Received: 5 October 2021 | Accepted: 10 March 2022

DOI: 10.1002/mar.21659

RESEARCH ARTICLE

A picture says more than a thousand words: Using consumer

neuroscience to study instagram users' responses to influencer
advertising

Rumen Pozharliev | Dario Rossi | Matteo De Angelis

LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy

Correspondence
Rumen Pozharliev, LUISS Guido Carli
University, Viale Romania, 32, 00197,
Rome 39‐06‐852251, Italy.
Email: rpozharliev@luiss.it
Abstract
Companies are increasingly relying on influencer marketing as a relevant pillar of
their marketing communication strategy. It is therefore of vital importance to
practitioners to understand better under what conditions a larger number of
followers can trigger more positive responses in consumers than a smaller number
and vice versa. Through a laboratory study, the authors recorded simultaneously
eye‐tracking and electroencephalogram data from 109 participants to test the
research question with a 2 (type of influencer: micro vs. meso) × 2 (argument quality:
weak vs. strong) between‐subject design using mediated moderated linear
regression analysis. The results highlight that the photo of the influencer using the
product attracts more attention (i.e., fixation percentage) in the weak (vs. strong)
argument quality only for micro‐ and not for meso‐influencers. Moreover, we found
a statistically significant index of moderated mediation through the level of
attention, which suggests that the percentage of fixations on the photo mediates
the joint effect of influencer type and argument quality on behavioral activation
system (BAS). Specifically, we found that when the advertising post presents weak
argument quality the enhanced attention to the photo of the micro‐influencer leads
to an increase in the BAS, with possible implications on advertising effectiveness and
online message design. Our findings offer important theoretical and practical
contributions to the influencer marketing domain by showing how the different
verbal and visual elements of influencer posts affect Instagram users' responses to
such posts.

KEYWORDS
advertising effectiveness, eye‐tracking, influencer marketing on Instagram, message content,
social media influencer popularity

1 | INTRODUCTION communication tool in which personalities (i.e., influencers) promote

In recent years, marketers and scholars have witnessed a major
transformation in social media marketing characterized by a signifi-
cant shift toward influencer marketing (Kim & Kim, 2021a; Torres
et al., 2019). Influencer marketing can be defined as a marketing
branded content on their own social media pages (Delbaere
et al., 2021). Influencers are online opinion leaders who have the
power to affect others' purchase opinions, attitudes and decisions
because of their own authority, knowledge, position or relationship
with their audience (Su et al., 2021). Brands can leverage customers'

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POZHARLIEV ET AL.
sense of close relationship with their favorite influencers by having
influencers advertise their products or services to specific target
audiences (Delbaere et al., 2021; Ki & Kim, 2019). In the light of this,
the issue influencers and, consequently, companies face today is
when brand‐ or product‐related content shared by influencers can be
more or less impactful on consumers.
The current study is an exploratory experimental research aimed
at investigating how different combinations of characteristics of
social media influencer (i.e., number of followers) and the content of
the message he/she shares (i.e., argument quality) can affect target
audience's responses, so to provide insights that help marketers
improve the effectiveness of brands' influencer marketing invest-
ments (Lou & Yuan, 2019; Majid et al., 2019). Such an investigation
builds off Lou and Yuan's (2019) social media influencer value (SMIV)
model which suggests that various input components in persuasive
communication—such as messenger features (e.g., popularity) and
message characteristics (e.g., advertising message value)—determine
its effectiveness. One factor emerged in previous studies as an
important driver of an influencer's post effectiveness is the number
of followers (e.g., De Veirman et al., 2017; Djafarova &
Trofimenko, 2019; Hatton, 2018). However, under what conditions
(e.g., advertising message characteristics) a larger number of
followers can trigger more positive responses in consumers than a
smaller number or vice versa remains unknown (see Table 1).
The current research tackles this issue starting from the premise
that an influencer's number of followers should not be the only
possible predictor of a successful influencer marketing communica-
tion. Specifically, we focus on argument quality (i.e., the audience's
subjective perception of the arguments in the message) because
recent research suggests that this message characteristic might affect
consumers' responses to the advertising post (Hoeken et al., 2020).
For example, Xiao et al. (2018) found that argument quality affects
consumer perceived information credibility.
Marketing communication research describes the benefits of a
consumer neuroscience research approach, highlighting how it allows
greater inferential traction and more reliable measurement than
traditional self‐reported markers of advertising effectiveness
(Casado‐Aranda et al., 2021; dos Santos et al., 2015; Sánchez‐
Fernández et al., 2021). This idea resonates with recent consumer
neuroscience studies that have clearly suggested that researchers
and marketers should disentangle the different types of responses
(i.e., self‐reported vs. neurophysiological) that an advertising message
might elicit in consumers (Casado‐Aranda et al., 2020; Pozharliev
et al., 2021a). Therefore, in the current study we use consumer
neuroscience, namely eye‐tracking and electroencephalogram (here-
after EEG), to assess the level of consumer responses to advertising
message presenting weak (vs. strong) argument quality and posted by
social media influencers with relatively higher or lower numbers of
followers.
More in detail, the present study investigates whether and how
Instagram users' visual behavior (i.e., attention) and neuro-
physiological responses (i.e., behavioral activation system, hereafter
BAS) to an advertising message posted by micro‐influencers
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| 1337
(i.e., influencers with fewer than 10,000 followers) versus meso‐
influencers (i.e., influencers with a number of followers ranging
between 10,000 and 1 million) is moderated by the argument quality
of the message. In doing so, the present research contributes to the
literature on social media marketing in several ways. First, it
contributes to the literature on influencer marketing (Delbaere
et al., 2021; Su et al., 2021; Torres et al., 2019) by studying how
influencers' number of followers affects consumer responses to an
advertising post on social media. In this respect, our study promises
to advance extant research that has suggested an influencer's
number of followers affects customer responses to the advertising
message (Boerman, 2020; De Veirman et al., 2017). Second, it
contributes to the literature on the role of message characteristics in
determining the effectiveness of a brand‐related message posted on
social media platforms (Balabanis & Chatzopoulou, 2019; Lou &
Yuan, 2019; Xiao et al., 2018) by testing if argument quality affects
consumer responses to influencer marketing. We do so by building
on the Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1991), which postulates that
individuals' cognition relies on two autonomous but interrelated
systems: a verbal system based on language and visual system based
on images. Third, this study's findings contribute to the growing body
of literature that seeks to understand how neurophysiological
processes affect online experiences and customer responses to
marketing communication (Casado‐Aranda et al., 2019; Pozharliev
et al., 2015; Sánchez‐Fernández et al., 2021).
Finally, our research also offers practical implications for
marketers and social media influencers looking for actionable insights
on how to improve the effectiveness of their online communication.
2 | THEORETICAL FRA MEWORK
2.1 | Dual coding theory
Dual Coding Theory posits that peoples' cognition relies on two
autonomous but interrelated systems: a verbal system based on
language and visual system based on images (Paivio, 1991). Since the
two systems are interconnected, each system can stimulate one
another (Koubaa & Eleuch, 2021). Consumers get sensory inputs
from one or two sense modalities and build on these inputs to attain a
multisensory perception of the advertised product or service (Filieri
et al., 2021). As a result, customers can understand better the object‐
related information when both visual and verbal cues is available,
rather than when only one of the two cues is presented (Simmonds
et al., 2020). Online social network platforms, where online users can
evaluate and comment on products and services, increasingly display
product‐related information using both visual (e.g. image of the
product or a person using the product) and verbal (e.g. product
description) cues to enhance consumers' cognitive elaboration of
products (Filieri et al., 2021). For instance, an Instagram post contains
cues that pertain to the verbal system, such as number of followers
and the product description, as well as visual cues such as influencer‐
generated photos of the promoted product.

1338 | POZHARLIEV
TABLE 1 Literature review on messenger and message characteristics influencing social media user responses to influencer marketing
Method Social Platform
Speech‐to‐text data, survey
data, archival data Social
platforms
Exploratory study Instagram
Online survey Online blog
Online survey Social
platforms
Online survey YouTube
Online survey Instagram
Online survey Instagram
Online survey Instagram
Online experiment
Instagram
Online experiment
Instagram
Messenger and message
characteristics
• Linguistic style
• Context expertise
• Production expertise
• Emotional contagion
• Number of followers
• Clicks
• Likes
• Comments
• Blogger credibility
• Blogger authority and
homophily
• Message usefulness
• Influencers credibility
• Informative and entertainment
value of message content
• Source trustworthiness
• Argument quality
• Number of followers
• Product‐influencer fit
• Credibility
• Sponsorship disclosure
• Influencer‐product
congruence
• Influencer's credibility and
homophily
• Trust
• Number of followers
• Divergent products
• Number of followers
• Instagram disclosure
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ET AL.
Key findings Authors
Viewers of superstar social media influencers identify Lee & Theokary (2021)
the traditionally peripheral elements of linguistic
style and emotional contagion as central to
increasing the number of views and subscribers.
Celebrity's posts attracted more followers to the Marques et al. (2021)
brand's Instagram page, when compared to the
micro influencer's publications. However, the
latter has garnered more clicks, comments and
likes, thereby increasing the consumer‐brand
engagement through social media.
Information seekers' objectives and issue involvement Balabanis &
are important drivers of blog selection and Chatzopoulou
determinants of the blog's influence. (2019)
The informative value of influencer‐generated Lou & Yuan (2019)
content, influencer's trustworthiness,
attractiveness, and similarity to the followers
positively affect followers' trust in influencers'
branded posts, which subsequently influence
brand awareness and purchase intentions.
Trustworthiness, social influence, argument quality, Xiao et al. (2018)
and information involvement are influential factors
affecting consumer perceived information
credibility on YouTube.
Influencers with a high number of followers are liked Janssen et al. (2021)
more, and their endorsements result in a more
positive attitude toward both the ad and product
as compared to influencers with a moderate
number of followers, the endorsed product should
fit the influencer's self‐branded image for these
positive effects to occur.
Influencer‐product congruence enhances product Kim and Kim (2021a)
attitude and reduces advertising recognition.
Sponsorship disclosure can also affect product
attitude in a serial mediation of calculative motive
inference and advertising recognition
Trust mediated the impacts of expertise, authenticity, Kim and Kim (2021b)
and homophily on loyalty and marketing
outcomes. The moderating role of relationship
strength was confirmed in authenticity‐trust and
trust‐loyalty linkages.
Influencers with a higher number of followers is De Veirman
perceived as more popular and is ascribed more et al. (2017)
opinion leadership, and therefore people have
more positive attitudes toward this influencer. If
influencers with high numbers of followers
promote divergent products, this decreases the
brand's perceived uniqueness and consequently
brand attitudes.
Disclosure positively affects brand recall and Boerman (2020)
intentions to engage with the post, via ad
recognition. Influencer type does not moderate
the effect of the disclosure and does not affect
people's responses.
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POZHARLIEV ET AL. | 1339

TABLE 1 (Continued)

Messenger and message

Method Social Platform characteristics Key findings Authors

Online experiment • Number of likes Consumers exposed to the micro‐influencer condition Kay et al. (2020)
Instagram • Instagram disclosure report higher levels of product knowledge, and
consumers exposed to the disclosure condition
reported the products endorsed by social media
influencers to be more attractive.

Online experiment • Message construal Low‐construal messages posted by the nanoinfluencer Balaji et al. (2021)
Instagram • Message valence are viewed as more credible than high‐construal
• Credibility messages. Positively framed low‐construal
messages are perceived as more credible than
negatively framed low‐construal messages.

Experiments Twitter
• Number of followers
• Source credibility
Higher number of followers increases source Jin and Puah (2014)
credibility and intention to build an online
friendship. The joint impact of high number of
followers and positive valence increases buying
intention and product involvement.

Lab experiment (eye tracking
and EEG) Instagram
• Popularity The photo of the influencer attracts more attention in The current study
• Argument quality the weak (vs. strong) argument quality only for
micro‐ and not for meso‐influencers. The
enhanced attention to the photo leads to an
increase in users' behavioral activation system.

Abbreviation: EEG, electroencephalogram.

The objective of this study is to describe and explore this
phenomenon and study its effects on consumer cognitive elaboration
of influencer advertising. The reason to study visual and verbal cues
is twofold. First, visual forms are the most widely used social media
influencers because they are easy‐to‐implement and extremely
effective in influencing consumer behaviour (Alves et al., 2016;
Delbaere et al., 2019). Second, verbal cues such as argument quality
(Xiao et al., 2018) and number of followers (Boerman, 2020) have
been found to enhance consumers' cognitive elaboration of
advertising posts on social media platforms and influence purchase
behaviour significantly. Drawing on Dual Coding Theory
(Paivio, 1991), we assume that customers allocate equal amount of
attention to verbal and visual cues when they elaborate product‐
related information on an Instagram advertising post. Furthermore,
we suggest that both verbal and visual cues equally affect Instagram
users' responses to the Instagram advertising message.
2.2 | Verbal cues: Consumer responses to the
influencer's number of followers and argument quality
Previous research depicts influencers as people who are very popular
on social media (Delbaere et al., 2021; Ki & Kim, 2019). Popularity
cues can be defined as any information about the number of
followers of a social media influencer or number of likes that his or
her post generates (Filieri et al., 2021). Based on the number of
followers, scholars and marketers distinguish between micro‐, meso‐,
and macro‐influencers (Boerman, 2020). Micro‐influencers, the
largest group of influencers, are what many would consider
“everyday people”: those who typically have hundreds or a few
thousands of followers to whom they promote products on social
media (Hatton, 2018). Recently, marketers have shown a great
interest in micro‐influencers, because novel empirical research
indicates that individuals trust recommendations from social media
influencers who are perceived as more similar to them (Djafarova &
Trofimenko, 2019). Meso‐influencers are usually full‐time profes-
sional influencers who have a number of followers ranging between
10,000 and 1 million (Boerman, 2020). They are not as big as macro‐
influencers, who are well‐known, international celebrities with over
one million followers (i.e., Lionel Messi, Justin Bieber, and Vin Diesel)
(Kay et al., 2020). In recent years, meso‐influencers have attracted
the attention of both scholars and marketers because of their large
popularity and the perception that they are social role models; buying
their promoted products might fulfill customers' desire for social
validation (De Veirman et al., 2017).
Past empirical research has found mixed evidence on whether
the association between an influencer's popularity and users'
responses to her advertising post is positive or negative
(Boerman, 2020; Jin & Phua, 2014; Kay et al., 2020). For instance,
Boerman (2020) found that influencer's popularity does not moder-
ate customer responses to the advertising message. On the contrary,
Kay et al. (2020) showed that consumers exposed to a micro‐
influencer's advertising report higher levels of behavioral intentions
than those exposed to a macro‐influencer ad. Finally, the findings of
two empirical experiments show that the popularity of Instagram
influencers (in terms of number of followers) affects positively users'
responses to their posts (De Veirman et al., 2017). The present study
contributes to this stream of research by examining whether and how

