IMPACT OF INFLUENCER MARKETING ON PURCHASE INTENTION WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO HEALTH AND BEAUTY PRODUCTS

Abstract

The digital revolution has fundamentally altered how brands communicate with their audiences. Social media, once treated as a supplementary marketing channel, has emerged as the primary arena in which consumer perceptions are formed, challenged, revised, and ultimately acted upon. At the centre of this transformation stands influencer marketing — a discipline that leverages the credibility, reach, and genuine relatability of individual content creators to shape purchase decisions at scale. This dissertation investigates the impact of influencer marketing on consumer purchase intention, with a specific focus on health and beauty products. The study draws on primary data collected from 99 active social media users through a structured questionnaire, supplemented by a comprehensive review of existing academic literature on source credibility theory, electronic word of-mouth, and consumer behaviour. The research was guided by three core objectives: to examine how product endorsements by social media influencers shape buying decisions; to evaluate the effect of influencer marketing on brand awareness and brand recall; and to explore the role of influencer credibility, physical appearance, and domain expertise in driving purchase intent. A mixed analytical approach was adopted. Chi-square tests established whether gender moderated responses to influencer content across three behavioural outcomes. Pearson correlation analysis was used to identify bivariate relationships between individual influencer characteristics and purchase intention. Multiple regression examined the collective explanatory power of these variables over actual purchase frequency. i Key findings revealed that influencer credibility and domain expertise were the strongest and most consistent drivers of purchase intention. Factors such as sponsored content, raw follower count, and years of experience showed no statistically meaningful relationship with actual buying behaviour — a finding with significant practical implications for how brands allocate their influencer marketing budgets. Importantly, gender did not emerge as a differentiating variable: male and female respondents responded to influencer content in broadly similar ways, challenging long-held assumptions in the health and beauty sector about the gendered nature of beauty consumption. Influencer marketing was found to be most effective in the early stages of consumer decision-making, particularly in need recognition and information search, and considerably less effective as a direct conversion mechanism. The study concludes with strategic recommendations for brands operating in the health and beauty segment. Brands are advised to prioritise authenticity and demonstrated expertise over raw audience reach, to invest in long-term influencer partnerships rather than isolated sponsored posts, and to develop stage-specific campaign strategies that match the consumer decision journey. These insights are expected to be of practical value to both academic researchers and marketing practitioners seeking empirically grounded guidance in an increasingly complex digital landscape.