An Investigation into Influencer Marketing and Customer Choices

This report delves into the realm of influencer marketing and its intricate relationship with consumer decision-making, specifically within the context of the restaurant industry in the UAE. The research addresses key questions, including defining influencer marketing and consumer decision-making, exploring the connection between them, analyzing the impact of marketing influencers on the restaurant industry, and offering recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of influencer marketing. The report encompasses a literature review, covering the overview of influencer marketing, its objectives, and its influence on consumer behavior. It also details the research methodology, including data analysis from questionnaires, design, and sampling methods. The findings highlight the optimistic data collected from the questionnaire and its effectiveness. The report also emphasizes the platforms used by influencers to strengthen their relationship with customers. The findings and analysis provide a comprehensive understanding of influencer marketing strategies and their implications for businesses, particularly restaurants, aiming to attract customers and improve their overall performance.

RESEARCH ON INFLUENCER
MARKETING

Contents
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................3
2.1. Overview...............................................................................................................................3
2.3. Objective 2 Link between Consumer decision-making and Influencer Marketing..............5
2.4. Objective 3: Concept of Influencer Marketing influencing the Restaurant industry............6
2.5. Objective 4: Recommendations to increase effect of Influencer Marketing on Consumer
decision making...........................................................................................................................8
1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.............................................................................................9
4.1. Research Findings...............................................................................................................14
The data collected from the questionnaire was very optimistic and helpful to meet the aim of the
research..........................................................................................................................................15
Participants took 4-5mins to complete the survey. The questionnaire shared with participants
evaluates the...................................................................................................................................15
effectiveness of the survey. Participants were asked to:................................................................15
4.2. Questionnaire – Data analysis............................................................................................15
4.3. Design.................................................................................................................................17
4.4. Sampling & response rate...................................................................................................18
4.5. Question Response..............................................................................................................19
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................23

Aim: To achieve a detailed understanding between influencer marketing and customer’s decision
making to visit a restaurant in UAE.
Research Questions –
1) How do you define the concept of influencer marketing and consumer decision-making?
2) What is the relationship between consumer decision-making and influencer marketing?
3) How does a marketing influencer impact the restaurant industry?
4) What are the recommendations to increase effect of influencer marketing on consumer
decision making?
5)
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Overview
Marketing is one of the most important factors that helps the organizations to ensure successor
failure of products and services. There are various kinds of marketing that are being used by the
organizations for enhancing sales of their products and services. Influencer marketing is one of
the well- known marketing ways which is being focused on by organizations for enhancing their
overall sales (Childers, Lemon and Hoy, 2019). Influencer marketing can be defined as a kind of
marketing which majorly focuses on using key leaders to drive brand’s message to larger market.
It not only helps them to enhance their overall sales and profitability, but it also helps the
business to increase customers loyalty among their consumers about their products and services.
In UAE, restaurant industry is one such industry which is getting benefitted by influencer
marketing as they can easily reach their target customer base and enhance their overall sales of
their products and services.
2.2. Objective 1: Concept of Influencer Marketing and Consumer decision-making
According to the view of Xiao, Wang and Chan-Olmsted, (2018) Influencer Marketing is one of
the most important form of online or social media marketing. It is a combination of both old and
new modern marketing tools. Influencer marketing completely revolves around influencers
present within online settings. It helps organizations to influence purchase decision making of

customers. Instead of simply promoting a product online, most of the organizations today are
focusing upon adaptation of influencer marketing in order to increase their overall sales of their
products and services. It is a kind of marketing in which product or service endorsement is
mentioned from influencers who have appropriate social following and are viewed as experts
within their niche. Lim and et al., (2017) explains that, influencer marketing majorly works and
is successful because maximum amount of people who trust their influencers and follow things
that have been recommended by them. They work as a form of social proof for potential and
targeted customers of the organization. Social networking sites is one of the best platforms for
Influencer Marketing. Some of the people have even turned influencer marketing into a full- time
career. Many brands have built partnership with some influencers in order to increase popularity
of their products and services which further helps them to increase overall sales of their services
as well as of products. According to a research more than 90 percent of people believes that
products recommended from a known person must be good and starts using it (Ofek, Libai and
Muller, 2018).
As per the view of Anand, Dutta and Mukherjee, (2019) Consumer decision-making is a process
through which consumers select most appropriate products and services out of various
alternatives. Today it has become one of the most important process which should be researched
on by the organizations so that they can understand what are the main factors that influences
customers purchase or buying decision making. Decision making process of consumers goes
through a series of steps that starts from research of product to purchasing to after purchase
experience(Mehran, Kashmiri and Pasha, 2018). It is important for organizations to focus on
fulfilling needs and requirements of customers and resolve their issues so that their problem can
be resolved, and their overall satisfaction can be increased. As cited by, Wellman and et al.,
(2020) explains that, Consumer decision making starts from recognition of their problems or
needs which helps in motivating customers to understand their problems and starts gathering
information about products or services that can fulfil their needs or can resolve their problems.
After gathering information about products and services customers start evaluating various kinds
of available products in the market. Evaluation of products and service helps them to take
decision about purchase of a product. If expectations of customer is fulfilled, then this can lead to

