*This Blog Post was written during my Masters Degree*

The way we advertise has evolved throughout history, starting with print media , advancing to televised adverts and now with the help of the internet, social media is the new frontier of advertising. None are more at the front of this new form of advertising then social influencers.

A social influencer can act as a role model and even sometimes a leader affecting the way consumers act. One such way is how and what consumers buy!

One type of social influencers are celebrities. It has been a common trend to use celebrities to endorse new products to the everyday consumer. But with the new use of social media, we can use these celebrities in more subtle ways than simply using them in ad campaigns. We can utilise these celebrities to create new purchase habits amongst the consumers. One habit can be making sustainability more fashionable among everyday consumers.

Celebrity endorsements can be a useful way of demonstrating and introducing sustainable fashion brands that the everyday consumer may not be aware of. For instance, Katie Holmes was recently seen wearing ballet shoes, you may think this isn’t particularly noteworthy, but the ballet flats she wore to Rothy’s fashion event were not your average ballet shoes. They are made from recycled single-use plastic bottles, a recurrent theme throughout their clothes, keeping in line with their ethos of putting sustainability first.

So why are we influenced by social influencers? One reason is that we can learn social information from them such as new buying behaviours. We may see the influencer use a particular brand which we are uncertain off, the more people who use that brand the more we observe, the more self- reinforcement we get.

The second reason is based on social needs that people have. The particular need that influencers have an impact on is the need to belong to a group, and to express their status and personality. By using a product that a social influencers uses the consumer can be portrayed as having those same extra values, which will then give them a high value of themselves and sense of belonginess. 

Using a social influencer can make the consumer feel they ‘know’ them in a personal way as if they are friends who share similar interests. The sense of similarity influencers create can therefore influence the effectiveness of the endorsement .

Research has looked at how consumer decision making is influenced by peers. Finding that peer consumption can enhance the purchase intention of the individual as they put higher value on the products. This can explain why if a consumers feel as if they ‘know’ a social influencer on a personal level, it can influence their purchasing decisions.

Social influencers are often seen as glamorous, well put together individuals, which we will assign other greater attributes to their personality due to the ‘halo effect’. If a social influencer is seen as glamorous, the consumer may also assign them other traits positive such as honestly, trustworthy, etc. These traits will then benefit the product as the consumer will believe in the product the influencer is endorsing.

But it is important for brands to carefully choose which social influencer to endorse their products with. A meta-analysis which looked at 30 years of celebrity endorsement literature, found that negative information regarding a celebrity can pass on to having a negative association with the endorsed brand.

For instance, when Pepsi had a contract with Madonna to use her ‘Like a Prayer’ single for a series of adverts. But the song had a controversial  music video, which lead to the Catholic Bishop from Texas, Rene Gracido asking for a boycott of Pepsi. The negative feedback from the music video was then transferred onto Pepsi, demonstrating that a negative information can be the passed on and associated with the brand.

Yet positive information linked to celebrities can later transfer onto the endorsed brands. For instance, Rihanna became an endorser of Puma in 2016 leading to a spike in sales after she signed up for a sneakers campaign, showcasing the power a well-chosen influencer can have. That a positive association can than transfer onto the brand.

Social influencers are an interesting marketing tool, which if used correctly can help introduce consumers to newer or different brands. It would be interesting to see if through social influencing we can change consumer habits with how they consumer and whether it can change their buying habits to include more sustainable habits.