=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3026/paper21
|storemode=property
|title=Impact of Digital Celebrities on their Followers’ Purchase Intention: Roles of Wishful Identification, Parasocial Relationship, and Behavioral Loyalty
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3026/paper21.pdf
|volume=Vol-3026
|authors=My-Trinh Bui,Thi-Thanh-Huyen Tran,Hong-Minh Phi,Ngoc-Dung Nguyen,Thi-Tuyet-Mai Nguyen,Thi-Lien Pham
}}
==Impact of Digital Celebrities on their Followers’ Purchase Intention: Roles of Wishful Identification, Parasocial Relationship, and Behavioral Loyalty==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3026/paper21.pdf
Impact of digital celebrities on their followers’ purchase
intention: Roles of wishful identification, parasocial
relationship, and behavioral loyalty
My-Trinh Bui 1, [0000-0001-9125-5655], Thi-Thanh-Huyen Tran2, Hong-Minh Phi3, Ngoc-
Dung Nguyen4, Thi-Tuyet-Mai Nguyen5, and Thi- Lien Pham1
1 International School - Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam
trinhbm@isvnu.vn
2 Banking Academy of Vietnam, Hanoi, Vietnam
3
Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi, Vietnam
4 Hanoi Metropolitan University, Hanoi, Vietnam
5 Trade Union University, Hanoi, Vietnam
Abstract. Digital social networking platforms become the mechanism for fans
and celebrities to have digital communication and interation. Marketers and ce-
lebrities may take advantage of this opportunity to promote merchandise to con-
sumers and fans by leveraging the wishful identification and parasocial relation-
ship between digital celebrities and their followers. This study investigates the
effect of wishful identification on parasocial relationships, which then enhance
behavioral loyalty and purchase intentions sequentially. An online survey was
administered to 300 Vietnamese social network sites (SNS) users, who were fol-
lowing digital celebrities. The statistical results indicate that higher levels of
wishful identification positively associated with higher levels of parasocial rela-
tionship, which then trigger higher levels of behavioral loyalty and purchase in-
tention sequentially. This study therefore sheds light on fans’ behavioral loyalty
with digital celebrities through their purchase identification during Covid-19
time.
Keywords: Digital celebrity; Parasocial relationship between digital celebrities
and their followers; Behavioral loyalty; Purchase intention.
1 Introduction
Digital celebrities are distinctive influencers who become well-known through online
blogging, vlogging, or social network sites (SNS) [12] and have a huge number of
Copyright © by the paper’s authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribu-
tion 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). In: N. D. Vo, O.-J. Lee, K.-H. N. Bui, H. G. Lim, H.-J.
Jeon, P.-M. Nguyen, B. Q. Tuyen, J.-T. Kim, J. J. Jung, T. A. Vo (eds.): Proceedings of the
2nd International Conference on Human-centered Artificial Intelligence (Computing4Human
2021), Da Nang, Viet Nam, 28-October-2021, published at http://ceur-ws.org
Corresponding author.
192 Bui et al.
supporters [13]. Although digital celebrities may be called fake influencers or fake ce-
lebrities, over the past years, they have infiltrated our social media feeds, twitch
streams, advertising campaigns, and even fashion [4]. The online relationship shaped
between digital celebrities and followers in a computer-generated environment which
is concepted as parasocial relationship [15]. Parasocial relationships between a fan and
his idols may start from his wish to do the things the idols do, or to be the person like
his idols, which is called wishful identification [9, 10]. As fans’ intimate relationship
with digital celebrities are formed, they tend to regard digital celebrities as a dependable
and informative source [20] and are influenced by the latter’s advertisements on SNS
[26]. Marketers and retailer may employ digital celebrities to post their daily use and
evaluations of advertised products on SNS to promote the followers to purchase prod-
ucts [12].
During the Covid-19, almost all celebrities choose video social networking platforms
to connect with their fans. According to Music Business Worldwide, the TikTok app's
downloads increased by 18% in the week of March 16th (with 2 million downloads)
compared to the previous week; increased by 7% in the first 23 days of March (with
6.2 million downloads), compared to February. A series of digital celebrities have taken
advantage of opportunities from social distancing regulations during Covid-19 time to
promote widely to the public, including virtual singer Hatsune Miku, Miquela, or K/DA
- the female idol group from the famous League of Legends game. Like other countries,
Vietnam has applied social distancing regulations many times, due to the Covid-19
pandemic. Our study argues that fans’ parasocial relationships with digital celebrities
may be significantly affected by followers’ wishful identification and at the same time
affect their behavioral loyalty and purchase intention during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our research aims to: (i) provide a correlation between wishful identification (WI), par-
asocial relationships (PR), behavioral loyalty (BL), and purchase intention (PI); and (ii)
discuss the purchase intention of fans towards digital celebrities' merchandises during
COVID-19 time.