1340 | POZHARLIEV
changes in the argument quality that characterizes influencers' posts
might shed light on when micro‐influencers can result more effective
than meso‐influencers and vice versa.
Argument quality refers to the strength of persuasion of the
arguments within an information message (Teng et al., 2014). Past
empirical evidence suggests that the strength of an argument affects
positively customer responses to influencer‐generated online infor-
mation (Xiao et al., 2018). For instance, building on the Elaboration
Likelihood Model (ELM) and manipulating argument quality, Zha et al.
(2018) found a positive relation between argument quality and
individuals' evaluation of information quality on social media.
According to the ELM, strong, issue‐relevant arguments have a
positive effect on recipients' responses at both low and high levels of
involvement with the content of the message; of course, the effects
tend to be stronger when involvement is high (Petty &
Cacioppo, 1984). Similarly, Li (2013) found a positive association
between argument quality and users' cognitive responses to a
message. Tan et al. (2014) found that the strength of the argument
of a tweet (measured by the number of words and hashtags) performs
the best in predicting the popularity of social media content. Finally,
Zhou et al. (2016) found a positive correlation between argument
quality and customer responses to online information posted on e‐
commerce website.
However, when examining customer responses to influencer
advertising, one cannot separate argument quality from influencers'
characteristics, such as their popularity. Unlike previous work on
influencer marketing (Boerman, 2020; Chu & Kamal, 2008; Kay
et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2018), we offer an exploratory investigation
of the joint effect of number of an influencer's followers and
argument quality on customer responses.
2.3 | Visual cues: Consumer responses to the
influencers' photo
Social media users are subject to information overload. An Instagram
post needs to stand out from many others to gain attention from
online users before any response occurs. This is similar to the
challenge faced by print ads or banners, before any action might take
place. Existing visual advertising research suggests that the visual
modalities in advertising design such as images and videos can affect
cognitive (e.g., attention, attitude) and behavioral (e.g., sales)
outcomes in two ways (Li & Xie, 2020). First, in an eye‐tracking
study, Pieters and Wedel (2004) found that the image component in a
print ad can capture a superior amount of attention regardless of its
size. Second, because influencers' advertising posts are usually
composed of both verbal and visual cues, research has found that
the interaction between these two elements has an impact on
advertising effectiveness (Filieri et al., 2021; Heckler & advertising post by facilitating the elaboration of the advertising
Childers, 1992). However, existing research has not yet studied
how visual cues affect social media users' responses to influencer
advertising (see Table 1). Drawing on Dual Coding Theory and the
SMIV model, we suggest that visual cues (e.g., Instagram photo
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ET AL.
promoting a product) will be used by Instagram users in their overall
evaluation of the advertising message. Moreover, following the
results outlined by Li and Xie (2020), we propose that Instagram users
may allocate more attention to the Instagram photo in the case of
weak (vs. strong) argument quality. Specifically, in the case of weak
argument quality, the text information (e.g., the description of the
product) is scarce, so the online users may look for other visual cues
(e.g., the picture of the influencer using the product) to obtain more
information about the product or the message. On the contrary,
strong argument quality offers more detailed description of the
product and thus Instagram users may be less motivated to look for
other sources of information (e.g., the picture of the influencer using
the product). Furthermore, we suggest that this effect may be
influenced by the influencer popularity (see Table 1). Previous
research provides empirical evidence for the strong impact of
influencer popularity on users' responses to influencer marketing,
but fails to establish convergent evidence on the direction (e.g.,
valence) of these responses (Boerman, 2020; Jin & Phua, 2014; Kay
et al., 2020). Thus, the question empirically investigated in this
research is:
RQ1: Will Instagram users' attention to the picture of the
influencer in an advertising post presenting weak (vs. strong)
argument quality be affected by her popularity?
To test our research question, we use eye‐tracking technology
(Wedel & Pieters, 2008), which provides a direct measure of viewers'
visual overt attention (Casado‐Aranda et al., 2021; Ye et al., 2020).
Eye‐tracking studies on key ad elements (Pieters & Wedel, 2004), on
web pages (Djamasbi et al., 2011), on public service announcements
against smoke (Cartocci et al., 2018), social marketing and promo-
tional decisions (dos Santos et al., 2015) on printed advertisings
(Rayner et al., 2001) report measures of visual attention based on
where individuals' eyes fixate (e.g., number of fixations on specific
area of interest). The ability of advertising to attract attention is
commonly measured using recall by asking respondents what brand
or product they remember seeing advertised, typically using product
category for prompt recall (Heath & Feldwick, 2008). However, such
an approach is potentially misleading and prone to biases, because it
measures two different processes simultaneously—attention which
precedes the formation of memories (Aribarg et al., 2010). To
overcome this limitation, we operationalized visual attention by
objectively measuring eye movements during the viewing of an
influencer's advertising post.
2.4 | Biopsychological theory and frontal (EEG)
Beyond overt attention, image content may also affect users'
cognitive responses (e.g., neurophysiological approach) to the
content and/or enhancing the perceived quality of the post
(Simmonds et al., 2020). In describing the biopsychological theory,
Gray (1972) has found that high levels of trait BAS sensitivity in
humans have been associated with greater general positive

POZHARLIEV ET AL.
affectivity (Gable et al., 2000). In contrast, the behavioral inhibition
system (BIS) is thought to respond to nonrewarding signals
(Gray, 1990). In general, an emerging consensus in the literature
suggests that BAS overlaps with the “reward responsiveness” system,
behavioral engagement system, and behavioral facilitation system
(Depue & Iacono, 1989).
While eye tracking can give us information about where the
focus of attention is located, information about the neural responses
that can be obtained are scarce. The EEG technique can complement
traditional experimental paradigms and eye tracking method by
identifying, within a functional time window, the neurophysiological
correlates of the exposure to stimuli, such as online advertising
(Bazzani et al., 2020). By combining the use of eye tracking and EEG it
is possible to obtain a more complete description of the neuro-
physiological processes evoked by an advertising post as suggested
by Carter and Luke (2020). A study by Coan and Allen (2003) has
found a relationship between frontal EEG activity and the BAS.
Specifically, the authors found that a greater left frontal EEG activity
is an index of approach oriented, appetitive motivational tendencies,
whereas the relationship between right frontal EEG activity and the
BAS is likely to be complex and not accounted for by behavioral
withdrawal alone. Similarly, Amodio et al. (2008) found that higher
BAS was uniquely related to greater left‐sided frontal EEG activity
associated with approach orientation. The validity of the association
between the frontal EEG activity and BAS has been also proved in
advertising research (Vecchiato et al., 2011). For instance, Ohme
et al. (2010) found that frontal left‐sided EEG activity can be used as
a reliable tool in examining the potential of advertising to generate
approach‐related responses. Consumer neuroscience research on
advertising stresses the importance of studying frontal EEG activity
(e.g., BAS and BIS) in evaluating the effectiveness of TV and print
advertising and its impact on consumer approach‐related (emotional
and behavioral) responses (Martínez‐Fiestas et al., 2015; Ohme
et al., 2010; Vecchiato et al., 2011). Moreover, previous studies
suggest that visual stimuli presenting highly motivational content
attract more attention than stimuli presenting low motivational
content (Pozharliev et al., 2015). Finally, Simmonds et al. (2020)
found that verbal and nonverbal sensory cues can elicit automatic
attention which can enhance internal processing of the brand name
and improve customer responses to the advertised brand. In line with
these findings, we expect a positive correlation between the amount
F I G U R E 1 Graphical representation of the
theoretical framework
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| 1341
of attention captured by the photo of the social media influencer
using the product and the activation of BAS measured by left‐sided
frontal EEG. Thus, the question empirically investigated in this
research is:
RQ2: Will Instagram users' approach‐related response (BAS) to the
picture of the influencer in an advertising post presenting weak (vs.
strong) argument quality be mediated by the users' level of attention?
Figure 1 provides a graphical representation of the theoretical
framework.
3 | METHOD
3.1 | Participants and experimental design
To test the effect of an Instagram post containing product‐related
information on attention and BAS we used a 2 (type of influencer:
micro vs. meso) × 2 (argument quality: weak vs. strong) between‐
subject experimental design. The experiment was approved by the
university's Ethics Committee and we collected informed consent
from each participant before beginning the experiment. We collected
neurophysiological data from 109 subjects from 21 to 26 years of
age, (Mage = 22.3, SD = 1.7, 44% female), resembling the average
Instagram user population (Chen, 2018), with 58.4% claiming to use
Instagram between 1 and 3 h a day (15.7% more than 3 h per day),
65.7% post from 1 to 3 posts per weeks and 68.5% post from 1 to 10
stories per week. All subjects were resident in Italy at the time of the
experiment.
The stimuli used in the study consisted of the ad‐hoc created
Instagram feed of a fictitious influencer, featuring one of her posts
containing a description where a dog leash was sponsored. In this
study we manipulated both influencer type and the post description.
Influencer type was manipulated by modifying the number of
followers: 5000 followers for micro‐influencer and 500,000 followers
for meso‐influencer (Boerman, 2020), while picture and biographical
information remained the same for both influencer types. Regarding
the argument quality manipulation, the weak condition featured
shorter plain text (no hashtags or emoticons), while the strong
condition featured a longer description and more arguments
promoting the dog leash, as well as hashtags and emoticons
(Shan, 2016). The stimuli used in the study are available in Figure 2.

