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Essay: Study on the Influence of Social Bloggers and Vloggers on Indian Consumer Behavior in Cosmetics

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 Proposal:

Study on how social bloggers and vloggers influence the Indian consumer behavior in cosmetics.

    UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER

Executive Summary.

As we have seen that internet has evolved and has become the most comprehensive part of information technology that has been seen over the last decade. The internet has turn out to be a turning point in the way consumers behave and make choices. Internet has developed a profession for many people, and who influence the consumer behavior in many such industries, and one of the most influential is the cosmetic industry. My study will be focused on the trending bloggers and vloggers and how they have the influence of their opinion on the Indian consumer behavior, and how to impact their choice and mind. In India, Bloggers and Vloggers have been a playing a very significant role in impelling consumers their choice in cosmetic brands. This research will conduct interview based survey on young people, between the age of 13 to 27, in order to gain knowledge upon influence upon them .

Table of Contents

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. 2

1.INTRODUCTION: 4

1.1-BACKGROUND 4

1.2-BRIEF RESEARCH STATEMENT 4

1.3- RATIONALE- WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS IMPORTANT? 5

1.4-STRUCTURE OF PROPOSAL 5

2. LITERATURE REVIEW: 6

2.3- MY TOPIC 6

2.4-RESEARCH OBJECTIVES 7

2.5- RESEARCH QUESTION 7

3.METHODOLOGY 8

3.1-PHILOSPHY 8

3.2-RESEARCH DESIGN 8

3.3-METHODS 9

3.4- INSTRUMENTS 9

3.5-ETHICS & ACCESS 10

3.6-JUSTIFICATION 10

4.CONCLUSION 11

4.1-SUMMARY 11

HTTPS://ECONOMICTIMES.INDIATIMES.COM/TECH/INTERNET/BLOGGING-AN-INFLUENTIAL-AND-FOCUSSED-MARKETING-TOOL/ARTICLESHOW/53868458.CMS 11

4.2- LIMITATION 11

1.Introduction:

1.1-Background

Internet has evolved and has become the most comprehensive part of information technology that has been seen over the last decade. The internet has turn out to be a turning point in the way consumer behave and their choice. Internet has developed a profession for many people, and who influence the consumer behavior in many such industries, and one of the most influential is the cosmetic industry.

The rapid development of social media enables people to share their purchasing and actual using experiences. (henner-thurau & gwinner, 2004). The most visited sites in the world are Facebook, google, YouTube, Instagram ( (lifewire.com, 2018).Cosmetics purchase has become a crucial consumption in today's life of the people. And this has led to many people sharing and exchanging their view point on beauty products. It includes people sharing what brand are in their opinion the best one to consume, and what is the latest trend or new cosmetic product that has come. And this is where these bloggers and Vloggers have evolved using social media as their platform to share their insights with the people.

The research topic is focused on the trending bloggers and vloggers and how they have the influence of their opinion on the Indian consumer behavior, and how to impacts their choice and mind. In India, Bloggers and Vloggers have been a playing a very significant role in impelling consumers their choice in cosmetic brands.

1.2-Brief Research statement

In today's world where there is extensive competition and a race among brands in today's scenario of globalization, bloggers and vloggers play an instrumental role in defining the decisions made by the youth in their daily purchases in cosmetics irrespective of class or gender. The decisions in today's high tech world are influenced by social media.

Blogging and Vlogging has been in vogue in the present scenario, especially between the youth.  This medium has become a path where the consumers are connected, and they gain knowledge about various brands. These bloggers and vloggers have come up with a very significant impact on their followers who are influenced in purchase making, and are able to create awareness about the latest brands. (malarout & shetty, 2016).

1.3- Rationale- WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS IMPORTANT?

Use of Internet has been a global phenomeon with the today's modern world.

Consumers are getting globally connected to brands , also in cosmetic industry. In modern world, AN exploding passion among Internet communities is Blogging and vlogging. The combination of blogging and vlogging available in the form of video, Videoblogs .They are the latest way that the brands have started to promote themselves globally. (wen gao, 2010).

