Online influencer marketing: defining the new cool

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2025

Authors

Dourado, Pedro (Author) Other; Ribeiro, Vasco (Author) FLUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: Sustainability in Fashion: Creativity, Education, and Innovation / Proceedings of FL_Fashion & Sustainability International Conference, 2022

Pages: 101-112

FL_Fashion & Sustainability International Conference, 2022

Lisbon, 2022

Other information

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-80991-0_11

Abstract (EN): The widespread adoption of digital platforms in recent decades has given birth to new ways of communicating and interacting, removing the barriers that previously separated producers and consumers in the promotion and acquisition processes. The weakening of advertising and the low reliability of celebrities—so popular at the turn of the millennium—has led brands to opt for digital influencers for their authenticity and reliability. This is especially noticeable in the typically humanized fashion industry, where influencers are perceived as common people, taking the place of models who are paid to appear in advertising campaigns. This chapter analyzes the main changes that occurred in 20 years that turned online influencer marketing into the foundation of the new cool by analyzing the documentary Merchants of Cool, which was released in 2001 and exposed the marketing techniques that made American teenagers the key recipe for countless commercial successes. The study of influencers from the marketers’ perspective as decision-makers, as well as the parallelism between the two marketing strategies—which appear to be different, temporally distant, and never scientifically crossed—are the chapter’s main contributions to academia and industry.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific