29-Investigating The Impact of Digital Influencers On Consumer Decision-Making and Content Outrea

Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja
ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rero20
Investigating the impact of digital influencers on

consumer decision-making and content outreach:
using dual AISAS model
Sara Javed, Md. Salamun Rashidin & Yun Xiao
To cite this article: Sara Javed, Md. Salamun Rashidin & Yun Xiao (2022) Investigating the
impact of digital influencers on consumer decision-making and content outreach: using
dual AISAS model, Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 35:1, 1183-1210, DOI:
10.1080/1331677X.2021.1960578
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.1960578
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa Published online: 02 Sep 2021.

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ECONOMIC RESEARCH-EKONOMSKA ISTRAŽIVANJA
2022, VOL. 35, NO. 1, 1183–1210
https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.1960578
Investigating the impact of digital influencers on

consumer decision-making and content outreach:
using dual AISAS model
Sara Javeda , Md. Salamun Rashidina,b and Yun Xiaoc
a
Department of Marketing, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), Beijing, China;
b
International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE),
Beijing, China; cSchool of Business, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE),
Beijing, China
ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

With exponential rise of social media, marketers identify the Received 24 November 2020
power and effectiveness of influencer’s advertising on social net- Accepted 20 July 2021
working site (SNS). Despite comprehensive understanding of the
KEYWORDS
effects of influencers, their outreach to large audience is yet to be
Digital influencers;
addressed. In this article, we have investigated the effects of fash- decision-making; SEM; dual
ion influencers on consumers’ decision-making processes and AISAS model; visual
their content outreach on Instagram by embracing new behav- centric platform
ioral consumption model ‘dual AISAS model’, which is upgraded
version of AISAS Model. It is based on theoretical grounding the- JEL CODES
ory of buying behavior and multi-step flow theory. Both offline M3; M37; M39
and online surveys were conducted involving 969 Pakistan
Instagram users following digital influencers. Valid data was
assessed and analyzed through structural equation modeling. Our
findings demonstrate that every path in dual AISAS model is
found significant and have profound effect. It reveals that fashion
influencers exert powerful influence on consumers’ decision-mak-
ing process. Being so influential, they grab the consumers’ atten-
tion immediately, engage them, and get wider outreach by
upturn in consumer intention in order to spread the fashion con-
tent within private networks as well as extended networks. The
findings hold robust implications to both theory and practice.
Some limitations of the present study offer boulevards to
future scholars.
1. Introduction
Nowadays, social networking sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Youtube,
and Facebook etc. represent valuable ‘marketing endeavor’ (Dwivedi et al., 2018). The
customers’ decisions are influenced by these sites (Caslo, 2018). They empower the
consumers to search (Chen & Xie, 2008) and exchange the knowledge about products
CONTACT Md. Salamun Rashidin [email protected]

ß 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
1184 S. JAVED ET AL.
and services with others (Merz et al., 2018). Moreover, social media is playing vital
role in digital market as the digital influencer (Mavroudis, 2018). On social network-
ing sites (SNS), online branding of products through business accounts and advertise-
ments has proven to be an efficient marketing strategy (De Vries & Carlson, 2014).
On social media, certain users actively create online content (user generated content)
and become an opinion leader. Their shared post enriched with reviews, emotions,
and personal experience can influence the products, brands, and potential audience
(Hsu et al., 2013). Therefore, we have named them as ‘digital influencers’ (Susarla
et al., 2016). Digital influencers have been recognized as more influential (Thakur
et al., 2016) thanks to large number of followers (Jin & Phua, 2014). They are ubiqui-
tous in all fields like food (Sony Kusumasondjaja & Tjiptono, 2019), travel (Song
et al., 2017), and fashion (Casalo, 2018), but they have seized a mammoth attention
specifically in fashion industry (Delisle & Parmentier, 2016). In fashion industry, the
opinion of influencers is worthwhile (Wiedmann et al., 2010) because the fashion
posts act as a source of inspiration for consumers and have high propensity to influ-
ence the consumers’ purchase decision (Susarla et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2015) or shop-
ping behavior. Moreover, it is evident that fashion seekers aid the influencers to
spread the content or diffuse the fashion trends within their private network and
extended networks (Goldsmith & Clark, 2008) by leveraging the power of social
media (Lipsman et al., 2012).
Fashion related products urge the consumers to use visual centric-platform such as
Instagram (Mull & Lee, 2014), which reported that its monthly active users were 1
billion in 2018 (Statista—The Statistics Portal, 2018). In this context, Instagram seems
reasonable to showcase the products (Locowise, 2017; Streimikien_e et al., 2021). The
basic premise behind gaining the popularity of Instagram is that it, unlike other social
networking sites, provides an opportunity to brands to post the content in an aes-
thetic appealing way (image-sharing, photos, videos, stories etc.) (Lyfe Marketing,
2018). The nature of Instagrammer influencer posts encompasses images and videos
with textual description. Prior studies have focused primarily on textual platforms
such as blogs (Li & Du, 2011), Twitter (Park & Kaye, 2017), and other online com-
munities (Li et al., 2013) with regards to influencers (Zhao et al., 2018). Despite gain-
ing popularity due to its aesthetic visual appeal, which may have a greater impact on
users’ purchase decision (Mediakix, 2017), studies conducted on visual social net-
working site i.e. Instagram (Abed, 2018; Li et al., 2018) are limited.
Nevertheless, prior studies have been dedicated to digital influencers and their
effects on consumers’ decision-making processes need to be explored further. We
intended to fulfill the slit by enhancing the understanding about the effects of digital
influencers on consumers’ decision-making processes. Our study has focused on
Instagram bloggers of fashion industry as influencer marketing is intensively used in
this industry (Garland & Reed, 2018). Additionally, we employed a novel consump-
tion model ‘The Dual AISAS Model’ instead of traditional AISAS model because
‘traditional AISASTM’ only captures the ‘purchasing desire’ resulting mostly from the
posts/photos shared by influencers. Since social influence theory corroborates that
consumers’ decision-making process is greatly influenced by the reviews, remarks,
and suggestions of people connected with them (Zhang et al., 2014), in the prevalent
ECONOMIC RESEARCH-EKONOMSKA ISTRAŽIVANJA 1185
digital network era, consumers can easily seek diverse or detailed information not
only in the shape of ads but also in the form of posts or pics from groups and net-
works etc. in order to get maximum utility from their purchases (Crandall et al.,
2008). Dual AISAS model has two flows; first flow is ‘traditional AISAS’, and the
second flow is new ‘A þ ISAS’, which captures the ‘sharing desire’ spreading of infor-
mation by consumers within entwined network (Shintara and Yuji, 2018). We have
considered this model since it enables the researcher to measure the impact of digital
influencers on consumers’ decision-making processes (i.e. capturing the offline move-
ment of consumers by assessing their purchasing desire) as well as to identify their
content outreach (i.e. capturing the online movement by assessing the reaction of
consumers to advertisement or consumer sharing desire). Moreover, it is in line with
Chahal (2016) who stated that influencer outreach will get an increasing focus in
the future.
The study is designed with following objectives: 1) on the basis of dual AISAS
Model, we intend to investigate the impact of digital influencers on consumers’ deci-
sion-making processes, and 2) on the basis of dual AISAS Model, we intend deter-
mine the influencers’ published promotional content outreach (coverage). The current
study makes the contributions in following ways. This study contributes to the litera-
ture of consumers’ behavior, digital influencers, and consumers’ decision-making
processes by examining the effects of digital influencers and determining their con-
tent outreach. Furthermore, our study considered ‘Dual AISAS Model’ as research
framework to get better insight on influencer communication and resultant engage-
ment because influencer has the ability to get people engaged on shared image and
drive them into action (Freberg et al., 2011) and ultimate outreach of promotional
content to larger audience (Nabi et al., 2019). However, we used survey method/tech-
nique to complete this research. Finally, the findings of the study assists both brands
and digital influencers to identify the right influencers that best resonate with the tar-
geted audience. Additionally, through the lens of this model they can measure the
consumer reactions (or consumer behavioral and purchasing data (e.g. monthly basis
and quarterly basis etc.)) towards Insta fashionista photos.
The rest of the study is organized as follows. Section 2 presents theoretical ground-
ing, followed by research model development (Section 3). Section 4 describes the
employed methodology followed by analysis and findings (Section 5). The last section
(Section 6) deals with discussion and concluding remarks about findings and theoret-
ical as well as practical implications of the findings in addition to the limitations and
boulevards for future researchers.
2. Theoretical grounding of dual AISAS model