2 Literature Review
The parasocial relationship is refered as a unilateral and longstanding intimate connec-
tion that an individual perceives of a media character or celebrity via celebrity’s repet-
itive performance [5, 11]. Some recent studies have examined the parasocial relation-
ships between fans and digital celebritites, as streamers [12, 25] or YouTubers [22].
Celebrity worshiping, the most severe type of parasocial interactions, has also been
linked to maladaptive social conduct and detrimental effects on an individual's well-
being [16-18].
Digital superstars, such as influencers and bloggers, act as influential opinion lead-
ers [1], assisting businesses in monitoring new consumer trends and, as a result, ena-
bling them to meet the requirements of their consumers [2]. Given that companies are
aware of the effectiveness of celebrities in social media marketing, such as Twitter,
many utilize celebrity-endorsed Twitter tweets to promote their brands [23]. When
comparing traditional advertising and advertising through digital idols, many firms
Impact of digital celebrities on their followers’ purchase intention 193
prefer advertising through digital idols. In Covid 19 context, people are forced to isolate
from real social relationships and the time for using SNS skyrocketed. The use of social
networks nowadays is no longer merely for entertainment, but has become a mandatory
requirement so that people can work from home during the time of isolation.
3 Hypothesis development
The psychological desire of a fan to be like his idol is known as wishful identification
[6]. This ambition may lead to the celebrity and users sharing a same viewpoint [9].
Wishful identification is more than just liking a personality; it's the psychosocial bond
between a fan and a celebrity that leads to the self-imagining as the celebrity. Wishful
identification, in other words, denotes a desire to imitate a star. A fan whose wishful
identification with digital celebrities is high often spends much time on social media to
follow his digital celebrities [9], which is a precursor to have strong parasocial relation-
ships with digital celebrities [22]. Thus, we hypothesize:
Hypothesis 1a: Followers’ wishful identification has a positive impact on their par-
asocial relationship with digital celebrities.
Hypothesis 1b: Followers’ wishful identification has a positive impact on their be-
havioral loyalty to digital celebrities.
Recently, many studies have shown a positive relationship between parasocial relation-
ships and followers' loyalty to idols. Fans with intimate relationships tend to regard
digital celebrities as a dependent source [21] so believe and support their idols through
different forms [25], which is called loyalty. Loyalty, in marketing research, has four
phases: The customer becomes loyal in a cognitive sense first, then in an affective
sense, after that in a conative manner, and finally in a behavioral manner - behavioral
loyalty [19]. Consumers' brand awareness is boosted by followers' behavioral devotion
to digital celebrities, which increases their desire to own luxury products based on com-
parisons of their belongings to those of celebrities, influencing their buying intentions
[15]. Followers that are behaviorally loyal continue to purchase and use goods recom-
mended by digital celebrities for a long time. Repurchasing and recommending others
are two aspects of this loyalty. Based on previous studies, the following hypotheses are
proposed:
Hypothesis 2a: Parasocial relationships has a positive effect on behavioral loyalty
Hypothesis 2b: Parasocial relationships has a positive effect on purchase intention
Hypothesis 3: Followers’ behavioral loyalty with digital celebrities have a positive
impact on their purchase intention.
4 Research Model
4.1 Data collection and measurement
194 Bui et al.
This study uses primary data collected by an online survey. The questionnaire is dis-
tributed to young Vietnamese SNS users, who are from different high schools/univer-
sities. These questionnaire sections were adapted from relevant literature to ensure the
content validity of the constructs. We carried out the survey during four months from
December, 2020 to March, 2021 through personal Facebook, MSTeams classrooms and
other social networks. A total of 300 responses were obtained and there are no discarded
responses.
The demographic characteristics of respondent are illustrated by table 1.
Table 1. Demographic characteristics of respondent (N=300).
Demographic characteristic N %
Gender
Male 87 29
Female 208 69.3
Others 5 1.6
Age
18-20 118 39.3
21-23 154 51.3
24-25 9 3
Others 19 6.6
Education Level
High school 25 8.3
Undergraduate 260 86.6
Graduate 15 5
Four constructs, including wishful identification, parasocial relationships, behavior
loyalty and purchase intention, were used in this study. The scale applied to measure
each item has 7 points (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree).
