#Sponsored: Are influencers losing their influences?
- An investigation of how sponsorship disclosure
impacts consumer perceived authenticity
Master thesis of:
Yuexin Liu (S3883728)
y.liu.83@student.rug.nl
MSc. Marketing
Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Groningen
January, 2020
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate how the sponsorship disclosure impacts consumer perceived authenticity of social media influencers. Based on a constructivist media frame analysis approach, I analysed the rhetorical strategy used by journalists in news coverage in UK from 2016 to 2018. Three different frames were built and discussed base on the dimension of authenticity to reflect how the sponsorship disclosure effects perceived authenticity in a more negative direction.
Keywords: Sponsorship disclosure, Social Media Marketing, Influencer Marketing,
Authenticity
Table of Contents
Abstract ... I
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Literature review ... 2
2.1. Social Media Influencers and its characteristics ... 3
2.2. Authenticity ... 5 2.3. Sponsorship disclosure ... 8 3. Methodology ... 10 3.1. Media data ... 10 3.2. Data Selection ... 11 3.3. Data analysis ... 12 4. Findings ... 14
4.1. Overall emotional changes (Quantitative analysis) ... 14
4.2. Changes of consumer perception towards SMI (Qualitative analysis)... 16
5. Discussion ... 21
6. Limitations and future research ... 26
References (Literature) ... I
1. Introduction
Social media has changed the way how people around the world communicate with each other and opened up new channels for companies to interact with its customer groups. The rise of social media platforms enables influencer marketing to grow exponentially by using social media influencers to affect consumers purchasing decisions, changing the traditional marketing channels. Social media influencers (SMI) are gaining more attention, becoming one of the most important marketing and public relation trends in the past few years. SMI industry has grown to an $8 billion ecosystem (Schomer, 2019). According to "The State of Influencer Marketing 2018" report, 84% of the surveyed marketers used SMI marketing in 2017, 92% of whom found it compelling (Linqia, 2018). In addition to that, Business Insider Intelligence estimates that the influencer marketing market will grow up to $15 billion by 2022 {Formatting Citation}.
It is seen that companies are leaving traditional celebrity endorsers for more social media influencer for promotions and advertisements. Influencers are more effective due to its unique characteristics in authenticity (Lou & Yuan, 2019; Schouten, Janssen, & Verspaget, 2019; Uzunoǧlu & Misci Kip, 2014) which could make consumers easily to build an emotional bond and connect with them (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Leigh, Peters, & Shelton, 2006). Influencer authenticity limits consumer’s perception on advertising intrusiveness (Evans, Phua, Lim, & Jun, 2017; Harms, Bijmolt, & Hoekstra, 2017) Meanwhile, influencer endorsement could also prevent consumers from distinguishing between organic and branded content (Lee & Watkins, 2016; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016).
To protect consumers from being misconceived, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a sponsorship disclosure regulation in 2017. Influencers are required to display evident endorsement hashtags such as #ad or mention "paid partnership" in an easily seen position (FTC, 2017a). Based on Evans et al. (2017) previous study, sponsorship disclosure lead to more advertisement recognition. Therefore, sponsorship disclosure could salient the commercial goal behind influencers’ authentic coverage and impact consumer perceived authenticity of the influencers (Morhart, Malär, Guèvremont, Girardin, & Grohmann, 2013). The concept of authenticity is split into three dimensions (Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Morhart et al., 2013). The indexical (objective), iconic (constructive), and existential perspective
(Morhart et al., 2013). Based on the dimensions of authenticity, this thesis is contributing to Evans et al. (2017) study of sponsorship disclosure and Morhart et al. (2017) study of authenticity, by using media frame analysis to investigate how sponsorship disclosure impacts the perceived authenticity of SMI?
Since authenticity involves both evidence-based facts and subjective feelings, it is essential to analyse this topic using qualitative analysis (Morhart et al., 2013). In this thesis, a constructive frame analysis is used to study the rhetorical strategy used by the journalist to frame the news coverage on the influencer. Due to the fact that the regulation was introduced in 2017, and the scope of this study requires to analyse the changes of consumers' perceived authenticity over time, newspapers would allow us to access historical data and draw people’s emotional feelings how they are represented in the past, without being affected by individual memory changes over time (Humphreys, 2010b).
The analysis of the data is based on a mixed approach of both quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. The quantitative analysis, while using the text analysis program LIWC would serve as a proxy for the detection of the changes of consumer perceived authenticity. The qualitative frame analysis uses three newspapers in UK (Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Telegraph) in the course of three years (2016-2018) to build up to three frames which reflects the shift of perceived authenticity. First, however, it is essential to review the previous literature in more details before analysing how sponsorship disclosure impacts the perceived authenticity of SMI.
2. Literature review
In the past, if we think of advertisement or marketing, we might picture a celebrity standing in front of the camera doing TV commercials or posing in large billboards. Companies have been using celebrities as a persuasive source to bring out advertising messages so that consumers are more inclined to purchase the product or service that they offer (Mccracken, 1989). Nowadays, one could find “ordinary” people posting advertisements or branded content on their personal social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter. In today’s digital era, we see the enormous growth of internet celebrities who owe their fame to social media. Social media has changed the way of communication, not just for individuals but also for marketers who want to reach out to its target customers.
