencers from which the customer has purchased increases. These results are robust to alternate measures and model specifications. We provide strategic implications of this work for influencers and the platforms that leverage influencers to sell their products.

History: Bin Gu, Senior Editor; Xitong Li, Associate Editor.

Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.0379.