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This study aims to empirically investigate ways to enhance customers’ continued mobile app use intention on the basis of information adoption model.

This study conducted an online, cross-sectional, self-administered survey, recruiting mobile app users in the USA.

Results identified both argument quality and source credibility positively influenced usefulness of branded apps and parasocial interactions. Results also confirmed a positive influence on usefulness of the branded app and parasocial interaction relating to continued branded app use intentions.

This study enriched the understanding of mobile app use behaviors, extending information adoption model in the service industry.

The purpose of this study is to identify the process of virtual influencer stickiness in the age of influencer marketing, which has received little attention in the literature. This is essential because the research creates a theoretical model of follower loyalty/stickiness to virtual influencer techniques from the standpoint of influencer marketing, which has a substantial effect on the evolution of the global marketing world.

In 2022, 302 people who currently follow an Instafamous virtual influencer took part in an Instagram self-administered online survey.

The findings show that both expertise and trustworthiness have a positive and significant influence on parasocial interaction, which in turn has a significant influence on virtual engagement and stickiness.

This research will specifically assist international readers in understanding how to harness and increase the efficiency and efficacy of interactive marketing strategies and methods to engage and retain followers of Instafamous virtual influencer. Moreover, the findings will be beneficial to opinion leaders, brand managers, company investors, entrepreneurs and service designers.

1. The study pioneers a holistic virtual follower stickiness mechanism that comprises the role of source credibility, parasocial interaction, informational influence and virtual follower’s engagement and their interrelationship to each other.

2. This study is based on parasocial interaction theory and source credibility theory to understand the relationship between virtual followers and influencers stickiness process at social media platforms.

3. In addition, the study examined the subsequent effects of sources of credibility components on parasocial interaction; as well as, on virtual follower engagement and stickiness.

4. This study also categorized and examined the moderating effects exerted by the genres of informative influence of virtual influencer.

The study pioneers a holistic virtual follower stickiness mechanism that comprises the role of source credibility, parasocial interaction, informational influence and virtual follower’s engagement and their interrelationship to each other.

This study is based on parasocial interaction theory and source credibility theory to understand the relationship between virtual followers and influencers stickiness process at social media platforms.

In addition, the study examined the subsequent effects of sources of credibility components on parasocial interaction; as well as, on virtual follower engagement and stickiness.

This study also categorized and examined the moderating effects exerted by the genres of informative influence of virtual influencer.

This study aims to investigate the relationships among sensory, emotional and cognitive attributes on a hotel’s website, customers’ telepresence, their attitudes toward the hotel’s website, brand attitudes and their behavioral intentions, based on telepresence and parasocial interaction theories as theoretical backgrounds.

A cross-sectional, online, self-administered survey was conducted to examine the proposed framework from previous hotel guests in the USA, who booked the hotel via its website within the previous 12 months.

Results identified sensory and emotional attributes influenced customers’ telepresence; however, cognitive attributes did not affect telepresence on the hotel’s website. Telepresence then influenced customers’ attitudes toward the hotel’s website and their behavioral intentions. Both attitudes toward the hotel’s website and brand attitudes influenced customers’ behavioral intentions.

This study was the first study to propose the telepresence model in the hotel website context, investigating antecedents and outcomes of the telepresence.

The current study examines the effectiveness of brand integrations in music videos by taking into account the impact of both brand placement characteristics (i.e., brand prominence, valence of artist–brand relationship) and audience characteristics (i.e., artist connectedness).

A 2 (prominence: prominent vs. subtle) by 2 (valence: positive vs. negative) by 2 (connectedness: high vs. low) between-subjects experimental design is used. Each respondent first watched one music video via YouTube in which one branded product was placed either prominently or subtly. To manipulate the valence of the artist–brand relationship respondents were instructed to read a magazine article that revealed either a positive or negative attitude of the artist toward the placed brand. Two hundred twenty young adults participated in this study.

