Influencer Marketing of Green Products
(A2023-114561)

AUTHORS

SATADRUTA Mookherjee, Grenoble Ecole de Management; Yiping Song, NEOMA Business School; Jiming WU, NEOMA business school

ABSTRACT

Given the growing popularity of influencer marketing, in this paper we examine the effectiveness of influencers for green marketing. We find that in the context of green products, posts focusing on the product itself or having endorsements from non-influencers (friends) fare much better than featuring influencers (mega-influencers and micro-influencers alike). Drawing on the theory of Elaborating Likelihood Model (ELM), we identify the mediating factors to be credibility, relatability and level of involvement. Additionally, we find that contrary to the conventional notion that consumers are driven by the popular trend endorsed by influencers, while evaluating a green product, consumers’ decisions are driven by the eco-friendly appeal and cost of the product.