While consumer’s behavior is in debate, extant studies have found that consumer’s
activity processes or purchase decision processes have remained its prime concern
(Zhang et al., 2018). To evaluate the processes of consumer decision, a model of con-
sumer decision was initially developed by Howard (Du Plessis et al., 1991). Later on,
in 1969, an improvement was made in traditional model by Howard and Sheth (Du
Plessis et al., 1991). This model is termed as ‘Theory of Buying Behavior’. The theory
of buying behavior contained psychological, marketing, and social features. The

assimilation of these factors affects the consumers’ decision-making processes, and
transforms them sequentially into information processing. The five-resultant out-
comes of buying behavior model are attention, comprehension, attitude, intention,
and purchase (Kavak et al., 2015). In numerous business buying studies (Kavak et al.,
2015), especially in retailing sector (De Oliveira & Gosling, 2015), hospitality, tourism
(Karl & Reintinger, 2016), and social media (Cheah et al., 2019), theory of buying
behavior has been adopted on theoretical grounding.
The present study also utilizes another theory as theoretical foundation titled as
the multi-step flow theory. This theory is basically an extension of the two-step flow
theory (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955). As the name implies, this paradigm has multi-
dimensional flow; goes through multiple ‘channels’, i.e. from mass media to online
opinion leaders (i.e. digital influencers), and then eventually from opinion leader to
wider target audience (Ognyanova, 2017). Successful opinion leaders (i.e. influencers)
have an extended network or are connected with more concentrated network (Basille,
2009). Albeit they convey the notion to their followers/subscribers, who in turn
spread those notions to other audience (Brosius & Weimann, 1996). Transferring this
notion into the context of present study, social networking sites like Instagram,
YouTube, Facebook and Twitter provide their audience an option to forward the con-
tent to their connections with the click of button. A number of studies have
employed multi-step flow theory in media (Brosius & Weimann, 1996) and social
media studies (Ognyanova, 2017; Stansberry, 2017).
Therefore, this study embraced two theories as theoretical foundation; theory of
buying behavior to investigate the impact of digital influencers on decision-making
processes of users (Opinion leaders have the potential to influence the purchasing
decision of others across specific product categories (Flynn et al., 1996), and multi-
step flow theory to determine their content outreach.
2.1. Digital influencers

The rapid increase in content generated on microblogging platforms compels the net-
work participants to make an attempt to grab the attention, and thus have an influ-
ence on peers (Trusov et al., 2010). These opinion leaders have the tendency to
influence the members of their social networks by disseminating the information
(Chaney, 2001). The studies on information diffusion have particularly concerns
about how influential people interact and influence their interpersonal networks.
These opinion leaders have now turned into online opinion leaders in the form of
bloggers and vloggers (Agarwal et al., 2014), and have gained a power to influence
the behavior of others on social media (Ki & Kim, 2019). These influential people on
social media are named as social media influencers/digital influencers/digital celebri-
ties. They have accumulated a huge fan base by creating and sharing content on mul-
tiple social networking sites. Moreover, brand focuses on identifying these influential
people to communicate a brand’s message to mass consumers (Talavera, 2017).
They engender a meaning transfer process, wherein they stimulate interest and
influence the consumers’ attitude towards products or brands and purchases
(Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). Furthermore, extant literature found the influence of promo-
tional content on different e-commerce platforms, such as Facebook (Aswani et al.,
2017b), Twitter (Aswani et al., 2017a), Instagram (Ki & Kim, 2019), and other preva-
lent domains. It revealed that influence is manifested in fashion (Wiedmann et al.,
2010), education (Tess, 2013), and healthcare sector (McNeill & Briggs, 2014).
Moreover, in virtual communities, it is evident that digital influencers have a momen-
tous effect on consumers’ pre-purchase behavior (Sokolova, 2019) and post-purchase
behavior (Song et al., 2017). Since they are influential opinion leaders (Agarwal et al.,
2014), they have the tendency to persuade their peers (Weeks et al., 2017) to take a
specific action (Clow & Baack, 2016) in order to further spread the content to other
users (Goldsmith & Clark, 2008). These influential personalities are familiar with their
own follower preference, thus they can spread content to more intended consumers
with definite consumer psychology that conforms to their admirers (Wei, 2017), and
provokes to share it in their own social networks, thus extending the dissemination
of content (Kown, 2016). The quicker dissemination or wide outreach of content
facilitates in accessing the novel information in network and drives the user engage-
ment (Yu et al., 2015). Moreover, these personalities assist the firms to discern novel
consumers’ trends and upkeep the new needs of consumers (Aldhaheri &
Bach, 2013).
Despite gaining the popularity, a little effort has been made to investigate the
effects of digital influencers on consumers’ decision-making. Moreover, a little effort
has been made to determine the influencers’ content outreach (Chahal, 2016).
Therefore, we have investigated the effects of digital influencers on consumers’ deci-
sion-making and have determined their content outreach.
3. Research model development and hypotheses formulation