1342 | POZHARLIEV
The four posts used are a combination of the two manipulations
employed in the study. As it can be seen in Figure 2, the picture used
in the final stimuli did not change across conditions, while the number
of followers and the text in the description changed according to the
experimental condition.
3.2 | Procedure
Participants were told that the study concerned consumers'
responses to an Instagram influencer post and instructed just to
look at the post as if they were on the Instagram app for smartphone.
After assigning the participant to one of the four experimental
conditions, the post was presented on single time on a smartphone,
while EEG and eye tracking data were simultaneously recorded
throughout the whole experiment. After signing an informed consent,
participants were invited to the experimental room, where the
researcher installed an EEG headband on their forehead and checked
the EEG signal for a correct acquisition. The eye tracker device has
been calibrated on each subject using a 9‐point on screen calibration.
Before the experimental task, each participant recorded a 1 min with
FIGURE 2 Stimuli manipulations used for the study. AOIs are in dotted lines with their relative name. AOI, areas of interest
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ET AL.
closed eyes segment to calibrate the EEG data. Then, participants
were asked to look freely at the overview of the Instagram post for
1 min, which we deemed sufficient for reading and understanding the
post's content, even for longer posts in the strong argument
condition. During the task, participants could scroll up/down at will
and review the information in the post.
3.3 | Measures
3.3.1 | Fixation percentage (FP)
Infrared technology was used to capture Instagram users' eye
movements, which consist of saccades (rapid jumps) and eye fixations
(where the eye remains relatively still for aprox. 200–500 ms) (Pieters
& Wedel, 2004). According to some authors even for less than
100 ms (Manor & Gordon, 2003). Raw eye‐tracking data have been
acquired by Tobii Pro X2‐30 screen‐based eye tracker with a
sampling frequency of 30 Hz, using its relative mobile stand to adapt
its use to mobile devices to let the participants use in a more
naturalistic way the smartphone (https://www.tobiipro.com/