2.1. Social Media Influencers and its characteristics
In order to better understand social media influencer, we first have to look into the related theories of communication and influences. Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955) argue that the majority of people receive their information, second-handed (not directly), through the influence of opinion leaders, and they have a more significant impact on shaping the attitude of individuals than the direct messages by mass media (such as televisions or newspapers). Opinion leaders are defined as “the individuals who were likely to influence other people in their immediate environment (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955, p3).” They found out that the reason why opinion leaders are more influential than others is due to the fact that compared to mass media, opinion leaders are more non-purposive, flexible, and trustworthy because they are more similar to their audiences (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955).
At that time, Katz and Lazarsfeld’s model only focuses on the face-to-face level of communication and interpersonal interaction in a proximate physical environment. However, in the era of social media, the more than 6-decade old theory still has its meaning of reflecting the flow of communication on digital platforms. Some researchers argue that the creation of social media platforms enables mass media to communicate directly with their audiences (Bennett & Manheim, 2006), hence without an intermediary. However, other researchers have argued that more than half of the social media platform users still obtain their information through different social media users (Hilbert, Vásquez, Halpern, Valenzuela, & Arriagada, 2017; Wu, Hofman, Mason, & Watts, 2011). Therefore, in addition to the offline form of opinion leaders, the existence of online opinion leaders are also increasingly recognized in the academic world.
There are many different terms in the literature of how these social media opinion leaders are referred to in research papers, such as micro-celebrity, internet personality, online-celebrity, Instagramer, Youtuber, Vlogger, digital content creator. The usage of these words is often interchangeable (De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017; Hearn & Schoenhoff, 2016; Kádeková & Holienčinová, 2018). Therefore, in this thesis, “Social Media Influencer” (or in short “influencer”) is referred to all the terms mentioned above.
SMI marketing is a rather new topic in the marketing industry. Nevertheless, the underlying mechanism between celebrity endorsement (Mccracken, 1989) and influencer marketing are quite similar. Influencer endorsement and celebrity endorsement both uses influential key individuals or opinion leaders to generate consumers’ brand awareness to increase purchase intention (Brown & Hayes, 2008; Lou & Yuan, 2019; Scott, 2017). However, other researchers found that comparing to celebrity endorsement influencer marketing is more effective due to its more approachable characteristics and less recognizable persuasive intent (Evans et al., 2017; Van Noort, Antheunis, & Van Reijmersdal, 2012; E. Van Reijmersdal, Smit, & Neijens, 2010).
Based on Katz and Lazarsfeld’s (1955) studies, some researchers studied the characteristics of social media influencers to observe how SMIs drive people’s brand awareness and purchase intentions. Uzunoǧlu and Kip (2014) found that influencers serve as an intermediate opinion leader role in the information flow between brands and consumers. Lou and Yuan (2019) argued that influencers’ characteristics in expertise, trustworthiness, and similarity have a positive effect on consumers’ trust in brand and thereby positive influence on purchase intention. Schouten et al. (2019) compared the effectiveness between celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing. The result shows that influencers are perceived as more credible than celebrities and more trustworthy. Therefore, consumers could quickly identify themselves with influencers and feel that they are much more similar to them than celebrities. Nowadays consumers’ purchasing intention is more and more horizontally influenced by the “f-factors” such as family, friends, fans, and followers (Ajzen, 1991; Kotler, Kartajaya, & Setiawan, 2016). User-generated content by peers is considered non-commercial messages that are not influenced by brands and companies and could, therefore, be considered as a trustworthy and credible source (Uzunoǧlu & Misci Kip, 2014; Berthon, Pitt, & Campbell, 2008; Brown, Broderick, & Lee, 2007).
expertise in his or her field, such as gaming, fashion, or parenting, and at the same time trusted by its followers, could be considered as a credible source. Trustworthiness, expertise, and similarity to consumers are the three dimensions of source credibility. Current literature suggests that influencer marketing is more effective compared to other methods of endorsements (Lou & Yuan, 2019; Schouten et al., 2019; Uzunoǧlu & Misci Kip, 2014). The reason behind that lies in the perceived authenticity of the influencers. Research has shown that authenticity impacts source credibility (Tran & Strutton, 2014). Therefore, to better understand the impact of sponsorship disclosure, influencer authenticity needs to be taken into consideration.
2.2. Authenticity
Authenticity is an essential concept in contemporary marketing, with its increased attention in academics several different definitions have also emerged in literature (Belk & Costa, 1998; Holt, 1997; Morhart et al., 2013; Rose & Wood, 2005; Valsesia, Nunes, & Ordanini, 2016). Grayson and Martinec’s (2004) authenticity framework divided authenticity into two categories (Fig. 1):
Indexical authenticity is in relation to “the real thing” and not copies (Grayson &
Martinec, 2004, P 298). It is an entity’s objective quality that can be measured by experts (Trilling, 1972). For example, an “authentic Van Gogh painting” means that the painting is the real “original” work painted by Van Gogh. This concept of authenticity is classified by Morhart et al. (2013) as the objective perspective. Based on the objective perspective, people could use evidence-based information and facts to judge the authenticity of an entity (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Morhart et al., 2013). In the context of SMI, the indexical perspective suggest that perceived influencer authenticity arises from fact-based information that can be verified using objective information such as age, number of followers or likes of the influencer.
food we get in those exotic decorated restaurants are not always the “authentic” Chinese cuisine. However, it “fits” with the image most Western have of what they believe as Chinese culture. In the course of SMI, consumer perceived authenticity is influenced by iconic cues. Iconic cues are referred to personal branding or marketing cues of the influencers to create an impression and personal quality that fits with the schematic belief or expectation of consumers such as style of communication, clothes and outfits or even the product they promote (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010).
