Changing Attitudes Towards Water Consumption: Influencer Communication on Instagram

Abstract

Due to environmental challenges water scarcity has become a global issue and consumers' water conservation attitudes (WCA) have become crucial. Although traditional media campaigns have a power on consumers' motivation to change their sustainable water consumption behaviours social media campaigns can be more influential in changing negative attitudes into positive ones toward water conservation. Influencer marketing can especially cause changes in a shorter time since it provides more personal communication than traditional marketing communication. This study aims to reveal whether influencer marketing can change water consumption attitudes (WCA). The main research question is: Does influencer communication about water conservation cause an attitude change in the followers? We conducted a quasi-experimental design for three weeks and examined consumers' WCA by pre-and post-test results by using the WCA survey developed by Dolnicar & Hurlimann [1]. Participants answered the survey before and after being exposed to the 24 videos shared by the influencer. The increase in attitude points is statistically significant (t= -15.461 p=.000).