POZHARLIEV ET AL.
product-listing/mobile-device-stand/). Then eye‐tracking data were
analyzed with Tobii studio 3.4.8 software using the Tobii filter for the
extraction of information about fixations, used as a proxy of visual
attention deployed to the sponsored Instagram post. Three areas of
interest (AOIs) have been drawn on the post: on the photo, one on
the description accompanying the photo and one on the number of
followers of the fake influencer (see Figure 2). The relative FP has
been obtained by dividing each participant's number of fixations
landed on each AOIs in the sponsored post by the total number of
fixations recorded on the screen throughout the 1‐min presentation
of the stimulus.
3.4 | Behavioral activation system (BAS) and BIS
Participants' EEG activity was recorded at a sampling rate of 256 Hz,
keeping impedances below 10 kΩ, using a custom‐made 10‐
electrodes frontal band (Fpz, Fp1, Fp2, AFz, AF3, AF4, AF5, AF6,
AF7, and AF8), by the means of a portable 24‐channel device
(BEmicro, EBneuro).
A notch filter (50 Hz) and a band‐pass filter (2–30 Hz) were
applied to the recorded signal to respectively reject main current
interference and high‐frequency interferences (such as muscular
artifacts). An Independent Component Analysis was applied to the
filtered signal to exclude blinks and eye movements, since their
activity overlaps the EEG band of interest in this study (Di Flumeri
et al., 2016). From the 1 min with closed eyes segment, we obtained
the Individual Alpha Frequency (IAF) for each subject to define the
EEG bands (Klimesch, 1999). We considered for the purpose of this
study the alpha frequency band defined between IAF minus 6 Hz and
IAF minus 2 Hz. We then calculated the Global Field Power (GFP)
(Lehmann & Michel, 1990) for the alpha band to highlight the
moments of high synchronization of neurons in the scalp both for left
frontal electrodes (Fp1, AF3, AF5, AF7) associated with the BAS
system and for the right frontal electrodes (Fp2, AF4, AF6, AF8)
associated with the BIS system (Figure 3).
We obtained an index for the activation of BAS and BIS systems
by multiplying the respective GFP in alpha band by −1, in such a way
an increase in the index reflects an increase in the activation of the
respective system.
3.5 | Preliminary (exploratory) analysis: Mixed
analysis of variance (ANOVA)
To evaluate the distribution of visual attention on the sponsored
Instagram post we conducted a mixed ANOVA on the FP of the AOI
taken into account in the study. We run a 3 × 2 × 2 mixed ANOVA
with AOI as within‐subjects factor (with 3 levels: photo, description
and number of followers), type of influencer (with 2 levels: micro‐ and
meso‐influencer) and argument quality (with 2 levels: weak and
strong argument) as between‐subjects factors, and FP as dependent
variable. Duncan's post hoc analysis has been performed on
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| 1343
significant results. The results showed a significant main effect of
argument quality (F(1, 105) = 15.43; Mweak = 15% ± 1; Mstrong = 22% ± 1;
p < 0.001) with an increase of FP in the strong argument quality
condition and a significant main effect of AOI (F(2, 210) = 72.61;
p < 0.001), while no significant main effect for type of influencer
resulted (p = 0.22). From the post hoc analysis for the AOI factor, we
can see a significant decrease (Figure 4) of FP for the number of
followers AOI (M = 3% ± 0.4) in comparison with both photo AOI
(M = 26% ± 1; p < 0.001) and description AOI (M = 26% ± 2; p < 0.001),
while no significant difference has been highlighted between photo
AOI and description AOI (p = 0.47).
Concerning the interaction effects, the result showed a signifi-
cant interaction of AOI and argument quality (F(2, 210) = 38.75;
p < 0.001); in fact, the post hoc analysis highlights a significant
increase in FP in the strong (vs. weak) condition for the description
AOI (Mweak = 12% ± 4; Mstrong = 41% ± 3; p < 0.001) while for the
photo AOI there is a significant increase in FP for the weak (vs.
strong) argument condition (Mweak = 29% ± 2; Mstrong = 23% ± 1;
p = 0.03). Moreover, the post hoc analysis showed an increase of
FPphoto (vs. FPdescription) in the weak argument condition (Mphoto =
29% ± 2; Mdescription = 12% ± 4; p < 0.001), while there is a decrease of
FPphoto (vs. FPdescription) in the strong argument condition (Mphoto =
23% ± 1; Mdescription = 41% ± 3; p < 0.001). No significant difference
has been found for the FP in the number of followers AOI in the two
conditions (p = 0.79) (Figure 5). The results from the post‐hoc analysis
show that in the weak argument condition, where the information is
scarce, the participants shift their focus of attention to obtain more
information from the visual clue of the post, while in the strong
argument condition the participants can obtain more information
from the text in the description of the post and there is no need to
shift the focus of attention to the visual clues.
Moreover. there is a significant 3‐way interaction between AOI,
type of influencer and argument quality (F(2, 210) = 5.51; p = 0.005),
and from the post hoc analysis, focusing on the differences between
type of influencers in the strong argument condition, we can see a
significant increase of FP in the description AOI for the micro (vs.
meso) influencer (Mmicro = 49% ± 5; Mmeso = 34% ± 5; p < 0.001), while
no other relevant significant differences have been found
(all p > 0.05).
The results obtained from the ANOVA here reported suggest the
possible mediator role of the FP on the description and photo AOIs,
F I G U R E 3 Electrode related to BAS and BIS systems. BAS,
behavioral activation system

1344 | POZHARLIEV
due to their opposite trend in relation with argument quality, as
highlighted by the significant result for the interaction between AOI
and argument quality factors.
3.6 | Main analysis: Regression analysis
To test our conceptual model, we employed a moderated mediation
model implemented in the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Model 8;
Hayes, 2017), with type of influencer (coded as −1 = micro, 1 = meso)
as the independent variable, fixations percentage on the Instagram
photo (FPphoto) and FP on the post description (FPdescription) as parallel
mediators, argument quality as the moderator and the BAS (or BIS)
index as the dependent variable.
Both regression analysis used 10,000 bootstrap samples to
estimate bootstrap confidence intervals.
The results for FPphoto showed significant, positive main effect of
argument quality (b = −0.03, t = −3.29, p = 0.001), indicating an
increase of fixations on the photo in the weak argument condition,
while no significant effect of influencer type has been found
(b = −0.004; t = −0.34; p = 0.73). Moreover, the interaction effect
between influencer type and argument quality on the fixations on the
15206793, 2022, 7, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.21659 by Norwegian School Of Management, Wiley Online Library on [03/06/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
ET AL.
F I G U R E 4 FP distribution in the three AOIs.
*Denotes a significant difference with a p < 0.05.
AOI, areas of interest; FP, fixation percentage
F I G U R E 5 FP distribution in the three AOIs in
the two argument quality conditions. *Denotes a
significant difference with a p < 0.05. AOI, areas
of interest; FP, fixation percentage
photo was also significant (b = 0.03, t = 2.54, p = 0.01), with a
significant increase of FPphoto in weak (vs. strong) argument quality
for the micro influencer (p < 0.001), while no significant differences
between weak and strong argument conditions emerged for the
meso influencer (p = 0.60) (Figure 6).
The result for FPdescription showed significant, positive main effect
of argument quality (b = 0.15, t = 5.93, p < 0.001), indicating an
increase of fixations on the description in the strong argument
condition. Moreover, no significant main effect of influencer type
(b = −0.03; t = −1.30; p = 0.20) and no significant interaction effect
(b = −0.05; t = −1.87; p = 0.06) have been found.
Then, we regressed BAS on influencer type, argument quality,
their interaction and the putative mediators FPphoto and FPdescription.
The results showed no significant main effect of influencer type
(b = −0.09, t = −1.76, p = 0.08) or argument quality (b = −0.07,
t = −1.19, p = 0.24) on BAS and no significant interaction effect
(b = −0.07, t = −1.31, p = 0.19). Concerning the putative mediators, we
found no significant effect of FPdescription on BAS (b = 0.14, t = 0.70,
p = 0.49), while we found a statistically significant positive effect of
FPphoto on BAS (b = 1.05, t = 2.17, p = 0.03), indicating that BAS
increases as the fixations on the photos increases. More importantly,
we found a statistically significant index of moderated mediation