3.1. New consumption behavior model (dual AISAS), decision processes, &
hypotheses development
With the passage of time, consumers ’ pattern of buying behavior has changed with
the evolution and development of media, and the purchasing behavior model has
undergone a change. Various models about consumers’ decision-making processes
have been used by advertising agencies. The widely used consumer buying behavior
model and consumer activity model are AIDA and AIDMA model (Hawaldar &
Ullal, 2018; Wei & Lu, 2013). AIDA incorporates four stages: attention, interest,
desire, and action. AIDMA incorporates five stages: attention, interest, desire, mem-
ory, and action (Hassan et al., 2015). Subsequently, improvement was made in
AIDMA model by well-recognized Japanese advertising agency ‘Dentsu’ (2008). This
agency proposed another consumer activity model AISAS (Dentsu Incorporated,
2008). The AISAS model has been created to meet the current needs of digital era,
and due to its interactive nature of internet, it will better to elucidate the behavior/
activity of consumer on the internet (Wei & Lu, 2013). This model incorporates five
processes; attention, search, interest, action, and share. This model has some similar-
ities with AIDMA model. Initially, the advertisement grabs the attention of cus-
tomer, and the customer becomes interested in it. The third path of AISAS model is
novel, search, and gather information from different sources on the internet. The
fourth phase is following consumers’ action to make a purchase and subsequently
consumers share their experiences on the internet (Cheah et al., 2019). The process
after the action has expanded, which illustrates the current consumer behavior.
However, this model is not enough to explain the phenomenon which
Instagram triggered.
Nowadays, people firmly believe on word-of-mouth communication (WOM) rather
than ads. So, the mode we used earlier to get people’s attention has become obsolete.
On daily basis, we can find information about products or services in the form of
photos on Instagram. The photos are not ads, but they are shared by friends or peo-
ple whom we follow on Instagram. They have a great effect on us because they
include their emotions as well (Rashidin et al., 2020a). If they are attractive, they will
arise our purchasing-desire or sharing-desire. These two desires are diverse, so they
should be detached. The new consumption behavior model, ‘The Dual AISAS Model’
will help elucidate it further. In October 2015, Dentsu brought a new version of
AISAS model named as Dual AISAS model, thanks to the cooperation of digital mar-
keting company Atara LLC, in order to advance the digital communication that fur-
ther maximizes the sales (Dentsu, 2015). Moreover, it further clarifies the information
flowing in the model and the contents of the consumer’s interest. Additionally, this
model puts the interest into two categories (interest in products and interest in pho-
tos/images) by recognizing the worth of activation which leads towards purchases in
both categories. It makes the AISAS model as ‘Purchasing desire’, whereas A þ ISAS
is ‘Sharing desire’ or diffusing the information, wherein ‘I’ stands for ‘Interest’, ‘S’
stands for ‘Share’, ‘A’ stands for ‘Accept’ and ‘S’ stands for ‘Spread’ as demonstrated
in Figure 1 below (i.e. corresponds to the purchasing made through Instagram).
The model begins with an attention phase. It is defined by Venkatraman et al.
(2015) as ‘a person’s ‘ability to focus on certain aspects of the environment while
ignoring others’. In the era of Web 2.0, the scholars suggested that brands are part-
nering with digital influencers, wherein they help the brands grab the attention of
masses more easily as compared to the celebrities (Ki & Kim, 2019). The attention
phase highlights that the influence is instigated from the outwards (influencers),
therefore the extent of the influence depends on the user’s number of influencers/
digital celebrities following. The vertical flow of Figure 1 demonstrates that user
attention is seized though exposure of promotional messages in the form of photos
posted by bloggers and vloggers (digital influencers) on Instagram. These influential
people attract a lot of attention from internet users and play a key role in word-of-
mouth advertising, generating messages and content of use for other people (Meng
et al., 2011). For instance, Instagram is one of the digital social media platforms that
is being used mostly by opinion leaders to express their opinions about products and
services via sharing photos and short videos (Silva et al., 2013). The user rate of influ-
encers following and trust on them (experience) decide the user interest arousal rate.
The higher the number of following and trust on influencers, the more the interest
will provoke (Javed et al., 2021). The attention and interest that customers have
towards the digital influencer’s posts create an outcome—searching activities (Hung,
2014; McCartney & Pinto, 2014). According to Korgaonkar et al. (2006), users are
Figure 1. The dual AISAS model. Source: Atara and Dentsu (2015).
more worried about whether only one review is true or manipulated, so while
engaged in shopping to experience goods, they will read more reviews in order to
verify the quality of the products being considered. This is supported by Park et al.
(2009), who found that users tend to search significantly more kinds of information,
including both product and customer reviews, when shopping to experience goods
than when shopping to search goods. Hence, the use of digital influencers in promo-
tions transforms the user’s attention and interest into a high involvement action
because influencers have the tendency to deepen the user engagement on shared post
(Freberg et al., 2011), and change the attitudes of followers, consequently influencing
their intention to buy the recommended products (Renata et al., 2018). These finding
are in line with Ki and Kim (2019) study, which revealed that followers who hold
positive attitude towards digital influencers are most likely to imitate them, and their
mimicry desire drives towards purchase action. Subsequently, the user becomes a
transmitter to share his/her experience about product consumption. According to
previous studies, the positive attitude towards digital influencer content is linked to
content sharing intention at social network (Choi & Lee, 2019). Based on the afore-
mentioned literature, we postulate following hypotheses.
H1: The post of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s attention.
H2: The post of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s interest rate.
H3: The post of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s intention to search
more.
H4: The post of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s intention to pur-
chase or to act on it.
H5: The post of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s intention to share.
On the other hand, last phase ‘share’ of AISAS begins A þ ISAS. Figure 1 depicts
that the influence to inwards begins. The influence on followers depends on number
of user’s followers. Once the user shares the following post, he/she gets reactions in
the form of ‘Likes’, ‘Follows’, ‘Comments’, and ‘Share’. The post shared here is related
to the product itself, service, and brand experience (Amaly & Hudrasyah, 2012; Wei
