중국 시장에서 브이로그의 커뮤니케이션 및 정보원 특성이 광고 태도와 브랜드 태도에 미치는 영향: 마이크로 인플루언서를 중심으로

The Impact of the Communication and Information Source Characteristics of Chinese Vlogs on Advertising Attitudes and Brand Attitudes in the Chinese Market: Focused on Micro Influencers

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate how micro influencers impact brand attitudes and advertising attitudes through para-social interaction, contextual congruence, and source characteristics. This research focuses on Chinese consumers and tries to uncover if para-social interaction has greater impacts on consumer responses than contextual congruence and influencer characteristics. Design/Methodology/Approach - This study tests hypotheses through surveys conducted in the Chines market. The respondents are Chinese consumers that subscribe to the social media channels of micro influencers and experience v-log advertisements. 226 responses were analyzed excluding unfaithful questionnaires. Reliability and validity were examined by Cronbach’s a and confirmatory factor analyses. Hypotheses were tested through a structural equation model. Results - The results of this study show that para-social interaction has greater impacts on advertising attitudes than contextual congruence, expertise, and similarity. The difference between para-social interaction and attractiveness is not significant. Also, para-social interaction has greater impacts on brand attitudes than attractiveness, expertise, and similarity. The difference between para-social interaction and contextual congruence is not significant. Research Implications or Ingenuity - First, para-social interactions that reflect the relationship-oriented characteristics of Chinese culture are important in affecting consumer responses. Second, it is significant that Chinese consumers value attractiveness and professionalism more than similarity when interacting with micro-influencers. Third, contextual congruency contributed more to improving brand attitudes than advertising attitudes, and the attractiveness of micro-influencers helps to improve advertising attitudes more than brand attitudes. Contextual congruency plays as important a role as para-social interactions in improving brand attitudes.