1. Introduction
Contemporary marketing communication is a process carried out complementarily in the real and virtual world among market participants [
1,
2].
Omnichannel approaches that characterize modern marketing processes enable opportunities for goods and services consumers to exploit the full set of marketing channels of communication to achieve a continued information inflow and participate in decision making in respect of companies and purchases [
3,
4]. Mainstream modern marketing, on the other hand, mainly involves the total digitalization of communication processes as well as the significant domination of online channels in order to promote goods and services as well as disseminate information about companies’ activities [
5].
Thanks to the universal access to the web and mobile devices, social media is becoming more and more popular. According to the
Digital in 2021 Global Overview report, in 2021, almost 54% of the population (4.2 billion) used it in the world, which was over 13% (490 million) more than in 2020. In Poland in 2021, there were 25.9 million active users of social media, which accounted for 68.5% of the total population of the country [
6]. Social media has become an integral part of life; its functions are systematically changing and its role and scope of use are increasing. Initially, it was mainly used to maintain or establish interpersonal contacts, and the current users, especially young people, more and more often emphasize the importance of social media (including the most popular Facebook) as the first and the main source which they obtain various types of information from, looking for opinions about the products and services they are interested in [
7].
Social media influencer marketing is a growing area and is becoming an inevitable part of the marketing mix of companies [
8]. Social media influencers (SMIs) represent a new type of independent third-party endorsers who shape audience attitudes through blogs, tweets and the use of other social media [
9,
10,
11,
12].
There has been a surge in the role played by social media in the communication between energy sector companies (ESCs) and their customers. Presently, consumers can, on their own, search for, create and share information with other Internet users. Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) communication requires, first and foremost, the presence of energy companies on social media to enhance consumers’ interests in them, and secondly, that they consciously shape their image to meet their customers’ expectations [
13].
Green energy is becoming more and more popular, and both enterprises and individual households contribute to it. The increase in the demand for energy from renewable sources in Poland is so great that the supply does not keep up with it. More and more companies are ordering green energy since it is the easiest way to reduce the company’s emissions factor [
14].
However, it seems that influencer marketing is not used in products such as green energy. The purpose of this paper is to identify the possibility of using this marketing tool to promote green energy in the perspective of Generation Z in Poland.
It was hypothesized that despite the popularity of social media and the involvement in influencer tracking and the effectiveness of influencer marketing among young people, influencer marketing will not be perceived by them as an appropriate marketing communication tool for all products, among others, in terms of motivating the use of green energy.
3. Research Methodology
The attitudes of Generation Z representatives towards influencer marketing and green energy were the subject of research conducted in April in 2022. The research was carried out on a sample of 533 people aged 18 to 26, selected in a quota manner. In total, 60.4% of women and 39.6% of men participated in the study. From the point of view of age, two ranges were distinguished: 18–22 years (56.8%) and 23–26 years (43.2%). The respondents were students of two academic centers—Warsaw (34.7%) and Rzeszow (65.3%), taking into account the differentiation between students of humanities and social sciences (43.7%) and science and technology (56.3%). The structure of the population under study is presented in
Table 1.
The method of the diagnostic survey was applied in the study. The study was conducted using the Internet questionnaire method, on the basis of a proprietary questionnaire. In the context of the issues described, the following research areas were analyzed:
The use of social media;
An assessment of the impact of influencers on social media on consumer behavior;
Knowledge of green energy and its promotion;
An evaluation of the usefulness of influencers to promote green energy.
The research problems were used to verify the hypothesis that: Despite the popularity of social media and the involvement in influencer tracking and the effectiveness of influencer marketing among young people, influencer marketing is not perceived by them as an appropriate marketing communication tool for all products, including, among others, motivation to use green energy.
The analysis of the results was carried out with the use of the IBM SPSS Statistics 27.0 statistical package, by means of the descriptive statistics and measures of dependence between the variables. The results of the analyses were presented by taking into account the differentiation into the indicated independent variables (gender, age between 18–22 and 23–26 years old, city and field of study). The analysis used statistically significant structure indices (percentages) and measures of correlations between the variables. The relationships between the independent (explanatory) and dependent (explained) variables were presented on the basis of the non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, and the strength of the identified relationships was determined using the Cramer V coefficient, with the assumed critical level of significance p = 0.05.
