The Online Influencer Marketing - How emotional commitment impacts consumers’ willingness to pay

Abstract

Online Influencer Marketing have definitely been gaining its momentum since social media recent proliferation. Extant literature has already confirmed its superiority in terms of advertising effectiveness with respect to traditional marketing strategies, whereas social media influencers are now considered as paramount assets to be leveraged in any well-designed endorsement campaign toolbox. Nevertheless, not a single word has been spent on the potentially profitable implications in the pricing sphere, despite such would represent the ultimate indicator of Online Influencer Marketing predominancy. Whereby, the present study aims to fill such a gap by directly targeting, for the first time, consumers’ Willingness to Pay more on digital platforms. Furthermore, the present work purposely focuses on the role played by Parasocial Interaction - parameter that prior scholarship has proved to permeate any follower-influencer bond - in raising consumers’ Willingness to Pay. Source Credibility, Perceived Interaction, Customer Engagement and Product Quality are the other factors directly addressed to serve the research scope, while Ad Recognition and Skepticism Toward Influencer Marketing have been selected as boundary conditions.