YOUNG CONSUMERS’ PERCEPTION TOWARDS

ONLINE OPINION LEADERS

A study of flea markets’ promotions

Le Nguyen ThanhTruc

S3357757

Abstract

Opinion leadership and its application – Word-of-Mouth marketing strategy has been

studied for a long time and applied in numerous industries to approach several target

publics. Although many researchers have failed to create a consistent profile of opinion

leaders, attempts have been constantly conducted to approach these people, especially

online opinion leaders, to help transfer product information to massive consumers.

Though young consumers are active in adopting new product information, not many

researches have studied this public’s perceptions towards online opinion leadership.

Thus, this paper will report the research study to solve this gap in the case of flea

market promotions. The qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 RMIT students,

aged from 21 to 23 years old, who have seen at least one flea market promotion. The

results indicate that online opinion leadership is partially effective to young consumers

but still remains some drawbacks. Hence, it recommends communicators to conduct

further research on online opinion leaders to approach them effectively and avoid

abuses causing annoyance.

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Introduction

The concept of opinion leadership was first implied from the Two-step Flow

communication theory, indicating that information transfer from mass media to the

opinion leaders before they convey it to those who are less active in adopting

information (Katz 1957). Ever since, research results have indicated many aspects,

including its definition, categories and characteristics (Chaney 2001; Corey 1971).

Furthermore, the Word-of-Mouth marketing strategy, an application of opinion

leadership, is regarded as the most influential and trustworthy information source

(Buttle 1998; Flynn et al. 1996). This hypothesis is also applied in numerous industries,

including fashion, tourism, banking and dental, to target various public segments

(Balakrishnan 2007; Benedetto et al. 2011)

Moreover, Hansen and Hansen (2005) state that young people are active in adopting

new products information via friends and families rather than other media. Thus, young

consumers are the potential opinion seekers. Thanks to the rapid growth of computer-

mediated communication, online opinion leadership, chiefly young Internet users, is

necessary to investigate due to its huge influence towards unlimited global users (Lyon

& Henderson 2005; Sun et al. 2006).

However, not many researchers analysed the perspectives of young consumers as the

opinion seekers in Facebook despite the prominence of this segment (Flynn et al. 1996;

Litvin et al. 2008). Thus, this research aims to investigate young consumers’ perceptions

towards online opinion leaders. This topic will analyse the case of flea market

promotions due to the dramatic rise of Vietnamese flea markets utilizing opinion

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leadership and Word-of-Mouth marketing via social media to target young consumers

(Cho Phien Vietnam 2013; Tin247 2013; Tinmoi 2012).

The report will review previous studies to propose the research question. Then I will

present the methodology and demonstrate some important findings. Finally, I will

compare the results to previous literature to propose conclusions and

recommendations for future research.

Literature Review

Numerous scholars from previous studies agree on the definition of opinion leaders as a

few individuals who exert a certain amount of influence towards the others’ attitudes

and behaviours in some defined topic areas (Corey 1971; Katz 1957; Summers 1970).

The majority of those researches chiefly concentrate on classifying and identifying the

opinion leadership by self-report method as well as analysing their topic areas,

searching behaviours and the information spreading to others (Chaney 2001; Corey

1971; Li & Du 2011). Concisely, there are two kinds of opinion leadership, including

monomorphic opinion leaders specialized in one topic area and polymorphic opinion

leaders specialized in multiple topics (King & Summers 1970). While several previous

findings indicate that the majority of opinion leaders are monomorphic or domain-

specific, meaning expert in particular field; the rest illustrates that polymorphic tends to

create the era of generalized opinion leadership in which these leaders are expert in

overlapped fields (Flynn et al. 1996; King & Summers 1970; Silk 1966). Furthermore,

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several researchers aim to create a detailed profile of opinion leaders in certain topic

areas but with limited success (Chaney 2001; Flynn et al 1996; Li and Du 2011). A few

common characteristics of opinion leaders are listed, including high social status, high

education, media savvy, high interaction and high sales potential in specific product

categories (Buttle 1998; Corey 1971; Li and Du 2011; Summers 1970), whereas hardly

could any demographic variables be found identical among different opinion leaders

(Chaney 2001; Summers 1970). Furthermore, many scholars predict that online opinion

leadership with its unlimited global followers would replace the conventional form,

simply based on personal relationships (Lyon & Henderson 2005; Sun et al. 2006). Thus,

several findings reveal the significant characteristics of online opinion leaders, including

higher level of internet skills, longer time using the Internet daily and higher level of

curiosity and exploratory (Sun et al. 2006).