Authenticity has been found to be a split concept and driver to trust (Avolio and Gardner 2005). Morris and Anderson’s (2015) research demonstrated that influencer authenticity is essential to their success. When followers perceive their source as authentic, they will feel more connected to the source (Tran & Strutton, 2014). In order to be authentic, it is vital that one’s action is not to be seen as “put on” and pretended to meet with social obligations or are under financial motives (E. Cohen, 1988; Holt, 2002; Thompson & Tambyah, 1999; Trilling, 1972; Valsesia et al., 2016). Current literature highlighted that authenticity could increase consumer’s purchase intention and has a significant effect on trust (Napoli, Dickinson, Beverland, & Farrelly, 2014; Schallehn et al., 2014). Research also shows that perceived authentic content could limit consumer’s perception of advertising intrusiveness (Harms et al., 2017), so consumers do not feel like they are being exposed to advertisements. Thus, one could argue that influencer authenticity could affect the trustworthiness hence the credibility of the influencers. Nevertheless, while strengthening the sponsorship disclosure regulation, how will perceived authenticity be threatened by sponsorship disclosure? This will be investigated next in this thesis. The effect of sponsorship disclosure has been discussed among many researchers under the topic of native advertising. In the next part of the thesis, the similarity between native advertising and influencer marketing will be discussed based on the existing literature and elaborate on how disclosing regulation could affect consumer perceived authenticity.
2.3. Sponsorship disclosure
Sponsorship disclosure and disclosing regulation has been often discussed in academic literature under the topic of native advertising (Evans et al., 2017; Harms et al., 2017; Taylor, 2017; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016). Native advertising is a form of digital marketing method that uses sponsored ads or branded content which is similar to the editorial content of that platform to persuade consumers without making them aware that they have been exposed to advertisements (Interactive Advertising Bureau, 2013; Matteo & Zotto, 2015; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016). Consumers are less patient and more irritated when ads appear with persuasive intent or without social context. Therefore, native advertising could limit consumers resistance toward advertisements (Bang & Lee, 2016; Evans et al., 2017; Lee & Watkins, 2016). However, due to its similarity to the enclosing media content, native advertising raises confusions for the consumers to distinguish between ads and media content (Lee & Watkins, 2016; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016).
To protect the consumers from being deceived or misguided, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a 12-page guidelines in 2015 for sponsorship disclosure on native advertising (FTC, 2015). It is shown that sponsorship disclosure, through clearly labelling branded contend can positively affect consumers’ advertisement recognition in various advertising formats including advergames, televisions, and online news articles (Boerman, Van Reijmersdal, & Neijens, 2015; E. A. Van Reijmersdal, Lammers, Rozendaal, & Buijzen B, 2015; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016). Several studies also indicate that ad disclosures have a significant adverse effect on consumers’ perceived credibility, brand attitude and purchase intentions (Boerman et al., 2015; Tessitore & Geuens, 2013; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016),.
UK’s advertising regulator, the Advertising Standard Authority (ASA), developed an influencer guide for regulating influencer marketing in UK (ASA, 2018).
While several prior studies examined the impact of disclosure on the effectiveness of native advertising, there has been lacking researches on sponsorship disclosure under the SMI context. One study carried out by Evans et al. (2017) found that the appearance of disclosure for Instagramers lead to more advertising recognition compared to no disclosure, but the effect of disclosure on consumer attitude and intention, as well as how the disclosure could impacts the credibility and authenticity of influencers generally lacks in this study (Evans et al., 2017; Valsesia et al., 2016).
It is shown in the previously discussed literature, authenticity (e.g. objectivist, constructivist, and existential) is the key why influencer marketing triumphs other endorsement method in today’s marketing era (Lou & Yuan, 2019; Schouten et al., 2019; Uzunoǧlu & Misci Kip, 2014). Consumer generally sees influencer as a more credible source for information due to its authentic characteristic (Napoli et al., 2014; Schallehn et al., 2014). Based on the three dimensions of authenticity (Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Morhart et al., 2013) we know influencer authenticity lies in (a) influencer’s “realness”, hence its objective identity and activity (e.g. age, number of followers and likes, etc.), (b) whether influencer’s personal quality and impression “fits” with the expectation and belief of its followers and consumers (e.g. the content), (c) influencer’s existential motivation and whether consumer can relate themselves easily (e.g. no monetary motivation or external pressure). However, sponsorship disclosure could lead to more advertising recognition in influencer marketing that triggers consumers resistance towards advertising (Bang & Lee, 2016; Evans et al., 2017; Harms et al., 2017; Lee & Watkins, 2016), salient the commercial motivation behind the posted content that affects consumers’ perceived authenticity of influencers (Morhart et al., 2013; Valsesia et al., 2016). The decrease of perceived authenticity could, in the end, make SMI a less credible source in the information transfer.
consider the message honest and transparent and therefore, still perceive the influencer as authentic (Boerman et al., 2015; Hwang & Jeong, 2016; Morhart et al., 2013).
Current literature by Evans et al. (2017) only suggest that sponsorship disclosure increases advertising recognition. But based on the existential authenticity by Morhart et al. (2013), if extrinsic motivation (monetary motivation) is made salient through the sponsorship message, how will the consumer perceived authenticity change? This thesis is aiming to contribute to that theory, and investigate, with the help of media frame analysis, how sponsorship disclosure impacts consumer’s perceived authenticity. In the next part, I will discuss the method that was used to conduct the investigation.
3. Methodology
3.1. Media data
To study the change of consumer perceived authenticity, qualitative analysis was used to evaluate the emotional shift regarding influencer’s authenticity based on newspaper articles from 2016-2018. Due to the fact that authenticity involves both evidence-based facts and subjective impressions and feelings, it is essential to analyse this topic using qualitative analysis (Morhart et al., 2013).