repeat purchase of product by the consumer which can further help in influencing the customers
and can lead to increase in brand loyalty among customers.
2.3. Objective 2 Link between Consumer decision-making and Influencer
Marketing
According to the view of Kurien, Sharma and Das, (2016) In past few years maximum
usage of social media platform has changed buying behaviour of the customers as well as has
also influenced selling techniques used by organizations. Organizations have been affected by
excessive usage of social media platforms, restaurant industry and retail industry are one of them
as their customers purchase their products and services either on the basis of their past purchase
of on the basis of influencer marketing that can influence their purchase or buying decision.
Influencer marketing is a extension of word of mouth marketing but it focuses on social content
which is performed in a professional manner. As cited by, Mehran, Kashmiri and Pasha (2018),
Qutteina and et al (2019) and Parth, Kraft and Raif (2017) explains that, relationship between
influencer marketing upon customers is quite strong which helps the organizations to increase
loyalty among their customers and enhance trust upon products and services of the organization.
Influencer marketing is divided into two sub practises that helps an organization to strengthen
their relationship with their customers (Mehran, Kashmiri and Pasha, 2018). First kind of sub-
practise is earned influencer marketing. This is done by unpaid or pre-existing relationship of
organizations with third party or influencer who focuses on promoting their products and
services to their own social followers. Second kind of influencer marketing is paid in which
organizations focus on sponsoring influencer marketing campaigns. Both the kind of influencer
marketing has different effect on their target customer base which further helps the organization
in strengthening their relationship. Budget of both the kind of marketing is completely different.
As per the view of van Lohuizen, Barrera and Fischer, (2016) retail industry, fashion industry
and restaurant industry, these are the three kinds of industries that are benefitted by the
influencer marketing as it helps such industries to deliver their message to their customers and
helps in attracting more number of customers. There are various kinds of platforms that helps
organizations to influence their customers through influencer marketing. There are various kinds

of online and social media platforms for example: Facebook, Instagram etc. that are used by
influencers to influence their followers about a certain product or service. Usage of social media
platform helps in strengthening relationship between influencer marketing and consumers of a
product or service. According to a research it was observed that more than 70 percent people get
influenced and buy a product if that particular product or service is endorsed by a non- celebrity
influencer (Davainyte and et al., 2019).
Figure 1 Platforms used by influencers to strengthen their relationship product customers.
As illustrated by Au-Yong-Oliveira and et al., (2019) further explains that, there are various
kinds of influencers who have opted influencer marketing as a profession and has created their
own blogs, social media pages and focus on strengthening their relationship with their followers
so that they can endorse a product and reach to their followers in a much easier manner. Creation
of individual pages or blogs helps the influencers to strengthen their relationship with their
followers this further helps them to understand what the needs and requirements of their
followers what are the things that can influence them about purchasing a certain product or
service. This strong relationship of influencers with their followers increases success rate of
influencer marketing about a product or service.
2.4. Objective 3: Concept of Influencer Marketing influencing the Restaurant
industry
According to the view of Yang, Kim and Sun, (2019) Restaurant industry is one such industry
completely revolves around their target customers. It has been observed that influencer
marketing is quite fruitful for the restaurants to increase their customer visits and increase their
overall profitability. Especially micro influences such as restaurant reviewers, food bloggers

