The Impact of Healthy Lifestyle Imagery Alongside E-cigarettes in Social Media Influencer Marketing on Perceptions of E-cigarettes Among Adolescents: a Survey-based Experiment
The Impact of Healthy Lifestyle Imagery Alongside E-cigarettes in Social Media Influencer Marketing on Perceptions of E-cigarettes Among Adolescents: a Survey-based Experiment
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.
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).
Inclusion Criteria:
Exclusion Criteria:
Not meeting these criteria: