Over the years Instagram has grown successfully to an online platform whereindividuals and companies are constantly present. It has become a marketplace wherecompanies frequently can reach out to their customers with marketing. As a result, thishas created an impact on consumers' impulse buying behavior. Due to thesecircumstances, the purpose of this study was to examine whether the usage ofInstagram, time-limited discount codes, and the attitude toward influencers contributeto Swedish consumers’ impulse buying behavior. To examine this, three hypotheseswere developed from previous research on impulse buying, influencer marketing, pricepromotions, and the usage of Instagram. Primary data were collected through aquestionnaire with 306 respondents and further analyzed through the statisticalsoftware SPSS to be able to test the stated hypotheses.  The study questions to what extent time-limited discount codes on Instagram providedby influencers affect Swedish consumers’ impulse buying behavior. The results of thehypothesis testing confirm that there is a correlation between the factors, whichimplies that they have an affection for Swedish consumers. However, the test showedthat the usage of Instagram is the factor with the highest correlation with impulsebuying. Additionally, when analyzing the answers in the questionnaire it showed thatdue to various circumstances such as lifestyle and income the extent of affectiondiffers. The result is supposed to facilitate companies with their marketing to get anunderstanding of consumers’ impulsive buying behavior on Instagram for futureresearch.

ABSTRACT Date2022-06-01 Level: Master thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalens University Authors Ayari, Loïs                  Yousef, Nina (00/10/25)                  (99/10/21) Title: An exploratory qualitative study on the impact of cancel   culture on the consumer-beauty influencer relationship. Tutor: Safari, Aswo Keywords: Influencer, beauty, cancel culture, consumer, trust, commitment Research question: How does the cancel culture phenomenon affect the relationship between the consumer and the beauty influencer? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the cancel culture phenomenon affects the relationship between the consumer and the beauty influencer. Method: This study was conducted through a qualitative research method with an abductive approach. The conceptual model was based on the theoretical concepts and the actors within the relationship. Three focus group interviews conducted consisted of 6, 7 and 6 participants. The focus groups interviews were transcripted manually by the authors. The data extracted from the focus groups were analyzed using a thematic analysis based on the conceptual model. Conclusion: The findings and the analysis of this study provided an answer to the research question. It showed that the consumer’s trust is negatively affected by cancel culture and thus, decreases when this phenomenon occurs. This happens mainly because of a disruption of the perceived shared values and the beauty influencer’s failure. Moreover, the findings revealed that the consumer’s commitment is negatively affected by the cancellation. This was motivated by the decrease in the consumer’s trust along with the disruption of perceived shared values. Therefore, the consumer and beauty influencer’s relationship is negatively affected by the cancel culture phenomenon.

This study explores the phenomenon of children being exposed on social media by influencer mothers and how to regulate the usage of children for marketing purposes. With a mixed methods study, authors aim to see if the existing regulations are adequate to what the possible consequences could be, when being exposed on social media at an early age on commercial accounts. The study focuses on Swedish influencers and children as well as the existing Swedish laws and regulations, with the new French law as an eye opener in recognizing the phenomenon as an issue. Influencers posting pictures of their children online becomes more and more popular, and more often than not the children involved in the pictures are often too young to know exactly what the implication might be. A lot of the time these pictures also lead to income for the influencers which then means that the children themselves become a part of their parents' businesses as marketing. This is where the issue of child labour comes to be a problem, how do we know what is childlabour in this instance, and how do we protect these children from going into it?  The study shows that there is a need for further research. Regarding the existing regulations of child labour, the study presents a need to define them in a more adequate way to work guiding for parents on social media.

