Guiding the customer into the purchase funnel:
How influencer marketing increases brand awareness
A thesis submission for the degree of
Master of Business Administration – Digital Business
Class of 2017/2018
Author: Nathalie Mrzyglod
Student Number: 11953594
Date of Submission: 22.06.2018
Supervisor: Dr. Raoul V. Kübler
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Statement of originality
This document is written by Student Nathalie Mrzyglod who declares to take full
responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no
sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in
creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of
completion of the work, not the contents.
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Abstract
Purpose – Traditional marketing techniques are losing continuously their effectiveness which shifts
the attention to the new marketing applications of the web 2.0. Influencer marketing belongs to this category, showing already in its beginning phase great opportunities for organizations.
The development of strong brand awareness amongst consumers is essential, it is the crucial element which when strongly present in the consumers’ minds, will pave the path through the purchase funnel. The purpose of this study is to investigate one of the newest marketing techniques in greater detail and link it to brand awareness since this element positive development is crucial for a successful future of every organization.
Research – Brand awareness is based on definition made up of several dimensions which had been
translated into a survey statements. The dimensions of brand awareness were the creation of a positive impression, creation of a simulation to recommend the brand, the creation of a sense of awareness around the existence of the brand and the positive development of a future purchase intention. The independent variables which embody marketing attributes were the presence of discount codes, presenting a fit between the influencer and the appraised product and ensuring that only one brand is visible per campaign. The significance between these variables had been
investigated with a student’s t-test.
Findings – The finding of the study showed that the similarity sharing already established
marketing techniques as well show results when applied in influencer campaigns.
Value – The research showed many implications for the managerial department who aim to
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Table of content
List of Tables ... 6
Introduction ... 7
Literature Review ... 8
The Concept of Influencer Marketing ... 8
Brand Awareness in Marketing ... 10
The significant Role of Instagram ... 13
The Research Question ... 14
Mature and Similarity Sharing Marketing Techniques ... 16
Company-Generated-Campaigns in Social Media Marketing ... 16
Product Placements ... 18
Research Design and Methodology ... 21
Research Design of this Master Thesis ... 21
The Dependent Variable Brand Awareness ... 21
The Independent Variables ... 22
Presence/Absence of a Discount Code ... 22
Presence of one versus two brands in the campaign ... 23
Fit/Misfit between the product and the influencer ... 23
The Survey ... 25
The Student's t-test and the Fulfillment of Requirements ... 29
The Participants... 30
The Results ... 31
Assumption of Normality... 31
Assumption of Homogeneity of Variance ... 32
Scale Reliability ... 32
Results for the Variable Presence, Absence of Discount Codes... 33
Results for the Variable Numbers of Brands in Campaign ... 34
Results for the Variable Fit and Misfit of Influencer and Product ... 36
Internal and External Validity ... 39
Discussion ... 40
Answering the Research Question ... 40
Influence of Discount Codes ... 41
Influence of the Number of Brands Presented in the Influencer Marketing Campaign ... 42
Influence of Fit and Misfit ... 43
Recommendations for Future Research ... 44
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Acknowledgements ... 46
Reference List ... 47
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List of Figures
Purchasing Funnel
Own model of the customer perception around the brand personality First sub-question
Second sub-question Third sub-question
Dimensions of brand awareness
Influencer posting with and without the inclusion of a discount code
Influencer posting containing one brand versus a posting containing a second brand Fit profile of personality and promoted product
Misfit profile of personality and promoted product Content fit versus misfit
Gender distribution Age distribution
List of Tables
Results first independent variable presence and absence of discount code
Results second independent variable presenting content containing one brand and content with two brands
Results third independent variable presenting a fit between the influencers personality and the appraised product and a misfit between the influencers personality and
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Introduction
In 2009 Filip Tysander founded the company Daniel Wellington, a Swedish watch brand.
Daniel Wellington is a frequently presented example to illustrate the power of social media marketing,
more precisely of influencer marketing. Filip Tysander denied to incorporate traditional marketing, for instance billboards or paper magazine advertisement into his strategy and decided to focus solely on online marketing. This kind of digital strategy was fairly new in 2009, he is often described as one of the first-movers into this area. His tactic was to approach online influencers, who are celebrities, bloggers whose online accounts are followed by many people, and sending them either free of cost samples of watches, or paying them an agreed-upon salary for a branded posting in exchange (Kiss and Bichler, 2008).
These chosen influencers create thereupon content for Daniel Wellington advertising the product to their audience. Illustrating examples of advertisement can be a blog post, review, an online video, or photo. The mix of influencer marketing and Daniel Wellington’s self-managed online presence of own social media accounts had led to a significant increase in reach and brand awareness, what in turn simultaneously had led to a likewise significant increase in revenue and listing the company's worth at around $200 million. Currently Daniel Wellington counts 3,9 million followers on Instagram and 976,190 followers on Facebook (2018).
Nowadays online marketing has established in the minds of managers and is an essential part of every company's marketing strategy. It is especially likable because of its diverse benefits, which are amongst others cost efficiency, wide reach and the opportunity to actively engage with a customer base (Y. Kianga, T.S. Raghub & K. Huei-Min Shangc, 2000).
Particularly the application of influencer marketing is accelerating. The growing interest for this technique can be directly observed by the growing number of search engine requests for the term ''influencer marketing'' and the likewise growing number of professional agencies for influencer marketing matters. A survey of the influencer marketing platform Influencer Marketing Hub (2017), which asked 272 marketing managers detected that influencer marketing is seen as the fastest-growing online customer acquisition method, compared to display advertising or paid search. It is being estimated that influencer marketing is to become a $5 to $10 billion market by 2020 (B. Soltysinska, 2017).
Seeing the enormous impacts influencer marketing is bearing, todays managers are looking for ways to exploit this marketing technique in the best possible way, presenting researchers also a wide field for analyses. This research paper will analyze empirically how influencer marketing can be used in order to increase the brand awareness of a company in order to create an effective pathway into the purchase funnel.