The disclosure regulation for influencer marketing was first taken into action in 2017 (FTC, 2017a). To investigate the shift of perceived authenticity, subjective emotions of consumers before and after the activation of the regulation needs to be considered. Compared to retrospective interviews newspapers give us a way to access historical data and draw people’s emotional feelings the way they were represented at the time, without being mediated or effected by individual memories over time (Bernard, Killworth, Kronenfeld, & Sailer, 1984; Golder, 2000; Humphreys, 2010b). Newspaper also represents a much broader and general audience which means that analysing newspaper gives us a more shared social opinion instead of the opinion by a single person questioned during a single interview (Humphreys, 2010b).
does not mean that we cannot use media data to analyze the overall public perception. Many other researchers argue that newspaper articles not just influence but also reflect public opinion. Reporters are also part of society. Therefore, they are equally affected by the changes of public opinions in the social environment, and these opinions are then reflected in the news reports they wrote through the frames they use (Humphreys, 2010b). As a result, one could argue, studying the journalists’ frames in newspaper articles could help us reflect the public’s changing perception towards influencer marketing before and after the release of mandatory sponsorship disclosure in a more longitudinal approach. The detailed approach using media frame analysis will be discussed in more details in the following subchapters.
3.2. Data Selection
In this thesis, three newspapers from the British print media are used to study the shift of perceived authenticity. British newspapers tend to have relatively stable media bias (Lundahl, 2018). In order to overcome the media bias and to have the result reflect the opinion of a broader audience the following newspaper which also represents different sociodemographic groups of readers, as well as political spectrums, are chosen for this study:
- The Guardian (incl. The Observer)
- The Daily Telegraph (incl. Sunday Telegraph) - Daily Mail (incl. Mail on Sunday)
The given newspaper database for this study, which was extracted using LexisNexis, includes all newspaper articles in the time period of 2016-2018 which has the keyword “social media” in the header or the lead paragraph. In order to analyse the perceived authenticity shift regarding influencer marketing under the influence of the new SMI regulation, the database was narrowed down to articles that only include Influencer related words from 2016-2018. The articles including “Influencer”, “Vlogger”, “Blogger”, “Youtuber” and “Instagramer” in any part of the article were filtered out manually and saved according to the years. The time period 2016 – 2018 was chosen due to the fact that the brand disclosure regulation from FTC was brought to attention during April 2017 (FTC, 2017a). Therefore, analysing the changes from 2016-2018 will help to understand how public opinions have changed after the disclosure regulation. As a result, the final sample consists of 270 articles. This selection method will include articles that are not only focusing on the topic of influencer marketing. However, not limiting the topic would help us to understand and capture the overall changing perception of SMI in a more holistic approach (Lundahl, 2018). For example, if the articles in the selected data are focusing on social events where a particular influencer or blogger is mentioned in one sentence, or if it talks about certain influencer involved in some incidents, it is still possible to capture the perceived positive or negative attitude towards influencers according to the context.
3.3. Data analysis
For the data analysis, this thesis uses a mixed approach. First, a quantitative analysis is conducted to provide an overall change of the subjective emotions, which could strengthen the reliability of the result of the qualitative research. Qualitative analysis and constructive media frame analysis are used as the primary method of data analysis. Together with the literature review, I will discuss the result in the last chapter. This approach based on the idea behind the triangulation concept (Denzin, 2012).
tested by Pennebaker, Boyd, Jordan and Blackburn (2015) that includes positive and negative emotion categories from standard emotion rating scales (Humphreys, 2010a). The LIWC internal dictionary includes 620 words stem related to positive emotion, 744 words stem related to negative emotions (Pennebaker, Boyd, Jordan, & Blackburn, 2015). A one-way ANOVA test will then be conducted to look for relations between the emotional changes and frames, hence the years 2016-2018 in order to give an overall view of the shifted public perception.
In the qualitative analysis, media frame analysis is used based on a constructive approach, suggested by D’Angelo (2001). Media frame analysis is generally used to detect clusters of messages that use similar rhetorical strategies, such as keywords, themes and problem definitions to highlight and salience of specific facts, in this case, perceptions and interpretations of social media influencers (D’Angelo, 2002; Entman, 1993; Lundahl, 2018; Tucker, 2010). D’Angelo’s (2001) constructivist approach holds the opinion that journalist serves as “information processors” who construct news as “information packages” to reveal and add information to a topic but under the influence of certain interest parties (e.g. political “sponsors”) (D’Angelo, 2002; Gamson & Modigliani, 1989). Constructivists consider that journalist and organizations hold back information on specific topics and believe that there are still aspects to an issue missing that is potentially important for the understanding of a topic (D’Angelo, 2002). Therefore, they focus more on the expression of public opinions instead of on information processing (D’Angelo, 2002). A constructive frame analysis will be conducted in this thesis to analyse how different rhetorical strategies are used in different frames regarding social media influencers that could reflect the public opinion in regards to influencer authenticity (Humphreys, 2010b).
4. Findings
4.1. Overall emotional changes (Quantitative analysis)
The primary goal of this thesis is to understand how the disclosure regulation changed consumer perceived authenticity of social media influencers. After analysing the data based on the number of articles, it is clear to see that the interest of the public related to SMI has increased over the years (Fig. 2). The number of articles related to SMI in the selected data has risen from 68 articles in 2016 to 126 articles in 2018 (around 85%). Meanwhile, articles related to social media have also increased by approximately 25%. This indicates that social media related topics are also gaining more attention.
