From V-Commerce to V-Commerce 2.0: A Study of V-Commerce Content and Influencers

Abstract

Background/Objectives: This study aims to classify the types of influencers into influencer content and branded influencer content and to identify what differences exist in the attitudes and word-of-mouth intentions, depending on the type of product (utilitarian or symbolic).

Methods/Statistical analysis: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of interaction between influencer type and product type on attitude and word of mouth intention 2 (influencer type: influencer content vs. branded influencer) x 2 (product type: utilitarian product vs. hedonic products) between-subjects factorial design. A total of 127 subjects participated in the experiment. 66 subjects were included in the influencer content and 61 subjects were included in the branded content

Findings: The results of this study, first, it was revealed that influencer content has a more positive impact on advertisement and brand attitudes when compared to branded content.Second, in the influencer content of V-Commerce, utilitarian products showed a positive communication effect compared to hedonic products. In this study, laptops were selected as the utilitarian product while tourism packages were selected as the hedonic product. However, if the distinction between utilitarian and hedonic products is not an absolute concept, but a relative concept to some degree, the possibility that laptops are perceived as hedonic products in another study cannot be completely ruled out.Compared to the offline market, the online market, including the social commerce market, inevitably has a limited amount of information on the product, and therefore, the level of uncertainty perceived by the consumers rises. To resolve the cognitive dissonance coming from the conflict between the benefits of low price and limited information, and the consequent uncertainty, people process information in a relatively simpler manner and make decisions accordingly.

Improvements/Applications: The experimental object of V-Commerce was made by editing and manipulating existing YouTube videos to be fitted into this study, so the two types of V-Commerce were not completely manipulated.

Keywords:  V-Commerce2.0, Influencer Content, Branded Influencer, Utilitarian Product, Hedonic Product.