The Strategic Value of Attractive Influencers for Advertising Comunication: The Influence of Parasocial Interaction Processes on the Persuasive Effect of Brand Placements

Although brand placements can be seen more and more frequently in social media channels of so-called “influencers”, current brand placement research has rarely focused on the persuasive influence of these media characters. The "Balance Model of Product Placement Effects" of Russell and Stern (2006) began to integrate both, the recipient and the recipient's specific perception of the media context, into brand placement research. The result of these considerations is a triadic connection between the recipient, the acting media characters and the placed brands. Adressing this, the following study investigates the mediating influence of cognitive phenomenon of parasocial interactions to an influencer of a YouTube make-up tutorial as well as her specific attitude/valence towards the brands in her immediate context. Brand perception, purchase intention and actual purchase of the presented brand were measured as dependent variables of advertising effectiveness.