The role of Influencer Trustworthiness and Credibility in marketing messaging to promote health behaviour change

This paper explores consumer perception of trustworthiness and the role this plays in the credibility and ability of influencers and influencer marketing to facilitate and promote effective health behaviour change.

There are several key influencing factors that support and facilitate a meaningful exchange between influencer and audience such as trustworthiness, credibility, authenticity and social proof. It is important to understand these layers of nuance, in order to design and deliver effective health marketing messages that resonate with the target audience, and therefore drive meaningful health improvement behaviours.

This paper aims to contribute knowledge and evidence from a sugar reduction research investigation through which the role, impact and associated perceptions of influencers in the digital space were analysed.