Influencer Marketing: a Survey-based Experiment Among Adolescents
NCT Number: NCT06501937
Status: COMPLETED
Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
Phases: NA
Conditions: Vaping
Interventions: OTHER: Influencer marketing
Sponsor: University of Southern California
Sex: ALL
Age: CHILD
Enrollment: 664
Study Design: Allocation: RANDOMIZED|Intervention Model: FACTORIAL|Masking: NONE|Primary Purpose: OTHER
Start Date: 2024-02-12
Completion Date: 2024-02-29
Locations: Online survey, Qualtrics, Seattle, Washington, 98101, United States

Summary:
Adolescents (N = 664) participated in the online survey-based experiment. They were randomly shown 10 videos, featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities (experimental group), or e-cigarette promotion alone (control). After watching each video, participants rated perceptions of influencer credibility (i.e., honesty, trustworthiness, knowledge) on the scale of 0 (e.g., dishonest) to 100 (honest).

Among all participants, harm perceptions and appeal of e-cigarettes was assessed. Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes was assessed among never users of e-cigarettes. These outcomes were then compared among participants who perceived influencers as credible and those who perceived influencers as non-credible.

Primary Outcome Measures: Harm perceptions of e-cigarettes, Responses to two questions adapted from PATH, "Based on the videos you just watched, do you think using e-cigarettes for vaping nicotine is harmful to your health?" "Based on the videos you just watched, do you think people harm themselves when they use e-cigarettes for vaping nicotine?" Outcome was assessed on the 0 (Not harmful at all) - 100 (Very harmful) scale. Since the items were closely related (α=0.87), they were combined (by summing all the non-missing values of the items) into one variable., one-time assessment after the experimental exposure (immediately post-treatment)|Perceived appeal of e-cigarettes, Responses to the following questions: using e-cigarette is:

* not cool/cool,
* unattractive/attractive,
* boring/fun were assessed on the 7-point semantic differential scale with the word pairs anchored at each end. The scale was adapted from prior research. The items were combined (by summing all the non-missing values of the items) into one variable (α=0.93)., one-time assessment after the experimental exposure (immediately post-treatment)|Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes, Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes was measured (among never-users of e-cigarettes), using the validated three-item scale adapted from PATH, and combined into one variable (α=0.93). Consistent with prior research, the measure was dichotomized with responses "definitely not" to all items being coded as "not susceptible" and responses "probably not," "probably yes", or "definitely yes" being coded as "susceptible.", one-time assessment after the experimental exposure (immediately post-treatment)|Perceptions of influencer credibility, Perceptions of influencer credibility (i.e., honesty, trustworthiness, knowledge) were assessed using a 0 (e.g., dishonest) -100 (e.g., honest) scale that has been validated in prior research., assessed 10 times immediately after each video