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Literature
Review
The Concept of Influencer Marketing
Research defines influencer marketing as a marketing practice in which the marketer concentrates on influential individuals who convey corporate messages in the form of electronic word of mouth (eWoM) to an audience (Woods, 2016). The aim is to effectively stimulate the audience to increase the interest in a product or brand, persuading them to conduct a purchase (Brown et al., 2008). The influencing individuals possess a profile on popular social media platforms and have a wide, active fellowship of social media users. The followers are interested in the life of the influencer who is frequently posting pictures and snippets originating out of his daily life.
The concrete execution of the marketing practice can take on various forms. Organizations can send introductory products to the influencer either voluntary, having the hope that the influencer will post branded content about it on their platform or agreed-upon, where a concrete contract has been signed where the influencer received instructions on what content to create and what words to use in the posting about the product. In exchange the influencer receives a monetary earning for the completion of the task (Abidin & Ots, 2015).
The influencers are characterized as personalities with a celebrity status. Due to frequent uploads of content and the sharing of personal moments they seem likable and approachable to their audiences (Korotina & Jargalsaikhan, 2016). The close interaction between the influencer and its audience due to social media network functions like the like-button, or the commenting line conveys a feeling of real friendship to the audience (Isosuo, 2016). Lueg and Finney found out in their research about interpersonal consumer communication conducted in 2017 that characteristics like feeling amicably connected to the communicator increases trust in the consumer and motivates him or her more to purchase the appraised product. Which is highlighting the impact of influencer marketing.
The size of the fellowship of an influencer can take on several levels, ranging from a couple of thousands to over millions of following users which turns influencers into powerful messengers and stimulators for the effective communication of brand messages (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1966). Each range of fellowship has different advantages and disadvantages. Influencer who are situated in the lower range under 50.000 followers are called micro influencer. Their benefit is their close interaction and engagement rate with each of the followers, since it is easier for the influencer to respond to messages and comments. Companies value this close interaction because it underlines the benefits of interpersonal communication in regard to trust and in turn stimulates the purchase intentions in the fellowship in situations when the influencer promotes a product. This potential compensates for the comparable lower spread of reach.
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Influencers who are situated above 50.000 are called macro influencer. Their advantage lies in the wide spread of reach one single posting can reach and not directly in the interpersonal communication (Brown and Fiorella, 2013).
Past research in the fields of traditional marketing, which refers to offline practices, about (offline) opinion leaders stated confirming, that the to the influencer connected consumers are positively stimulated by the opinion sharing, and the likelihood of a purchase can significantly increase because of it (Flynn, Goldsmith & Eastman, 1996).
In 2011 the researchers Wu and Wang concluded in their study about the impacts of eWoM that consumers place a higher level of relevance, importance and trust into eWoM, than into traditional corporate advertisements. This finding had been confirmed by the survey ''Global Trust in Advertising'' (2015), which revealed that 66% of consumers take opinions shared online by peers and influencers serious and take them into consideration. Bennett (2014) made an even more concrete finding about this matter claiming that 74% of social media users consume influencer content consciously in order to direct their purchasing decisions.
The practice of this marketing kind lets the impression arise that it is a relatively new method however, the opposite is true. In the pre-internet decade it was common to target well-known personalities like for instance actors or journalists, for delivering influential opinions about products and brands during interviews, photo shootings, or television appearances (Brown & Hayes, 2008).
Influencer marketing is continuously growing in awareness and application especially as statistics show that the creation of such campaigns is able to significantly increase revenues and brand awareness. Statistics claim that firms conducting influencer marketing obtain approximately $7.65 on each $1 they spend on influencer marketing. Putting the costs paid for influencer postings statistics claim that companies pay on average between $250 to $500 per post (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2017).
The years before, paid influencer postings did not need to be annotated as such, what made the implementation of influencer marketing uncomplicated for companies back then. However, nowadays the situation had changed drastically. In order to protect consumers from the exposure of uncontrolled advertisement companies are facing penalties when sponsored brand postings have not been annotated as such.
Hence, for a long-time lack of knowledge was resided amongst marketers about what the appropriate ways were to annotate sponsored influencer postings. This meant that some organizations forgo to use influencer marketing completely. However, since the introduction of official regulations and rules about this matter bringing clarity to organizations, this marketing practice increased even more (N. J., Evans, J. Phua, J. Lim and H. Jun, 2017).
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Brand Awareness in Marketing
A process of buying can be documented with the marketing purchase funnel
model by Lewis. This illustration of the customer journey consists of the steps and
phases consumers go through, which is starting with the creation of awareness for the
product or brand, followed by the shaping of an opinion about the product, considering
it and finalizing the funnel journey with a purchase (E. Lewis, 1898).
Figure 1: Purchasing funnel model by Lewis (1898)
The first step to acquire a potential customer is to lead him or her into the first segment of the funnel which is the awareness creation stage. Meaning that potential customers need to be alerted about the brands existence and their products first. Without being aware of the existence of a particular product it is not possible to conduct a purchase or even let the need for it to arise (Lewis, 1989).
Past research states that influencer marketing is especially potent for the creation of brand awareness (N. Booth and J.A. Matic, 2011). Brand awareness is crucial and can be even seen as a valuable asset. Past research underlines that consumer tend to purchase from companies more frequently which poses a higher brand awareness (E.K. Macdonald and B.M. Sharp, 2000). An organization having a low level of brand awareness will face difficulties to be considered at all by the consumers of the given market (E.K. Macdonald and B.M. Sharp, 2002). Besides that, according to Rossiter and Percy (1987) the creation of brand awareness is also important for delivering company communications to consumers because consumers embrace and sense them stronger when high levels of brand awareness are present.
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Several studies in differing industries have been conducted in the past which analyzed the relationship between purchase intention and brand awareness, each of them revealed similar results. Retailers who possess a wide and positive brand awareness are being visited by more customers than comparable retailers who show a lower degree in brand awareness. Consequently, more purchases have been made at the retail stores which had been visited more frequently (Das, 2014). A study which conducted an analysis around sponsored blog posts also underlines the positive relationship between brand awareness and purchase intention. The findings claim that if brands behind the recommended product possesses a wide brand awareness amongst consumers, the purchase intention for the product appraised in the blog post increases in the reader (Lu et al., 2014). The researchers of this study append that the effect increases further when the product category is in high demand. A study around paid Facebook advertising claims that the display of visual ads in the news feeds of users has a positive impact on brand awareness and brand image and hence as a result on purchase intentions as well, especially in cases where the audience has been targeted in accordance to the product beforehand by the company (Dehghani and Tumer, 2015).
