Educate, entertain, and esthetically appeal with influencer marketing videos – but how? : A qualitative descriptive study of the utilization of education, entertainment, and esthetic aspects in influencer marketing videos to promote second hand fashion on

Abstract: Background The online second-hand fashion market is a growing market that can be promoted with the help of social media and influencers. Influencers can help with store promotion as well as to promote sustainability and, therefore, promote this alternative fashion consumption style. Furthermore, in social media marketing videos, the aspects of education, entertainment, and esthetics have been noted to be important dimensions to consider.  Purpose This study aims to describe what aspects of influencer marketing videos appeal to consumers in the second hand fashion online store market. Methodology The study took the form of a descriptive and qualitative study in order to describe what aspects of the dimensions of education, entertainment and esthetics appeal to consumers in the second hand fashion online stores. A pilot study with two participants was conducted in order to ensure that the interview guide was understandable for the main study. Six participants took part in the main study with online interviews. Findings The empirical data contributed to the consideration of the most relevant aspects within each dimension. In education, these were the type of information, the message delivery and the deliverer. For entertainment, this was the influencer’s personality and engagement. For esthetics, the visuality of the video was evidently to be considered.  Conclusion The findings contribute to describing an appealing influencer marketing video from all of the three dimensions. For education, the importance lies in the delivering verbal information about sustainability and about the online store, as well as the influencer’s trustworthiness and persuasiveness. The findings of education are highly context specific for the second hand fashion market. Similarly, the persona was important regarding the perceived entertainment, as energetic and engaging persona successfully engaged, together with the aspect of suitable and interesting plot. For esthetics, the visuality, such as basic colors and short text were perceived appealing, as well as the style of the influencer.  The dimensions of entertainment and esthetics, however, act more as enhancing dimensions for the appeal, and education can be seen as an important appealing factor on its own. Moreover, for all dimensions the influencer has a central role for how the content and the marketing video is perceived by the audience.