  (STATISTA.COM)

According to United Nations Agency, more than 3 billion people are using the internet.And as reported by International Telecommunication Union, this number has increased from 738 million in 2000 to 3.2  billionin 2015.  The Internet users In India will increase to 511.89 million by 2022. India already is the second largest online market  world wide.

Cosmetic brands, have used social media as a tool, as it helps to present company values and increases its promotion by the help of bloggers and vloggers. Brands have come up with strategies to collaborate with world-famous bloggers , and these bloggers promoting the must-have cosmetic products. This is a medium of great influence on the customer as they try to find out information  about a product  through internet , before they invest in a product.

And this also has a positive impact on marketing of brand, as they make their brand globally known.

The research's rationale is to understand this influence that the social influencers are making through blogs and vlogs on consumer's mind. (edibaeva, n.d.)

1.4-Structure of proposal

The structure of the proposal consists of section, the first section studies the topic of research of how people who write social blogs and vlogs have influenced the Indian consumers in cosmetic industry. In the introduction, this part of the proposal underlies the research statement and the rationale which have identifies relevance of research area and the research that it will be shown upon. Then it consists of the literature review in which review of the scholarly articles have been done, and important understandings have been obtained about this research area.

The next part has a description of the methods of research in which the research will be conducted upon, and finally the last section concludes the summary and limitations that is related to the research area.

  2. Literature Review:

The literature review will study who social influencers really are; and how they communicate with their followers influencing the consumers by their brand choice in cosmetics in India.

Consumer buying behavior consists of sum of their preferences, intentions and their intention to make a decision regarding their choice in cosmetics.  

(Krutti bhatt, 2017) . It has been reported that the brand loyalty of cosmetic brands differs.

Brand personality has a high influence on consumer attitudes towards a brand. Here is the point where bloggers and vloggers have impact on the mindset of consumer.  (Guthrie and Kim, 2008)

Guthrie, M. and Kim, H. (2008). The relationship between consumer involvement and brand perceptions of female cosmetic consumers. Journal of Brand Management, 17(2), pp.114-133.

2.3- MY TOPIC

This is study of social bloggers and vloggers who influence the consumers, in various industry is a major focus point in today's environment. Blogging has become the most popular social media tool.  Blogs have been valued to be the strength and quality of its content, as well as the opinion given by people (Thevenot, 2007). The study of consumer behavior in VUCA world has become essential to understand the consumer taste and preferences that lead to their choices.

Thus, the use of social media by these bloggers and vloggers, and their influence on consumer cosmetic choice has not been researched.

The main objective of the study is to understand first who these social influencers really are and what to they write about. A blog Is a discussion or informational website published on the world wide web, often informal- diary style text entries. (edublogs.org, n.d.)

A blogger is person who regularly writes material for a blog ( (oxford dictionaries, n.d.)

A vlog is a form of blog for which the medium is a video, or a form of web television. ( (Anon., n.d.)The vlog category is popular on YouTube. A vlogger is a person who regularly posts short or long videos. (oxford dictionaries, n.d.)Social influencers as they are known are trending in today's world. Blogs have become an important communication tool in today's modern world.

Scholars who have studied the consumer behavior in Indian context are limited. Such important studies are briefly reviewed in papers below, Subramanian and others 1982, they conducted a study on "Marketing of consumer goods" in Vishakhapatnam. It concluded the large number of respondents purchased consumer products from retail shops followed by Super Bazaar and consumer co-operative store and played a vital role in taking purchase decision.

According to one such scholar Chin-Lung Hsu Blogging has become a part of a consumer's decision-making process when shopping online; however, the understanding of blog recommendation's effect on consumer purchase decision is still vague. Bloggers (beauty, fashion, and beyond), hold the power to shape public perception of everything, including your brand -challenging you to determine how if the brands work with them , the brand will become an integral part of their online conversations. There are different ways through which influencers include brand name and they express their views about the brand. According to (Oksuz, n.d.) the development of web2.0 tools , the possibility of social influences and cosumers have increased. Therefore , social bloggers in india have become a influenitial factor on the brands choice in cosmetic industry of the indian consumers.

