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Abstract Influencer marketing has been experiencing a wave of popularity the last years, and predicted to be the marketing strategy of 2017. Since influencer marketing is a relatively new term, it has no academic definition, and a scarce theoretical foundation exists. Earlier research on influencer marketing has mainly focused on identifying influencer’s and if they are perceived to be credible. To the best of our knowledge there has been no research investigating the relationship between influencer marketing and purchase intention. Therefore, this master thesis sets out to investigate how influencer marketing affects consumers’ purchase intentions based on the theoretical framework Theory of Reasoned Action. By studying how influencer marketing affects the theoretical framework, we combine the fields of marketing strategy with consumer behavior. A modified experiment was conducted through the means of an online questionnaire distributed via different social media platforms. The questionnaire generated responses from 384 respondents. This study illustrates that attitudes toward FIs positively impact brand attitude and consumer purchase intention. The authors also demonstrate that perceived credibility, trust, perceived expertise, attractiveness and perceived congruency positively impact attitudes toward FIs and consequently impact user’s purchase intention. This study illustrates that influencer’s perceived credibility with all of its three constructs positively impact brand attitude and consumer purchase intention. The study findings help marketers and advertisers in the fashion industry to understand how influencer marketing contributes to consumer purchase intention. They also allow marketers to understand factors explaining attitudes toward FIs and therefore better select influencers capable of creating purchase intentions among existing and potential customers. |