YouTube vloggers’ popularity and influence: The roles of homophily, emotional attachment, and expertise

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2019.102027Get rights and content

Abstract

This study examines how homophily, emotional attachment, and credibility influence the popularity of a video blogger (hereinafter referred to as vlogger) and his/her viewers' purchase decision in the context of the beauty product industry. More specifically, the research investigates the effects of four dimensions of the homophily construct (i.e., attitude, value, background, and appearance), vlogger's expertise, and emotional attachment to the vlogger on his/her popularity. In turn, the vlogger's popularity influences viewers' purchase of recommended products. Data were collected online among a sample of 501 US women about beauty product vloggers. The results show that three dimensions of homophily (attitude, values, and appearance) have a significant effect on the vlogger's popularity. Emotional attachment has a significant effect whereas expertise has no significant effect. Vloggers' popularity has a significant effect on viewers' purchase of recommended beauty products. Overall, our findings highlight the role of homophily and emotional attachment for the study of vloggers' popularity.

Introduction

Social networks are witnessing a rapid growth of video blog (hereinafter referred to as vlog) advertising which refers to the paid sponsorships of vloggers to review and promote upcoming products (e.g., beauty products and apparels) or services (e.g., hotel brands) (Hill et al., 2017). Vlogs are often broadcast on social media platforms like YouTube. Vlogs have become more important since the foundation of YouTube in 2005 (Thomas, 2014). YouTube is a content community that allows users to upload, view, share, and comment videos on the site. Vloggers create, record, and upload videos about their personal life and products (brands) or services (Hill et al., 2017; Lee and Watkins, 2016).

Many YouTube users create vlogs that have amassed a large following (Lee and Watkins, 2016). Some of them have reached more than 100 million subscribers to become YouTube celebrities (Lee and Watkins, 2016). One of the most popular forms of vlogs is beauty vlogs (Gannon and Prothero, 2018). In 2015, beauty videos on YouTube were watched over 45 billion times with an impressive growth of 50% between 2014 and 2015 (Beauty on YouTube, 2015). In the same year, beauty vloggers and other beauty content creators generated around 97% of conversations on beauty products whereas beauty brands generated only 3% of content (Cosmetics, 2015). Indeed, vloggers hosted 10 times more video content on YouTube compared to branded content (Cosmetics, 2015). Several beauty vloggers are superstars with millions of followers and fans. For instance, vloggers Yuya, Zoella, and Sara (SaraBeautyCorner) had 23.3, 11.9, and 9.7 million followers, respectively, on their YouTube page in January 2019 (Statista, 2019a). These vloggers are considered “Beauty Gurus” and are seen as the new opinion leaders of the Web 2.0 (Mardon et al., 2018). They become important –with their celebrity– for marketers and brands targeting the US cosmetics industry, which represented a revenue of over 62 billion dollars in 2016 (Statista, 2019a). According to the US BEA (Bureau of Economic Analysis), cosmetics’ expenses in the USA increased by 34% between 2009 and 2016 (US BEA, 2017).

Social networks have presented beauty brands with many new opportunities to connect with consumers. It is more entertaining and engaging to create a video tutorial on YouTube for a beauty product than to do the same for functional products such as computer hardware. In this social media, beauty brands are increasingly embracing the influence of vloggers (Coursaris and Van Osch, 2016), who represent new tools for beauty brands to attract female consumers with a rich content. Beauty vloggers have the ability to offer abundant information to female consumers through tutorials and tips. They are considered authentic sources of information within a large social network and have the ability to influence consumers’ choices and preferences for beauty products (Hill et al., 2017; Tynan and McKechnie, 2009). This encourages beauty brands to develop associations with these new internet celebrities such as the one developed between Lancôme and Michelle Phan since 2010, which is lucrative for both sides (Munnukka, Maity, Reinikainen, & Luomo-aho, 2019).

