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How do popular online streamers influence viewers’ purchase intention? Evidence from a mobile game campaign on YouTube
Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing,
7
(4),
332-343
(2020)
Abstract
Influencer marketing is vital for the gaming industry because most users are relatively young and many are exposed to social media on a daily basis. This research attempts to understand the mechanism of influencer campaigning in the mobile game industry. The research model proposes that influencer marketing affects purchase intention in two key ways: direct triggering and indirect amplification. The study empirically tests the model using mobile game influencer campaigns conducted on YouTube. A case study is presented to support the proposed direct triggering effect. For the indirect amplification effect, statistical tests were performed using additional marketing and purchase data. The results suggest that influencer marketing has huge and timely impacts on the revenue of game companies early on, but the effects diminish quickly. Within the domain of game apps, influencer marketing not only has a direct impact on the purchase intention of viewers, but also indirectly amplifies the purchase intention of non-viewers through brand visibility and brand awareness.
Keywords: influencer marketing; social media marketing; mobile games; purchase intention; user conversion; app ranking; case study
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Shan Jiang is an assistant professor in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He received his BS in management information systems from Tsinghua University, and his PhD in management information systems from University of Arizona. His research interests include business intelligence, social media analytics, computational linguistics and social network analysis. His research work has appeared in such journals as IEEE Transaction on Knowledge and Data Engineering, ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology and Decision Support Systems.
Xiaxin Hua is a senior data scientist at Seriously Digital Entertainment. Her main responsibilities include but are not limited to applying the econometric theories and methods she learned from her PhD research experience to estimate and evaluate the performance of all kinds of marketing events, including digital marketing and influencer marketing, as well as traditional marketing campaigns such as on radio and television. She has a BS in finance from Sichuan University, and a PhD in economics from Clark University, Massachusetts. Her research interests include applied econometrics, financial economics and social media analysis. Her work has appeared in the International Review of Economics.
Robert Parviainen is the Head of Data Science at Seriously Digital Entertainment, where he leads research in mobile gaming, marketing analytics and player behaviour. His previous roles include research fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics in Complex Systems, in Melbourne, Australia, and post-doctoral researcher at Reykjavik University, Iceland. He has a PhD in mathematical statistics from Uppsala University.
