Sponsored content, written by social media influencers or micro-celebrities to endorse a product or service, has become a popular influential marketing strategy to help advertisers reach and influence potential consumers. However, since December 2015, the Federal Trade Commission has required influencers to use a clear and prominent disclosure to alert readers of the paid nature. Do consumers ponder the influencers' motives for the product recommendation? Does the presence of disclosure or their knowledge of the influencer change their perceptions of the motives? How do they respond to sponsored content with the FTC-required disclosure? Guided by Persuasion Knowledge Model and Attribution Theory, this current study examines how a consumer makes inferences of influencer motives about a sponsored post, as well as how a consumer uses their prior knowledge of perceived influencer credibility and sponsorship disclosure to interpret and respond to a sponsored post. Instagram was used as the posting platform context for this study.The research was conducted in two phases. Phase I used three online surveys to examine how consumers infer the motives behind the behavior of a social media influencer product recommendation. This process identified six distinct types of influencer motives (goals that the influencer seeks through the post) that co-exist during consumer processing of sponsored content: Money motives, Selling motives, Image motives, Love motives, Sharing motives and Helping motives; and developed a scale to measure consumer perceptions of influencer product recommendation motives within the context of social media. The second phase of the research consisted of a 2 (disclosure) x 2 (influencer credibility) x 2 (product category) between-subjects experiment to examine the roles of influencer credibility and different types of influencer motives on consumer resistance to Instagram sponsored posts. The results showed that the presence of an FTC-required clear and conspicuous sponsorship disclosure generated stronger consumer perceptions of money and selling motives regardless of product categories and credibility. In addition, highly credible influencers appear to generate stronger consumer perceptions of image, love, and helping motives and are less likely to face consumer resistance to their messages than less credible influencers are, regardless of product categories or disclosure. Furthermore, findings revealed that different thoughts about influencer motives led to varying levels of resistance. Specifically, money and selling motives together, as well as image motives increased consumer resistance towards to sponsored content; while love, sharing and helping motives altogether reduced consumer resistance to persuasion. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed, and future research directions are suggested.
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