Abstract:

This study assessed influencer marketing and consumers’ purchase behaviour towards new smartphone brands. Its specific purpose was to determine the effect of celebrity endorsement, giveaway contest and pre-release contest on consumers’ purchase behaviour towards smartphone brands. It adopted cross-sectional survey research design, which enabled the collection of primary data from 232 smartphone users through a structured questionnaire survey. Data analysis and interpretation was done using descriptive statistics, while hypotheses testing was done using multiple linear regression in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS 23). The study found that celebrity endorsement, giveaway contest and pre-release campaign had significant positive effects on consumers’ purchase behaviour towards new smartphone brands. Therefore, we recommended that: smartphone marketing companies should devote more resources to celebrity endorsement by contracting famous and credible celebrities to promote their new brands prior to actual release in order to influence massive product patronage from their followers; all sorts of giveaway contests, including hashtag, photo and referral contests should be included in the introductory marketing mix for new smartphone brands in order to generate positive buzzes on the internet capable of creating mass consumer awareness and patronage; among others. We also provided empirical suggestions to guide further research efforts.