Debiprasd Mukherjee (2012) its study was entitled was Impact of celebrity endorsement on Brand Image. It shows consumers report higher self-brand connection for brands with images that are consistent with the image of a celebrity that they aspire to be like.

Kisan Shivajirao Desai (2014) research studies the consumer buying behavior of cosmetic products in Kolhapur". It somewhere studies the behavior of consumers in India, to buy cosmetics. This actually studies the various aspects that influence their behavior. Here the people who were researched upon were selected by convenient sampling method and by using the statistical techniques the data was analyzed. It concluded that different factors have influence over consumers. The study also has contributed to how the cosmetic companies would benefit from understanding the behavior of consumers. (desai, 2014)

   2.4-Research Objectives

Doing this research aims and motivations, two general questions have formulated:

    Social media influence in cosmetic industry.

" Factor the way that bloggers & vloggers have their influence on their followers.

" Furthermore, several detail objectives of this study are listed below:

" 1. Identifying potential factors that influence consumer buying behavior under social media context and empirically testing the conceptual model to decide whether hypotheses are supported or not

" 2. Combining qualitative and quantitative research methods and techniques to solve the research questions better.

" 3. Concluding empirical findings regarding the influence of social media on consumer behavior that are useful for both academics and practitioners

" 4. Proposing research limitations and recommendations for future research

  2.5- Research Question

 My study will aim to bridge the gap between consumer behavior and the influence on them by the bloggers and the vloggers by a variety of disciplines when addressing how are they influenced.

1) To what extent does the social media and bloggers influence the decision in buying products.

2) How effective are the bloggers in convincing the youth to make decisions that they wouldn't have made in their absence?

3) How do the cosmetic brands in India view bloggers as a tool of market promotion?

 3.Methodology

The overall design of my project will take a qualitative approach, meaning that I will use a formal, objective, systematic process where data are utilized to test the following research questions

3.1-  Philosophy

3.2-  Research Design

3.3 –   Methods

3.1-Philosphy

The Philosophy of this research underlies that in which way the research on this study would be conducted. It is of prior importance that the researcher acquires enough substantial data to conduct his research. The research philosophy is basically of three types that are positivism, interpretivism, and pragmatism. These two sources are extremely mutually exclusive paradigms about the knowledge source and its nature. Positivism philosophy is mainly based upon the factual information derived from observation, rather than from any moral considerations. And, interpretivism is related to the human who are related to this research and the elements of this research will be the human related to it. Whereas Pragmatism is that concept that is related only due to supported actions.

This research will focus on Pragmatism philosophy, as it is a inductive and deductive type of research approach and its Ontology is Subjective and deductive, and the research strategy is both qualitative and quantitative. The shared feedback from the followers of the bloggers and vloggers and other people who would be the subject of this research will serve as foundation of this research. The data collection that would be done by data interviews and a survey with people is the prime factor to choose pragmatism  as a research philosophy as these people who will be surveyed and interviewed  in India will give their opinion how are they influence to choose that cosmetic brand that is promoted by the blogger and the vlogger ,and what makes them trust their word of mouth.

3.2-Research Design

The research design refers to the overall strategy that this research will follow to integrate the different components of this study in a way that is logical and rational. This research design constitutes of the blueprint for the collection, measurement, and analysis of data. Research design that can be classified into two sections are the exploratory and conclusive research design. (creswell, 2018). Exploratory research as the word describes means that it intends to explore the questions of the research and no final and conclusive solution are given to existing problems. On the other hand, Conclusive research is used in order to generate the findings that are practically useful in reaching conclusions.

In this case, as a researcher I select exploratory research as it would give me a chance to elucidate the role of bloggers and vloggers in Indian consumers making their choice in Cosmetic products. This research design actually consists of semi-structured method to collect information from the participants of this research. (Dudovskiy, n.d.)