The beauty community on YouTube is a popular outlet for influencer generated video content. Beauty YouTubers provide their viewers with makeup-related videos from tutorials to the latest trends on the platform. As a result, the influencers have gained high subscriber counts that generate revenue through advertisements and brand partnerships. The influencers create relationships with their subscribers that lead to loyalty in the form of video views and merchandise purchasing. This study provides a content analysis of common characteristics within 10 popular beauty YouTubers’ videos examining the strategies used by the influencers. The top five videos from each beauty YouTuber were selected resulting in a total of 50 videos analyzed. Parasocial Interaction and Framing theories were the theoretical frameworks for this study. The results of this study indicated a series of commonly used characteristics within the most popular videos posted by the top beauty influencers on YouTube.

The social media app TikTok has recently grown enormously worldwide, especially among young people. The purpose of this study is therefore to investigate seven high school students' knowledge regarding advertising literacy between the ages of 17-18, and how it affects their approach to advertising on TikTok. The study uses theories such as the reception theory and previous research studies that are within the subject. These studies consist of stealth marketing, influencer marketing and media literacy.  The study used a qualitative method by conducting semi-structured interviews that were based on showing the respondents two TikTok videos before and after the interview as well as an interview guide that contained the areas and themes the interview would revolve around. These interviews would be the foundation of answering the studies three primary questions: How do the respondents answer towards stealth marketing on TikTok? What strategies do the respondents use to identify influencer marketing on TikTok? And how does the respondents' way of viewing a TikTok video change after an interview that highlights marketing?  The results of the study indicate that the respondents’ approach to stealth marketing on TikTok is influenced by their motivation to take part of the content as well as identifying a certain uncertainty regarding their stance towards stealth marketing. The overall strategies the respondents use to identify influencer marketing on TikTok are through tags and hashtags in the description, when company logos and trademarks appear, noticing the influencer's tone of voice, and if the influencer's content is different from what they normally do. And last but not least, the respondents became generally more critical towards the two TikTok videos after the interview had taken place.  The conclusion of this study is to encourage Swedish schools to become better at teaching students about source criticism and stealth marketing on social media platforms since this study has shown a pattern of uncertainty among the respondents regarding their criticism skills on social media platforms.

ABSTRACT Level: Master thesis in Business Administration, 15 cr Institution:  School of Business, Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University  Authors: Alma Hamulic & Lovisa Nilsson Eskesen                                              Title: How do influencer marketing agencies work with sustainability as intermediaries? Keywords: Influencer Marketing, Sustainability, Sustainable Marketing, Future of Influencer Marketing, Intermediaries Research question: “How do influencer marketing agencies work and promote sustainability to their influencers?”  Purpose: The authors aim to investigate how the agencies work with the influencers in terms of sustainability, whether the influencer marketing agency has a given strategy for the influencer to communicate sustainably or not. Method: The interpretivist research paradigm was chosen as the most suitable one in this                                           qualitative study. The interpretivist research philosophy tends to lead to an                                           Inductive approach and the research method is exploratory.  For this research, a                                           multiple case study has been chosen, carried by four semi-structured interviews                                           chosen by the purposive sampling method.  Conclusion: The results show thee main findings where none of the participating agencies for this research has a given strategy for promoting sustainability to their influencers even though they agree that it is of great importance to include in their work. Another finding is to be selective with the companies the agencies choose to work with and the fact that they can affect what is being communicated in terms of sustainability. A sustainability action plan has been created that illustrates how a new strategy can be brought in to create a sustainability strategy for intermediaries.

I denna uppsats undersöks på vilket sätt Isabella Löwengrips blogg kan ha format hennes framställning i svenska dagstidningar. Syftet är att ta reda på hur samspelet mellan journalister och en influerare förhåller sig till varandra och hur det kan påverka innehållet. Isabella Löwengrips framställning gjorde ett betydande skifte när hon och hennes företag granskades hösten 2019 i Expressen (Sundkvist 2019), vilket för min del öppnade ett kritiskt kunskapsintresse kring diskursen om henne. Vilka roller har de beskrivit henne som? Hur framställs hon och vilket avtryck har hon lämnat? Dessa frågeställningar besvaras genom kvantitativ innehållsanalys och kritisk diskursanalys. Totalt undersöktes 72 artiklar i den kvantitativa delen varav tio artiklar valdes ut till den kritiska diskursanalysen. Resultatet visade att Isabella Löwengrip med hjälp av sin blogg format sin framställning både i morgonpress och kvällspress. Före granskningen framställdes hon som en framgångsrik kvinnlig entreprenör, medan efter granskningen framställdes hon som ensamstående kvinna som förlorat allt. Med tidigare forskning om kvinnliga entreprenörers framställning i media, av Ahl (2002) och Bjursell & Bäckvall (2011), förekom ideologiska normer i diskursen om Isabella Löwengrip som kan haft hämmande effekt på normaliseringen av kvinnliga entreprenörer.

