Influencer Advertising versus Traditional Advertising:A Comparison between two Advertising Strategies regarding their Power of Influence

Masters Thesis from the year 2020 in the subject Communications - Public Relations, Advertising, Marketing, Social Media, grade: 1,0, Klagenfurt University, language: English, abstract: In the field of marketing, influencer promotions evolved to an established strategy to spread awareness about brands and to target potential customers. Especially the beauty industry utilizes the strategic communication approaches through the embeddedness of products into the creative content of influencers in order to persuade consumers. The purpose of this research paper is to examine the influencing power of those digital opinion leaders while comparing this potential with traditional print advertisements in magazines. In this process, particular focus has been laid on the perceived credibility of both marketing techniques applied on the luxury cosmetic market in Austria. Through a quantitative survey with paper and pencil questionnaires, data on attitudes and perceptions of 120 respondents could be gathered in Klagenfurt. Results of the study reveal that influencer advertisings are not automatically more influencing than traditional print advertisements. However, a positive pre-attitude towards beloved influencers affect people to develop a more positive attitude towards brands and products that were advertised by social media opinion leaders. These findings suggest that luxury cosmetic brands should create a marketing mix that implements a complementary storytelling strategy between influencer promotions and print advertisements. Thereby, companies can target influencer followers as well as consumers of older generations to achieve a communication concept which attract potential customers in a diversified way.