Nyhetens behag
En kvantitativ studie av möjligheter och risker med produktplacering på modebloggar
The advantages with product placement in blogs compared to traditional media is shown in earlier empirical findings where consumers found blog posts more credible and informative than a corresponding article in a web paper. It can therefore be argued that the informal structure and personal tonality of the blog reinforces the effects of product placement on brand attitude and intention to buy as the consumer has no persuasion knowledge and does not detect the rewriting of the product as commercial.This paper?s overall aim is to provide concrete implications for how to manage product placement on fashion blogs. The purpose of the essay is therefore to investigate the communicative effects of product placement in fashion blogs as well as to examine if a revelation of commercial interest behind a blog posts about a certain brand effects the consumers? attitude towards the blog and/or brand attitude and intention to buy. The essay also aims to explore the communicative effects of a call to action, meaning that a blogger encourages its readers to actually buy a specific product, and on the other hand the possibility that an acknowledgement from the writer herself about the commercial interests behind a certain blog post can mitigate the negative effects of the revelation.From the quantitative study we can conclude that the effects of product placement on brand attitude and intention to buy is generally positive. Furthermore the study shows that there are risks associated with the external revelation of the commercial interests behind a blog post, yet these risks can be mitigated through an accurate diction of the actual blog post. The essays two main implications, beside the recommendation for marketers to review product placement at blogs, are therefore to avoid overt selling message in the blog post and, for bloggers, never to apologize in forehand for writing about a certain product as a result of payment from the brand owner.