& Lu, 2013). The higher the number of followers, the more received reactions on cer-
tain posts. Therefore, it will activate the user to be attention of others. At this point,
online searching behavior is not as consistent as before. This could be due to the fact
that in instead of searching for information online, other users could just drop a mes-
sage to their friends or comment on their friends’ post to inquire about the product.
This may explain why their attention and interest towards friend’s posts would likely
lead them to communicate with high involvement (Cheah et al., 2019). For instance,
though the user’s followers get a lot of information on Instagram, they only share the
valuable information without making purchase. Additionally, the user’s followers get
the original information along with emotion, reviews, and comments, so that infor-
mation is ‘unable to ignore ¼ with a strong attention’, or in other words, they ‘accept’
that information. Cheung et al. (2008, 2009) and Cheung and Thadani (2012) defined
the acceptance of information as ‘a process in which people intentionally engage in
the use of information, i.e. it is an intrinsic aspect of individual, in which the individ-
ual purposefully judges whether the information received is reliable and can be used
in his/her consumption decision-making’. Moreover, it is widely studied and dis-
cussed in academia (Cheung et al., 2009; Cheung & Thadani, 2012; Teng et al., 2014).
Cheah et al. (2019) conducted a study, in which authors found that information is
widely accepted when it is communicated by close friends than celebrities, and the
effect of former is greater than latter, because friend’s recommendation is based on
multi source information fusion (Cheng et al., 2019).
Shintara and Yuji (2018) used ‘The Dual AISAS Model’ to understand the con-
sumption behavior on SNS and found that consumers tend to trust the information
transmitted by other consumers. Moreover, authors found that consumers have ever
recommended by sharing and spreading via SNS than before. In addition to this, con-
tent spreading plays an important role in motivating followers to express their opin-
ions through the social network, because the goal of sharing information is for others
to receive (Lin et al., 2014), and can better leverage the power of social media by pay-
ing attention to the content outreach along with private networks (Yu et al., 2015)
and extended networks (Lipsman et al., 2012). With a preceding example, this fol-
lower becomes the originator and ‘spreads’ the information within network friends,
therefore the information is diffused at an accelerated pace. Particularly, this activity
may not affect the purchase of the user, but it affects others’, because the spread
information can get someone’s attention, and in this way, bunch of people make pur-
chases through the platform of Instagram. Therefore, Instagram has an enormous
influence to alter the consumer activity/behavior (Sano, 2017). On the basis of above
arguments, we develop following hypotheses:
H6: The repost of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s fol-
lower activation.
H7: The repost of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s fol-
lower attention.
H8: The repost of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s follower inter-
est rate.
H9: The repost of digital influencers has positive impact on user’s follower inten-
tion to share.
H10: The repost of digital influencers by user’s follower has positive impact on
other user’s acceptance.
H11: The repost of digital influencers by user’s follower has positive impact on
another user’s intention to spread.
In a nutshell, red color looped in our research model around horizontal flow is
displaying A þ ISAS ¼ Sharing/Dissemination Desire; the interest in product switches
from product to communication about goods, services, and spread to outreach
(Yajima, 2015). Moreover, it exhibits the flow of diffusion of the brand information,
such as advertising and promotion, through the digital network, which assists to
determine the influencer content outreach (Chahal, 2016).
4. Methodology
4.1. Instrument and measures
The scale was adapted from 15-item scale of AISAS (a three-item scale of attention, a
three-item scale of interest, a three-item scale of search, a three-item scale of action,
and a three- item scale of share). Moreover, a scale of active, accept and spread was
developed with the help of existent literature (Erz et al., 2018, Teng et al., 2014).
Additionally, for more clarity, the study denotes the two types of interest in our
model differently, like the post of digital influencers is labeled as ‘interestpd’, and the
interest in posts of friends is labeled as ‘interestpf’. The scale used for the measure-
ment of constructs was 5-point Likert scale, ranging from ‘strongly disagree ¼ 1’ to
‘strongly agree ¼ 5’. We validated our scales and measurement model using multiple
methods. Firstly, following Ruyter and Bloemer (1999), we executed EFA to confirm
the underlying factors using varimax rotation and extracted 11 factors that include
attention (Att), interestpd (Int), search (Srch), action (Act), Share (Sha), Active (Actv),
Attention (Attnt), Interestpf (Inter), Share (Shre), Accept (Accpt), and Spread (Sprd).
Most of the factor loadings (FLs) were above .80 except Actv3 (FL ¼ .62) and Sprd3
(FL ¼ .51), relevant to active and spread, thus excluded for further proceedings.
Moreover, eigen values, 5.921, 3.809, 2.792, 2.546, 2.368, 2.262, 1.688, 1.612, 1.456,
1.202, and 1.025 of factors cumulatively explained 85.605% of the total variance
respectively. Secondly, the face and content validity of the scale was ensured by taking
the comments from marketing professors. Furthermore, a pilot study was conducted
in order to test the content validity of instrument. The survey recorded 62 data
points. Among them, 14 data points were ruled out due to disqualification (i.e.
screening questions, incomplete questionnaire (i.e. missing values), or extreme uni-
form values (i.e. all 1 or all 5). As a result, 48 data points remained valid for analysis,
representing a response rate of 70.30%. In the pilot study, female respondents had
higher representation (52.1%) than male (47.9%). Majority of the participants (50%)
lies under the age category of 24-29, followed by 18–23 (39.6%) and above 29–35
(10.4%). With respect to qualification, majority of the respondents (43.8%) have
earned a bachelor’s degree, followed by masters (37.5%), higher secondary (16.7%),
and high school (2.1%). As far as profession is concerned, majority of participants
were students (54.2%), followed by job holders (43.8%), and business (2.1%). Majority
of the respondents having Instagram accounts were private (79.2%) than having pub-
lic accounts (20.8%). Half of the participant accounts were linked with SNS (70.8%)
than only linked with Twitter (18.8%) and Facebook (10.4%). In addition, reliability
analysis was performed to confirm the robustness of measurement. The Cronbach’s
alpha (a) values were found to be attention ¼ .937, interestpd ¼ .929, search ¼ .906,
action ¼ .956, share ¼ .739, active ¼ .903, attention ¼ .896, interestpf ¼ .942,
share ¼ .945, accept ¼ .925, and spread ¼ .846. The results indicated that scale is
consistent having Cronbach’s alpha (a) values greater than .70.
4.2. Contextual research setting

