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PROFILING MARKET INFLUENCERS: COMPARIONS OF MARKET MAVEN, OPINION LEADERS, AND FASHION LEADERS
The more the marketplace become competitive, the more clear and distinct market segments the marketers need to identify. A minority of consumers takes important roles in the marketplace as market influencers or diffusers of information to others, for instance, market maven or opinion leaders. Market mavens tend to have overall market-related knowledge, while opinion leader and fashion leader possess product class-specific information. Fashion leaders are more likely to adopt a product at the early stage, but opinion leaders or market mavens are not necessary. Despite significant roles as reference groups, limited research has examined the differences in the essential traits of three influential groups. The purpose of this research is to examine and compare the differences of psychological attributes in market maven, opinion leaders, and fashion leaders with respect to consumer self-confidence, clothing involvement(INV), status consumption(STATUS), and price consciousness(PRICE).
The instrument was modified based on the previous studies(Bearden, et al., 2001; Clark & Goldsmith, 2005; Feick& Price, 1987;Goldsmith, et al., 1991) and each item was measured by seven-point Liker type scales. A total of 857 data were collected through the internet survey method. About 50.3% of respondents were female, 39.2% were single, and age ranged from 20 to 59 years old. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed the differences of the measurement in three influential groups, explaining 70.76% of variances. Consumer self-confidence was generated into five factors, information acquisition & consideration-set formation (IA&CF), personal outcomes(PO), social outcomes (SO), persuasion knowledge(PKN), and marketplace interfaces(MI). Cronbach's alpha was ranged between .78 and .93.
In order to investigate the effects of psychological attributes on three influential groups, five factors of self-confidence (IA&CF, PO, SO, PKN, and MI), INV, STATUS, and PRICE were entered as the independent variables in the regression model respectively. In explaining market maven, IA&CF(β=.37) and SO(β=.35) showed the strong positive effects, and STATUS, PKN(-), MI(-), and PRICE were also significant in order (F=107, adj. R2=.498). Opinion leaders were significantly related with SO(β=.84), and PO, INV, and PRICE presented the minor effects(F=496.2, adj. R2=.822). SO(β=.38), STATUS(β=.37), INV(β=.34), and PKN were significant predictors for fashion leaders (F=289.3, adj. R2=.729). When analyzing the influence of market maven, opinion leader, and fashion leader on buying behaviors, market maven and fashion leaders were significantly, positively related with impulse buying behavior (F=69.28, adj. R2=.193), and overall satisfaction(F=38.21, adj. R2=.115). The implications were discussed.
