Racial Pay Gap in Influencer Marketing
Is there a racial pay gap for influencers? Using a novel data set and controlling for relevant campaign and influencer characteristics other than race, we find that Black macro-influencers were paid significantly more than their White counterparts during times associated with increased public attention to racial inequality. In contrast, micro-influencers did not experience any significant changes in pay during these times, and there is no significant difference in pay between Black and White influencers outside of these time periods. These findings suggest that firm response to racial inequality appears to be opportunistic and benefits only more visible Black influencers and only when public attention to racial inequality is heightened.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4156872
From Representation to Reception: Evaluating the Impact of Diversity in TV Advertising on Consumer Purchase Intention
While most managers today acknowledge the importance of featuring diverse racial identities in their marketing communications, empirical research that shows how improving such representation may affect consumer behavior is lacking. To fill this gap, we use face recognition and race classification technologies to quantify the Black actor share of ads in TV ad creatives and investigate its impact on consumer purchase intention. We show that this impact depends on the processing route and the level of public attention to racial inequality. Our findings indicate that before the murder of George Floyd, consumers displayed a stronger tendency to purchase from brands featuring a higher representation of Black actors in their ads when they engaged in peripheral processing. However, during the period characterized by increased public attention to racial inequality after George Floyd’s murder, consumers were less inclined to purchase from brands with a higher representation of Black actors in their ads when they engaged in central processing. Our study underscores a need for a nuanced understanding of the complexity involved in effectively conveying a commitment to diversity and meeting consumer expectations amid a dynamically shifting sociopolitical environment.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4471248
How ESG Reduces Risk: The Role of Consumers and Institutional Investors
Industry insights and business reports suggest that firms primarily use environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors as a crucial risk management practice. However, no empirical evidence has yet linked ESG factors to firm risk through different stakeholders. Drawing on stakeholder management theory, the authors develop and test a conceptual framework, which posits that (1) two primary stakeholders of firms (consumers and institutional investors) have a mediating role in the association between ESG and firm idiosyncratic risk; (2) the effect varies for each of the E, S, and G factors; and (3) competitive intensity moderates these effects. Using quarterly data from 416 firms from 2012 to 2020, the authors find that consumers and investors indeed play a mediating role in the effects of ESG on risk. While consumers respond positively to the E factor and negatively to the G factor, institutional investors respond negatively to E and S factors and positively to the G factor. Competitive intensity strengthens the effect of the S factor on consumers and the effect of the E factor on investors but weakens the effect of the G factor on both.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4410032
How Social Media Drove the 2016 US Presidential Election: A Longitudinal Topic and Platform Analysis
To what extent did external events and news versus the candidates’ own actions drive the 2016 election outcome? And were candidates misled if they focused on traditional market research versus the newer probabilistic polls? Based on the dynamic political will formation framework, the authors address these questions with a national daily data set combining polling, donations and TV advertising data with social media interactions to all candidates’ posts of the two candidates on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Persistence modeling reveals that donations followed rather than drove the candidates’ polls. The probabilistic polls show a different impact of candidate ads and statements, news coverage and fake news than do the traditional polls. TV ads on the economy or gun control, and on terror threats were most effective for respectively Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Topics matter, as fake news about a candidate hurts her chances on one topic, but benefits her on another topic. Moreover, platforms matter: Clinton’s chances benefited from promoting women issues on Instagram, but declined from doing so on Twitter. Her moral language on Fairness Vice and social media users’ on Authority Virtue made voters less likely to vote for her, but more likely to share fake news about her and to talk positively about Trump. While news coverage had minimal impact, fake news on Clinton’s emails, shared on her Facebook page, greatly damaged her election chances. This fake news impact was most pronounced for seniors, Hispanics and high earners – demographics who moved towards Trump in the last weeks before the election. The authors draw lessons from the past election to advise where, when and how to drive the political conversation.