Figure 2 Number of articles 2016 - 2018
During the quantitative analysis, I analysed the general change of positive and negative emotion in SMI related articles from 2016 to 2018 with the help of LIWC generated word counts in percentage. After conducting a descriptive analysis, general mean plot of all newspapers shows that positive emotion has a downward slide from 2016 to 2018, while the negative emotion shows an inverted “U” shaped (Fig. 3). The result of a Pearson’s correlation test indicates that there is a significant negative association between decrease of positive emotion and the change in periods/frames (from 2016-2018), (r (16) = -.473, p < .05). The negative emotion is not in a linear relationship with the time period. Therefore, the correlation analysis is only based on the time frame 2016-2017. The result shows there is a clear tendency to significant positive association between the increase of negative emotion and the change in frames (from 2016-2017), (r (16) = .573, p = .052). While performing the one-way ANOVA
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 2016 2017 2018
Number of articles
towards significant difference at the p < 0.1, between the time periods and the positive emotion (F (2, 15) = 2.89, p =.087). The post hoc comparison using Fisher’s LSD test indicate that there is a significant decrease at p < .05, between 2016 (M = 3.05, SD = .54) and 2018 (M = 2.59, SD = .39). The ANOVA result on negative emotion shows that there is a marginal trend at p < 0.1 among the groups (F (2, 15) = 2.81, p =.092). The post hoc comparison using Fisher’s LSD test indicate that there is a significant increase at p < .05 between 2016 (M = 1.29, SD = .41) and 2017 (MD = 1.83, SD = .43). There was no significant difference between 2018 and the other two periods. The result of the shift of positive emotion aligns with the frames that before the disclosure regulation in 2016, the public opinion shows more positively praises towards influencers. Meanwhile, in 2017 when FTC brought out the disclosure regulation, the negative emotion shows an upward increase. This result supports the research by Evans et al. (2017) that sponsorship disclosure has a negative effect on consumer perceived attitude, in this case, the decrease of positive public opinion towards influencers (Boerman et al., 2015; Tessitore & Geuens, 2013; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016).
It is important to mention that the quantitative analysis only serves in this study as a support of qualitative research. LIWC's internal dictionary of positive and negative emotion contains over 1300 attitude related words which do not only target to measure the perceived authenticity of the public towards influencers. Therefore, in order to better understand how the disclosure regulation impacts consumer perceived authenticity, a media frame analysis has to be conducted to look into the details based on a longitude approach through analysing the newspapers.
4.2. Changes of consumer perception towards SMI (Qualitative analysis)
The primary goal of this thesis is to understand how the disclosure regulation impacts consumer perceived authenticity of influencers. In general, it is expected that social media post tagged with sponsorship information would lead to more advertising recognition by consumers compared to an organic post, which would likely undermine influencers’ credible and authentic characteristics (Evans et al., 2017; Valsesia et al., 2016). This insight will be deepened through the constructivist frame analysis of the newspapers. In the following paragraphs, I will analyze the newspaper articles from 2016 to 2018 based on the three frames discussed in the methodology section.Frame 1: "Influencers are trendy, likeable and effective."
Before the disclosure regulation came out, newspapers and journalists are shown to use rhetorical strategies such as positive praises and words of approval to portray influencers into this new glamourous trend on social media. More and more business organizations are appearing to use SMIs to communicate with their target audiences because they are seen to be more effective compared to celebrities and other marketing methods.
Through the qualitative analysis, it is shown that more and more organizations are using influencers as intermediaries to shape the attitude of individual than directly messaging it through mass media. The Guardian reported in 2016 that politicians are using “political influencers” on Facebook to target their voters during political campaigns successfully. Facebook will mark users as “political influencers” that frequently shares, comments on political content and target them with specific political campaigns. Facebook’s monetization executives explained that “People are more likely to trust information that their friends share” (The Guardian, January 28, 2016; March 29, 2016). This echoes the idea of Kotler et al. (2016) and Ajzen (1991) that people identify themselves easily with others that they are familiar with, and would easily accept the messages shared by their friends and families. Therefore, influencer marketing is also seen as an effective method of endorsement that provides the consumer with a sense of belonging through creating an authentic personality (Tran & Strutton, 2014; Valsesia et al., 2016).
The Telegraph reported in 2016 that consumers are more likely to buy item worn by
who describes 2016 as the year of influencers. She praises influencer and their pictures as "artful yet believable-natural shot taken by a 'normal' person with stylish eyes" vs "professional studio shoot". Influencers are compared here to professional photographers and are framed as more "believable" than the "professional" ones (The Telegraph, May 29, 2016). Journalist have also used other rhetoric such as “tech-sawy”, “affluent consumer”, “relatable”, “inspirational”, “hip”, “witty” and other positive adjectives to portray SMIs (Daily Mail, March 17, 2016; The
Guardian, December 12, 2016; The Telegraph, June 19, 2016; June 28, 2016). Not like
traditional celebrities who are successful through Hollywood movies or Radio hit songs, influencers owe their fame for being unconventional and outside the box thinkers. Instead of following the healthy diet trend on social media, Bella Younger (aka Deliciously Stella) connects with her followers in a satirical way, by for example putting Haribo eggs on an avocado toast while tagging the post with #sugarfree (The Telegraph, July 29, 2016).