Despite the difficulties in identifying opinion leaders, many scholars still consider this

group as a target market due to its prominence for commercial purposes (Chaney 2001;

Corey 1971; Flynn et al 1996; Summers 1970). Compared to the commercial messages

sent by marketers, consumers tend to trust other consumers as the sources of sufficient

knowledge and advices about brand products as well as the role models for observing

product using (Flynn et al. 1996). Bowman (2006) also states that consumers tend to

believe in experts or ambassadors, such as professors, doctors and heavy users rather

than irrelevant celebrities. Hence, Word-of-Mouth marketing, the viral marketing

strategy utilizing the concept of opinion leadership, is found the significantly credible,

trustworthy, influential and persuasive information source compared to other media

(Buttle 1998; Flynn et al. 1996; King & Summers 1970; Li & Du 2011;Litvin et al. 2008).

Word-of-Mouth marketing has been studied for a long time ever since the invention of

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the Two-step Flow communication theory (Flynn et al. 1996; Litvin et al. 2008). While

the previous studies chiefly focus on the effect of personal influence by face-to-face

Word-of-Mouth, meaning the impact of friends, family and relatives on a person’s

decision making, the current studies concentrate on the interpersonal communication

via electronic Word-of-Mouth, representing the exchange of information between

individuals (Buttle 1998; Flynn et al 1996; King & Summers 1970; Litvin et al. 2008). In

other words, Word-of-Mouth marketing not only provides consumers the products’

information but also encourages consumers to exchange opinions to each other and

send feedback to the companies, possibly leading to the negative side of this strategy –

the gap between product values and consumer expectations (Buttle 1998; Chan 2012;

Chaney 2001).

This hypothesis is applied in numerous products and services categories, including

food, dental, banking, tourism, households, fashion and innovative products, to name a

few (Balakrishnan 2007; Benedetto et al. 2011; Bowman 2006; Chan 2012; De Run &

Siti Hasnah 2003; King & Summers 1970;Litvin et al. 2008;Robertson & Myers 1969;Silk

1966;Summers 1970;Xiang 2012). In Asia, some scholars consider the top managers as

the opinion leaders for B2B purchasing decisions, whereas the others note that Word-

of-Mouth is appropriate for all classes of consumers (Balakrishnan 2007; De Run & Siti

Hasnah 2003). Additionally, a few studies apply it in promoting for flea markets due to

its cost efficiency and massive influence (Bloch et al. 1994; Christiansen & Snepenger

2005; Petrescu & Bhatli 2013; Sherman et al.1985). Accordingly, the drift mavens –

opinion leaders of flea markets – are analysed in terms of demographic variables,

interests and behaviours in order to help marketers approach this target segment

(Christiansen & Snepenger 2005; Tom et al. 1998).

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Although numerous researches have been conducted, a few areas about opinion

leadership have not been approached. No specific scales have been created to measure

the opinion seekers’ perspectives as well as the relationships among followers (Flynn et

al. 1996). Additionally, young consumers are active in adopting new products and

receiving information from friends or families, turning them to the potential opinion

leaders and seekers (Hansen & Hansen 2005). However, hardly could find this segment

mentioned in those studies about online opinion leadership and hardly been considered

as the samples in research about flea markets despite the rise of this phenomenon in

Vietnamese context.

RQ: How do young consumers perceive the online opinion leadership in flea market

promotions?

Methodology

Since the research’s objective is to understand the students’ perspectives towards a

phenomenon, the qualitative interview was chosen for this research to attain the richly

detailed knowledge (Rubin et al. 2010). The face-to-face interview helps to gain the

diversity not only in the informants’ opinions but also through their stories, their

experiences and their attitudes via observation (Stein & Mankowski 2004).

