Influencers & Influencer Marketing

Introduction

Implications for Consumers & Society, Special issue of the Journal of Business Research; Deadline 1 Mar 2024

INTEREST CATEGORY: INNOVATION AND TECH
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Author: Rebecca Mardon

Call for Papers

Influencers & Influencer Marketing: Implications for Consumers & Society

Journal: Journal of Business Research

Guest Editors: Rebecca Mardon (Cardiff University), Hayley Cocker (Lancaster University), Kate Daunt (Cardiff University) & Robert Kozinets (University of Southern California).

Submission Deadline: 1st March 2024

Special issue information:

The emergence of influencers – personal brands that build an audience over social media with a consistent flow of distinctive content (Kozinets et al. 2023) – has had important implications for marketing and consumer culture. Whilst some influencers are niche, unknown outside of a small circle of devoted and highly engaged followers, others have followings that rival those of mainstream celebrities (Campbell and Farrell 2020). Brands have been quick to capitalise on influencers’ fame and influence and are forecast to spend over $32.5 billion on influencer marketing in 2023 (Nasrin 2022). Marketing research on influencers has largely focused on identifying factors that impact the effectiveness of influencer marketing strategies (e.g., Hugh et al. 2022; Leung et al. 2022a, 2022b; Wies et al. forthcoming; Borges-Tiago et al. 2023; Ren et al. 2023) and exploring issues of transparency and media literacy surrounding the disclosure of influencers’ commercial activity (e.g., Boerman et al. 2017; Eisend et al. 2020; De Jans et al. 2018; Karagür et al. 2022). Yet, the emergence and increasing prevalence of influencers and influencer marketing presents important societal implications that require further investigation. Indeed, this phenomenon appears to present a complex and contradictory mix of positive and negative implications for consumers and society, with which both researchers and consumers must grapple.

For instance, ‘greenfluencers’ can drive sustainable consumption (Kapooret al. 2022), yet influencer culture appears to be promoting materialism (Lee et al. 2022; Dinh and Lee, 2021) and driving overconsumption (Reid 2022) as consumers strive to keep up with the ever-changing trends showcased by influencers. Similarly, whilst influencers can help consumers make informed purchase and consumption decisions (Scholz 2021), they can also spread misinformation and disinformation that can have important implications for consumers and society (Barrett 2022; Fisher 2021; McGowan 2021). Additionally, whilst many consumers follow influencers to experience a sense of connection and community that can boost their self-esteem and benefit their general wellbeing (Bond and Miller 2021; Hoffner and Bond 2022), influencers can also stimulate feelings of envy and dissatisfaction (Chae 2018) that can negatively impact consumers’ mental health (Valkenburg 2022). Furthermore, whilst influencers can empower consumers by disrupting normative beauty standards (Duthely 2022; McFarlane and Samsioe 2020; Veresiu and Parmentier 2021), raising awareness of marketplace discrimination (Södergren and Vallström forthcoming), and striving to achieve greater inclusivity within markets (Scaraboto and Fischer 2013), they can also shift beauty standards in more problematic ways, encouraging body dysmorphia and driving consumers towards cosmetic procedures as they attempt to imitate the idealised faces and bodies of their favourite influencers (Rodner et al. 2022).

Influencers also present contradictory implications for consumer collectives. Likeminded consumers often congregate around influencers’ content and many influencers actively cultivate supportive communities that provide a sense of unity, identification, and empowerment, which can be of particular importance to otherwise marginalised or oppressed groups (Bond and Miller 2021; Jenkins et al. 2019; Sobande 2017; Södergren and Vallström forthcoming). However, the emergence of influencers within consumer collectives, and in particular their engagement in incentivised brand endorsements and other brand collaborations, can threaten the value that consumers gain from participating in these collectives and prompt some members to disengage from these collectives entirely (Mardon et al. forthcoming a). Further research is needed to understand the impact of influencer marketing strategies on consumer collectives. Consumer collectives may also form surrounding influencers that perpetuate controversial or potentially damaging views, as in the case of Andrew Tate, who amassed an active and loyal online fan base despite being banned from multiple social media platforms for perpetuating extreme misogynistic views (Das 2022). Problematic online consumer collectives are not a new phenomenon, however the role of influencers in creating and cultivating these collectives warrants further investigation.

Research is also needed to understand consumers’ relationships with influencers, and in particular to understand when and how they may become problematic. Prior research emphasises the positive, friendship-like parasocial relationships that consumers may form with their favourite influencers (Hwang and Zhang 2018; Reinikainen et al. 2020). However, the intimate parasocial relationships that influencers cultivate with their followers can become negatively charged if not effectively maintained, potentially leading consumers to participate in anti-fan communities dedicated to obsessively critiquing all aspects of influencers’ lives (Duffy et al. 2022; Mardon et al. forthcoming b), or to engage in trolling or cyberbullying behaviours such as sending abusive or hurtful comments or direct messages directly to influencers (Abidin 2019). Whilst these behaviours do not typically shift into the offline domain, they may nonetheless involve active attempts to negatively impact influencers’ relationships, careers, and general wellbeing. Further research is needed to understand when and why consumers’ relationships with influencers become dysfunctional, how these dysfunctional relationships and resultant behaviours impact consumers’ and influencers’ lives, and how these problematic behaviours might be avoided or managed.

These are just a selection of the salient issues raised by the rise of influencer culture, which has far-reaching consequences that are yet to be fully understood. This special issue seeks to delve deeper into the wider implications of influencers and influencer marketing for consumers and society. We welcome both conceptual and empirical papers, quantitative and qualitative research, and work from other disciplinary perspectives beyond the field of marketing. We encourage the submission of papers exploring topics such as (but not limited to):

  • Implications of influencers for consumers’ values, beliefs, and aspirations (e.g., shifts in materialism, beauty standards, anticipated lifestyles), and resultant consequences for consumers’ wider consumption behaviours, lifestyles, and wellbeing (e.g., sustainable consumption, financial stability, mental health)
  • The implications of influencer marketing for consumer collectives and their members.
  • The formation and implications of online consumer collectives surrounding influencers that perpetuate misinformation, disinformation, and/or problematic views and beliefs.
  • Problematic or unhealthy consumer relationships with influencers and their implications for consumers and influencers.
  • Collective and individual consumer involvement in, and perspectives on, contemporary cancel culture, and the implications of this phenomenon for influencers and brands.
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion issues within the influencer marketing industry and their implications for consumers.
  • The implications of virtual influencers for consumers and society.
  • Consumers’ coping mechanisms for dealing with the contradictory or paradoxical implications of influencers and influencer marketing.
  • Regulatory responses to issues surrounding influencers and influencer marketing, and their implications for consumers and society.
  • The role of social media platforms’ affordances in creating, amplifying and/or addressing influencers’ implications for consumers and society.
  • Critical reflections on the future of influencer marketing and influencer culture; where will we go, or shouldwe go, from here?

Manuscript submission information:

  • ​Submission open date: 2January 2024
  • Submission deadline: 1 March 2024

If you’d like to submit to this special issue, you can do it. Please make sure you choose the article type‘Influencer Implications’when submitting your paper.

References

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