AcademicJournal of Interactive Advertising, 26 Jan 2026

Young adults rated a negative influencer review as clearly more helpful than a positive one about the same product

Influencer marketing

Reader Note:: The negative review scored 5.22 for helpfulness against 4.33 for the positive one, t(142.63) = −3.41, p < .001, with a medium effect size of d = 0.56. This is the paper's third hypothesis, pre-registered and supported, and the only finding in the study whose effect is as large as the sample was designed to detect. Each participant saw one TikTok review of a fictional sunscreen by a fictional influencer, in Vietnamese.
Evidence:: Experimental
Vendor interest:: None
Sample:: Pre-registered between-subjects experiment with 210 young adults in Vietnam aged 18-30; recruited via private social media channels and snowball sampling; 70.95% female and 60.00% university students.

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Backing budget and pricing decisions in similar situations.

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Situations far from the one tested, without checking again.
This was measured in one market. It may not hold where you are.

U.S. AI shoppers 55+ penalize hidden sponsorship 20+ points more than labeled; 25–34s react slightly the other way

Extra trust lost from hidden vs labelled sponsorship disclosure, by age group
Age group	Extra trust lost (points)
All AI users	10.5
18 to 24	3.6
25 to 34	-5.2
35 to 44	12.7
45 to 54	15.6

Platform engagement and real effectiveness only line up in about one out of three creator ads, so most engaging content isn’t what will grow your brand

Influencer briefs only include structured keyword strategy for both social and AI/LLM discoverability 13% of the time; most either provide only social search keywords or just general hashtags

Keyword and search guidance included in influencer briefs (% of marketers)
Guidance type	Share (%)
Keyword strategy for social search (TikTok, Instagram)	34%
General hashtag guidance but no structured keyword strategy	34%
Keyword strategy for both social search and AI/LLM discoverability	13%
Leave keyword and caption decisions to the influencer	9%
Have not considered search optimisation in influencer briefs	9%

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Saying the brand name out loud in sponsored creator content lifts branding by an average of 22 points in Kantar’s model

Branding in sponsored creator content: lift in branding percentile — Creator x Brand interaction elements (points)
Element	Lift in branding percentile (points)	Share of sponsored creator content featuring this element (%)
Brand name in audio	22	49%
Interaction with product	17	77%
Shopping activities in action	15	29%
Using the product	11	58%

Influencer selection is mainly based on engagement rate and audience demographics (94% and 88%), with only 25% using social listening on what consumers discuss

Share of marketers using each data input to select influencers, and what it measures
Data input	Usage (%)
Engagement rate (Influencer output)	94%
Audience demographics (age, gender, location) — Influencer audience	88%
Past campaign performance data (Influencer track record)	81%
Audience interest / affinity data (Influencer audience)	78%
Follower count and reach metrics (Influencer scale)	72%

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151

is the long-term ROI index for influencer campaigns in the UK, contributing 6.2% of total sales (excluding campaigns that produced no result)

Young adults rated a negative influencer review as clearly more helpful than a positive one about the same product

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