Pakistan has been selected as the setting of this study due to the elevated increase in
the usage of social media. According to Ali (2020), 37 million people accessed social
media regularly from video sharing platforms like TikTok and YouTube to micro-
blogging sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. According to NepleonCat
(2020), in first half of 2020, Instagram had 6,394,000 active users with a net addition
of approximately 4,158,000 users on yearly basis. Among all microblogging platforms,
Instagram is becoming the eye-catching platform for fashion industry (Yesmail, 2015;
Socialbakers, 2016). It has been rapidly expanding and has gained much popularity in
Pakistan (Babar, 2020).
Pakistan fashion industry is boosting rapidly and contributes significantly to the
economy (Batool, 2018). It turns to digital media for product reviews and endorse-
ment from common people/influencers instead of celebrities whom they can relate to
them (Jamil, 2020). In the context of fashion industry, these influential people create
content about skincare, clothing, and makeup and post them on their personal
accounts. They have the tendency to attract a great number of followers, and enjoy a
massive fanbase (Jamal, 2020). Since the concept of influencer marketing is gaining a
significant momentum in Pakistan (Bradri.com, 2019), therefore it has been used as

contextual setting for our study to substantiate our study hypotheses.
4.3. Sampling and data collection procedures

Prior to the execution of data collection, Free Statistical Power Calculator version 4.0
was used to determine the minimum required sample size for structural equation
modeling (SEM). The findings revealed that in order to achieve statistical power of
80% with number of observed variables n ¼ 30, number of latent variables n ¼ 11,
probability level ¼ .05, and medium effect size ¼ .15, recommended minimum sample
size was n ¼ 900. Black et al. (2020) suggested a sample of 100, whereas Kline (2005)
suggested a sample of 200 to employ structural equation modeling (SEM) method, so
our study sample fulfills this threshold for justifying the use of SEM.
Purposive sampling technique was used to select the respondents. It permits the
researchers to choose the valid and informative respondents (Sekaran & Bougie,
2016). We conducted both offline and online surveys to collect the data. For offline
survey, five doctoral candidates were trained to distribute the English version ques-
tionnaire. Moreover, an online questionnaire was designed on Survey Monkey (i.e.
host online questionnaire), and the respondents were contacted by posting a web-link
of survey on social media pages of different Pakistani public universities. It must be
noted that an online survey helps the researcher reach larger numbers of participants
besides reaching more relevant respondents by eliminating irrelevant one through fil-
ter/screening questions (Denscombe, 2014). Based on survey research, the instrument
commenced with an open-ended statement following the critical incident method
(Seckler et al.,2015). The open-ended statement asked the participants to read a state-
ment carefully before filling out the rest part of questionnaire: ‘Please take you as a
viewer of the posts/reposts of fashion influencers you followed on Instagram. Try to
explain your perception.’ The underlying reason behind this open-ended question
was to get a description about the perception of followers. Purposive sampling has
been criticized not being able to generalize research outcomes, although a good deal
of online research uses this technique because of subjects’ accessibility and proximity
to the researchers (Roman, 2007). Moreover, purposive sampling is deemed valid and
appropriate when the study is exploratory and when the instrument’s items are
related to the respondents (Elbeltagi & Agag, 2016). In this regard, our study depends
on constructs that have not been widely studied in the past, and the targeted
respondents were Instagram users who followed fashion influencers, so the instru-
ment was closely related to the respondents. Thus, the research fulfills both require-
ments for using purposive sampling.
The data was gathered during a period of 6 weeks, from mid of February till
March 2020. Moreover, we ensured with the help of screening questions that
‘participants had been the user of Instagram for at least 1 year’, ‘logged in to
Instagram at least once in last 30 days’, ‘made post on Instagram in last 30 days’, and
had been the ‘follower of at least one fashion digital influencer. Participants who met
these selection criteria were allowed to further pursue the survey. The questionnaire
commenced with cover letter which narrated the broad purpose of study, and ethical
statement to keep their personal information confidential (Rashidin et al., 2020b).

The operational definition of digital influencers was clearly stated. It had two sec-
tions. First section of survey was particularly related to personal traits of the partici-
pants, which contained five close ended questions concerning their gender, age,
profession, and educational attainment. Before proceeding to second section, we pro-
vided a statement ‘Please fill out the rest part of questionnaire (Q1–Q15) keeping in
mind the digital fashion influencers (bloggers, vloggers, etc.) you followed on
Instagram.’ Second section of survey instrument contained 31 close ended questions
on five stages of AISAS (to measure purchasing desire) and six stages of A þ ISAS (to
measure sharing desire). Upon completion of five stages of AISAS, we again provided
a statement to participants ‘Please fill out the remaining part of questionnaire (from Q
16- Q31) keeping in mind the repost of fashion influencers make by your friends’. The
questionnaire took approximately 10–15 minutes for completion. A total of 525
respondents participated in online survey. In the offline survey, a total of 545 ques-
tionnaires were distributed, and 502 questionnaires were returned back, representing
a response rate of 92.11%. Fifty-eight questionnaires were discarded due to duplica-
tion and incompletion, so 444 questionnaires remained valid for data analysis.
Therefore, a total of 969 responses (525 responses from online survey, and 444
responses from offline survey) were valid for data analysis.
5. Analysis and results

5.1. Demographic of respondents
The qualified participants who took part in this study were n ¼ 969 as shown in
Table 1. The majority of the respondents were females (52.2%) and rest were males
(47.8%), which indicates a fair distribution of gender. 59.8% respondents were found
to be in 24–29 years of age. Over half of the participants were students (54.9%), fol-
lowed by job holders (24.8%), and business person (17.2%). Approximately half of
the respondents held bachelor’s degree (49.6%). The majority of participants had pri-
vate accounts (n ¼ 862, 89.0%), and rest of participants had public accounts (n ¼ 107,
11.0%). Additionally, the detail of the participants whose Instagram accounts are
synchronized with social media is as follows: Facebook (n ¼ 412, 42.5%), Twitter
(n ¼ 256, 26.4%), and both Facebook and Twitter (n ¼ 244, 25.2%). Some participants
have not connected their accounts with other SNS (n ¼ 57, 5.9%) (see Table 1).
5.2. Measurement model

The statistical analysis was carried out by SPSS AMOS graphics version 21. We
checked the reliability and the validity of unobserved constructs through measure-
ment model by performing confirmatory factor analysis. The results of confirmatory
factor analysis indicate a good fit of the model (v2 (455.588) ¼ 270, v2/df ¼ 1.687,
SRMR ¼ .035, GFI ¼ .971, AGFI ¼ .949, TLI ¼ .986; CFI ¼ .991; RFI ¼ .966; NFI
¼ .979; IFI ¼ .991; PNFI ¼ .608; PCFI ¼ .615; RMSEA ¼.027). These model fit indi-
ces exhibit that all latent constructs are well measured by their indicators. Through
the scores of Cronbach’s a and composite reliability (CR), reliability was assessed.
Table 1. Demographic profile of respondents (N ¼ 969).

Demographic characteristics Frequency (N ¼ 969) %
Gender
Male 463 47.8
Female 506 52.2
Age
18–23 189 19.5
24–29 579 59.8
29-35 165 17.0
Above 35 36 3.7
Educational attainment
High School 22 2.3
Higher Secondary School 123 12.7
Bachelor’s Degree 481 49.6
Master’s Degree 329 34.0
Doctorate 14 1.4
Profession
Students 532 54.9
Job Holders 240 24.8
Business Person 167 17.2
Others 30 3.1
Instagram account
Private 862 89.0
Public 107 11.0
Linked with other SNS
Facebook 412 42.5
Twitter 256 26.4
Both 244 25.2
None 57 5.9
Others 0
Source: Author own calculation.
Table 2 demonstrates that all constructs are considered reliable by having CR scores
above the cut off level .70 (Hair et al., 2011), ranging from 0.837–0.942. Also, a
scores surpassed the suggested cut-off level >.70 (Hair et al., 2010), ranging from
0.865–0.943. Convergent validity was tested by employing Fornell and Larcker (1981)
approach, which implies that factor loadings of all items should be above .70 and sig-
nificant. Also, value of average variance extracted from each variable should be
greater than .50. Table 2 demonstrates that factor loadings of all construct items are
above the threshold level (>.70), with values ranging from 0.778–0.945, and values of
AVE are ranging from 0.630–0.844, demonstrating that it is above the recommended
cut-off level >.50 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Hair et al., 2011), thus the convergent
validity is established (Hair et al., 2010). The discriminant validity was ensured by
using two tests; first, the square root of average variance extracted (AVE)/diagonal
elements should be above the correlations among the variables at the corresponding
columns and rows values (Fornell & Larcker, 1981), and second, the correlation
among the constructs should not exceed .85 (Kline, 2005) (see Tables 2 and 3).
5.4. Structural model