POZHARLIEV ET AL.
F I G U R E 6 Moderation effect of influencer type and argument
quality on FPphoto. FP, fixation percentage
through FPphoto (b = 0.06, LCI = 0.001, UCI = 0.145), which suggests
that the percentage of fixations on the photo mediates the joint
effect of influencer type and argument quality on BAS. Specifically,
we found that when the advertising post presents weak argument
quality the enhanced attention to the photo of the micro‐influencer
leads to an increase in the BAS.
We conducted the same regression for the BIS index, but no
significant mediating effects have been found and thus no moderated
mediation model emerged.
4 | DISC US SION
Social media platforms have enabled internet users to share their
experience and recommendations online with many others. At the
same time, they have also allowed companies to communicate with
their actual and potential customers in a direct way or through social
influencers. However, the average social media user is exposed to
hundreds of online posts everyday. Therefore, both marketers and
social influencers need a better understanding of how the different
verbal and visual elements of the Instagram post gain the attention
from online users and eventually lead to positive response toward the
advertising message.
We used consumer neuroscience methods to examine the
effects of verbal content on Instagram users' responses to influencers
advertising post. We employed the eye‐tracking method to measure
users' attention to Instagram photo and EEG to measure the
approach response toward the influencers' advertising post. Our
findings lend strong support for the verbal cues effect on users'
responses. First, our results showed that the description of the
product (verbal cue) and the photo of the social influencer promoting
the product (visual cue) attract significantly more attention than the
influencers' number of followers (verbal cue). Second, we found that
the photo of the influencer attracts more attention in the weak (vs.
15206793, 2022, 7, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.21659 by Norwegian School Of Management, Wiley Online Library on [03/06/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
| 1345
strong) argument quality condition. Third, the results indicate that
this effect was driven by influencers' popularity. Specifically, the
photo of the influencer attracted more attention in the weak (vs.
strong) argument quality condition only for the micro‐influencer.
4.1 | Theoretical contributions
Our findings enrich the current knowledge about how the different
verbal and visual elements of influencer posts affect Instagram users'
responses to such posts in several ways. First, our study contributes
to the literature on influencer marketing (Alves et al., 2016;
Boerman, 2020; Delbaere et al., 2021). Our results show that
influencers' number of followers (verbal cue) attracts less attention
than influencers' photo (visual cue) and the product‐related informa-
tion (verbal cue). One possible explanation for our results might be
that influencers' number of followers contain less verbal information
than the description of the product and therefore requires less
attention to process it.
Second, our findings contribute to the literature on the
effectiveness of a brand‐related message posted on social platforms
(Balabanis & Chatzopoulou, 2019; Lou & Yuan, 2019; Xiao
et al., 2018). Thus far, research has studied influencers' popularity
(Boerman, 2020; De Veirman et al., 2017) and argument quality
(Papyrina, 2019; Xiao et al., 2018; Zha et al., 2018) separately. By
contrast, this study examined how these two concepts influence
Instagram users' attention and neurophysiological responses to
influencer advertising. While conventional wisdom suggests that
Instagram photos enhance the ability of the advertising post to
attract users' attention, we offer a more nuanced explanation of how
it happens.
Our findings confirm that the mere presence of a photo helps to
attract more attention to the advertising post. Moreover, the
relationship between the visual cue and the user responses to the
influencers advertising is more complicated than the mere presence
effect alone. Verbal characteristics of the influencers advertising post
also effect user responses to it. We find that compared with the
strong argument, in the weak argument description of the product
users pay more attention to the photo of the influencer promoting
the product. The effects of the argument quality on users' responses
to the influencers advertising are context dependent. We find that
while a decrease in argument quality led to increase in attention to
the photo for the micro influencers, a change in argument quality has
no effects on users' attention to the photo for meso influencers. We
believe this is due to differences in customer perception of the
credibility of the social influencer (De Veirman et al., 2017). Because
meso‐ (vs. micro‐) influencers are perceived as more knowledgeable
source of information, Instagram users use the available cues (verbal
and visual) equally to evaluate the quality of the advertising message
(Marques et al., 2021). On the contrary, micro influencers are
perceived as less knowledgeable source of information and when a
detailed description of the product is missing users pay more
attention to the visual cues in order to evaluate the quality of the