The use of SMI in endorsements has also surpassed other traditional methods such as celebrity branding or mass media on digital platforms. The fashion industry is seen to shift its preference to bloggers and other influencers over fashion magazines such as Vogue. After editor of Vogue criticized bloggers of “selling out to commercial” during Milan Fashion Week 2016. The
Guardian has brought out several articles to cover the “fight” between fashion bloggers and
Vogue magazine (The Guardian, February 15, 2016; September 29, 2016; October 2, 2016).
The Guardian views the comment by Vogue editors as “old business model threatens by new
one”. Comparing to magazines such as Vogue, which also highly depends on close cooperation with fashion brands,
“Bloggers, in contrast, build their brand on being real people, wearing real clothes; they see themselves as self-created style celebrities and entrepreneurs. […] Vogue’s attack is motivated by envy of the way their authenticity has usurped traditional authority, directly challenging glossy magazines such as Vogue, whose historic genius is to put together fantastical, highly staged images that are as desirable as they are remote from reality.” (The Guardian, February 15, 2016).
have created, matches with the anticipation of their followers (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Morhart et al., 2013). Authenticity could help followers to feel more connected and approachable and thus limits the advertising intrusiveness (Evans et al., 2017; Harms et al., 2017; Van Noort et al., 2012; E. Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010). In 2016 before the disclosing regulation come into play, we can see how most of the articles related to SMI used positive emotional words to frame the influencers into this trendy, likeable, glamorous opinion leaders that are taking over the traditional advertising platforms.
Frame 2: "Influencers are fake and money-driven."
The criticism towards SMI was already slowly cropping up before the disclosure regulation.
The Telegraph reported in 2016 on how a blogger faked her own terminal cancer and was cured
through natural remedies (The Telegraph, May 7, 2016). The Guardian reported about Russia using fake influencer trolls to effect political changes (The Guardian, March 6, 2016). These were only single incidents which were not critically discussed in further details in the news coverage. However, with the increased discussion over influencers code of conduct, authorities for advertising such as FTC or ASA have strengthened the disclosure regulation and included influencer marketing into the scope.
After the influencer disclosure regulation was introduced in April 2017, more articles with concerns towards influencers identity and their motivations have come to surface. The chief executive of the ASA stated that “We have no issue with social influencers working with brands, as long as consumers aren't misled” while in the meantime Callum McCahon, strategy director at the social media agency Born Social says,
"The industry needs to be self-regulating, and that Instagram must take some responsibility for protecting consumers using their platform” (The Observer, May 28, 2017).
Discussion of influencers violating the disclosure regulation has also been reported a month after the regulation took into action. The Guardian covert in May 2017 a reportage of how the Fyre Festival supported SMIs with free flights, tickets and accommodation in exchange for promoting the festival on their social media without disclosing the fact it has been sponsored. In the article, words such as "deceptive" or “violation” were used to frame the situation (The
Guardian, May 2, 2017). The indexical authenticity (objective authenticity) holds the view that
Misled information or deceptive messages send by the influencer, once discovered, could lead to bad influences over consumer perceived authenticity.
It is shown that there is an increasing number of articles that talks about how influencers "fake" their posts. The Telegraph discussed how brands sometimes use a non-traditional form of advertising to mould consumers perception without them noticing it.
“[…] Instagrammers, the type of people who act like they're your friends - and paid them an undisclosed amount to promote Jacob's Creek on their feeds. […] The result: a host of Instagrammers sitting in parks and on picnic rugs declaring their love for Jacob's Creek And the love may well be real, but the hashtag "#ad" on the picture captions tells us that these hedonistic images have been paid for.” (The Telegraph, September 9, 2017).
The Telegraph has framed sponsored posts from the influencers as a type of "act" or "fake" to
highlight how consumers are tricked and misled by influencer marketing. In the meantime, The
Guardian also discussed in one article about the existence of social media camps on how to
become an influencer. The article uses words such as “unrealistic dream” or “delusion” to describe those influencer wannabes and questions if the hype to be an influencer “too good to be true” (The Guardian, March 28, 2017). The Guardian journalist Jess Cartner-Morley accompanied a 22-year-old Instagram influencer Doina Ciobanu during 2017 London Fashion week. In her article, she described how Diona’s Instagram account as “Brand-strategy document” instead of logbook of her life. She mentioned that Diona’s "glamorous" streetstyle photos were the result of multiple attempts and how she posted content by using pictures that were prepared in advance. She discussed in her article of the influencer role as partly “ethical suspicion”, “compromised” and “false”. (The Guardian, April 7, 2017). Other articles have also focused on the monetary motivation behind the influencers. Both the Guardian and the
Telegraph have published several articles discussing influencers making money through their
digital content (The Guardian, October 6, 2017; November 12, 2017; The Telegraph, September 9, 2017).
motivation hence monetary motivations. Influencers branded “fake” self could be seen as inauthentic which leads to a decline of perceived credibility by its followers and the society (Moulard et al., 2014; Tran & Strutton, 2014). This trend is also mirrored in the increase of negative emotions and decrease of positive emotion, shown in the previous quantitative analysis (see 4.1).
Frame 3: Influencer hype as “bad influence” for the society
The first half-year of 2018 shows a slight decline in UK newspapers on the influencer topic. Shortly in the second half-year of 2018, it increased again due to the UK's new disclosure regulation by CMA and ASA (CMA, 2018). Based on the mean plot in the quantitative analysis (Fig.3) the negative emotion shows a slight decrease, but this does not necessarily mean that the public opinion towards influencer is becoming favourable. Through the qualitative analysis, it is shown that the general public is still very sceptical towards influencers. The topic has shifted from firstly discussing how influencers changed the marketing landscape (frame 1) to talk about "fake" and "staged personas" (frame 2) and lastly to how influencer hype has impacted our society negatively through the creation of a social media moral panic (S. Cohen, 1978) that indicates social media and influencers are threat to the social values and interest.