The nonparametric Mann–Whitney U test allows for the comparison of two independent groups. It is the equivalent of the Student’s t-test for independent samples, used when the dependent variable does not meet the assumptions related to the normality of the distribution or is expressed on an ordinal scale. When carrying out statistical analysis using the Mann–Whitney U test, the mean ranks are compared with each other.
4. Results
In order to diagnose the involvement of the respondents in social media, an introductory question on the frequency of using the eight indicated media, characterized by the greatest popularity in Poland—Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn and TikTok, supplemented with the other category—was asked. The frequency was assessed on an ordinal scale built from three categories: systematically, sporadically and never. The distribution of the answers to this question is presented in
Table 2.
The analysis of the results showed a clear dominance of three of the above-mentioned social media—Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. In all of them, over 70% of the respondents declared systematic use. Every third respondent systematically uses Snapchat and TikTok. Other social media is less important—it usually plays a complementary role, and most of the respondents do not use it at all. Importantly, from the point of view of the research project, 99.1% of the respondents systematically use at least one social media, and the average number of social media indicated the level of 3.26. This confirms the assumption that social media is an important element of the modern world for the representatives of Generation Z, which they devote a lot of time to.
This was also confirmed by the number of followed influencers (
Table 3). Over 80% of the respondents systematically follow the activity of at least a few influencers on social media, with almost every respondent following at least four influencers, although some follow a dozen or so influencers.
The differences in the number of observed influencers are visible primarily in terms of gender, age and city, but they do not occur in the field of study. There is a slightly higher frequency of observing more influencers in the case of women, younger people and students in Rzeszow. However, these differences are not statistically significant—this was confirmed by the analysis of dependence using the Mann–Whitney U test. For each of these cross-sections, the asymptotic significance of the Z test exceeded the limit value of
p = 0.05, which means that there is no basis for stating the existence of a relationship between the dependent variable (the number of observed influencers) and the explanatory variables (gender, age, city, field of study) (
Table 4).
The analysis of the impact of influencers on consumer behavior was also analyzed (
Table 5). The respondents primarily declared a high level of a lack of confidence in influencers—38.8% indicated that their credibility was assessed as definitely or rather low. This translates into little interest in the activities promoted by influencers (the percentage of responses that were rather high and definitely high was at the level of 14.8%), the tendency to make decisions influenced by influencers (7.3%), changing consumption habits (12.4%), using featured apps (15.2%) and purchasing products or using services (17.5%). Only in the case of recommendations by influencers of places worth visiting, the percentage of respondents declaring a rather or definitely high propensity to take an influencer’s recommendation into account increased to 35.4%.
In the case of the assessment of susceptibility to influencers’ actions, there were quite large differences in individual correlation cross-sections.
Table 6 presents the appraisal of the statistical significance of these differences based on the Mann–Whitney U test. Out of twenty-eight relationships (seven dimensions of evaluation times four correlation cross-sections), twelve cases showed the significance level of the calculated test at a level not exceeding the critical level
p = 0.05. However, the strength of these relationships, calculated using the Cramer V coefficient, was small, and in no case exceeded the level of 0.2 (the maximum value was 0.198 in the case of the relationships between the willingness to buy or use services under the influence of influencers and gender—this was much more common in women than men).
The knowledge of green energy and its promotion was determined on the basis of a five-point scale (
Table 7). A high awareness of this issue should be noted—78.8% of respondents declared they knew it—and the conviction that it is necessary to use it—82.5% were certain of it in the context of the entire economy and 76.7% would be interested in switching to green energy. The respondents were also characterized by a high level of knowledge of the activities promoting green energy on the Internet. A total of 62.7% of them had contact with such activities. They also appreciated the potential role of influencers in this type of promotion. In total, 57.2% believed that they can effectively encourage the use of this energy, of which 11.8% were definitely convinced of it.