Furthermore, interview is appropriate to attain honest responses, providing accurate

findings to benefit communicators (Baxter &Babbie 2004; Sykes 1990). I conducted the

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semi-structured interview, instead of Depth Interview as planned, with questions

depending on circumstances. Since the topic is practical, this type is appropriate to

reach informants personally and attain unexpected findings (Stein & Mankowski 2004).

Although the utilization of qualitative interview could lead to the biasness or over

generalization of data (Baxter & Babbie 2004), I attempted to overcome these

limitations by creating a friendly atmosphere for interviewees to share their honest

thoughts as well as choosing diversified samples in terms of demographic variables. I

also avoided inviting my close friends for this research to prevent from biasness.

The samples of this research were 10 interviewees studying at RMIT University, SGS

Campus. Initially, I invited 14 students to participate but 4 of them denied my

invitations. The remaining participants included 8 females and 2 males studying in

many programs, namely Professional Communication, Commerce, Accounting, Finance

and English program. At the age between 21 to 23 years old, these students love surfing

Facebook daily and have been exposed to the flea market promotions. Moreover, RMIT

students are frequently proactive, highly interactive in social media and interested in

new phenomenon. Though I did aware that those samples all come from upper class so

hardly could represent the whole segment of young consumers, this research scale

could not expand to wider samples. Thus, this sampling method is appropriate.

The data collection of 10 interviewees went through the same process. I randomly met

them in RMIT campus and asked them the screening question to ensure that they have

been exposed to the flea market promotions before. Then, I asked for their permissions

to conduct a face-to-face interview. Afterwards, I briefly let them read through and sign

in those Ethic Implications, including the Informed Consent Form, Plain Language

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Statement and Interview Protocol. Finally, the interviews began when I started

recording, taking notes and labelling the textual data.

As regarding the data analysis, I applied the Emergent Methodology utilizing the

Grounded Theory to analyse those qualitative data. This method requires researchers to

constantly compare the data to previous knowledge while revising their models as

needed without any prejudices. This process continues until a point of saturation is

reached to finish the analysis (Suter 2012). I did apply all these steps to analyse my

data.

Participants Profile

Findings

When being asked about the identity of their opinion leaders, the answers were

different in terms of genders, occupancies, ages or even nationalities. They could be

famous people, trust worthy friends or drift-mavens.

“I usually go to flea markets with my friends. A member of us is an expert and she begs us

to travel with her whenever a flea market occurs.” (Female, 21, Finance)

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As a matter of fact, all participants agreed that they had seen the utilization of famous

opinion leaders such as actresses, singers and models in promoting for flea markets.

These people have high rate of followers in Facebook. They promote for flea markets in

many ways, including sharing the latest news in their Facebook pages or attending the

events as guests, shop owners or performers. Surprisingly, all ten participants admitted

the high effectiveness of opinion leadership to young consumers in general. However,

only two interviewees shared that they personally might be influenced by a few opinion

leaders specialized in one topic area.

“I hate celebrities hired to attend flea markets just for promotions. However, I might

reconsider if those celebrities perform in the event program. For example, if Dong Nhi

(Vietnamese singer) performs at a flea market, it would enhance the flea market’s

reputation and attract many young people.” (Female, 22, Accounting)

“I don’t care about celebrities promoting for flea market. However, if they come to sell

their products, I would consider. Especially, I love Mina Lieu (Vietnamese fashion icon) to

attend a stall at flea markets.” (Female, 23, Professional Communication)

While eight participants stated that they do not care about famous opinion leaders in

promoting flea markets, the rest even emphasized their annoyance towards the abuse of

these leaders in inappropriate topic areas.

“Using celebrities could be risky. They could bring 1000 audience to the event. They could

also let 1000 audience leave the event. The matter is appropriateness. If you are a singer

or actress, it doesn’t mean that you know about flea markets.” (Female, 21, Professional

Communication)

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On the other hand, all participants showed their trust for friends. Seven interviewees

agreed to rank Word-of-Mouth marketing as the most persuasive, trustworthy and

influential information source about flea markets. The others still trust their friends

than other information sent from marketers but they ranked their self-judgement the

first. This is attributed to their comprehension towards friends as well as their friends’

previous experience in shopping at flea markets.

