Inform Me or Make Me Laugh: Influencer Marketing and the Role of Emotional Contagion and Information Value

Abstract

Influencers' humorous product usage anecdotes and story-based informative collaborative content drive customers' emotional and cognitive responses. Accordingly, this study first examines the impact of humorous and informative content on emotional contagion and information value. Second, it examines the mediating role of emotional contagion and information value that shapes customers' brand engagement and purchase intentions. Third, it tests the boundary conditions imposed by product type. A multimethod quantitative approach was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Two online experiments and two exploratory studies in the form of a social media field experiment and a text analysis study were conducted. The results showed that humorous messages induced emotional contagion, while informative messages produced higher information value. Emotional contagion and information value explained the underlying mechanisms affecting customer brand engagement and purchase intentions. We also found that when employed for hedonic products, humorous messages precipitated stronger emotional responses, while for utilitarian products, informative messages led to higher information value. The study findings offer implications for marketers seeking to enhance customer brand engagement through influencer marketing.