• Journal of Advanced Technology Convergence
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.27-35
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• 2022

We investigated the role of product-influencer congruence between social distance, perceived authenticity and attitude toward ads. In particular, we focused on the mediating effect of perceived authenticity on the relationship between social distance and attitude toward ads. Also, we interested in the conditional indirect effect of product-influencer congruence on the mediation process. For our purposes, data were collected from a convenience sample of 340 undergraduate students at a large university in South Korea. Our results indicated that social distance is directly related to the perceived authenticity and, consequently, affects attitude toward ads. Also, an indirect effect of the perceived authenticity was significant on the low level of product-influencer congruence and not in the high level. Our findings suggest that marketing managers should consider the social media influencer's authenticity and congruence between the product and the influencer.