The change in consumer habits and the emergence of technology that allows consumers to bypass traditional advertising encourages advertisers to use innovative ways to reach their target audiences. One of these innovative marketing strategies is called influencer marketing. Influencers are individuals with a large number of followers on their social media networks who have the power to influence their public, their behavior and beliefs, and consequently the purchase intention. The emergence of digital influencers in the context of marketing communication is not new, yet seamlessly merging sponsored content with unpaid entertainment content is quite new and innovative. This thesis examines the attitude of youth towards digital influencers, their role and the impact they have on young consumers. The purpose is to determine whether young people, as active users of social media, recognize sponsored (paid) content from entertaining (unpaid) content and how do they perceive it. Moreover, the research investigates the understanding of the Slovenian YouTube channel called NekiNeki among adolescents and how they treat the selected case. The research part of the thesis is based on a qualitative method and finds that youngsters perceive digital influencers as trustworthy and their content as credible compared to brand communication.
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