have provided that their exceptionally well work helps in enhancing positive reviews about a
restaurant, drives their local branding and marketing of their restaurant’s products and services.
Marketing done by these micro influences are impacting overall business of restaurants in many
different ways and which is also helping them to attract a greater number of customers. Han,
Moon and Hyun, (2019) explain that ‘influencers help the restaurants to increase interest of their
customers within their food and beverage products as well as within their service that they
provide to their customers’. These micro influencers also help the restaurants to understand
needs and desire of their customers in a much better manner. This is mainly because food
bloggers or restaurant reviewers help the customers to relate each content posted by them or
videos to their personal level. According to a research it was observed that UAE is one such
country which extremely advance in technology and more than 70 percent restaurants uses
influencer marketing in order to expand their business and enhance sales of their food and
beverages. Same research explains that more than 60 percent of the customers get influenced by
the marketing of restaurants and its products that are done by mini influencers (Lin, Bruning and
Swarna, 2018).
(Micro & Macro influencers define) As per the view of da Fonseca and Gustavo, (2020) As
compared to macro influencers, micro influencers are much more effective that macro
influencers would post only 1 or 2 post of a restaurant in a day, but micro influencers would be
posting approximately 10 to 12 post a day. There are various factors that helps in explaining
impact of influencer marketing for the restaurants. Today it has become important for restaurants
to become socially credible, (DEFINITION) as most of the customers before visiting a restaurant
prefers to check what others have posted or what kind of reviews have been provided by other
customers for the restaurant, its products as well as for its service. As illustrated by, Vassakis and
et al., (2019) explains that, it helps the restaurants to become more cost effective i.e. instead of
spending more on marketing of food and beverages through various other kinds of marketing
options they can focus on budget and get few micro influencers so that they can post and provide
reviews on the behalf of the restaurant. With the help of influencer marketing restaurants can
target a larger customer base. This is mainly because influencers have a close and strong
relationship with their followers who are loyal to them as well. This increases chances for the
restaurants to attract a greater number of customers from different demographic and wide interest

and influence them to visit their restaurants. But most importantly it helps the restaurants to get
more amount of online exposure for their brand.
2.5. Objective 4: Recommendations to increase effect of Influencer Marketing on
Consumer decision making
According to the view of Chen and Jai, (2018) there are various ways through which
organizations can focus on increasing effect of influencer marketing on decision making of their
customers. First is to get to know their followers, their needs, things liked by them, things
disliked by them, their requirement in a better manner. It is one of the main priorities of the
influencers as it will further help them to strengthen their relationship with their followers which
will further help them to enhance effect of Influencer Marketing on Consumer decision making.
Kim, Lee and Goh, (2017) explains that, most of the customers today focus on healthy lifestyle,
influencers can focus on marketing of the products and services which will further their
followers to enhance their healthy living lifestyle.
According to Yang, Kim and Sun, (2019) today most of the customers also focus on products
that are less expensive and healthy. Influencers can focus on laying emphasis on overall price or
costing of the product they are promoting or doing marketing off. This will directly influence
their followers and will help them to attract their followers or customers towards a product and
service and will also influence their decision making for a particular service or a product. These
recommended ways are quire beneficial as it will help them to increase their overall customer
base and loyalty of their customers.
Davainyteand et al., (2019) illustrated that, it is extremely important to choose correct and
appropriate social media platform for effective influencer marketing. Choosing an appropriate
platform increase chances of successful marketing by at least 50 percent and it will help them to
reach a greater number of customers easily. For restaurants it is extremely important to focus on
choosing appropriate platform for influencer marketing as it can directly impact number of
customer wo would be willing to visit their customers.

From the above review of literature, it can be summarized that usage of influencer marketing is
continuously growing in this digital world. As the number of social networking sites users are
increasing a greater number of companies are focusing on influencer marketing. Restaurants in
UAE are focusing on using influencer marketing in order to reach to their target customer base
and enhance their overall sales and profitability of their business. Influencer marketing is also
helping restaurants in increasing their brand value and brand reputation among their potential
customer base. It has also been summarized that with the help of there are many different ways
though which restaurants can increase include of influencer marketing on their targeted
customers base so that they can increase their customer visit within their restaurant.
1. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The research methodology is a procedure as well as techniques with the help of which
information regarding the topic is identified, selected, processed, and analysed. With the help of
an analysis of the methodology used in the project, the validity and reliability of the study can be
evaluated. For creating better and organised methodology the research onion framework is used
so that different stages can be identified along with various techniques to be used the particular
stage (Shekhar, 2019).