There are several articles published in 2018 discussing how social media have negatively impact the day to day life not just for consumers, but for everyone that uses social media, including the influencer. Influencers are showing to gain anxiety while always trying to show their best self to the public (Daily Mail, May 1, 2018; The Guardian, January 13, 2018;
The Telegraph, April 8, 2018), and we as ordinary consumers are more and more dependent
and influenced by social media (Daily Mail, March 4, 2018 (a); March 4, 2018 (b); The
Guardian, January 13, 2018; January 17, 2018; April 12, 2018; May 24, 2018). The
instagramer/body trainer stated in one of the interviews with the Guardian that
“Social media is important for my work because it makes it possible to interact with people, but sometimes I hate it. Instagram can put me in a crap mood. […] Looking at an image can make you feel either inspired or not good enough, […]” (The Guardian, January 13, 2018).
how young tourists are trying to imitate the “perfect” picture that they have seen on Instagram, taken by other influencers.
“I […] was disappointed how many of the photos seemed to follow a particular format. A thin, blonde, white girl stands in a floaty dress, her back to the viewer, in a seemingly preordained beautiful location. Off camera a queue of other "influencers" wait patiently to get the perfect shot.” (The Guardian, January 17, 2018).
In her opinion, social media has led human experience to "boring" homogeneity instead of diversity. Attempting to imitate images or getting the perfect video have also caused the death of several teenagers and travel bloggers (The Telegraph, July 7, 2018; July 13, 2018). The Telegraph has also discussed the "bad influence” of influencers on our society. The Telegraph journalist talked about how "unrealistically tiny body" of the influencers has led to body-image crisis and eating disorder. In this article, she expressed her concern about how it would affect vulnerable teenagers (The Telegraph, August 11, 2018). The fears of influencers impact on our society is also reflected in the result of the quantitative analysis in which the positive emotion in 2018 shows a slight decrease comparing to 2017.
On the one hand, influencers are investing much effort to construct and maintain their image on the screen to meet with the expectation of their followers to maintain authentic (iconic authenticity). However, on the other hand, they are also in some way losing their authenticity through betraying their true identity (existential authenticity), based on the definition by Schallehn et al. (2014) that authenticity relies on how a person is true to its own identity while facing external pressure. The mandatory sponsorship disclosure uncovers the commercial goal behind each influencer, but the increased discussion (moral panic) on news media in regards to the negative influence of social media and influencers has struck consumer’s perceived authenticity of SMIs in a more negative direction. A social media report done by the British researching company YouGov indicates that in 2019 only 21% of the people questioned consider what SMI present online as an honest portrayal of their life (YouGov, 2019).
5. Discussion
Uzunoǧlu & Misci Kip, 2014). Consumer are more likely to buy products endorsed by influencers because they are more approachable and more comfortable to relate to which is due to its characteristics in trustworthiness and credibility through its authentic representation that makes their advertisement messages less recognizable (Evans et al., 2017; Harms et al., 2017; Van Noort et al., 2012; E. Van Reijmersdal et al., 2010). Authenticity is the key to influencer marketing. According to Morhart et al. (2013), the objective (indexical), constructive (iconic) and existential authenticity builds the three dimensions of authenticity. The three perspectives of authenticity are intertwined and contribute to each other (Leigh et al., 2006; Morhart et al., 2013). Under the SMI context, an influencer is perceived as authentic if it is not giving false information to the public (objectively real), its action matches with the expectation of the public and its motivation are not influenced by external (monetary) motives. Based on the previous study by Evans et al. (2017), sponsorship disclosure increases advertising recognition. However, a clear impact of sponsorship disclosure on consumers perceived authenticity was not found. Therefore, this study contributes to Evans et al. (2017) and Morhart’s et al. (2013) findings by using longitudinal media frame analysis to study the changes of consumer perceived authenticity before and after the influencer disclosure regulation.
ASA in the UK have strengthened the disclosure regulation so that consumers can make a more informed purchasing decision.
In the research by Evans et al. (2017) the impact of disclosure on the credibility and authenticity of influencers, and consumers attitude towards the influencers lacked evidence (Evans et al., 2017; Valsesia et al., 2016). This statement, in return, could be supported by frame 2 - “influencers are ‘fake’ and monetary driven”, as well as by the quantitative research. In 2017 the rhetoric on SMI had shifted to a more negative tone. Reporters used "deceptive", "act", "ethical suspicion", "compromised", "false" and other negative words to criticize and questioning SMI behaviours. The monetary motivation revealed by the disclosure regulation has also put their authentic identity into question. This is shown, for example, in the featured article on Doina Ciobanu (The Guardian, April 7, 2017). Although some researchers have argued that honestly admitting a sponsorship disclosure would lead to more transparency of the influencers and thus gain trust from their followers (Boerman et al., 2015; Hwang & Jeong, 2016). But this perspective is not shown in the overall frame analysis. Based on the iconic perspective of authenticity, authenticity is reflected in the belief or expectation of the observer, therefore, whether a consumer perceives that influencer as authentic or not, would highly depend on an influencer's curation skill (Grayson & Martinec, 2004; Leigh et al., 2006; Morhart et al., 2013; Park et al., 2019).
