Social media convenes unique marketing opportunities capable of supporting direct engagements between marketers and consumers (Nurnafia, 2021). However, it is within such capabilities that have led to novel marketing such as Boohoo's use of social media influencers and celebrity endorsements. According to Audrezet et al. (2020), influencer marketing constitutes an emerging trend in promotional activities whereby marketers contract celebrities or social media with a huge following to pass brand or product information.
Literature Review
RQ: How effective is the fashion brand Boohoo’s use of celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing as a way to market their brand and their products?
Introduction
Social media convenes unique marketing opportunities capable of supporting direct engagements between marketers and consumers (Nurnafia, 2021). However, it is within such capabilities that have led to novel marketing such as Boohoo's use of social media influencers and celebrity endorsements. Audrezet et al. (2020) connote influencing marketing campaigns as seeding advertisement, sponsored content, organic or native promotion. According to Audrezet et al. (2020), influencer marketing constitutes an emerging trend in promotional activities whereby marketers contract celebrities or social media with a huge following to pass brand or product information. Sinha and Fung (2021) add that online apparel brands present unique threats to traditional organisations and mainstream marketing activities by promoting fast fashion consumption among youthful consumers. This trend is attributable to the disruptive nature of social media engagement and demand for fast-fashion trends, especially in the United Kingdom online fashion retailers (Nash, 2019).
While marketing research reaffirms the positive effects of celebrity endorsement and social media influence on consumer attitude, awareness, and behaviour, the effectiveness of these methods projects disputable reflexions (Audrezet et al., 2020; Nash, 2019: Sinha and Fung, 2021). Nash (2019) proposes the need for additional studies regarding the nexus between social media influencing and celebrity endorsement, and fashion decision making in the contemporary environment. The challenge to conceptualising the influencing efficacy and impact on consumption behaviours is the lack of systemic empirical models within the fashion retail context (Nash, 2019; Nurnafia, 2021). Although the value of influencers and celebrity endorsements in marketing is largely undisputable, the effectiveness and feasibility of these practices are highly disputable.
Social Media and Influencer Marketing
Beyond the underlying ambiguities, the underlying principles encapsulate two-way communication between influencers and social media users. Nash (2019) alludes that the primary goal of incorporating digital and social media platforms is to promote efficient fashion information delivery and consumption, thereby promoting brand recognition and affiliations. Apart from social media platforms, fast fashion endorsements also leverage vloggers, bloggers, YouTubers, micro-celebrities, and Instagrammers (Audrezet et al., 2020, p.558). According to Sinha and Fung (2021), these trends are increasingly gravitating from mainstream celebrity endorsements toward micro-influencers, especially in Instagram and TikTok. The pervasive proliferation of social media sites, smartphones, digital devices, and the internet are some of the key enablers of native advertisement (Nurnafia, 2021). To this end, social media endorsements often target younger consumers due to the high penetration of digital communication within youthful fashion consumers.
Research shows that sponsored content allows retailers and marketing to segment and target consumers with higher precision (Nash, 2019). According to Fan and Gordon (2014), native advertisement blends well with different levels of market granularity, thus allowing precision segmentation and targeting. Although collaborating with micro-influencers may not provide widespread exposure, this group predicates small communities and consumer pools of trusted engagement. This framework yields higher engagement, loyalty, and returns on investment in marketing strategies (Corstjens and Umblijs, 2012). Audrezet et al. (2020) establish that symbolic representation convokes a higher content receptivity and perceived quality, thus increasing consumer desires for brand association. The authenticity of content producers and influencers is therefore central to effective segmentation.
Nonetheless, Nurnafia (2021) questions the authenticity and content reception of social media influencing mainly due to the commodification of endorsements and seeding promotion. Nash (2019) further adds that these platforms require cutting-edge technologies to sustain effective consumer relations management and marketing communication. Fan and Gordon (2014) posit that social media advertising produces exceptionally volumes of big data, causing technical challenges to marketers. According to Corstjens and Umblijs (2012), the highly dynamic, complex landscape of social media influencing warrants demanding computer processing and human power. The lack of universal performance indicators further complicates the valuation of social media analytics in the real world.
In practice, marketing through influencers and celebrity endorsements offers retailers effective tools for market granularity and precision segment targeting. It engenders small tools for enhancing brand association, awareness, and authenticity, albeit through cumulative pools of smaller online communities. In reality, however, effective targeting and segmentation necessitate demanding human and technical power, intensive resources. Such challenges may limit the effectiveness and competence of social media influencer marketing.
Disruptive Influencer Marketing Trends
The coronavirus pandemic is fundamentally affecting consumer behaviours, compelling retailers to refocus on digital commerce and online trends (Nurnafiaa, 2021). Sinha and Fung (2021) speculate that the trend will gravitate toward disruptive trends in mass-market fashion practices. Yet, insufficient empirical evidence mapping decision-making processes along the consumer journey means that reliance on linear models endangers marketing efficacy and sustainability (Nash, 2019). The rise of micro-influencers and impactful hashtags on social media communities provides compelling evidence of ongoing mass-market disruption across apparel retailing. Traditionally, celebrity endorsement drove the popularity of public figures to promote brand recognition. This trend is gradually changing with the sprout of increased digital connectivity of online community spaces.
Unlike celebrity endorsements, micro-influencers are more knowledgeable about their followers’ behaviours and capable of inducing constructive dialogues and organic engagements. Hashtags and online challenges construe effective ways of finding relevant consumer information and sustaining organic brand engagement (Nurnafiaa, 2021). Micro-influencers also hold real-life connections among their followers, hence more influential than the mainstream celebrity influencers do. More so, hashtags empower micro-celebrities to shape discourse and perceptions about brands at the grassroots level. This trend yields solicited and unsolicited consumer-generated communication through peer-to-peer and brand-customer engagements (Sinha and Fung, 2021). In addition, micro-networks can generate charismatic appeal within specific domains among younger consumers. Nonetheless, the downside to disruption by micro-influencers emanates from negative publicity. Fan and Gordon (2014) establish that social media communities can potentially turn into public relation nightmares due to viral hashtags with negative content. Besides, micro-influencers offer unique brand liabilities on digital community spaces. These issues warrant rigorous vetting and meticulous planning during celebrity endorsement to enhance social media influencing efficacy.
Boohoo’s Influencer Marketing Mix
Interestingly, start-ups fashion retailers appear to have a competitive edge in social media influencing strategies compared to mainstream brands. According to Denton (2019), Boohoo Group leverages online influencers and endorsements to secure and sustain a competitive edge. Since its inception in 2006, Boohoo’s value has exponentially grown by over 270% (Neate, 2017). The Manchester-based fast-fashion retailer attributes its success to millennial shoppers and marketing strategy, which encourages user-driven content generation on social media platforms, especially on Instagram (Hardman, 2017). With over 2.6 million Instagram followers, Boohoo's online presence and social media influencing involve a mixture of digital marketing tools for promoting celebrity endorsements, consumer-driven conversations, and user-led content creation through blogging (Hardman, 2017). This strategy has increased the portion of consumer engagement by 9% to more than 7 million interactions, as of 2019 (Denton, 2019).
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- Leonard Kahungu (Autor:in), 2021, Marketing of Fashion Brand Boohoo, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/1033015
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