Although vlogs have been around for quite some time, the increasing interest in vlogs in marketing is quite recent and their influence on consumer decisions is relatively unexplored compared to other social media tools such as blogs (Hill et al., 2017). Despite many similarities between vlogging and blogging, there are also differences: in particular, social features are more pronounced on vlogging platforms (i.e., video content on YouTube, Instagram or Facebook) than those on blogging platforms (i.e., written or pictographic content on blog portals) (Hill et al., 2017). Studies on vlogs explored the antecedents of parasocial interaction with vloggers and the impact of popularity on vloggers' expertise and credibility (Sakib et al., 2019; Hill et al., 2017). They also highlighted the influence of vloggers' credibility on brand awareness and consumers' buying intentions (Munnukka et al., 2019). However, gaps remain concerning what influences vloggers' popularity and its effect on viewers' purchase decisions (Hill et al., 2017). Indeed, the importance of the beauty market and the attractiveness of beauty vlogs put forward the relevance of examining the beauty vloggers’ influence, which is an unexplored area of academic research.

The current study tries to address this gap by setting the following objectives: (1) to examine the factors that explain vloggers' popularity for beauty products; (2) to examine the influence of vloggers' popularity on viewers' purchase of recommended beauty products. Based on the literature on social media (e.g., blogs and vlogs) and celebrity characteristics and influences (Hill et al., 2017; Hsu et al., 2013; Lin and Kao, 2010; Sakib et al., 2019; Munnukka et al., 2019), there are three prominent drivers of vlogger popularity: the vlogger's expertise, the homophily between the vlogger and viewers, and the emotional attachment of viewers toward the vlogger. Homophily is a relatively less studied concept in marketing and social commerce; it reflects the perceived similarity between the vlogger and viewers on attitude, values and morals, appearance, and background.

Section snippets

Social media marketing

Kaplan and Haenlein (2010, p. 61) define social media as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of web 2.0, and allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.” Social media include various platforms such as social networking, weblogs, social blogs, micro blogging, podcasts, video, pictures, rating, and social bookmarking (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). The fast development of gadget technology leads to the rapid and

Sample

A survey was conducted through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Many studies support the validity of this method for recruiting participants and even its superiority to in-person data collection, recruitment via social media, and the use of professional panels (e.g., Casler et al., 2013; Kees et al., 2017).

A sample of 501 US women, who are following popular beauty vloggers on YouTube, participated in this study. We focused on women as they are more concerned with beauty advice and that most

Results

The measurement items for the seven constructs (attitude, background, value, appearance, expertise, vlogger's popularity, and emotional attachment) are subject to an Exploratory Factor Analysis. Table 3 reports the results, indicating that seven expected factors emerged, explaining 71% of the total variance. All the items loaded on their intended constructs. The loadings are all higher than .6. The Cronbach's alpha estimates range from .814 to .961 (Table 3), which confirms the reliability of

Discussion

The last decade has witnessed a rise of new types of ‘online’ celebrity groups, such as bloggers, vloggers, and ‘Instafamous’ personalities (Chahal, 2016). These people have become famous through online media usage such as Instagram, blogs, and YouTube (Djafarova and Rushworth, 2017; Nouri, 2018). Social media have become a platform of incomparable value to both traditional celebrities and online celebrities (Chung and Cho, 2017). Social media have drastically changed the way consumers look for

Conclusion

The rise of social media is accompanied by the development of different types of online celebrities such as famous bloggers, vloggers, and instagrammers. Little research has been pursued to examine what affects their popularity and how they influence audiences' preferences and purchase decisions. This research focuses on beauty vlogs and examines the determinants of perceived vloggers' popularity and the purchase of beauty products featured in the vlog. The study sheds light on the role of

References (80)

  • J.E. Lee et al.

    YouTube vloggers' influence on consumer luxury brand perceptions and intentions

    J. Bus. Res.

    (2016)
  • F. Li et al.

