Influencer Marketing of Alternative Products on Social Media and Its Relationship with Impulsive Buying Among the Egyptian Audience

Egypt has witnessed popular campaigns calling for the boycott of certain products and companies accused of supporting Israel in its war on Gaza. This has led influencers to publish lists of "local alternatives" to these products on social media, potentially impacting consumers’ purchasing decisions and prompting them to make impulsive and emotionally driven purchases.

In this context, the study aims to analyze and measure the relationship between influencer marketing of alternative products on social media and the level of impulsive purchasing behavior associated with these products. The study adopts a descriptive approach, employing the media survey methodology. A content analysis was conducted on (55) posts by influencers promoting local products, in addition to a questionnaire distributed to a purposive sample of (450) respondents interested in influencer-generated content that promotes alternative products.

The study yielded several key findings, most notably the high level of influencer engagement in marketing local alternative products, particularly in the food and beverage sectors. Influencers employed various marketing strategies, with a greater emphasis on emotional appeals and stimuli rather than rational persuasion.

Furthermore, the findings indicate a strong audience interest in consuming such content, with powerful motivations for exposure, primarily driven by the desire to purchase local products and boycott imported ones. Consequently, the study found that impulsive purchasing of local products was significantly high, with emotionally driven impulsive buying ranking first, followed by reminder-based impulsive buying, and finally pure impulsive buying as the least common form.