Abstract

Social media influencers (SMIs) have become an efficient advertising tool. However, their roles vis-à-vis the brands for which they advertise are changing. Far from being just simple promoters anymore they now take active part in both the product and communications development of firms. Yet in advertising research, a discussion of these new roles is absent. This article, therefore, seeks to categorize the roles influencers play in advertising collaborations by means of an empirical typology. In a netnographic study, we investigate the posts of 21 fashion influencers over a period of three years and find three main roles (spokesperson, cocreator, or co-owner) and eight subroles (for spokesperson: billboard, stylist, and ambassador; for cocreator: consultant and codesigner; for co-owner: sole proprietor, facilitator, and partner) that influencers take on in relation to brands. We contribute to theory on influencer marketing by conceptualizing influencer roles in advertising collaborations as well as categorizing these roles, thus allowing future researchers to use our typology as a conceptual foundation. Another contribution is the insight into how the dynamics of control over product and communication creation is evolving in influencer collaborations.

摘要

社交媒体影响者 (SMI) 已成为一种有效的广告工具。然而，他们相对于他们所宣传的品牌的角色正在发生变化。不再只是简单的推广者，他们现在积极参与公司的产品和传播开发。然而，在广告研究中，并没有对这些新角色进行讨论。因此，本文试图通过经验类型学对影响者在广告合作中所扮演的角色进行分类。在一项网络学研究中，我们调查了 21 位时尚影响者在三年内的帖子，发现了三个主要角色（代言人、共同创作者或共同所有者）和八个子角色（对于发言人：广告牌、造型师和大使；对于共同创作者：顾问和协同设计者；对于共同所有人：独资经营者、协调人、和合作伙伴），影响者与品牌相关。我们通过概念化广告合作中的影响者角色以及对这些角色进行分类，为影响者营销理论做出贡献，从而允许未来的研究人员使用我们的类型学作为概念基础。另一个贡献是深入了解产品和通信创建的控制动态如何在影响者合作中演变。