Survey questions were adapted from the instruments of previous research. We use
Wishful identification (WI) with 4 items from previous studies [9, 10]. Parasocial rela-
tionships (PR) is measured with four items applied [21] and [14]. Behavioral loyalty
(BL) with four items is adopted from Bandura [3]. The scale is adopted from current
sports management effective and behavioral loyalty measures by [8]. Purchase inten-
tion (PI), which illustrates the desire how the product recommended by the idol affects
the purchase intention of the fan [24].
4.2 Data analysis
We tested our hypotheses employing a structural equation modeling (SEM) by using
SMART PLS3. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is employed to test the measure-
ment model (Appendix 1). The factor loadings and Cronbach’s alpha indicate the evi-
dence of convergent validity among all measures of PR, WI, PI and BL. All indicators
loaded significantly on the latent variables that they were intended to represent. For the
internal consistency of measures, the reliability coefficients confirmed inter-item con-
sistencies among items, ranging from a minimum of 0.84 to a maximum of 0.94. The
Impact of digital celebrities on their followers’ purchase intention 195
discriminant validity was tested by average variance extracted (AVE). The AVE of
each latent variable exceeded a 0.50 benchmark [7].
Table 2. Discriminant Validity Fornell-Larcker Criterion
Variables Cronbach α WI PR BL PI
Wishful identifi-
0.86 (0.838)
cation (WI)
Parasocial rela-
0.846 0.548 (0.752)
tionships (PR)
Behavior loyalty
0.858 0.545 0.705 (0.837)
(BL)
Purchase inten-
0.912 0.484 0.696 0.740 (0.890)
tion (PI)
Note: A diagonal Average Variance Extracted (AVE) value should be greater than all its hor-
izontal and vertical values. In this table, these indicators are satisfactory.
The reliability discriminant validity of the constructs is presented in Table 2. Table
3 reveals that there is a statistically significant positive relationship between wishful
identification and PR. PR shows a significant positive effect on behavior loyalty. There
is a statistically significant positive elationship between behavior loyalty and purchase
intention. Therefore, H1a, b, H2a, b and H3 are supported.
Table 3. Smart PLS Path Coefficients
Coeffi-
Paths cients SD t-value p-value VIF
WI → PR 0.547 0.050 11.008 0.000 1.000
WI → BL 0.166 0.046 3.632 0.000 1.423
PR → BL 0.696 0.039 17.595 0.000 1.423
PR → PI 0.304 0.070 4.418 0.000 2.586
BL → PI 0.502 0.067 7.460 0.000 2.586
5 Conclusions and Implications
The interaction and connection between idols and fans have changed significantly in
the era of digital social media. Especially, during Covid-19 pandemic, parasocial rela-
tionships between digital celebrities and viewers has risen drammatically. Some digital
celebrities have turn out to be key opinion leaders. They post product reviews or com-
mercials on social media sites and incorporate them into their everyday lives. Since a
customer's substantial behavioral loyalty serves as a trusted source of information to
drive buying intent and decision-making, consumers consider celebrity ads or claims to
be credible trustworthy information when loyal relationships with digital celebrities are
196 Bui et al.
formed. By examining the relationships among wishful identification (WI), parasocial
relationships (PR), behavioral loyalty (BL) and purchase intention (PI) between digital
celebrities and their followers, our study shows that parasocial relationship are good
predictors of behavioral loyalty; then social loyalty between digital celebrities and their
followers positively affects the buying intent of the followers. This work confirms that
the relevant variables have good impacts and support for purchase intention meanwhile
previous studies have not clearly indicated this issue. Using a SEM method, the re-
search proves that celebrities have a great influence on the purchase intention of fans.
When followers approach digital celebrities for comprehensive information on pro-
moted goods or items, marketers must support such parasocial connections by giving
valuable information on advertised brands or products. Efficient communication pro-
cess between digital celebrities and their viewers may promote parasocial connections,
and when digital celebrities give detailed and valuable information about companies or
items, followers will view them as reliable sources of news. Despite of the fact that this
study contains important scientific observations, it has a number of limitations. The
survey is only restricted to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (major cities in Vietnam) so
that the results are unlikely to be representative of the whole population. Moreover, the
time for the survey was rather short (from December 2020 to March 2021) and the
survey was conducted primarily via email and social media, therefore a number of
young people were not able to approach to the sample. Future research can include the
cultural factors and larger respondents.
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