“Of course I will trust my friends. We know each other well. So if they share me the

information about a particular flea market they have been before, I can freely ask for their

reviews before making any decisions.” (Female, 21, Commerce)

Furthermore, all informants are influenced by personal relationships rather than the

online interpersonal communication. They trust their friends in reality more than the

public feedbacks on Facebook, which could be controlled by the marketers. However,

four interviewees still sometimes consider the public rates (like and share numbers)

and public feedbacks (comments) in certain circumstances. This partially impacts their

decision making, especially in case of crisis management.

“It depends on my judgements. If the feedbacks are objective with two sides, I might

consider. Otherwise, I can’t believe when the sellers’ intentions are too obvious. However,

in cases of scandals occur, I will observe the way that admin responses to the negative

feedbacks to make my judgements.“ (Female, 21, Commerce)

Although all participants agreed that utilizing opinion leadership, especially their

friends, is effective, six of them confused of how to approach these leaders. The others

recommended the marketers to use other channels specialized for these leaders instead

of Facebook, such as magazines specialized for smartphone lovers or fashionista.

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“Boys rarely share information about flea markets aimed at clothing. But we’re interested

in flea market showing technological devices. These always advertise in some pages like

Tinhte to approach us.” (Male, 21, English)

Overall, all participants agreed that Facebook is cheap and reach massive audience.

However, three participants expressed the annoyance when the promotional news

constantly pop-up on their Facebook page.

Discussions

The findings are slightly similar to the literature review at some points. Above all,

similar to the findings of Buttle (1998) and other scholars, this research shows that

young consumers perceive Word-of-Mouth marketing as the most influential and

persuasive information source compared to other media. Moreover, it is difficult to

identify common characteristics of opinion leaders, similar to Chaney (2001) and other

scholars. Additionally, corresponding to the results of Bowman (2006), consumers seem

to prefer a non-famous ambassador or simply a heavy user specialized in that topic area

rather than a celebrity. Furthermore, all participants agreed that opinion leaders should

be investigated as a target segment, whereas monomorphic is in majority compared to

polymorphic. This is similar to Flynn et al. (1996) and other scholars.

However, there are a few differences between my findings and previous researches.

Different from Buttle (1998) and the others, this research shows that current young

consumers still prefer personal relationships rather than interpersonal communication

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on social media. Notably, the findings indicate that online opinion leadership is not as

effective as other communication strategies to approach young consumers. Since

Facebook is too common and popular, it is considered as not a wise choice to target

directly opinion leaders specialized in certain areas. Although Balakrishnan (2007)

states that opinion leadership could apply in all classes, the findings implied that the

distinction between RMIT students and other students is significant.

Conclusion

In brief, the research question has been answered thoroughly but further research is

still in need. As regarding the young consumers’ perceptions, the research indicates that

online opinion leadership is effective for themselves and other people in general.

However, there are a few remaining drawbacks of this marketing strategy, namely the

abuse and inappropriate utilization of opinion leaders and Word-of-Mouth strategy.

Therefore, I recommend communication industry should carefully identify and

approach opinion leaders specialized in particular topic areas. Communicators should

be careful with the abuse of pop-up news in social media and the irrelevant utilization

of celebrities.

This research remains two main limitations. Firstly, RMIT students could not represent

the whole public of young Vietnamese consumers. Especially, within their higher

incomes than the average, their perceptions might not similar to the majority of young

consumers. Another limitation is the unbalanced genders of participants. Since 80% of

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interviewees are females, the results might be not objective enough in terms of gender

distinctions. Hence, I recommend future research to conduct the interview with various

kinds of informants in terms of demographic variables.

Word count: 2489

Appendix

Invitation to Participate in a

Research Project

Project Information Statement

Centre of Communication and Design

Project Title: Young consumers’ perception towards opinion leaders: A study of

flea market promotions

Investigator: Le Nguyen ThanhTruc Phone/Email: S3357757@rmit.edu.vn

Supervisor: Duong Trong Hue Phone/Email: Hue.duong@rmit.edu.vn

You are invited to participate in a research project being conducted by RMIT University

13

Vietnam undergraduate students undertaking the course Communication Debates and

Approaches. This information sheet describes the project in straightforward language,

or ‘plain English’. Please read this sheet carefully and be confident that you understand

its contents before deciding whether to participate. If you have any questions about the

project, please ask one of the investigators.