The results of the measurement model demonstrate a good model fit. The structural
model was tested by SPSS Amos graphics version 21.0. The findings of the study are
as follows: (v2 (88.368) ¼ 35, v2/df ¼ 2.525, SRMR ¼ .05; TLI ¼ .951; CFI ¼ .969;
RFI ¼ .921; NFI ¼ .950; IFI ¼ .969; PCFI ¼ .617; PNFI ¼ .605; RMSEA ¼ .040).
Table 2. Confirmatory factor analysis.
1196
Constructs Items Statements Scale source SFL

Attention, Att1 The fashion related image posted by digital celebrity attracts me. Wei & Lu (2013) .909
CR ¼ .925, a ¼ .924. Att2 The fashion related image posted by digital celebrity draws my and Jun-Hwa .830
AVE ¼ .805, 冑AVE ¼ .897 full attention. Cheah et al. (2019)
Att3 The fashion related image posted by digital celebrity catches my eye. .950
Interest, Int1 After viewing the fashion related image posted by digital celebrity, I am .876
CR ¼ .924, a ¼ .923. interested in it.
AVE ¼ .801, 冑AVE ¼ .894 Int2 After viewing the fashion related image posted by digital celebrity, I like .911
S. JAVED ET AL.
the fashion related products.

Int3 The image posted by digital celebrity gives me a good impression of the .898
fashion items.
Search, Srch1 After viewing the image posted by digital celebrity, I will search for .873
CR ¼ .922, a ¼ .920. information about the fashion products
AVE ¼ .798, 冑AVE ¼ .893 Srch2 After viewing the image posted by digital celebrity, I will search for online .910
word-of-mouth about the fashion items.
Srch3 After viewing the images posted by digital celebrity, I will compare prices .897
of products within fashion brands.
Action, Act1 After viewing the images posted by digital celebrity, I believe the offered .929
CR ¼ .942, a ¼ .942. products of fashion brands is worth trying.
AVE ¼ .844, 冑AVE ¼ .918 Act2 After viewing the images posted by digital celebrity, I am willing to buy .881
the fashion related items.
Act3 After viewing the image posted by digital celebrity, I think the product .945
will best satisfy my need.
Share, Sha1 After viewing the image posted by digital celebrity, I will forward this .856
CR ¼ .890, a ¼ .892. advertisement to my friends
AVE ¼ .729, 冑AVE ¼ .853 Sha2 After viewing the image posted by digital celebrity, I will share the .861
information about the fashion products with my friends
Sha3 After purchasing and using fashion products, I will share my experiences .845
and do comments about the fashion products.
Activate, Actv1 My friends used to tag me to call upon my attention on repost of fashion Awasthi & Choraria, .811
CR ¼ .850, influencers. 2015, Erz et al., 2018,
a ¼ .852. AVE ¼ .739, 冑AVE ¼ .859 Actv2 The customize #hashtags used by my friends on repost of fashion Teng et al., 2014, .906
influencers activates me. Huhn, 2018).
Attention, Attnt1 The repost of fashion influencers by my friends attracts me. Wei and Lu (2013) .808
CR ¼ .837, Attnt2 The repost of fashion influencers by my friends draws my full attention. and Cheah et al. (2019) .784
a ¼ .837. Attnt3 The repost of fashion influencers by my friends catches my eye. .790
AVE ¼ .630, 冑AVE ¼ .793
Inter1 I am interested in what my friends will approve of. .778
(continued)
Table 2. Continued.
Constructs Items Statements Scale source SFL
Interest, Inter2 I will like the repost of fashion influencers by my friends .892
CR ¼ .892, a ¼ .862. Inter3 The repost of fashion influencers by my friends will give me a .897
AVE ¼ .735, 冑AVE ¼ .857 good impression.
Share, Shre1 I will expect to share the information about the repost of fashion .866
CR ¼ .894, a ¼ .888. influencers
AVE ¼ .737, 冑AVE ¼ .858 Shre2 I will intend to forward the repost of fashion influencers to my friends. .890
Shre3 I will do share the repost of fashion influencers by adding my comments. .818
Accept, Accpt1 After viewing the repost of fashion influencers, my friends will more likely Awasthi & Choraria, .884
CR ¼ .896, a ¼ .894. to accept (i-e getting likes, comments) 2015, Erz et al., 2018,
AVE ¼ .812, 冑AVE ¼ .901 Accpt2 After viewing the repost of fashion influencers, my friends will be Teng et al., 2014, Huhn, 2018). .918
greatly influenced.
Spread, Sprd1 My friends will expect to diffuse the repost of fashion influencers within Awasthi & Choraria, .871
CR ¼ .895, a ¼ .898. their network along with reviews/comments/proper captioning. 2015, Erz et al., 2018,
AVE ¼ .809, 冑AVE ¼ .899 Sprd2 My friends will expect to diffuse the fashion influencer repost by adding Teng et al., 2014, Huhn, 2018). .928
creative #hashtags
Note: SFL ¼ standardized factor loadings, a ¼ Cronbach alpha, CR ¼ composite reliability, AVE ¼ Average variance extracted, 冑AVE ¼ discriminant validity.
p < .001.
ECONOMIC RESEARCH-EKONOMSKA ISTRAŽIVANJA
1197
1198
S. JAVED ET AL.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics and discriminant validity.

Construct Mean S.D VIF 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Attention 3.72 1.23 1.03 .897
Interestpd 3.91 1.14 1.19 .075 .894
Search 4.00 1.12 1.26 .151 .399 .893
Action 3.85 1.28 1.07 .139 .079 .247 .918
Share 3.78 .98 1.01 .152 .440 .725 .366 .853
Activate 4.06 1.01 1.23 .042 .047 .057 -.034 .080 .859
Attention 4.07 .955 1.27 .053 -.006 .005 -.017 -.004 .282 .793
Interestpf 4.01 .974 1.15 .033 .038 .020 –.19 .052 .355 .146 .857
Shared 4.08 .953 1.02 .025 .046 .016 –.022 -.020 .034 .106 .113 .858
Accept 3.77 1.21 1.16 .037 .050 .074 .024 .063 .015 .364 .018 .074 .901
Spread 3.75 1.22 1.23 .083 .052 .067 .073 .079 .059 .308 .019 .118 .398 .899
The bold digits in the diagonal are square root of AVE.
Note: 1 ¼ attention. 2 ¼ interestpd, 3 ¼ search, 4 ¼ action, 5 ¼ share, 6 ¼ activate, 7 ¼ attention 8 ¼ interestpf, 9 ¼ share, 10 ¼ accept, 11 ¼ spread.
p < .01.
These findings indicate an adequate fit to the model. All fit indices were found to be
in acceptable range as recommended by several authors (Hooper et al., 2008;
MacCallum & Hong, 1997).
5.4.1. Hypotheses testing