On the one hand, sponsorship disclosure allows the consumer to distinguish between organic post and branded content clearly and protects the consumer from being misled by advertisement messages (FTC, 2015; Lee & Watkins, 2016; Wojdynski & Evans, 2016). But on the other hand, it has also made the financial motivation behind the influencer more salient to the public, which again raises doubt to the existential authenticity of influencers. This is reflected in frame two as well as the quantitative analysis shown in the decrease of positive emotion and increase of negative emotion in 2017 (see 4.1). The overall public opinion towards influencer has shifted into a more negative direction due to the inauthentic behaviour of the influencers. This has led to the public warier of influencer and their impact on our society as a whole, which is reflected in the frame three in which "influencer hype is a "bad influence" for our society".
for the followers but also for the influencer themselves (The Telegraph, August 11, 2018; July 29, 2018; The Guardian July 22, 2018; July 7, 2018). However, this does not mean that influencers or social media are bad or exerting bad influence in general. There are still articles positively mentioning influencers. In 2018, there are still some articles that would fit into frame one. However, the overall rise of articles that matches with frame three in 2018 shows a tendency of a type of moral panic constructed by the media. This reflects the changes from discussing "influencers being fake" (frame two) to the increase in the concern of how "influencers would have 'bad influence' on our society" (frame three). The shift of perception is comparable with the research by Tran and Strutton (2014) that authenticity effects the source credibility and authenticity affect trustworthiness (Napoli et al., 2014; Schallehn et al., 2014), and it is also mirrored in the continuous decrease of positive emotion in the quantitative analysis.
• The objective perspective of authenticity is evidence-based, which can be measured objectively by followers or advertisers (Trilling, 1972). Advertisers could easily use influencer marketing software by analysing the data such as follower-engagement ratio, trend of the new follower counts to detect fake influencers (Sen et al., 2018). Therefore, influencers must have a code of conduct, be truthful and be honest with the information they are sharing with their followers.
• The constructive perspective of authenticity is more impression-based and depends on the schematic belief or expectation of the consumers (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010; Grayson & Martinec, 2004). Influencers could use iconic cues focus on the content that matches with the background of their followers, such as using brands that match with their character. • The existential perspective of authenticity draws in the subjective emotional feeling, which
is harder to measure and maintain (Leigh et al., 2006). It is driven by their inner desire than by financial goals. Therefore, it is essential to have that intrinsic gratification, remain true to oneself and building a genuine relationship with the like-minded others. This could be achieved, for instance, by engaging with the followers' community or giving an honest review of the endorsed product (Boerman et al., 2015; Tessitore & Geuens, 2013).
6. Limitations and future research
There are some limitations to be mentioned in the current study. For instance, the study focused only on three different newspapers from the UK from 2016 to 2018. Therefore, for future research, other comparative analysis across various media networks could be investigated in a more extended time period. The data is limited to the time period of 2018. Hence, it is not possible to have a status quo reflection of the overall public opinion towards SMI authenticity. However, based on this idea future research could conduct lab research or survey to analyse whether the disclosure regulation and public’s awareness of SMI’s inauthentic or contrived persona would have an impact on consumers in the present day.
In the qualitative analysis, the ANOVA test is built upon a tiny observation. Therefore, the statistical power of the analysis is affected by the small sample of observation. In future research, the data could be divided into monthly periods in order to achieve a larger sample set to gain a larger statistical power.
Furthermore, authenticity is also a topic for other types of people apart from influencers such as politicians, which could provide avenues for future research
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Appendices
Appendix 1 – Newspaper references
Daily Mail (2016) “Peel your banana backwards…and other simple but surprising tips to
make your life much easier” March 17,2016
The Guardian. (2016). “Show's over for veteran fashion elite as style insurgents seize front
row; Vogue may think bloggers 'herald the end of style', but designers want social media stars in the best seats to tap into the buzz they generate” October 2, 2016
The Guardian. (2016). “'You can WhatsApp the prime minister' - what tech means to
Trinidad; In the first of our new Global Tech series, Joshua Surtees explores the impact of social media and digital developments on community and wider society in Trinidad and Tobago” March 29, 2016
The Guardian. (2016). “Europe's new cold war turns digital as Vladimir Putin expands media
offensive; Russia is deploying social media trolls in an attempt to effect political change, and Britain is not immune” March 6, 2016
The Guardian. (2016). “How Facebook tracks and profits from voters in a $10bn US
election; Social network lets campaigns match profiles with political habits and contact info, as Silicon Valley influence becomes “game-changer” for targeted ads.” January 28, 2016
The Guardian. (2016). “Learning lessons from unlikely business heroes; Digital-first
entrepreneurs show personality, diversification and being ahead of the curve can pay off for small business owners too” December 12, 2016
The Guardian. (2016). “The Guardian view of Vogue v the bloggers: business is winning;
Vogue accuses the fashion bloggers of selling out. The fashion bloggers ask how would Vogue know (and why would they care?)” September 29, 2016
The Guardian. (2016). “Vogue editors accused of hypocrisy after declaring war on fashion
bloggers: Editors told to get back to their Werther's Originals after criticising 'pathetic' fashion bloggers 'in borrowed clothes'” September 29, 2016
The Guardian. (2017). “Fashion week job swap: could I become an Instagram star?;
Social media stars are wielding increasing power in the fashion industry. What happens when Jess Cartner-Morley trades places with 'influencer' Doina Ciobanu?” April 7, 2017
The Guardian. (2017). “Fyre Festival: social media 'influencers' traded posts for lavish perks;
Leaked pitch from the doomed festival shows celebrities and models were given flights and tickets for deceptive promotional posts, violating trade law” May 2, 2017
The Guardian. (2017). “How to become Snapchat famous: get creative and learn to relax;
