Social Media Influencer Marketing as a potential strategy for new cosmetic brands to create brand awareness and gain legitimacy among consumers

Abstract

A lack of knowledge and understanding of new brands forms part of the difficulties consumers face when purchasing products from new cosmetic brands. This qualitative study explores the effectiveness of content created and shared by beauty influencers, specifically on Instagram, in generating awareness and legitimacy for new cosmetic brands among consumers. The data collection was done by means of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with five consumers. To analyse the data, the findings were applied to the broad constructs of the social comparison and source credibility theories. The findings of this research suggested that participants use influencers’ content as source of brand information. The findings further indicate that influencers who are perceived as trustworthy, experts, passionate about their work and possessing characteristics that are similar to participants are considered as more reliable sources of brand information. Findings further show that through influencer marketing, participants appear to not gather sufficient information regarding new cosmetic brands that could lead them to consider these brands as legitimate market players. The findings demonstrate that influencer marketing is indeed effective in creating brand awareness, but ineffective in providing sufficient brand information that can create the necessary levels of cognitive legitimacy amongst participants.