1346 | POZHARLIEV
advertised message (Jin & Phua, 2014). Contrarily to previous
findings that suggest that verbal cues (i.e., detailed product
description) can better predict consumers' intentions and responses
to online advertising (Kim & Lennon, 2008), the findings of this study
highlight the strong mediating effect of visual cues (i.e., photo of the
influencer using the product) in determining online users' approach
responses to influencers advertising.
Third and finally, this study demonstrated the value of an
unconventional methodological approach by assessing Instagram
users' physiological and neural responses to influencer advertising
(Casado‐Aranda et al., 2020; Medina et al., 2021; Pozharliev
et al., 2017). Broadening the methodological approach is important
for generating more insights in this area (Bazzani et al., 2020; He
et al., 2021; Sánchez‐Fernández et al., 2021). Specifically, we found
that consumers invest significantly more attention resources to the
product description and the photo of the influencer than to the
number of followers. Moreover, our results indicate that the photo of
the influencer attracts more attention in the weak (vs. strong)
argument quality condition and that this effect is present only for the
micro‐influencers. Finally, our results indicate that the enhanced
attention to the photo of the influencer leads to a higher activation of
the BAS.
4.2 | Managerial implications
Our study offers important managerial implications for social media
practitioners. First, our results reveal that consumers' attention to
advertising post on Instagram is drawn mainly by visual cues and by
verbal cues presenting ad‐related information. Hence, argument
quality (but not influencers' number of followers) was found, together
with the picture of influencer using the product, to have a positive
and significant influence on consumers' behaviour. These visual cues
enable consumers to easily and quickly evaluate and compare the
characteristics and attractiveness of the advertised products and
services. Surprisingly, our study found that influencers' popularity
(i.e., number of followers) attracts very little attention. Thus, social
media influencers should reconsider employing unethical practices
aiming at artificially boosting their popularity, such as buying
followers from “follower farms”, as it appears that the number of
followers did not have significant impact on consumers' behaviour
(Anand et al., 2020).
Second, our findings can help guide social media marketers in
identifying the type of social media influencer who might have the
greatest influence on consumer behavioral responses. Our results
suggest that marketers should carefully consider Instagram influen-
cers based on the trade‐offs between popularity and message
characteristics. In more recent times, companies have been increas-
ingly partnering with micro influencers, because people typically trust
advice and recommendations from other people they perceive as
more similar (Kay et al., 2020). In a recent study commissioned by
Experticity, 82% of the surveyed consumers stated that they were
highly likely to follow a recommendation made by a micro‐influencer
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ET AL.
(Langan, 2019). However, our results suggest that marketers who
choose a micro‐influencer should take an extra care in elaborating the
visual content of the ad message, especially when the verbal content
(e.g., product description) cannot provide strong argument quality.
Third, our findings also provide insight for social media users on
how to create influential advertising posts, and most importantly how
to adjust content visual and verbal characteristics depending on their
popularity in order to maximize content effectiveness. Specifically,
micro influencers should be more selective when choosing which
photo to attach and should take an extra care when creating the
content of the photo aimed to promote a product, especially when
there is a limited number of verbal arguments available to support the
advertising message. Such a result, therefore, offers interesting
opportunities to micro influencers, as it suggests that investments in
increasing the quality of the photos they use when promoting
products might prove beneficial even with a relatively low strength of
the arguments used.
Finally, our results suggest that for meso‐influencers the number
of arguments available in the post description does not affect users'
responses to the photo of the advertising message and thus users
should pay equal attention to both the verbal and the visual content
of their advertising message. An interesting implication of this finding
could be that Instagram meso influencers should invest in crafting
high‐quality photos and enhancing the quality of the product‐related
information by providing greater number of objective, reliable and
easily verifiable claims. Such a strategy could enhance the impact and
effectiveness of the advertising post and influence consumers'
behavioural intentions.
Overall, therefore, our findings suggest that, for different
reasons, Instagram micro and meso influencers should both compete
on the quality of the photos contained in their posts. While for meso
influencers this might always be true, for micro influencer this could
be an opportunity when they cannot or do not want to craft posts
with strong argument quality.
4.3 | Limitations and further research
To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to use
consumer neuroscience methods to explore the impact of verbal and
visual cues on consumer responses to influencer marketing. This is an
important topic that offers plenty of opportunities for future
research. First, we have only analysed influencers advertising posts
regarding one product category (a dog leash) from one social media
platform (Instagram). Past research suggests that customer responses
may vary based on the product category, such as hedonic versus
utilitarian products (Huber et al., 2018). It might be that argument
quality moderate consumer attention and physiological responses to
online posts promoting functional, but not hedonic products. We call
for future research to further expand and validate our empirical
findings to other product categories and social media.
Second, in this study we focus on only one message characteris-
tic, namely argument quality. Language intensity—the degree to

POZHARLIEV ET AL.
which the use of linguistic intensifiers changes the stylistic strength
of an evaluation (e.g., extremely nice instead of nice)—has been
identified as one of the most relevant content attributes, able to
generate change in online consumer responses toward the message
sender (Liebrecht et al., 2019). Therefore, future research should
investigate how message features such as word choice (e.g., great
instead of good) can positively or negatively affect online users'
behavioural and physiological responses to advertising posts from
micro (vs. meso) social media influencers.
Third, in our study we employed a manipulation of number of
followers that considered specific thresholds of number of followers
for micro (less than 10,000 followers) and meso (between 10,000 and
1,000,000 followers) influencers and kept them constant in our
empirical analysis. There could be obviously different thresholds that
one could use to categorize influencers on their popularity (e.g., one
could regard as micro influencers those with 50,000 or 100,000
followers). One way to confer greater robustness to the analysis of
the effect of micro versus meso or macro influencers on users'
responses could be to use real data of influencers posts considering
real influencers with different number of followers. Future studies
could therefore investigate real influencers' posts and, through text
mining tools aimed at distinguishing between posts with weak or
strong argument quality, test whether the effects shown in this
research hold when considering a higher variety of influencers'
number of followers.
Finally, previous research on influencer marketing suggests that
individual psychological‐related factors can strongly affect consumer
responses to the sponsored content. According to Breves et al.
(2019), individual levels of parasocial relationships can strongly affect
consumer responses to influencer marketing. For example, a
prosocial relationship with the influencer can enhance (vs. decrease)
the attention given to the visual element of the post (e.g., due to
rewarding experience) depending on the strength of arguments
provided in the product description or other message characteristics.
Therefore, future research could look at how different personality
traits, such as need for cognition (Martin et al., 2005) and individual
attachment styles (Pozharliev et al., 2021b) affect consumer
behavioural and neurophysiological responses to various visual and
verbal cues of the influencers' advertising post.
D A TA A V A I L A B I L I T Y S T A T E M E N T
Data available on request from the authors.
ORCID
Rumen Pozharliev http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5573-0228
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How to cite this article: Pozharliev R, Rossi D, De Angelis M
(2022). A picture says more than a thousand words: Using
consumer neuroscience to study instagram users' responses
to influencer advertising. Psychology & Marketing,
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