3.3-Methods

Research method is described as a procedure that is scientific and systematic for data collection, compilation and analysis. (N.bajpai, 2011). The Research method consists of two methods that are Quantitative Research and Qualitative Research. Quantitative Research is one that infers and solves a problem using numbers, and the more attention is given to numerical data, whereas Qualitative data is based on non-numerical and unquantifiable elements. (Coldwell & HERBST, 2004). On this area, as a researcher I would select both types of data for my research that includes qualitative as well as quantitative. It will be a structured method, where a larger population would be studied upon as India is a vast country and its influence of their behavior for cosmetic brand may be influenced by their internal diversity also. And it would be used to uncover trends in thoughts and opinions of that mass of people, and the potential mindset that why and how they may be influenced by opinion expressed by the bloggers and vloggers may influence their decision making.

3.4- Instruments

While collecting data, the first step that is of utmost priority for the researcher is to select a proper and appropriate measurement tools. Because these ways will be the steps to collect data.

I would keep in mind that the the selection made by me is appropriate and are functioning. Research data that would be relevant will be collected by are known as the research instruments. The instruments that would be selected would be the ones by which data will be collected. There are two types of data one is the primary and other is secondary. Data that is Original in nature and is directly related to the issue is primary data, and the data that is not related to the study and is collected for other purpose for different time in past, it is known as secondary data.

In this research, primary data will be collected by a researcher through interview of 100 consumers male or female in India. Proper structured questionnaire will be prepared where questions regarding what makes them come under influence of these bloggers for their cosmetic choices, or whether or not they are influenced directly by them. Another a survey would also be conducted which will be put up on social media like Facebook, twitter where the open masses would be given a survey to be completed within a frame of time, with their own opinion where they might think they may be getting influenced by these social influencers.

Based on the literature review, to analyze YouTube beauty advertorials following characteristics were chosen:

" Knowledge

" Relatability

" Articulation

" Confidence

" Helpfulness.

3.5-Ethics & Access

Researcher should consider Ethical considerations to be one of the most important parts of research. According to Bryman and bell (2007), Research participants may not be subjected to harm in any ways whatsoever. Adequate level of confidentiality of research data will be ensured. Privacy and anonymity will be of high importance. (Bryman & A. &bell, 2007).In this Regard , the researcher gave the research ethics consideration form to participants and to fill them with knowledge of this research study, and the use of their response and how it will be used in this context. The question would be skipped by the participant if he or she is not wiling to answer. As the Interview will be conducted on Indian Consumers, it would be done through emails that would be obtained by the researcher and the survey would be put on social media like Facebook and Twitter for participants. The researcher would keep in mind that any type of misleading information as well as biased analysis of primary data will be avoided. The Researcher would abide by the Data Protection act (1998) if you are studying in the UK. (ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS, n.d.). Data collected would be kept to study only this research and not used for further purpose beyond this research.

3.6-JustifIcation

The Researcher selects the pragmatism approach because it would help to critically analyze the opinions and the views of the participants.  Exploratory design has found out to be relevant for this research. It has been considered to be relevant as the quantitative and qualitative data, to find out the influence on Indian consumer through these social bloggers and vloggers. Interview are the best way to know what the consumer actually feels, and survey would help to study large masses and know their factors of influence to choose their cosmetics.

4.Conclusion

4.1-Summary

Users create, share, and exchange user generated content through virtual interaction by social media that is through YouTube, Instagram, by their own blogs. Bloggers have been promoting various cosmetic brands, like mac, Estée lauder, kiko Milano, and through this brands that were not popular have increased their market share in India. All age groups have been using social media, to know about what they are investing in them. Brands make deals with bloggers to make products familiar within the masses. Bloggers have become advisors in respective domains.

This paper represents a proposal which has a research background and rationale with its research aims. This paper includes literature review, that the scholars have studied with relevant research. The research is of qualitative and quantitative nature where both primary data and secondary data have been considered. Thematic analysis  and statistical  analysis is used to study and critically analyze the quantitative and qualitative data. Ethical considerations have been kept in mind entirely during this research.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/blogging-an-influential-and-focussed-marketing-tool/articleshow/53868458.cms

4.2- Limitation

The Research is based on a Vast country like India.  The consumer behavior in India may be because of various reasons.  The people vary from culture and regions, but the Primary Data that is being collected by Interview, so the research would not be completely certain in some respect. The Secondary data on this research is used that is already been studied by some scholars. In India's context there is lack of such study where consumer behavior is being studied by scholars.

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