We employed structural equation modeling technique (SEM) to test our research
model. In SPSS, we initially checked multicollinearity in our dataset. The score of
variance inflation factor (VIF) implies that all the constructs had VIF scores within
suggested range <3, therefore multicollinearity is not an issue in our dataset (see
Table 3). Moving ahead, the results of path coefficients are exhibited in Table 4. The
results suggest that on visual centric platform, consumer attention is seized by fashion
influencers and has significant impact on consumer interestpd (b ¼ .054, t ¼ 2.014,
p < .05), therefore H1 was supported. Also, consumer interestpd has powerful influ-
ence to search more information (b ¼ .397, t ¼ 13.485, p < .001) by visiting fash-
ion brand websites, acting on it by making purchases (b¼.229, t ¼ 7.390,
p < .001), and sharing it further on Instagram or other connected SNS (b ¼ .203,
t ¼ 9.558, p < .001), therefore H2, H3 and H4 were supported. Moreover, sharing on
Instagram leads towards activation of friends to seek latest fashion trends (b ¼ .078,
t ¼ 2.443, p < .05), drawing the attention of friends (b ¼ .301, t ¼ 10.053, p < .001),
raising the friends interestpf positively (b ¼ .266, t ¼ 7.389, p < .001) to act on it or
share it with their network friends, and taking initiative to activate them
(b ¼ .113, t ¼ 3.532, p < .001). The received original information along with
friend’s emotion gets acceptance from friends in the form of likes, and comments
(b ¼ .060, t ¼ 2.002, p < .05). They spread the information (share) further, and start
acting as originator of information for their network friends (b ¼ .396, t ¼ 13.454,
p < .001). Therefore, we accepted H5, H6, H7, H8, H9, and H10. Inclusively, all the
findings report the first and second inquiry of the present research. Moreover, all the
phases involved in AISAS and A þ ISAS have profound effect. Figure 2 also exhibits
the predictive power (R2) and the effect size f2. We followed Hair (1998) approach
for assessing R2 score, which tells us that the variance explained should be >50% in
all outcome variables due to predictor variables. The results of current study show
that 0.3% interestpd due to attention, 15.8% search due to interestpd, 5.4% action due
to search, 10.4% share due to action, 0.6% activate due to share, 9.1% attention due
to activate, 12.8% interestpf due to attention, 1.3% share due to interestpf, 0.4% accept
Table 4. Results of structural model.

Hypotheses Paths Standardized estimates T-statistics Relationship
H1 attention!interestpd .054 2.014 Supported
H2 interestpd!search .397 13.485 Supported
H3 search!action .229 7.390 Supported
H4 action!share .203 9.558 Supported
H5 share!activate .078 2.443 Supported
H6 activate!attention .301 10.053 Supported
H7 Attention!interestpf .226 7.389 Supported
H8 interestpf!share .113 3.532 Supported
H9 share!accept .060 2.002 Supported
H10 accept!spread .396 13.454 Supported
Figure 2. The dual AISAS model.

due to share, and 15.7% spread due to accept indicate that R2 score (71.8%) is above
the suggested criteria of 50%.
Moreover, by following Cohen (1988) approach, we also assessed the substantive
effect size (f2) of research model. The suggested threshold for effect sizes by Cohen
(1988) is as follow: small effect is .02, medium effect is .15, and large effect is .35. We
found that effect size of activate (f2 ¼ .006), accept (f2 ¼ .004), share in A þ AISAS(f2
¼ .013), action (f2 ¼ .057) and interestpd (f2 ¼ .003) did not lie under the suggested
threshold of Cohen’s (1988), but gets support by Sawilowsky (2003) threshold having
small and very small effect size. However, attention (f2 ¼ .100), share in AISAS (f2 ¼
.116), and interestpf (f2 ¼ .146) have medium effect size (up to the criteria of Cohen’s
(1988)), and search (f2 ¼ .187) and spread (f2 ¼ .186) have large effect size (up to the
criteria of Cohen’s (1988)).
6. Discussion
The exponential growth of social media has entirely revamped the way folks interact,
communicate, engage, and spread the information (Hansen et al., 2011) due to trans-
mutation of information platform in order to influence them (Hanna et al., 2011).
The present research studied the effects of digital influencers on consumers’ decision-
making embracing new behavioral consumption model ‘dual AISAS Model’ has par-
ticular value for domestic and international fashion industry of Pakistan. Pakistan
fashion industry has seen briskly mounting since the last decade. Our study findings
offer valuable contribution to influencers and fashion brands, because consumers are
mounting to seek influencers reviews/information. They base their decisions on
influencers reviews/information, because consumers mostly go through influencers

reviews/opinions before making their buying decision (Casal o et al., 2020).
Our study revealed that presence of digital influencers is influential because they act
as a pull factor to fashion brands in Pakistan. Consumers are more likely to seek the
information about latest fashion trends from fashion influencers in order to avoid risk
in purchase decision (Flynn et al., 1996). Hence, the influencers seized attention of con-
sumers who are seeking fashion news, reviews, and suggestions. The generated content
of fashion influencers has significant influence on consumer attention and interest, and
prompts them to search more information about fashion brands either by visiting com-
pany insta-page or brand website (McCartney & Pinto, 2014). Additionally, digital influ-
encers have the ability to transform attention, interest and drive into action, and get
consumer engagement on their shared post (Freberg et al., 2011).
It is evident from our findings that fashion influencers exert a robust influence on
consumers’ sharing attitude, which is in line with prior literature (Cheah et al., 2019).
Additionally, consumers immediately grab the attention of friends by sharing the
post/image either through Instagram stories or they go Live on Instagram with their
connections (Lipsman et al., 2012) or with online friends (acquaintances, real world
friends) (Chu & Kim, 2011; Jin & Phua, 2014). Evidently, according to our findings,
sharing begins the activation of network peers and becomes eye-catching for them,
because when they see a close friend using fashion products (by wearing those items),
they take interest in them and want to buy them (Frosh, 2015). The matter of the
fact is that network peers do not get involved in online searching activities because
the needed information is asked from friends by dropping personal message and writ-
ing comments on their shared post to inquire it further (Cheah et al., 2019), because
information conveyed personally can expedite two-way communication (Herr et al.,
1991). Evidently, opinion/reviews of consumers are worthwhile for their peers (Paek
et al., 2011) although these reviews can be positive or negative (Kwon et al., 2014). Our
findings also suggest that consumers provoke their pals to disseminate/share the image/
post within their private or extended networks (Chatterjee, 2011) that further leads
towards communication about fashion brands by activating your friends (Jin & Phua,
2014, Muntinga et al., 2011), seizes their involvement (to grab a reach, intimacy, and
engagement) and gets acceptance at wider level (in the form of ‘likes’, ‘comments’, and
‘share’ on same platform or extended networks such as by linking accounts with
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other SNS). Moreover, an individual is more likely to
spread the content/image in his small circle of friends or whole network, after getting a
sense of identification from cherished comrade (Yu et al., 2015). Our findings are in
line with prior notion that information seekers assist the influencers to spread the con-
tent from one consumer to another (Goldsmith & Clark, 2008).
7. Conclusion
A concluding summation is that in contemporary era of digitization, influencers’
impact on fashion consumers is an efficient promotional tool to elucidate consumers’
decision-making processes. Our findings based on significant association conferred
the fact that on visual centric platform/Instagram, digital influencers facilitate the
powerful influence on consumers’ decision-making processes (Goldsmith & Clark,