What is the project about? What are the questions being addressed?

The project aims to attain certain knowledge about young consumers’ perception towards

opinion leadership utilized in flea markets’ promotions on Facebook. The project is

significant due to the rise of Vietnamese flea markets targeting young consumers.

Furthermore, the flea markets’ marketers frequently utilize opinion leadership as a

communication strategy in order to target consumers. Hence, this research will benefit

marketers to understand the young consumers and learn how to make the communication

strategy more effective.

The questions mostly focus on how young consumers perceive the idea of other people

compared to the information provided by the marketers on Facebook page.

I plan to invite 10 interviewees to attend this project.

Why have you been approached?

Participants of this project are selected randomly. The only criterion is that participants

must be RMIT students. This is due to the convenience and shortage of time for this project.

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If I agree to participate, what will I be required to do?

Participants will be required to do the following things:

- Spend around 30 – 45 minutes to answer 9 questions

- Answer the questions with honest opinions about the topic

- Each answer should include a brief description about your opinions and follow by

your experiences and reflections.

- Participants could deny answering any questions or stop the interview at anytime.

What are the risks or disadvantages associated with participation?

- Some questions require participants to carefully evaluate and justify your

preferences based on certain criteria, which possibly leads to some confusion for

participants.

- Some questions require participants to evaluate certain communication strategies,

which possibly leads to some difficulties for participants without field knowledge.

- The interview’s length could possibly affect the normal schedule of participants.

- If participants are unduly concerned about your responses to any of the

questionnaire items or if participants find participation in the project distressing,

you should contact Mr. Hue Duong as soon as convenient. Hue Duong will discuss

your concerns with you confidentially and suggest appropriate follow-up, if

necessary.

- If any serious risk is revealed by the study, the participant may be contacted and

referred to someone who can be of assistance.

What are the benefits associated with participation?

- Each participant will receive a small gift (coffee) for your help.

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- Mentally, this is a great opportunity for participants to freely express your ideas

confidentially.

What will happen to the information I provide?

- The participant’s data will be kept confidentially, which only revealed as a proof of

life to Mr. Hue Duong.

- The information appears in the research results are anonymous.

- Any information that you provide can be disclosed only if (1) it is to protect you or

others from harm, (2) a court order is produced, or (3) you provide the researchers

with written permission

What are my rights as a participant?

- Participants could withdraw the interview at anytime without any prejudice.

- Any unprocessed data could be withdrawn and destroyed. The data can be reliably

identified and doing so does not increase the risk for participants.

- Participants could ask the researcher any questions at anytime.

Whom should I contact if I have any questions?

For further information, please contact:

Lecturer: Duong Trong Hue

Email: hue.duong@rmit.edu.vn

What other issues should I be aware of before deciding whether to participate?

The questions about Opinion Leadership could relate to participants’ role models or

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relatives. Participants could not answer any private questions.

INTERVIEW PROTOCOL

Thank you for your time, I would like to ask you chiefly about how you perceive the

opinion leadership in flea markets’ promotions on Facebook. With your permission, I

would like to record the interview, but you may ask to shut off the recorder at anytime.

Your identity, and the names of anyone you mention, will be kept strictly confidential.

Only pseudonyms will be used in the written report. May we begin?

1. Have you ever seen any advertisings or promotions related to flea markets on

Facebook?

2. What factors make you prefer a particular flea market compared to the others?

3. How would you be influenced by the information provided by the flea markets’

marketers on the Facebook page?

4. How would you be influenced by the ideas of other people, including friends,

relatives and other members of the Facebook page?

5. Have you ever considered anyone (ambassador, hot bloggers, celebrities, drift

mavens, fashion icons) as an influencer towards your opinion about flea

markets? If yes, how would you be influenced by those opinion leaders?

6. In your opinion, what communication strategy do the marketers frequently

utilize in flea markets’ promotions to target young consumers? Why do you think

they utilize this strategy?

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7. As a young consumer, how do you evaluate the effectiveness of this

communication strategy?

Clearinghouse questions:

1. Are there any issues that we have not discussed about, or I have not asked about,

that related to the opinion leadership in flea markets’ promotions?

2. Do you have any questions for me before we conclude?

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