These arguments highlight that the appropriate creation of brand awareness can be beneficial for organizations who want to influence the purchase intentions of consumers.
Booth and Matic (2011) state that the increasing population of blogs and influencers can and should be appreciated by companies in respect to shape their brand image and brand awareness. The researcher group recommends companies to create a social media strategy and the implementing of communication management. Communication management should regulate the way and tone of communication between an organization and the chosen influencers, plus it can help in keeping an overview of all influencer contacts. The establishment of so called conversation points shall help to keep track of the content the given influencer is publishing.
However, it is important to underline that the simple usage of eWoM in influencer marketing is not automatically a guarantee for direct inevitable success. The placements need to be done with caution and putting thought and planning into it increases the chances that a posting will result in the desired increase in brand awareness. The planning phase may include careful selection of an influencer and creation of content. One effective influencer campaign can hold a positive image even for years later on (Ferguson, 2008).
Smilansky (2018) points out that branded advertisement is an effective tool for increasing brand awareness. He points out that this can be as well be executed with traditional marketing practices like billboards, or magazine advertisements however, he strongly emphasizes that digital advertisements, which includes influencer marketing as well, are comparable more cost effective since, the reach is higher, the audience can be targeted and the margin per impression is zero.
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Furthermore, the institute Tapinfluence (2017) claims that influencer marketing is highly effective for significantly increase brand awareness because the audiences of opinion leaders can be compared to a niche. Direct and interpersonal communication to niches which represent the exact target group of an organization is highly beneficial, because the audience is bonded with the influencer and reflects the needs the brand is seeking to satisfy. This close connection also helps in the establishment of brand loyalty in cases where the influencer becomes a brand ambassador, giving influencer marketing a long-lived benefit.
According to Domizlaff (1939) consumers reconstruct the personality of a brand in their perception. This can be based for example on every kind of marketing communications. Consumer conduct this judgement likewise they do it for the people they are surrounded by. These positive or negative values behind perceptions are conclusive about the degree of brand likability and the quality of brand awareness. Meaning that a negatively communicated brand personality will lead to a negative brand awareness. Hence, referring to marketing communications, which includes the application of influencer marketing campaigns, it is necessary to communicate messages which are in accordance with a positive brand personality. A postive annotated brand personality is a crucial starting point in the minds of consumers, determining whether the organization is attractive enough to be considered as appealing or not, as well as for the development of a positive annotated brand image and awareness (Burman and Markgraf, 2015).
Figure 2: Own model demonstrating the impacts of an attractive/unattractive brand personality on brand awareness and other elements.
Summarizing the literature review it becomes visible that the development of brand awareness in the consumers’ minds in crucial for the future development of brands. Marketing plays an essential role in the shaping of it.
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The significant Role of Instagram
Over 4 billion people are using the internet today with a tendency for continuous, steady increase (2018). Proportional to this number is the number of social media network users growing (World Internet User Statistics, 2017). Today's organization have acknowledged this trend
and transfer their presence into the online environment of the Web 2.0, which bears a variety of marketing opportunities. Companies should extract the essence of their organizational goals and convey them into appropriate social media activities (Faßmann and Moss, 2016).
In regard to social media platforms the picture sharing network Instagram embodies an essential role. It belongs next to the platform Facebook to the most used networks with over 700 million monthly users worldwide, on daily basis statistics claim that more than 95 million pictures are posted on Instagram (Statistica, 2018).
The overall concept is the presentation of aesthetic pictures displayed on personal, or business accounts. Users can share moments, interact with other accounts, explore topics with the help of hashtags and subscribe to other profiles. Newly posted content of subscribed to accounts appears in the users’ timeline, making it an informative tool. In addition to that Instagram hosts the ground for today’s influencer to upload their postings.
The same features apply to organizations. Companies can share product information, new launches and other company related happenings on their profiles in form of pictures, to which an explanatory text can be added. Also sharing of exclusive materials called stories which are only visible for 24 hours is possible. Users who transformed into the influencer status can conduct their marketing practices and raise the awareness around their personality and mentioned brands. Pictures have the unique power to transfer easily and quickly atmospheres and information to the viewer within seconds. Which comes in handy for today's busy and on the go generation (Hu et al., 2014). A wide range of researches state that social media offers a way for efficient branding. Through the posting of texts, videos as well as pictures organizations can communicate their identity and positioning to their audience. Hence, influence their brand image and spreading awareness in a straightforward manner (Faßmann and Moss, 2016).
Instagram embodies a useful channel that helps in the development of a positive brand personality, which will be in turn able to create positive brand awareness, since it combines the creation opportunities of visual and textual marketing content to transfer branded communications directly to the organizations audiences (Faßmann and Moss, 2016). A brand personality can be further, especially long-term, positively facilitated through direct or indirect contact between a company and a user (Aaker, 2005). This effect can be exploited with the commenting, liking and messaging functions Instagram is offering.
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The requirement here is that organizations fully embrace this opportunity, meaning sending regular updates, tracking and aligning with the corporate strategy and mission at all times.
In the context of purchasing behavior statistics claim that millennials are amongst the most powerful consumer group (Farris et al., 2002). Here, Instagram captures a valuable characteristic for marketers again. According to statistics the majority of Instagram users belong to the age category 18-34, making it an environment hosting many active millennial consumers who are watching out for the newest trends and their next purchase (Statistica, 2018).
Instagram combines many valuable marketing opportunities together, from sharing new product launches in postings, to sharing company events in stories. The possibility for organizations and influencers to create a business profile and push branded content to a wide audience leads to the chance to create a positive brand perception, the aesthetic presence on the platform makes an organization findable and increases its brand awareness. The rich application options the platform offers makes direct contact to users easier and the overall large group of users turns Instagram into a powerful a highly valuable marketing landscape.
The Research Question
Linking the insights about influencer marketing and the advantages the platform Instagram brings makes it become apparent that the effectiveness of traditional advertising efforts is decreasing (Brown at al. 2008), plus it underlines today's organizations need to figure out how to apply influencer marketing in the most appropriate way in order to receive the best possible outcomes.
