Product placement 2.0: “Do Brands Need Influencers, or Do Influencers Need Brands?”

S. Venus Jin () and Aziz Muqaddam ()
Additional contact information
S. Venus Jin: Sejong University
Aziz Muqaddam: Michigan State University

Journal of Brand Management, 2019, vol. 26, issue 5, No 4, 522-537

Abstract: Abstract An online experiment examined the effects of Instagram posts’ source types and product-placement types on brand attitude and credibility perception. A 2 (source: brand versus Instagram influencer) × 2 (product placement: product-only [explicit product placement] versus influencer-with-product [moderate product placement]) between-subjects factorial experiment (N = 304) tested the effects of the two manipulated factors on source credibility, corporate credibility, and attitude toward brand posts. Two-way ANOVAs indicate a main effect of source types on perceived trustworthiness and interaction effects of product-placement and source types on perceived expertise, corporate credibility, and attitude toward brand posts. Consumers exposed to brand as the source conditions indicated no difference in corporate credibility and brand attitude regardless of product-placement types. In contrast, consumers exposed to Instagram influencer as the source conditions indicated higher corporate credibility and more positive attitude toward brand posts when exposed to the influencer-with-product conditions than when exposed to the product-only conditions. Consumers differently react to product placement on Instagram influencers’ accounts depending on whether the influencers are present versus absent. Consumers react negatively to influencers’ posts when they do not appear with the products they endorse. Parasocial interaction mediates the relationship between product/brand placement types and corporate credibility.

Keywords: Social media influencers; Product/brand placement; Corporate credibility; Brand management on Instagram; Celebrity endorsement; Influencer marketing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41262-019-00151-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:jobman:v:26:y:2019:i:5:d:10.1057_s41262-019-00151-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41262

DOI: 10.1057/s41262-019-00151-z

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Brand Management is currently edited by Joachim Kernstock, Shaun M. Powell, Mark Davies and Ur a Golob

More articles in Journal of Brand Management from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().