Trust me, I'm an influencer : Understanding what drives trust and purchase intention in influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a dominant strategy in today’s landscape of digital marketing. Although effective, regulations of sponsorship disclosure make consumers more skeptical of the influencer’s motives when recommending a product. According to previous studies, trust plays an important role in the effectiveness of influencer marketing. The concept of correspondence inference can mitigate the increased skepticism that comes with sponsorship disclosures, meaning that consumers believe an influencer product recommendation stems from genuine preferences even though they are being paid for the recommendation. Self-congruence has also been known to be an important factor in creating consumer trust towards an influencer. The purpose of this thesis is to enhance the understanding of the relationships between self-congruence, perceived competence, consumer perceptions of trust, correspondence inference, product involvement, and purchase intention in influencer marketing. To address this purpose, a between-subjects study design was chosen with a scenario-based digital survey. The results show that consumer trust towards an influencer has a positive effect on correspondence inference, no matter sponsorship status. However, consumers display stronger correspondence inference when the product recommendation appears voluntary or unpaid. Furthermore, the effect of consumer trust on purchase intention is fully mediated by correspondence inference. However, the effect of correspondence inference on purchase intention is moderated by product involvement. Additionally, both actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence enhances trust. While actual self-congruence has a direct effect on trust, ideal self-congruence operates through perceived competence.