Background: After the boom of mukbang videos in South Korea and its popularity spread tothe rest of the world, companies have started to use mukbang influencers tobuild a strong brand identity and to create a topic for debate.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine womens’ outlook on mukbang videosand marketing in mukbang videos.Method: The study has a qualitative study method, where an abductive approach hasbeen chosen. Nineteen digital interview have been done to get answers to ourstudy.Conclusion: Together with the study’s empirical data and analysis, this study has been ableto clarify women’s attitude towards mukbang videos and mukbang influencerswith an insight into the differences in the generations. The result of the studyshowed that a majority of the respondents have a positive attitude towardsmukbang but that there were some critical aspects regarding the marketing ofthe products. The respondents answered that the reason for the criticism wasthat paid marketing is not seen as truthful review according to them.

Background Social media influencer advertising is a fast-growing form of advertising. It has led to companies striking deals with influencers to benefit from the influencers’ big audiences of followers and social media users. Influencers promote the companies’ brands and/or products in exchange for a payment. Influencer advertising comes in two forms, sponsored and non-sponsored, factors that can have a significant effect on purchase intention when combined with different message types as pictures, text, and a combination of picture and text and trust. Objective This report's primary goal is to study the effect of trust, message type, sponsored, and non-sponsored advertising on consumers' purchase intentions on social media and contribute to previous studies.  Method This study is a quantitative study with primary data. The method used for collecting the data is an online survey. The survey has been divided into two parts and sent out to the Swedish population who uses social media. One with questions on sponsored advertisements’ and another with questions of non-sponsored advertisements. In total, the surveys had 107 complete responses. The data was then analyzed using IBM’s SPSS program.  Result Tests for the first hypothesis found no significant difference in the mean values of sponsored and non-sponsored advertisements' effect on purchase intentions. The second hypothesis established that the use of a picture message-type in advertisements had a more significant impact on purchase intention then a combination of both text and picture. The last and final hypothesis result found that influencer advertisements, sponsored or non-sponsored did not affect consumers' trust in any significant way and therefore did not affect purchase intention.  Conclusion Companies should take into consideration the benefit of utilizing influencer-picture advertisements’ when it comes to the promotion of easily understood products, such as water bottles. Further work also needs to be done on more underlying factors that can affect consumers' purchase intentions.   Keywords Influencer, Sponsored advertising, Non-sponsored advertising, Online survey, Message type

This bachelor thesis examines what hedonic values influence female Instagram users to interact with influencer’s Instagram content. Furthermore, we examine what hedonic needs female Instagram users might find meaningful and if those needs can lead to activity on an influencer’s Instagram account. It also explores if the value aesthetics can have any effect on female Instagram user’s activity on an influencer’s Instagram. The study uses mixed methods in order to answer the research question and the sub questions. We have used a survey to examine which hedonic needs are most meaningful to the female users and if those needs have any effect on user’s interaction on influencers posts. Interviews have been held in order to explore if hedonic values and aesthetics have any influence on user’s activity on influencers Instagram content. Our study showed that the most essential hedonic needs are relatedness, meaning and stimulation and that these are the needs that leads to the most activity. It also showed that aesthetics and all hedonic values have an influence on user activity on an influencer’s Instagram.