Past research generalized the application of influencer marketing in their analysis, putting the analysis of the actual content presentation of the influencer including the content characteristics in the background. Since the online content presentation can occur with the inclusion of different methods like for instance in the form of timeline postings, textual captions, stories, or messages were also combinations are possible, it is offering a wide and interesting field for researchers in regards what method or combination is effective on chosen variables.
Especially the link between influencer marketing content and its impact on brand awareness is incomplete, which is paving the path for the research purpose of this study. The aim is to extract chosen influencer marketing content attributes, which will be introduced in the next chapter, and analyze how the attitude of viewers who are exposed to a particular posting changes in regard to brand awareness. The purpose here will be to be able to give a judgement whether certain content attributes are beneficial or unfavorable in regard to the development of brand awareness.
Marketing is a practice which can look back on many years of application and belongs to one of the pivotal parts of each organization nowadays. The occupation is defined in several different ways however, the general description of marketing describes it as a practice which aims to showcase
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products to an audience which are able to satisfy a given need of the audience. Along with this effect comes the aim to increase the consumers awareness about the product, brand or service and stimulate his or her purchasing decision (Kotler, 2009). Because of its wide history of application many studies have been conducted concentrating on the quest of finding out what attributes should a marketing campaign contain in order to stimulate the consumer positively in regards amongst other elements to brand awareness.
Many marketing techniques can be found which share similarities to influencer marketing. It stands to question, whether influencer marketing can be linked to other existing, similar and already mature marketing techniques. The advantage is that past research extracted and demonstrated many marketing campaign attributes of older techniques in great depth, stating what attributes campaigns need to contain in order to increase brand awareness.
There, this study will illustrate marketing techniques which share similarities with influencer marketing, introduce their essential brand awareness increasing attributes and link it back to influencer marketing. Thus, testing whether the application of these attributes likewise lead to an increase in brand awareness when applied in influencer marketing campaigns. Due to the high inquiries around influencer marketing originating from both managerial and research sides, this study addresses a valuable area for new contributions. Equipped with the results of this study around campaign attributes managers who seek to enhance their brand awareness will be able create more efficient influencer campaigns. Also, individuals who belong to the category of influencers will be able to learn how to create content which has a better effect on their audiences and hence, they can improve their own performance as well making them even more attractive marketing players for organizations.
The highlighting of the importance of having a positive brand awareness for companies for their current standing as well as for their future development, plus showing the possibilities the social media platform Instagram and influencer marketing bears for today’s organization this study is aiming to draw a line between the success attributes of related marketing practices and influencer marketing; analyzing whether they apply too to influencer marketing. Therefore, the framing thesis research question is: Can mature marketing campaign attributes which are capable of increasing brand
awareness be likewise applied to influencer marketing?
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Mature and Similarity Sharing Marketing Techniques
The profession of marketing established several different techniques throughout the years with each aiming to achieve different effects on the customers minds and perception. For example, some may focus on stimulating long-term brand reputation or loyalty, whereas other methods may even combine several goals.The following chapter projects marketing methods which possess in particular the ability to influence a consumer’s brand awareness in a positive way. The marketing campaign attributes which past research showed to influence brand awareness will be extracted and explained. Afterwards sub questions are constructed which link these attributes to influencer marketing with the following intention to deduce them into testable hypotheses in the third chapter with the prospect to analyze the attributes ability level of impact in influencer marketing campaigns.
Company-Generated-Campaigns in Social Media Marketing
In the online marketing landscape one can find diverse marketing techniques, each of them aiming to achieve different goals, one of the techniques is social media marketing. The online environment of social media is also frequently quoted as the web 2.0. In contrast the web 1.0 is by definition a static, read-only internet, where organizations converted their brochures into browsable websites. The interaction in the web 1.0 was considered to be one-way only. The organization published for the consumer interesting information like new product releases, product details or price information however, the consumer was not able to contact the organization (S. Aghaei, M. A. Nematbaksh and H. K. Farsani, 2012). The Web 2.0, which evolved due to technological and digital progress, is characterized by having the nature of a platform, which is harnessing network effects (D. Dougherty, 2004). The network effect represents the value of a platform. This effect is determined by the number of users of a platform, the more people actively use it the greater the network effect will be (Aggarwal, 2011). Moreover, it is described as people-centric and interactive (S. Aghaei, M. A. Nematbaksh and H. K. Farsani, 2012). This people-centric characteristic of social media platforms enabled organizations to get closer to their consumers in various ways. With the tool of commenting it is possible for organizations to step into a dialogue with their fellowship and actively govern opinions written by the consumer base. Knowing what consumers honestly think about a brands product can help the organization in product optimizing processes since they can learn what the exact needs of their consumers are. The style and depth of the dialogue should be chosen consciously by the organization because it can be described as a form of marketing communication.
Also, direct messaging with consumers can be used in respect to information sharing and handling of product complaints with greater attention, where the consumer feels taken seriously (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012). Social media marketing does not solely include the way a brand is communicating with its consumers, but includes also the generation of branded content by the
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organization in forms of for instance text, photo or video. This content is broadcasted through the platform channel and can reach a wide range of users and informing them about new products, or other company matters (P. R. Berthon, F. Pitt, K. Plangger and D. Shapiro, 2012).
Social media marketing shares similarities with influencer marketing in regards that both use social platforms to communicate their messages. The main difference lies in the origin of the content generation as well as to the voice behind the uploaded content. In company conducted social media marketing organizations create their own content and also stand behind the content as the communicator. The marketing departments of many organizations nowadays invest in designated social media marketing teams which are responsible to turn the company’s strategy and goals into fruitful campaigns (Kim and Ko, 2011). Putting it into perspective in the application of influencer marketing campaigns the presented content is generated and communicated through the influencer himself. The influencer is simultaneously a user of the given social media platform, resulting in the definition of user-generated content marketing (Dhar and Chang, 2009).
Several studies have been published with findings about how social media marketing can be conducted effectively by organizations to achieve their given goal, being more explicitly what attributes a given campaign should contain in order to meet the set intention. One of the frequently quoted goals is the aim to increase brand awareness.
Saravanakumar (2012), addressed his finding that offering advantageous buys in online campaigns results into great consumer resonance. The researcher states that these offers can increase consumer excitement. Discounts catch the attention of viewers and the given brand is being perceived by the mind and will be kept in better memory, giving ground for brand awareness to grow. In addition to that the researcher gives further suggestions how the inclusion of discounts in campaigns can further facilitate brand awareness. According to him users can be firstly invited to do something beneficial for the organization for instance sharing the company-generated-content on their own accounts or, forward it to a friend via E-mail. Due to the created excitement in the user he or she is more willing to react upon this discount incentive and readily performs the brand awareness increasing task. Erdogmus and Cicek (2012) conducted research about social media marketing in regard to amongst other attributes the introduction of discounted purchase options through campaigns. He found out that campaigns which offered advantageous purchase options, were seen as more relevant to social media users.
The presence of discount codes has furthermore the ability to influence the shopping behaviour, shopping experience and overall the conscious perception of brand awareness in consumers. A study from 2003 compared two equal campaigns, one with a discount code and the other without.
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The campaign containing the discount code reported an overall higher level of shopping satisfaction amongst the customers compared to the campaign without the code (Oliver and Shar, 2003). A high degree of shopping satisfaction results in an overall positive experience between the organization and the customer, resulting in turn in a positive brand awareness in the minds of consumers. In addition to that past research claims that satisfied customers are more likely to recommend a brand to their peers. Communicating recommendations to peers has the effect of transferring positive brand awareness into the receiver’s perception (Gil, 2007).
The similarities between influencer marketing campaigns and company-generated-campaigns in social media networks allow influencer marketing campaigns as well to include the introduction of advantageous purchase opportunities for its viewers. The usage of this marketing tool and attribute is already visible on Instagram frequently in the postings of today’s influencers. A discount code can be included in the caption underneath a posting, or can be mentioned verbally during a story.
How the inclusion of discount codes in influencer marketing campaigns influences the viewer in general and more specifically in regard to brand awareness has not been analyzed by the bodies of research yet resulting in the first detected research gaps this research paper aims to address and resolve:
Do influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts lead to greater brand awareness? Figure 3: The first sub question
Product Placements
Product placement became a popular marketing method in the 1980s, where companies began to place products into movie plots. The company Hershey’s placed their chocolate Reese’s in the movie E.T, which had led to a 65% increase in sales according to the firm (D. Nebenzahl & E. Secunda, 2015). Karrh (1998) defined product placement as the paid inclusion of branded products or brand identifiers through audio and/or visual means within mass media programming.
This definition shows the similarity to influencer marketing since, the influencing individual places a product into their generated content campaign broadcasting it into a audience, in addition to that the influencer is compensated monetary or with a product sample. The difference between those two marketing methods is that product placement is directed by definition into mass media and hence, a mass audience. Influencer marketing however, shows patterns of concrete audience targeting. Suitable influencers are selected based on an analysis of his or her followers, proofing whether the fellowship fits into the product category of the particular company (S. Liu et al., 2015).
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Gupta and Lord (1998) looked into the way products are placed in movies, more precisely speaking the two researchers compared different scenarios, one having a product placement in the foreground of a movie versus products placed into the background also, products placed by them self-versus products placed together with other brands at the same time during a plot. This juxtaposition had been conducted in regard to brand recall and brand awareness. The results clearly showed that products being shown in the foreground of the plot and by themselves, without an additional brand present generated greater brand awareness.
Reviewing the definition of the marketing technique product placement and the similarities it is sharing with influencer marketing campaigns the question arises whether the factors applied in product placement campaigns likewise lead to similar effects when applied in influencer marketing campaigns. Past research did not analyze the linkage between number of presented brand in a campaign and brand awareness yet. Regarding the similarities between product placements campaigns and influencer marketing campaigns the expectation arises that it is a valid assumption leading to the second research gap this paper aims to address, leading to the second sub-question which sounds: Do influencer marketing campaigns which show solely one brand create greater
brand awareness?
Figure 4: Second sub question
Further researches for the marketing field of product placements in movies found out that brand awareness is increased in cases when the product placement matched the story. Meaning that in cases when the audience perceived a clear match between a product and the movie character using the product the brand awareness increased. This kind of fit between character and product is further perceived as a character endorsement which thus, leads to the increased brand awareness and trust (Russell, 1998).
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Product placements are not only conducted in movies, recently this marketing approach is also used in the online gaming environment.
A study from 2002 (Nelson) analyzed the conditions of successful product placements in games, as well taking a closer look into fits and misfits between products and the display area where they were placed. The aim was to find out when and under which circumstances a given placement is noticed the most in games. The researchers came to the conclusion that brand recall and brand awareness reached the highest degree when the product category matched the theme of the game. Also, the placement was judged as a positive one by the online gamers in cases a fit was present.
As mentioned above product placements share similarities with influencer marketing therefore, linking further brand awareness stimulating attributes from product placements to influencer marketing campaigns are presented for later testing purposes. The third research gap emphasizes the impacts of fit or misfit between the influencer and the product he or she is appraising in the marketing campaign on brand awareness. The corresponding sub question is the following: Do influencer
marketing campaigns which show fit between influencer and product lead to positive brand awareness?
Figure 5: Third sub question
Summarizing this chapter, it can be stated that the established marketing techniques company-generated-campaigns in social media networks and the technique product placement share similarities with influencer marketing. Past research analyzed what attributes company-generated-campaigns as well as product placement campaigns should contain in order to increase brand awareness. These identified attributes are the presence of discount codes, the presentation of solely one brand per campaign and the illustration of a fit between the product and the brand, presenter or actor. These attributes have not been linked to influencer marketing before by research and has been transferred into suitable research questions in this paper. Finding an answer to them brings a valuable contribution to the still under developed research field of influencer marketing as well as for the managerial departments as it brings lessons for ways to increase the effectiveness of these campaigns in regard to brand awareness.
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Research Design and Methodology
Research Design of this Master Thesis
The following chapter illustrates the research design of this empirical study which is examining whether the discussed marketing attributes have indeed an impact in the creation of positive brand awareness when they are applied in influencer marketing campaigns. These introduced attributes will be translated into independent variables constituting brand awareness as the dependent variable of the study.
