• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.406-421
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• 2021

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the obligatory wearing of masks has led to increased consumer demand and the diversification of mask design. Accordingly, it is necessary to understand the inner meaning and characteristics of masks in the pandemic situation. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to analyze the characteristics of fashionable masks and their new cultural meaning under the COVID-19 pandemic. This research is based on literature review and empirical research. Drawing on an investigation of the historical evolution of masks and their transition under the pandemic (exhibiting differences in mask culture among countries and regions), this study analyzed 54 distinctive fashion masks designed by fashion brands and influencers that appeared from January 2020 to January 2021. The characteristics of fashion masks identified under the influence of the pandemic are as follows: Message delivery on political issues and human rights; psychological defense and expression of individuality; and conspicuous display via luxurious materials and luxury brand logos; moreover, the design of the mask uses the same material, color, pattern, decoration, and other methods as clothing to achieve the overall style. Over the course of the pandemic (and even in post-pandemic lifestyle), fashion masks are becoming more diversified conveying new social and cultural meanings.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.1-20
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• 2021

Purpose Nowadays, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is rapidly growing in popularity and increasingly appearing in marketing. Not even in TV commercial advertisement, ASMR also fast growing in one-person media communication, many brands and social media influencers used ASMR for their marketing contents. The purpose of this study is to measure consumers' perceptions about the products in ASMR marketing content and compare the differences in communication effect of ASMR content creator between product review and how-to in the same Macro tier influencer - the YouTuber that has 10,000-100,000 subscribers. Design/methodology/approach The research methods selected ASMRtist that do product review content and how-to content, Text comments data was collected from 200 videos of tech-device review videos and beauty-fashion videos. A total of 52,833 text comments were analyzed by applying the LDA topic modeling algorithm and social network analysis. Findings Through the result, we can know that ASMR is good at taking attention of viewers with ASMR triggers. In the Tech device reviews field, ASMR viewers also focus on the product like product's performance and purchase. However, there are many topics related to reaction of ASMR sound, trigger, relaxation. In the Beauty-fashion field, viewers' topics mainly focus on the reaction of the ASMR trigger, response to ASMRtist and other topics are talking about makeup - fashion, product, purchase. From LDA result, many ASMR viewers comment that they feel more comfortable when watching the marketing content that uses ASMR. This result has shown that ASMR marketing contents have a good performance in terms of user watching experience, so applying ASMR can take more consumer intention. And the result of social network analysis showed that product review ASMRtist have a higher communication effectiveness than how-to ASMRtist in the same tier. As an influencer marketing strategy, this study provides information to establish an efficient advertising strategy by using influencers that create ASMR content.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.557-567
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• 2023

The rapidly evolving social platform marketing landscape has led businesses to increasingly rely on social platform influencers for brand and service promotion. Despite growing interest in these influencers, there remains a dearth of empirical research examining the impact of their characteristics on consumer attachment and brand loyalty. This study, therefore, investigates the relationships between social platform influencer characteristics, consumer attachment, and brand loyalty. An online survey targeting Chinese consumers was conducted, and a total of 360 responses were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS software. The findings reveal that among the various social platform influencer characteristics, reliability, professionalism, and intimacy significantly influence consumer attachment. Furthermore, it was confirmed that higher attachment to a social platform influencer leads to increased brand loyalty.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.574-585
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• 2019

The acceleration of digital transformation (DX) has resulted in SNS influencer marketing trends becoming the mainstream of the new market. SNS influencers act as early adopters in the process of new products being accepted. Chinese consumers are most affected by Hallyu, which increases interest in K-beauty products. This study analyzes how K-beauty SNS influencers are related to Chinese consumers. A survey was conducted among Chinese millennial consumers after watching videos provided by K-beauty SNS influencer; subsequently, 456 responses were used for data analysis. As a result, the analysis based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) distinguishes the central route and the peripheral route in the process of Chinese consumers accepting new SNS products. The study findings suggested that information quality, credibility, accuracy, and usefulness had significant effects on acceptance intention for new products among central route factors, and similarity, trustworthiness, pleasure, expertise, and attractiveness also had significant effects on the acceptance intention of new product among peripheral route factors. It was found that variables of the central route, rather than those of peripheral route, had stronger effects on the acceptance intention for new products. Consequently, the central route of K-beauty SNS influencer is more important to Chinese consumers' acceptance of new products. It is expected that this study will offer beauty influencer marketing-based cosmetics brands efficient consumer management suggestions.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.307-322
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• 2021

This study examined the influence of social media on the beauty industry and analyzed beauty-related content on social media in China, Thailand, and Indonesia. The existing literature was reviewed and four social media platforms that display the active sharing of beauty-related content in the three stated countries were selected. Five information sources were then chosen from each social media platform and 115 top posts from these sources analyzed. Beauty-related material was shared on discrete social media platforms in the three countries. Differences were found in the presentation types, themes, and message strategies of the content depending on the type of product and services provided by each social media platform. The content on Xiao Hongshu in China consisted of images showcasing product specifications along with a focus on honest and detailed empirical product review messages from its general users. From Taobao Zibo, Wang Hong conveyed powerful and influential information that communicated instantly with viewers and delivered entertaining and sensory messages. In Thailand earnest reviews of beauty products were offered, along with firsthand testimonials through traditional content uploaded on YouTube. In Indonesia, beauty influencers posted creative and sensational photographs of makeup products on image-centered Instagram. This study expands the current scholarship on social media platforms and extends the scope of the extant research on beauty-related content in Asian countries. The practical implications of this study include useful indications on how beauty brands can use social media to promote their products.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.163-170
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• 2022

