THE INFLUENCE OF MALE BEAUTY INFLUENCER REVIEW ON SOCIAL MEDIA TOWARDS FEMALE PURCHASE INTENTIONS ON LOCAL COSMETIC PRODUCTS

• Main Author: Alichaputri Witami, Nadine
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/67676
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

In the era of digital media, the beauty business demands to bring out a social media influencer marketing strategy. Many local cosmetic brands are competing in the beauty industry with various solutions and advantages offered through social media beauty influencers. The perception of a credible influencer qualification has to reach the source of credibility such as expertise, attractiveness, and trustworthiness aspects. Furthermore, brands nowadays are no longer contented with discovering influencers who own the same sex as the product users and strive to develop their target market across gender to show that cosmetics can be for everyone. However, how people perceive the opposite-sex beauty influencer that does not serve the sex physiological characteristics might let some disagreement among Indonesian female audiences' and lead to their intensity of purchase intention on the cosmetic product. Female purchasers of cosmetic products may respond negatively to the opposite-sex (male) beauty influencer in the local cosmetic industry and negatively react to the promotion because the product reviewed does not match their beliefs. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine the source credibility of opposite-sex beauty influencers’ impact on females’ purchase intention towards local cosmetic products and to determine suggestions that can be executed by the local cosmetic brands as their strategies in determining male beauty influencers to increase purchase intention. To prove the hypotheses from previous studies and answer the research questions, a quantitative approach using an online survey was taken. The online survey was conducted with 320 female respondents of generation Z in Indonesia who had purchased local cosmetic products for a minimum of six months, and PLS- SEM was used to analyze the relationship between the variables. The findings of this research indicate that there is a positive and significant influence of expertise, attractiveness, and trustworthiness on consumer attitude; attractiveness and trustworthiness on Para-social Interaction (PSI); consumer attitude on purchase intention; also, Para-social Interaction (PSI) on purchase intention. As a consequence, local cosmetic brands might utilize the findings of this study to guide their selection of male beauty influencers with whom to collaborate in order to gain the greatest advantage from successful product marketing. Keywords: Female Buyers; Local Cosmetic Brand; Opposite-sex Beauty Influencers; PLS-SEM; Purchase Intention; Quantitative Method; Social Media