This research chapter has the purpose to illustrate the definition of the dependent variable brand awareness and its dimensions as well as the definition of the independent variables which represent the marketing campaign attributes; the deduction of hypotheses from the presented sub questions; the characteristic and origin of the study participants; the applied statistical test which are the Students t-test, Lavene's test and Shapiro-Wilk test, its requirements and justification of usage; and lastly the showcasing of the survey which had been filled out by the participants.
The Dependent Variable Brand Awareness
The dependent variable of this research is brand awareness. The foundation giving definition for this variable sounds as follows:
''Brand awareness refers to the extent to which customers are able to recall and recommend
a brand. Furthermore, it shapes the impression a consumer creates around the brand. Brand awareness is a key consideration in consumer behavior, advertising management, brand management and strategy development. The consumers ability to recognize and recall a brand is central to
decision-making. Purchasing cannot proceed unless a consumer is first aware of a product category
and a brand within that category.'' (Business Dictionary, 2018).
As the definition above illustrates brand awareness consists of several interrelated elements. Therefore, this study is breaking up brand awareness into single dimensional elements which are derived from the definition. Having a dimensional construct of the dependent variable allows to make more precise statements on the impacts an independent variable can have in regard to the overall concept of brand awareness.
Thus, the first dimension illustrates the obtaining of a positive impression around the presented brand, which can be either beneficial, or not even developed inside the viewers minds at all (Belen del Rio, 2001). The second dimension embodies the stimulation to recommend the brand to peers derived from the definition above. The direct impact of a given marketing content on the viewers conscious feelings of awareness about the presented brand is the third to be tested dimension. It is analyzing whether the viewer is consciously aware of the existence of the brand. Comparing it
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to the first dimension of creating an impression around a brand, this dimension does not put a value label of beneficial or non-beneficial on it (Merikle, 2013). The fourth dimension links to the influence on decision-making about purchase intentions of brand awareness, as illustrated by the definition above.
Figure 6: Dimensions of brand awareness
Each of the dimensions is represented by one question in the survey which will be presented in the upcoming sections. The participants expressed their perceived level of presence of each dimension with the help of a Likert Scale ranging from 1 to 10, representing 1 as a low level of a dimension and 10 as the highest possible level perceived presence.
The Independent Variables
The study includes 3 different independent variables where each is tested on their level of impact on the dimensions of brand awareness. The independent variables originate from marketing techniques which showed a proven record of success for the development of positive brand awareness by past researchers. The variables are the presence/absence of discount codes, the number of brands presented in one marketing campaign and the fit/misfit between the appraised product and the personality of the promoter.
Presence/Absence of a Discount Code
The first introduced sub question of this study sounds ''Do influencer marketing campaigns
which offer discounts lead to greater brand awareness?''. The independent variable here is the
presence/absence of a discount code. Basing this study on a student’s t-test which is in theory comparing the difference in means of two groups and testing them for significance, means that a treatment group and control group will be present during the testing phase. The treatment groups will be exposed to an influencer marketing posting which contains a discount code in the caption the influencer willplace underneath his picture, whereas the control group will be exposed
to the same
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campaign as the treatment group however, without the discount code in the caption.
The used representation of a discount code will be string consisting of numbers and letters which the consumer needs to type in during the process of ordering. The discount will aggregate to a 10% deduction of the purchase price.
The section about the dependent variable brand awareness introduced the used dimensional construct of the variable. Each dimension is translated into one hypothesis, applying them to the first independent variable presence/absence of a discount code in the influencer marketing campaign the following hypotheses are resulting:
H1.1: Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts lead to a brand impression in the viewer. H1.2: Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts stimulate viewers to recommend the
brand to peers.
H1.3: Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts lead to brand awareness.
H1.4: Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts increase the likelihood of a future
purchase from the presented brands product range.
Presence of one versus two brands in the campaign
The second introduced sub-question of this research sounds ''Do influencer marketing
campaigns which show solely one brand create greater brand awareness?''. The independent
variable here is the number of brands presented in the posting, which will display one brand for the control group and two for the treatment group. Applying this independent variable to the four defined dimension of brand awareness the following hypotheses are resulting:
H2.1: Influencer marketing campaigns which show only one brand lead to a positive brand
impression in the viewer.
H2.2: Influencer marketing campaigns which show only one brand stimulate viewers to
recommend the brand to peers.
H2.3: Influencer marketing campaigns which show only one brand lead to brand awareness. H2.4: Influencer marketing campaigns which show only one brand increase the likelihood of a
future purchase from the presented brands product range.
Fit/Misfit between the product and the influencer
The third sub-question is ''Do influencer marketing campaigns which show fit between
influencer and product lead to positive brand awareness?''. The independent variable here is either
the presence of a fit or misfit between brand and the influencer. The same application of this independent variable on the dimensions of brand awareness is conducted leading to the following hypotheses:
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H3.1: Influencer marketing campaigns which show a fit between influencer and product lead to a
positive brand impression in the viewer.
H3.2: Influencer marketing campaigns which show a fit between influencer and product stimulate
viewers to recommend the brand to peers.
H3.3: Influencer marketing campaigns which show a fit between influencer and product lead to
brand awareness.
H3.4: Influencer marketing campaigns which show a fit between influencer and product increase the
likelihood of a future purchase from the presented brands product range.
The product used for the influencer marketing campaigns comes from a technical field. This means that for this variable the influencer representing the misfit situation should come from a non-technical field and vice versa from a non-technical field representing a fit.
The misfit will be illustrated by the influencer Stephany (happyandhealthy96), who is a role model for the ecofriendly movement. The fit will be represented by the influencer Marques Brownlee (mkbhd) who is an advocate of current technological lifestyle trends.
These social media accounts are non-fictional, based on their amount of followers they can be regarded as well-known however, this cannot be guaranteed for each individual who will take part in the survey. In order for the participants to get an impression of the influencers character a screenshot of the instagram account will be provided in the survey for this particular testing. It shows the biography made by the influencer and the latest uploaded pictures which clearly show the backgrounds and areas of interests.