2008), particularly in fashion industry (Casal o et al., 2020). Moreover, they offer novel
ways to make decisions (Kapitan & Silvera, 2016) and get wider outreach by upturn in
consumers intention (awakening their sharing desire) to spread the fashion content
within private networks and extended networks (Goldsmith & Clark, 2008). In this
regard, consumers (followers) are spreading influencers’ promotional content along with
their additional knowledge (reviews, comments) to others, thus promoting the influ-
encers, which will eventually escalate their following base (Goldsmith & Clark, 2008).
7.1. Theoretical implication

To the best of our knowledge, this study has made remarkable contributions to theory
and practice pertaining to consumers’ decision-making processes. Firstly, from the the-
oretical standpoint, the empirical study embraced multi step flow paradigm and theory
of buying behavior to support the research model; to examine the effects of fashion
influencers on Pakistani consumers decision-making as well as to determine the con-
tent outreach of these influencers. Secondly, the literature has examined the effects of
digital influencers on consumers’ decision-making processes using AISAS model
(Cheah et al., 2019; Wei & Lu, 2013), but in the digital world, this study delved digital
influencers and explicated their respective effects on consumers’ decision-making proc-
esses by using an innovative consumer behavior model ‘The Dual AISAS Model’,
which is an updated version of AISAS (Atara & Denstu, 2015). Thirdly, this study
advances our knowledge beyond prior research on effects of digital influencers on con-
sumers’ decision-making (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020) by focusing the contexts outside the
US and European countries. Earlier research indicates that very few studies have paid
attention to influencers marketing particularly in South East Asia region. Therefore,
we responded to the call of earlier research, and presented/validated a behavioral con-
sumption model in the contextual setting of Pakistan. Specifically, this model enriches
our understanding about effects of digital influencers on consumer attention, inter-
estpd, search, action, share, active, attention, interestpf, share, accept, and spread.
Additionally, it also gives an insight into the extent of this effect on five phases of
AISAS and six phases of A þ ISAS, which was missing in extant marketing literature,
and opens up new avenues for future attempts. It does not only imply how digital
influencers affect the individual’s buying decision, but also gives an understanding
about the fashion influencer content outreach through activating consumer sharing
desire to diffuse the fashion trends from one user to another user (i.e. within private
network) on the same platform or on different SNS by linking up Instagram accounts
(i.e. extended networks) with other SNS (Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat etc.). Therefore,
our empirical study particularly contributes to the extant literature of consumer deci-
sion-making, consumer behavior, and digital influencers.
7.2. Managerial implications

The findings of this study are critical for both brands and digital influencers because
influencer marketing is growing more dynamic in Pakistan (Nasrullah, 2020) with a
growing use of Instagram (Eman, 2019). Particularly, Instagram fashionista capitalized

on the growth to expand their reach to the audience (Babar, 2020). Moreover, the
rapid expansion of fashionista in Pakistan has altered the behavior of consumers
(Babar, 2020). The findings revealed that fashion influencers exert a powerful influ-
ence on Pakistani consumers’ decision-making. Therefore, we suggest fashion influ-
encers to make their posts more influential; original, unique, and attractive content/
image by adding creative hashtags and emoji, weave a product in Instagram personal
stories, and go Live on Instagram. In this way, the content will grab the attention of
existing as well as potential customers, and deepen the consumer engagement
(Hashoff, 2017) followed by subsequent positive behavior (Herrando et al., 2018). In
addition to this, a positive behavior leads to activation/digital dissemination of infor-
mation to a greater extent on private networks/closely connected network, and
extended network along with an evaluative remark. The reactions/evaluative remarks
on a shared post will further influence the friends’ purchase decision albeit it is amal-
gam of influences (Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955). Moreover, we suggest fashion brands to
identify the right influencers that best resonate with the targeted audience.
Additionally, we recommend the brands, through the lens of this model, to collect
the consumer behavioral and purchasing data (e.g. monthly basis and quarterly basis
etc.) or to measure the consumer reactions towards Insta fashionista photos. The
effective use of this data helps the brands do right investment in promotions and cap-
italize their growth.
7.3. Limitations
Like other empirical studies, this empirical research has also some limitations. Firstly,
this study used the online promotional method that’s why our model corresponds to
the purchasing caused by Instagrammers. Additionally, this study is limited to single
platform Instagram. Moreover, it is limited to fashion industry solely therefore, find-
ings cannot be completely construed to other industries or products (electronics, food
etc.). Our study is limited to a single country Pakistan and collected the data from
Pakistanis to validate our model. Finally, our study is limited to cross-sectional data.
7.4. Future research directions

This study is limited in several aspects and gives suggestions to future researchers.
Future attempts can be made to test this model on other e-commerce platforms to get
better insight into influencer advertising and masses engagement (decision-making) for
greater coverage/outreach. The future researchers should test ‘The dual AISAS model’
in other industries like beauty, food, travel, health, and fitness to increase the robust-
ness of this model. Thirdly, due to the cultural differences and consumer behavior, we
recommend future researcher to cross validate the findings of current study by employ-
ing this model in other emerging countries as well as developed countries. Future
attempt can use longitudinal data to measure eleven phases of dual AISAS model at
different point in time or can use experimental design to see how consumers respond
to stimuli in diverse scenarios and its effects on consumers’ decision-making processes.
These effects are much warranted by taking into consideration customer psychographic
(generation, lifestyle, and values) and demographic aspects.
Disclosure statement
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID
Sara Javed http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7234-7690
Md. Salamun Rashidin http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1273-8494
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Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rero20

Investigating the impact of digital influencers on

Sara Javed, Md. Salamun Rashidin & Yun Xiao

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2021.1960578

© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa Published online: 02 Sep 2021.

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Investigating the impact of digital influencers on

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

CONTACT Md. Salamun Rashidin [email protected]

2. Theoretical grounding of dual AISAS model

of buying behavior contained psychological, marketing, and social features. The

2.1. Digital influencers

3. Research model development and hypotheses formulation

4.2. Contextual research setting

significant momentum in Pakistan (Bradri.com, 2019), therefore it has been used as

4.3. Sampling and data collection procedures

statement to keep their personal information confidential (Rashidin et al., 2020b).

5. Analysis and results

5.2. Measurement model

Table 1. Demographic profile of respondents (N ¼ 969).

5.4. Structural model

Constructs Items Statements Scale source SFL

the fashion related products.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics and discriminant validity.

5.4.1. Hypotheses testing

Table 4. Results of structural model.

Figure 2. The dual AISAS model.

influencers reviews/information, because consumers mostly go through influencers

powerful influence on consumers’ decision-making processes (Goldsmith & Clark,

7.1. Theoretical implication

7.2. Managerial implications

growing use of Instagram (Eman, 2019). Particularly, Instagram fashionista capitalized

7.4. Future research directions

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