    Who is talking? An ontology-based opinion leader identification framework for word-of-mouth marketing in online social blogs

    Decis. Support Syst.

    (2011)
  • R. Mardon et al.

    YouTube Beauty Gurus and the emotional labour of tribal entrepreneurship

    J. Bus. Res.

    (2018)
  • J. Munnukka et al.

    “Thanks for watching”. The effectiveness of YouTube vlog endorsements

    Comput. Hum. Behav.

    (2019)
  • H.J. Park et al.

    The effects of match-ups on the consumer attitudes toward internet celebrities and their live streaming contents in the context of product endorsement

    J. Retail. Consum. Serv.

    (2020)
  • S.S. Shang et al.

    Generating consumer resonance for purchase intention on social network sites

    Comput. Hum. Behav.

    (2017)
  • D. Smith et al.

    Online peer and editorial recommendations, trust, and choice in virtual markets

    J. Interact. Mark.

    (2005)
  • M. Thomson et al.

    The ties that bind: measuring the strength of consumers’ emotional attachments to brands

    J. Consum. Psychol.

    (2005)
  • R. Uribe et al.

    Sidedness, commercial intent and expertise in blog advertising

    J. Bus. Res.

    (2016)
  • K.Z. Zhang et al.

    Examining the moderating effect of inconsistent reviews and its gender differences on consumers' online shopping decision

    Int. J. Inf. Manag.

    (2014)
  • K.Z. Zhang et al.

    Can consumers be persuaded on brand microblogs? An empirical study

    Inf. Manag.

    (2018)
  • S. Al-Natour et al.

    The adoption of online shopping assistants: perceived similarity as an antecedent to evaluative beliefs

    J. Assoc. Inf. Syst.

    (2011)
  • H. Alves et al.

    Social media marketing: a literature review and implications

    Psychol. Mark.

    (2016)
  • C. Amos et al.

    Exploring the relationship between celebrity endorser effects and advertising effectiveness: a quantitative synthesis of effect size

    Int. J. Advert.

    (2008)
  • R.P. Bagozzi et al.

    The role of emotions in marketing

    J. Acad. Mark. Sci.

    (1999)
  • Beauty on YouTube

    Be part of the conversation

  • L. Bergkvist et al.

    Celebrity endorsements: a literature review and research agenda

    Int. J. Advert.

    (2016)
  • L.L. Berry

    Cultivating service brand equity

    J. Acad. Mark. Sci.

    (2000)
  • D. Burton

    Ethnicity, identity and marketing: a critical review

    J. Mark. Manag.

    (2000)
  • J. Chae

    YouTube makeup tutorials reinforce postfeminist beliefs through social comparison

    Media Psychol.

    (2019)
  • M. Chahal

    Four trends that will shape media in 2016. Marketing Week

  • C. Chapple et al.

    An investigation into viewers' trust in and response towards disclosed paid-for-endorsements by YouTube lifestyle vloggers

    Journal of Promotional Communications

    (2017)
  • G. Chatzopoulou et al.

    A first step towards understanding popularity in YouTube

  • S.C. Chu et al.

    Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites

    Int. J. Advert.

    (2011)
  • Cosmetics

    Brands vs consumers: vloggers still a huge force in beauty

  • C.K. Coursaris et al.

    Exploring the effects of source credibility on information adoption on YouTube

  • S. Chung et al.

    Fostering parasocial relationships with celebrities on social media: implications for celebrity endorsement

    Psychol. Mark.

    (2017)
  • R. Danniswara et al.

    The impact of eWOM referral, celebrity endorsement, and information quality on purchase decision: A case of Instagram

    Inf. Resour. Manag. J.

    (2017)
  • Y.K. Dwivedi et al.

    Social media marketing and advertising

    Mark. Rev.

    (2015)
  • A. Dwivedi et al.

    Consumer emotional brand attachment with social media brands and social media brand equity

    Eur. J. Market.

    (2018)
  • Cited by (225)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text