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The Survey
In the following the survey content is explained and showcased. The presented product in the survey will be an iPhone which brand is Apple. It embodies a product which is equally likable amongst genders and is currently one of the most popular products worldwide (Washington Post, 2017). The set of survey questions which will be presented to the viewers of the influencer marketing campaigns employ each one dimension of brand awareness, which is the obtainment of an impression of the brand, willingness to recommend the brand as a result of viewing the marketing campaign, impact on the viewers consciously perceived awareness of the brand, and the development of a product purchase intention of the presented brand. The survey statements are rated by the participants on a Likert Scale ranging from 1 to 10:
1. Because of this content I was able to receive a positive impression of Apple. 2. Because of this content it is likely that I will recommend Apple to a friend. 3. Because of this content I became highly aware of Apple.
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The displayed influencer postings differ for each set of hypotheses and tested independent variable and differ also between the treatment and control group. The content for the hypotheses for the first independent variable presence/absence of a discount code will be presented in the following way:
Figure 7: Influencer posting with and without the inclusion of a discount code
The captions and pictures are kept the same for both groups, ensuring that the only difference is the independent variable of the inclusion of the code for the treatment group and its exclusion for the control group.
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The displayed influencer posting for the second set of hypotheses which will test the impact
of the variable numbers of brands presented in the content will be illustrated in the following manner:
Figure 8: Influencer posting containing one brand versus a posting containing two brands
In correspondence with the first postings also here the phrasing of the text captions remains the same besides the mentioning and visual inclusion of the second brand in one of the campaigns.
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The displayed influencer posting for the third set hypotheses which will test the impact of the variable influencer fit/misfit will look like presented in the following. At first the profiles of the two influencers are presented to the participants, in case the influencers are unknown to the participating individual. Seeing the overall content of the influencer lets the participants grasp a potential fit and misfit between the product and the personality of the influencer.
Figure 9: Fit profile of personality and promoted product
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The marketing campaign postings are displayed in the following way to the participants:
Figure 11: Content fit versus misfit
The Student's t-test and the Fulfillment of Requirements
The aim of this study is to investigate whether the analysis can reveal significant differences in the means between the control and treatment group tested on each dimension of brand awareness. Therefore, a student's t-test will be applied. If a statistical difference is resulting it means that the independent variable is indeed influencing the creation of a given dimension of brand awareness amongst consumers. Hence, there a positive relationship between independent variable and brand awareness dimension is present.
Before this test can be applied necessary requirements need to be fulfilled. Some of them can be verified before the data collection and some of them after the collection. Based on the succession of this report this chapter will cover requirements which can be verified before the collection.
One requirement for the testing is that the observations are independent from one another. This matter is ensured since the study splits the participants up into control and treatment groups moreover, the participants are only allowed to take the test once meaning one individual solely fills out one survey and does not participate in the studylater on by filling another test survey out, turning the test into an unpaired t-test. In total the study conducts 6 tests, having 3 controls and 3 treatment groups, as mentioned every individuals solely allowed to participate once in the study.
Also, the participants of control and treatment group are not aware of the existence of each other, since the surveys do not give any information about this circumstance in their description. This
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refers to bivariate independent groups hence, verifies this the requirement of independent observations.
The t-test will be an independent one-sided test. The null-hypothesis claims that the two population means are equal and do not show a significant difference due to the application of an independent variable. Consequently, the alternative hypothesis claims that there is indeed a statistical difference in the resulting means from the two groups.
H0: mean1 = mean2 Ha: mean1 ≠ mean2
For the statement of presence of statistical difference, a benchmark needs to be included which will check the resulting critical value against the benchmark. This will be conducted with the inclusion of an alpha with the significance level of .05. Chapter 4 Results will analyze further the verification of test requirements which can be illustrated after the data collection had been conducted. These will refer to amongst others normality and variance assumptions.
The Participants
Because of the construction of three to test independent variables there will be six groups of participants, having 3 controls and 3 treatment groups. All participants will be exposed to manipulated influencer marketing content. The control group without the usage of the to be tested variable and the treatment group will be exposed to marketing content including the test variables. The constructed study is an empirical study which makes use of a survey which will measure the cohesion and potential cause-effect relationship between the four dimensional dependent variable brand awareness and the individual variables. The survey consists of 4 statements which each refers to one dimension of brand awareness. Each statement will be measured on a Likert scale ranging from 1 to 10. The value 1 represents a low level of the given brand awareness dimension whereas 10 refers to a high level of it. The data collection took place from April 2018 to the beginning of June 2018.
As past research claims and as stated in the previous chapters millennials are amongst the strongest consumer groups nowadays, since the research aims to deliver also value to today's organizations who want to improve their marketing performance it is of advantage to apply the test to precisely this group of potential buyers. Therefore, the subjects which will be taken into account for the study will be born between the years 1990 and 2000. This range is defined by Goldman Sachs (2016) as the age group of millennials resulting in the age distribution of 18 to 27. Due to the online environment of the survey it was able to allow participants only to enter their ratings when they fulfilled the age requirement, controlling for other age rages to enter the data generation.
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Male and Female will be equally sampled.
Each to test independent variable will include a sample size of 100 individuals. The surveys will be distributed online via university networks, private social media networks, local forums and networks, peers and family. The diversity of sources shall ensure the diversification of the origins of the questioned subjects hence, avoid sampling bias.
The Results
In the following sections the results of the survey will be presented starting with testing whether the assumptions which are required for the conduction of the hypothesis testing are verified by the collected data. Following by general descriptive statistic measures and illustrating characteristics regarding the used scale and their internal consistency with the help of Cronbach's alpha. Afterwards the informing about the results on the hypothesis testing follows, stating whether they developed to be true or false. In cooperation with these results the mean rankings of each statement will be presented. Knowing the mean ranking gives an impression of the overall opinion about the effectiveness of the application of the given variable in the marketing campaign postings. At the end of each variable section a table summarizes the p-values of each constructed dimension of brand awareness, the mean, the standard deviation of each and the Spearman correlation coefficient. The chapter will be finalized with statements about the generalizability of the study, resulting an analysis regarding the internal and external validity.