The research onion
Source: Mark Saunders, Phillip Lewis and Adrian Thornhill, 2012
The research onion contains six layers that efficiently define the planning of undertaking
research which includes research philosophy, research approach, strategy, data collection, time
horizon etc. The research methodology is adopted based on the assumptions, which depends on
the research questions (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2012).
3.1. Research Philosophy
Research philosophy is related to the belief about the way of gathering information related
to the topic from sources and interpreting them so that effective conclusions can be reached. It is
also related with the development of knowledge during the research and the experiences that are
acquired by the researcher. There are four types of research philosophies that can be used by a
researcher like positivism, realism, interpretivism and pragmatism. Positivism philosophy states
that only the data which is gathered by the way of observation can be considered trustworthy.
Realism philosophy relies on the idea of independence of reality from human mind (Winit‐

Watjana, 2016). Pragmatism philosophy accepts concepts only if they can be supported through
actions which help in proving them. Interpretivism philosophy can be applied when the data is
collected from humans by the way of interviews, questionnaires etc. so that the collected data
can be interpreted so as to draw interpretations related to them. In this research interpretivism
will be used by the researcher so that data collected can be effectively analysed so that better
conclusions can be formed.
3.2 Research Approach
Research approach contains a plan or procedure which needs to be followed by the
researcher so as to collect data, analyse the data and interpret it. There are two types of
approaches that can be used which are inductive approach and deductive approach. In the
inductive approach first the data is collected through observation which is then analysed so that a
theory can be formed. In the deductive approach the reverse of inductive approach is done
wherein a hypothesis or theory is proved or disproved by collecting data and then interpreting it
so that the hypothesis can be converted into a theory or it can be rejected (Darabi, 2018). In this
research deductive approach will be used by the researcher so that the research topic can be
proved or disproved based on the interpretation of data collection and its analysis.
3.3 Strategy
Research strategy defines the component of the research project which includes the topic
of the research and the area they need to focus upon. While undertaking the research the
investigator identifies various research methods and research design that the need to focus upon.
There are four main types of research strategy that are used by the investigator: Case study,
qualitative interview, quantitative survey and action oriented research. For this research project
quantitative survey will be taken into consideration as with the help of this a high number of
participants can be involved. The data so gathered from this will be quantitative as gathered from
questionnaires which will be evaluated with quantitative techniques such as through frequencies,
contect analysis, thematic analysis (O'Leary, 2017). For this questionnaires are used by the
investigators for gathering the data. It is considered to be an accurate source as with data can be
directly collected from the respondents the entire population. At the time of undertaking research
with this method the researcher have to analyse the size of the sample. For developing an
understanding of the influencer marketing and decision making of the customers a meaningful
questionnaire is developed on the basis of which various recommendations are made.

3.4 Sampling Strategy
Sampling is a method that is used for determining and identifying the samples out of the
population that comes under the research. It can be done with the help of various approaches
such as selective sampling method, random sampling method etc. In order to gather data for this
research 50 members will be invited on voluntary basis for completing the questionnaire. The
sampling method that will be used for this project will be cluster sampling in which the entire
population is divided into groups known as clusters, out of which one cluster will be selected by
the investigator (Thomas, 2017). This will facilitate the research in undertaking with minimum
resources as opinions will be taken from group rather than individuals also because the
homogeneity among the samples chances of relevant information is high.
3.5 Data Collection & Analysis
There are two ways in which data related to a research topic can be collected so that it can
then be analysed which are primary method and secondary method. In the primary method of
data collection the researcher collects fresh data directly from the sources by the way of
observation, questionnaire, interviews etc. Through this method highly accurate and relevant data
can be collected which increases the reliability and authenticity of the information so gathered.
While the secondary sources are the ones which already contain information from the
perspective of other researchers, authors or writers related t the topic like internet articles, books
and journals etc. These sources contain information related to the perspective and knowledge of
other authors and can also lead to manipulative conclusions. Also the data can be outdated which
means that the correctness and reliability of information collected from these sources can
decrease through the secondary source of information (Carins, Rundle-Thiele and Fidock, 2016).
Therefore while conducting this research the researcher will use primary source of information
by the way of questionnaire so that highly authentic data can be gathered that can be analysed to
reach to effective conclusions. Secondary data will be used for formation of literature review so
that the ideas and objectives of researcher can be proved. Literature review will be done based on
the primary data that is collected so that the common research goals can be achieved. The
questions that will be asked through questionnaire along with the literature review will help in
achieving the common research objectives so that the hypothesis can be either proved or
disproved depending on the interpretations done on the basis of data collection by these methods.