The purpose of this study is to examine the research trend on social media influencers in Korea. To this end, a total of 178 papers on social media influencers were analyzed from 2009 to 2021 among the academic papers registered in the Korean Academic Citation Index. As a result, the early social media influencer research, which was limited to only a few fields such as fashion, beauty, and communication, has expanded to various ones as time passed and achieved quantitative growth. The proportion of empirical studies has been on the rise in recent years, and studies that applied qualitative research methodologies have shown a tendency to decrease. The proportion of research focusing on specific media platforms and influencer types gets lower, although both the characteristics of social media platforms and the attitudes of each influencer are very diverse. This study has academic significance in that it is the first empirical study to investigate the current status of the social media influencer research in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.1093-1106
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• 2021

This study attempted to investigate the influence of a beauty influencer's characteristics on makeup behavior and color cosmetics purchase intention against young female consumers in their 20-30s, who are a primary target for beauty influencer marketing. It aimed to provide basic data which are helpful in promoting marketing and expanding markets for color cosmetics through beauty influencers. For this, a questionnaire survey was conducted. Among a total of 563 questionnaires distributed across Seoul and capital region, 531 copies were used for final analysis, and the results found the followings: In terms of age, factors affecting beauty influencers' characteristics differed depending on reliability and expertise. Specifically, reliability and communicative competence had a positive effect(+) on all makeup behavior while expertise revealed a positive influence on base makeup only. In color cosmetics purchase intention, a positive effect was observed in reliability, communicative competence and attractiveness. In particular, reliability showed the largest influence. Therefore, there should be continued efforts to maintain a long-term relationship with consumers through communication based on beauty influencers' characteristics and by delivering more diverse makeup and color cosmetics-related information in an open and honest fashion.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.446-462
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• 2020

The objectives of this study are to explore the information source, assessment, and preferred styles of 3D virtual influencers(VI), to investigate the expected impact of advertisements with 3D VIs on brands, and to explore ways of expanding the use of 3D VIs. In-depth interviews with 40 males and females in their 20s and 30s were conducted and qualitative data were analyzed. The study results are summarized as follows. First, the information source of the 3D VI was SNS, acquaintances, and broadcasting. Second, 3D VIs were considered positively due to their attractive appearance, wide utilization, innovative use, freshness, separation from private identity, and time and cost savings, while considered negatively due to their unrealistic appearance and antipathy against replacing a person's role. Third, the preferred appearance styles of the 3D VI differed according to the level of virtuality although the majority of interviewees preferred similar looks to real people with low virtuality. Fourth, diverse image qualities such as innovative, differentiated, trendy, high-value, professional, and future-oriented were considered as transferred to the brand advertised by 3D VIs. Fifth, advertisements with 3D VIs may help build positive perceptions of advertised brands that may lead to purchase behaviors for some consumers. Lastly, to expand the use of 3D VIs, the specific advantages of virtual models should be maximized with consideration of how to implement a variety of body types and images of models. Findings present an important foundation to generate strategies to better apply 3D VIs to the fashion market.

• Fashion, Industry and Education
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.36-52
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• 2017

In this study, we tried to understand preschooler clothing trends and identify the purchase behaviors of various consumers, such as grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents, who are the main consumers of the preschooler clothing market. We conducted in-depth interviews with consumers who were interested in preschooler clothing, purchased it frequently, and bought preschooler clothing within the last three months. Their purchase motivations and purchase behaviors were analyzed through exploratory and inductive analysis. The analysis was conducted by integrating categories into one process centered on core categories through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The results of this study included that 1) a variety of clothing purchase behaviors appeared as a central phenomenon, 2) the causal conditions that contributed to this phenomenon were the buyers' childcare experiences, purchase experiences, the personal consumption values of individuals, and income levels, 3) in response to the central phenomenon, the parents' action/interaction strategies were acceptance and rejection of purchased clothing, 4) contextual and Intervening conditions affecting action/interaction strategy were family environment changes, the VIB (Very Important Baby) phenomenon, parents' clothing involvement, and the relationship with the buyers, and acceptance by the users, and 5) as a result of the strategy expressed as acceptance and rejection, various clothing behaviors emerged. In this study, we identified that there are various influencers, apart from parents, involved in children's clothing consumption. Therefore, we need to keep in mind that various purchase behaviors and clothing trends that appear during one's childhood may affect the individual's clothing behavior in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.873-890
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• 2023

This study analyzed users' emotional responses to VI character design through YouTube comments. The researchers applied text-mining to analyze 116,375 comments, focusing on terms related to character design and characteristics of VI. Using the BERT model in sentiment analysis, we classified comments into extremely negative, negative, neutral, positive, or extremely positive sentiments. Next, we conducted a co-occurrence frequency analysis on comments with extremely negative and extremely positive responses to examine the semantic relationships between character design and emotional characteristic terms. We also performed a content analysis of comments about Miquela and Shudu to analyze the perception differences regarding the two character designs. The results indicate that form elements (e.g., voice, face, and skin) and behavioral elements (e.g., speaking, interviewing, and reacting) are vital in eliciting users' emotional responses. Notably, in the negative responses, users focused on the humanization aspect of voice and the authenticity aspect of behavior in speaking, interviewing, and reacting. Furthermore, we found differences in the character design elements and characteristics that users expect based on the VI's field of activity. As a result, this study suggests applications to character design to accommodate these variations.