Additionally, in this case, statistically significant differences were visible. The use of the Mann–Whitney U test (
Table 8) for their identification and analysis showed the existence of statistically significant differences in ten out of twenty correlations (five dimensions of assessment times four correlation cross-sections). The independent variable, age, was found to be statistically significant with regards to being familiar with the concept of green energy as it was most often mentioned by respondents in the older group. Gender and field studies were, on the other hand, found to be statistically significant in respect of opinions concerning switching to green energy. This was most often indicated by women and persons with education in humanities and social sciences. While the men and persons from the older group indicated the most support for the use of the internet in promoting green energy, gender and age, as independent variables, were found to be statistically significant (in opposing relationship, though) in their belief in the potential effectiveness of influencers in encouraging green energy use. This view was more often expressed by women and younger respondents.
The last issue raised in the study concerned the preferences of the respondents with regard to the people most effectively influencing the decision to use green energy (
Table 9). The respondents indicated primarily an expert in the daily energy sector—such an answer was given by 56.7% of respondents. Relatives (friends) also had a significant power of influence—29.8% of responses. Although the respondents seemed to indicate that regular users, influencers and celebrities are of little significance in their decision-making process, it worthy of note that they had earlier suggested their suitability for promoting green energy.
5. Discussion
Social media research is well established in the traditional consumer sector. Although green marketing has consistently demonstrated its positive customer response in the area of green consumption, there is still room for further research. However, it was shown that social media plays a major role in increasing awareness and promoting environmentally friendly behavior [
81].
According to LTK—the largest global digital marketing platform—“With nearly 75% of Generation Z doing their shopping online, these consumers naturally look to their favorite influencers to serve as their guides to the Internet—flagging the best sales, researching the best quality items and curating all the must-haves of seasonal trends” [
69].
The analysis of our research results showed very similar trends in the use of social media. Three social media platforms dominate—Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. In each of them, over 70% of the respondents declared systematic use, and every third respondent systematically uses Snapchat and TikTok. The results of our research showed that other social media was of less importance.
However, the results of the impact of influencers on social media on the behavior of Generation Z consumers looked completely different. The impact of influencers on purchase intentions is of key importance here. The purchase intention measures the willingness of consumers to purchase a product or service. It means the sum of the cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects towards the adoption, purchase and use of a product, a service, an idea or certain behavior [
82]. In 1969, Howard and Sheth developed a consumer decision model—The Theory of Buyer Behavior Theory [
83]. This theory included the psychological, marketing and social conditions influencing the decision-making processes of consumers. On this basis, Javed et al. [
84] presented the multi-step flow theory suggesting that influencers have an extended network that passes the content to different levels. However, the attitude towards the influencer is not a precisely defined construct [
85].
Their impact on consumers’ purchase intentions is determined by the perceived credibility of the influencer. Credibility is the degree to which consumers trust the products, as well as the degree to which they trust the content about them [
86]. According to the theory, knowledge, similarity and attractiveness are elements of source credibility [
87]. Munnukka et al. [
88], Lou and Yuan [
89] as well as Balaban and Mustățea [
90] stated that attractiveness, credibility, knowledge and likeness were seen as important elements of perceived trust towards influencers on social media. In situations of uncertainty, consumers tend to seek information from other consumers who are similar to them [
91,
92].
Empirical research has shown the positive impact of perceived credibility (experts’ authority) [
45] on attitudes towards influencers, the brand as well as purchase intentions [
93,
94]. In addition, the perceived credibility of the content in question has remained one of the key factors considered while subscribing and indicating intention to buy on YouTube [
95]. Likewise, the credibility of influencers who are active on the social networks YouTube and Instagram is positively associated with one’s intention to buy [
96]. However, it should be remembered that social media credibility ratings are often biased, and false feedback is generated by the deliberate manipulation of online reviews [
97]. The trustworthiness of a given influencer plays a major role in changing consumers’ perceptions of their level of honesty, sincerity and truthfulness, constituting a fundamental element in determining their purchase intention [
98].
In this way, trust is created in the influencer and the content they transmit. Trust refers to the general expectation and belief that most others are well meaning and reliable as well [
99]. Influencers must develop a sense of trust in their followers. The user’s attitude towards the content changes with trust in the source [
100]. It has been proven that the influencer’s knowledge and credibility have an impact on the brand value [
101]. Credibility is closely related to honesty, which means that the recipient is sure of the content presented by the influencer [
102,
103,
104]. Trust is essential in any relationship as it improves efficiency, increases flexibility and helps in long-term relationships between both parties [
47,
105,
106]. Trust has long been identified as a significant factor in consumer–company relationships [
107,
108,
109,
110]. Morgan and Hunt [
111] define trust as confidence in the reliability and integrity of an exchange partner. Reliability and integrity are associated with consistency, competency, honesty, fairness, responsibility, helpfulness and benevolence. This value-based approach is supplemented with Rousseau et al.’s psychological view of the importance of human interactions [
112].
