Influencer Marketing. A Measurement Instrument to determine the Credibility of Influencers - Revealing the Effect of specific Factors on Consumers' Product Preferences and Buying Decisions

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: 1,0, University of Applied Sciences München, language: English, abstract: The aim of this thesis is to develop a measurement scale to determine the credibility of influencers in today's digitalized environment. Thus, an extensive literature review will be conducted to reveal underlying dimensions, concepts and impact models of the social construct credibility. Those examinations will provide a well-founded overview of the current academic research in this field and will guide the author to the subsequent empirical investigation. Aligning with the structure of key sources, the researcher decided on a sequential exploratory research design, consisting of a qualitative questionnaire which serves as reliable foundation of the subsequent quantitative questionnaire. Thereby, the qualitative survey aims to define and refine the items of the credibility scale, select exemplary influencers for the following rating process and give the author a first feel about the respondents' perception of credibility. In contrast, the purpose of the quantitative survey is to collect an extensive amount of data (n=385) to further select descriptor items that consumers associate with credible influencers and therewith, build a reliable and valid base for further analytical calculations.