Abstract

Brands have increasingly collaborated with influencers on their social advocacy efforts through social media influencer advertising. This study explores the effects of influencer identity and comment section in Instagram-based corporate social responsibility advertising within the context of Pride collection supporting the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) community. Through an experiment sampling both non-LGBTQ and LGBTQ Instagram users (N = 645), the present study investigates how the featured Instagram influencer’s intergroup identity (non-LGBTQ, LGBTQ) interacts with comment valence (positive, negative) to influence consumers’ responses to the Pride collection advertisements contributing to the LGBTQ cause. Moreover, it explores whether perceived influencer credibility, brand hypocrisy, and brand motive mediate the effects of influencer identity and comment valence. The findings demonstrated that the LGBTQ-identified influencer elicited more perceived credibility and less brand hypocrisy, particularly among the LGBTQ participants. However, the non-LGBTQ influencer elicited more positive ad attitudes and behavioural tendencies among the cisgender heterosexual non-LGBTQ participants. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

摘要

品牌越来越多地通过社交媒体影响者广告与影响者合作开展社会宣传工作。本研究探讨了在支持 LGBTQ（女同性恋、男同性恋、双性恋、变性人、酷儿）社区的 Pride 收藏的背景下，影响者身份和评论部分在基于 Instagram 的企业社会责任广告中的影响。通过对非 LGBTQ 和 LGBTQ Instagram 用户（N = 645）的抽样实验，本研究调查了 Instagram 影响者的群体间身份（非 LGBTQ、LGBTQ）如何与评论效价（正面、负面）相互作用以影响消费者的反应到为 LGBTQ 事业做出贡献的 Pride 系列广告。此外，它探讨了感知影响者的可信度、品牌虚伪、品牌动机在影响者身份和评论效价的影响中起中介作用。研究结果表明，LGBTQ 识别的影响者引起了更多的感知可信度和更少的品牌虚伪，特别是在 LGBTQ 参与者中。然而，非 LGBTQ 影响者在顺性别异性恋非 LGBTQ 参与者中引发了更积极的广告态度和行为倾向。讨论了理论和实践意义。