This study shows that prominent placements appear to be beneficial for the attitude toward the integrated brand when an individual is strongly connected to the artist in the music video, while subtle placements are beneficial both when an individual is weakly or strongly connected to the artist. Further, negative celebrity-brand relationships do not seem to affect brand attitudes in a negative way.

Embedding the brand in a music video gives marketers and advertisers the chance to reach consumers in a new, creative way. But this study shows that the advertiser should pay attention to the way in which the brand is integrated. Further, negative celebrity information does not seem to affect brand attitudes in a negative way. This makes the music video a very interesting medium for advertisers.

The current study contributes to previous research on brand placement by investigating the effectiveness of brand placements in music videos and the role of artist connectedness. In addition, the study is original as it includes valence in the model.

Due to fierce competition in the mobile retailing market, it is desirable to identify the success factors driving consumers to reuse a mobile shopping application. This research intends to develop a model for mobile shopping app success by integrating an e-commerce systems success (ESS) model and sales promotion benefits and parasocial interaction literatures.

302 useable online questionnaires were obtained. The data analysis was conducted using the structural equation modelling.

The results indicate the validity of the ESS model in predicting consumers' reuse intention of mobile shopping apps where three quality dimensions of system, information and service facilitate both perceived value and user satisfaction, which in turn generates reuse intention. Furthermore, savings and entertainment denoting the utilitarian and hedonic sales promotion benefits have positive impact on perceived value but have no influence on satisfaction. Parasocial intention between consumers and sellers facilitates both value perception and satisfaction.

This research contributes to the mobile retailing literature by identifying the success factors driving consumers' continuance intention of mobile shopping apps. Theoretically, it validates and extends the ESS model in mobile shopping app context by identifying savings, entertainment and parasocial interaction as additional success factors. Based on the findings, two approaches are proposed to suggest mobile retailers design a successful mobile shopping app.

Home-based workouts via fitness YouTube channels have become more popular during the pandemic era. However, few studies have examined the role of social media personae related to intention to exercise. The purpose of this study was to investigate the structural relationships between fitness YouTuber attributes: perceived physical attractiveness (PPA), perceived social attractiveness (PSA), perceived similarity (PS), parasocial relationships (PSRs), wishful identification (WI), physical outcome expectations (POEs), and continuous intention to work out with fitness YouTubers (CIWFY).

This study considered fitness YouTube channel viewers as the unit of analysis. An online survey was conducted to empirically develop and test the research model using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The SEM empirical findings revealed that the PSRs were significantly influenced by PSA, PPA, and PS. Also, WI was significantly affected by PPA and PS. Furthermore, POEs were significantly impacted by PPA and PSRs. POEs affected the CIWFY. Lastly, PSRs and POEs mediated the influence of PSA and PPA on the CIWFY.

The psychological impacts of exercising to online fitness videos in the era of COVID-19, with its untact (no contact) social norms is timely. The study model demonstrated the fitness YouTube viewers' cognitive path from perceptions toward fitness YouTubers' attributes to behavioral intention. To be specific, the current study demonstrated how three attribution types (i.e. PPA, PSA, and PS) of fitness YouTubers affect viewers' PSRs and WI with fitness YouTubers, along with POEs and CIWFY. Along with health practitioners, fitness YouTubers who want to captivate viewers on their channels might need to consider self-attributes from their viewers' standpoint and should build psychological bonding with viewers.

This paper aims to focus its inquiries on the parasocial interactions (PSI) and relationships (PSR) consumers form with personae in online social media communities. The authors extend the marketing literature on parasocial interaction/relationship beyond brands by focusing on personal social media accounts (public student-athletes).

The authors adopt a grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 2009) triangulating observational netnographic data (Kozinets, 2010) of 49 public student-athlete accounts on Twitter (34,500 tweets) with in-depth interviews. The findings emphasize that PSI/PSR occur not only from interactions with brands but also through personal accounts on social media platforms.

