Influencer Marketing: a Survey-based Experiment Among Adolescents

University of Southern California

Status: Completed

Conditions: Vaping

Treatments: Other: Influencer marketing

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06501937

UP-21-00352

Details and patient eligibility

About

Adolescents (N = 664) participated in the online survey-based experiment. They were randomly shown 10 videos, featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities (experimental group), or e-cigarette promotion alone (control). After watching each video, participants rated perceptions of influencer credibility (i.e., honesty, trustworthiness, knowledge) on the scale of 0 (e.g., dishonest) to 100 (honest).

Among all participants, harm perceptions and appeal of e-cigarettes was assessed. Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes was assessed among never users of e-cigarettes. These outcomes were then compared among participants who perceived influencers as credible and those who perceived influencers as non-credible.

Full description

Adolescents (13-17 years of age) living in California were recruited by Qualtrics marketing research panel to participate in a survey on tobacco-related attitudes and behaviors. Qualtrics, a research panel agency, has been used in prior research to survey adolescents about their tobacco-related attitudes and behaviors. Participants were provided with a survey URL link. After completing informed consent, participants completed the survey online. The study was approved by the University of Southern California Institutional Review Board (UP-21-00352). Respondents were randomly assigned to watch 10 10-second long TikTok videos in either experimental (influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities) or control group (influencers promoting e-cigarettes alone).

Enrollment: 664 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 13 to 17 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• 13-17 years of age,
• English fluency,
• Current California resident.

Exclusion criteria

Not meeting these criteria:

• 13-17 years of age,
• English fluency,
• Current California resident.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Factorial Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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664 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental group

Experimental group

Description:

Videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities

Treatment:

Other: Influencer marketing

Control group

Active Comparator group

Description:

Videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alone

Treatment:

Other: Influencer marketing