Assumption of Normality
An essential assumption which underlines the majority of statistical tests is the assumption of normal distribution of the sampled data. This means generally that the assumption is made claiming the dependent variable, correctly speaking its residuals, are normally distributed within each group. This can be tested with the Shapiro-Wilk Test for normality. The null-hypothesis for this test assumes that the values variances are normally distributed, the alternative hypothesis assumes the opposite that they are not. For this statistical test an alpha significance level of .05 is taken.
H0: µ1 = µ2 Ha: µ1 ≠ µ2
The result in this study for the Shapiro-Wilk test was a p-value of .54 which leads to a rejection of the alternative hypothesis. This leads to a confirmation for the normality assumption for the dependent variable.
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Assumption of Homogeneity of Variance
Another assumption which should be proven in order to present a sound research is the testing for homogeneity of variances in the groups. The assumption analysis of variance (ANOVA) can be tested with the Levene’s test of equality of variances. Here as well as for the assumption for normality a benchmark of an alpha of .05 is taken for the significance level. The null-hypothesis in this test assumes that the variances are equal in the groups whereas the alternative hypothesis claims the opposite stating that the variances are not equally.
H0: σ2 = σ2 Ha: σ2 ≠ σ2
The inspection in this study for the Levene’s test with a degree of freedom being 99 a p-value of .61 which leads to the acceptance of the null-hypothesis and to the confirmation of the homogeneity of variance assumption.
Scale Reliability
The study was made up of 4 items where each of them tested one out of the four dimensions of brand awareness. Hence, it is necessary to report on the scale reliability of the scale with the usage of Cronbach’s Alpha. The items resulted in an α of .821 stating an acceptable level of internal consistency which validates the scales on its reliability. The output in this analysis also presented the situation of the inter-item correlations, all correlations presented values ranging between .4 and .5. leading to the conclusion that all items can remain in the survey.
Descriptive Statistics
100 individuals were distributed across each single control and treatment group, having 6 different surveys in total. The control group for the testing of the impact of the variable absence of discount and the variable of presenting one brand have been used twice as they had the same influencer campaign in their survey. 44% of the respondents were male and 56% female the age range was from 18-27.
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Results for the Variable Presence, Absence of Discount Codes
The performance of the unpaired, one tailed student's t -test compared the means of the treatment and control group. The resulting p-value had been benchmarked against an alpha of .05. The procedure resulted in the acceptance of three and the rejection of one hypothesis of the dimensional construct of brand awareness.
The first hypothesis ''Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts lead to a
positive brand impression in the viewer.'' resulted in a p-value of .08, meaning that there is no
significant difference between the control and treatment group. The mean rating of the participants for the statement ''Because of this content I was able to obtain a positive impression about Apple'', was at 4.97 and the mean value of the control group was at 4.74.
Hence, it can be stated that influencer marketing campaigns which offer discount codes for products do not significantly influence brand awareness on the dimension on getting a positive impression on the given brand.
The second hypothesis ''Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts stimulate
viewers to recommend the brand to peers.'', tested the influence of discounts on the dimension of
brand recommending. The comparison of control and treatment group lead to a p-value of .003, benchmarking it against the critical value it can be stated that this study accepts this hypothesis. The presence of a discount code in influencer marketing postings stimulates viewers to talk about it to friends and peers more, than postings without a beneficial price discount option. The mean value of the participants for the statement ''Because of this content it is likely that I will recommend Apple
to a friend'', was at 5.96 for the treatment group and at 5.2 for the control group.
The third hypothesis ''Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts lead to
brand awareness.'', analyzed whether the conscious perception of awareness around the given brand
is influenced in the viewers minds. The statistical comparison of the two groups presented a p-value of .00001 which shows a significant difference between the participating groups hence, the acceptance of the hypothesis. Resulting in the stating that viewers who see a campaign containing a discount code perceive the existence of the brand behind the offering with higher awareness than campaigns without discount options. The mean rating of the participants of the statement ''Because
of this content I became aware of Apple'', was at 5.9 amongst the participants of the treatment group
and at 4.8 amongst the control group.
The fourth hypothesis ''Influencer marketing campaigns which offer discounts increase
the likelihood of a future purchase from the presented brands product range'', looked at the
brand awareness dimension purchase intention. The student's t-test resulted here in a p-value of .0001 which presents a significant difference leading to the acceptance of this hypothesis.
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Discount codes stimulate purchase intentions regarding the presented brands product range beneficially. The mean rating of the individuals regarding the corresponding statement ''Because of
this content I will consider purchasing a product from Apple in the near future.'', scored a 6.23
in the treatment group and a 4.9 in the control group.
Table 1: Results for the first independent variable discount codes
Dimension P-value Mean
Control Group Mean Treatment Group SD Control Group SD Treatment Group Spearman's Correlations Coefficient Impression .08 4.74 4.97 .96 1.29 .75 Recommending .003 5.2 5.96 1.01 1.35 .295 Awareness .000001 4.8 5.9 1.1 1.18 .718 Purchase Intention .0001 4.9 6.23 1.13 1.48 .699
Results for the Variable Numbers of Brands in Campaign
Following up with the next variable of analysis and set of tests, here as well the same procedure had been applied as for the independent variable presented above. The underlying survey for the representation of one-brand marketing content is not different from the previous marketing content of analysis for displaying the absence of a discount code therefore, the same data set will be used.
The first hypothesis about this variable sounds ''Influencer marketing campaigns which
show only one brand lead to a positive brand impression in the viewer.'', the resulting p-value
is .33. Benchmarking this critical value against the chosen alpha of .05 it can be stated that there is no significant difference in the two samples thus, the hypothesis can be rejected. Influencer marketing campaigns which show only one brand appear to not influence the perception of a positive brand impression in the viewer of the campaign. Looking at the average rankings the participants gave for the statement ''Because of this content I was able to receive a good impression of Apple.'', it can be stated the the group which saw only one brand gave a mean ranking of 4.74, the group which saw two brands, namely Apple and Samsung in the posting of the influencer gave a mean ranking of 4,8 for the statement analyzing the dimension of brand impression.
The second hypothesis about this variable of interest sounds ''Influencer marketing
campaigns which show only one brand stimulate viewers to recommend the brand to peers.'',
resulted in a p-value of .00003 which illustrates a significant difference between the groups mean values leading to the studies statement of accepting the corresponding hypothesis.