The investigation reveals that through such social media platforms, PSI/PSR influence consumers cognitively, affectively and behaviorally. In terms of cognition, the data suggest that PSI/PSR can influence opinion, interests, attention allocation and construction of relations, specifically through the availability of in-depth knowledge about the social media persona. Additionally, the research findings indicate that affect-laden messages from persona can alter emotion and mood, induce empathetic reactions and trigger inspiration, especially in relation to the shared interest of the online community of the social media account. Behaviorally, the findings suggest that personas’ messages can direct and inspire both online and offline actions through endorsed behavioral parasocial interactions.

This research focused on one specific social media platform, Twitter. Twitter was specifically chosen, because it is a popular social media platform and allows non-reciprocal relationships. Although the authors feel that the findings would hold for other social media platforms, future research may be conducted to see if there are differences in PSI/PSR development on different types of networks. Additionally, the authors focused on a specific type of personal account, student-athletes. Future research may wish to extend beyond this population to other personal social media accounts, such as fashion bloggers, diy bloggers and others.

This research reveals that PSI/PSR can occur not only from interactions with brands but also through personal accounts on social media platforms. The findings give support for the value of brand spokespersons and brand ambassadors and suggest that brands should take careful consideration into who is chosen to represent the brand.

This study develops and validates a scale to measure social media influencers' intimate self-disclosure (SMIs' ISD), by accessing consumer perceptions of the intimacy levels of SMIs' self-disclosure. The authors further evaluate the extent to which SMIs' ISD fosters consumers' self-brand connections via consumer-SMI parasocial relationships.

The scale was developed through item generation, purification, and validation. First, items were generated from existing scales and revised based on feedback provided by experts. The items were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using an online survey with 433 participants. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to examine the predictive power of SMIs' ISD on parasocial relationships and self-brand connections.

The results suggest that the perceived SMIs' ISD is a unidimensional construct. As proposed, SMIs' ISD enhances consumer-brand connections through the underlying mechanism of consumers' sense of being in a parasocial relationship with an SMI.

This study advances self-disclosure and influencer marketing literature by addressing the lack of measures on SMIs' ISD from a consumer perspective and the scarcity of empirical understanding of how brands can profit from SMIs' capabilities to make intimate self-disclosure. Based on the literature review, this study is the first to empirically consider factual, emotional, and cognitive intimacy to develop scale and demonstrate the importance of SMIs' ISD in developing consumers' self-brand connections.

This study aims to explore the impact of social media influencers' (SMIs) intimate self-disclosure on consumers' purchase intentions, with a focus on the role of parasocial relationships and congruence among the influencer, product and consumer. The study finds its theoretical foundation in parasocial theory and self-congruency theory.

This study employs a quantitative approach, utilizing a sample of 232 collected survey responses. The proposed hypotheses are evaluated using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Contrary to initial assumptions, the study reveals that parasocial relationships do not mediate the link between SMIs' intimate self-disclosure and purchase intentions. However, an interesting moderating effect was discovered: the congruence between the consumer and the influencer influences the relationship between SMIs' intimate self-disclosure and parasocial relationships, and subsequently, between parasocial relationships and purchase intentions.

This study brings fresh insights by pinpointing a boundary condition that dictates the influence of SMIs' intimate self-disclosure on purchase intentions via parasocial relationships. In doing so, this study provides a novel perspective in understanding the dynamics between SMIs and consumers in the rapidly evolving marketing landscape.

History as leisure allows for the creation of identity and identification among those who care about the past and treasure the memories that knowledge provides. Through a multiyear ethnography of American Civil War enthusiasts, I propose the concept of “Wispy Selves.” These selves are embedded in awareness of an historical past but are wispy in that their presentation is limited to particular times and places where they are described and enacted with the support of a like-minded community. Through lectures, tours, and other gatherings, leisure participants imagine themselves linked to consequential figures in the American past through their voluntary commitments. A sense of “selves in time” extends Kathy Charmaz’s illness identities by recognizing that meaningful personas are not only linked to trauma, but to communal pleasure as well.