There are a number of studies on the credibility and trust of influencers and their impact on purchasing intentions and decisions [
90,
92,
98,
113,
114,
115,
116,
117,
118,
119].
Our research shows little impact of influencers and a low level of trust in them. This is in contrast with the aforementioned Kantar research conducted in Poland in 2020 [
68], where almost half of the respondents from Generation Z made a purchasing decision following the recommendation of an influencer. Such discrepancies can be related to many aspects. Influencers, for instance, have their favorite industries which they want to cooperate with: fashion, beauty, luxury goods, tourism or food, and they are very effective in these industries. The technology industry is slightly less popular [
120].
The variety of influencers and the type of products advertised by them, as well as the group of recipients, largely determine the results of the research. As previously stated, influencers can be contemporary opinion leaders. For many years, research on the influence exerted by opinion leaders has focused on the extent to which this phenomenon is related to a specific thematic, product category, etc., and to which it can be generalized. The most classic is the division made by R. Merton into monomorphic and polymorphic opinion leaders [
121]. In his view, monomorphic leaders are experts in specific areas. Polymorphic leaders rely on broad interpersonal influence over many, often unrelated domains. Perhaps Generation Z needs influencers—leaders of monomorphic opinions—since our research shows that more than half of the respondents believe that influencers can effectively encourage the use of green energy, but in addition, the largest number of respondents (56.7%) indicated that experts in the daily energy sector are the people who most effectively influence the decision to use green energy. It should be noted, however, that there must be a relationship between the influencer and the energy issue. This is generally consistent with the results of other studies—the perceived influencer–product congruence has a positive effect on the perception of credibility and the attitudes of followers towards influencers [
122]. In particular, the credibility of the influencer, trust in the message and the creation of the intention to purchase are affected by the skillful presentation of the message, e.g., through the use of storytelling [
123].
Consumer perspectives regarding sustainable energy technologies are influenced by several factors, including: the perceived costs, risks and benefits, positive and negative feelings in response to the technology, trust, procedural fairness and distributive fairness [
124]. Trust is, as a category, therefore, a crucial factor impacting the green Energy market. Interesting research results have emerged from studies conducted by Chinese scientists. Their study identifies opinion leaders on the issue of green power in social communities based on social community support level and influence power level [
80].
The results show the huge popularity of social media among the representatives of Generation Z. They also indicate a high degree of involvement of young consumers in tracking the activities of influencers. The tendency to use their recommendations in market activities is, however, accorded slightly less popularity. To some extent, this also applies to green energy. This is evidenced by the fact that over half of the respondents indicated the usefulness of influencers to promote their ideas. Despite this, the vast majority of respondents declared that the choice of green energy is determined by the opinions of other people, while the role of influencers is negligible. Thus, this confirms the hypothesis.
6. Conclusions and Limitations
The research findings may contribute to a better understanding of the attitudes and behaviors of Generation Z in the context of influencer marketing and green energy consumption. Undoubtedly, it should be emphasized that social media and the influencer marketing used within them play a large role in shaping the attitudes and behavior of Generation Z. The key problem, however, is the critical assessment of influencers’ credibility and the diversified tendency to follow their suggested behaviors (as evidenced by the high percentage of respondents (40%) indicating a lack of trust in influencers, and a small tendency to submit to their suggestions, as shown by the impact indicators of 50–60%). In particular, this applies to activities of great importance, as well as in the area of decision making regarding energy use. The selection of reliable influencers is crucial in this respect. In order to effectively influence Generation Z followers, influencers must have features that increase their credibility in a specific field, e.g., expert knowledge (an expert is considered, in this study, as a person most effective in influencing the decision to use green energy by over 56% of respondents). Relying on universal recognition, which often relies on controversies accompanying such influencers and the aggressive promotion of many goods and services, is not a guarantee for building trust in the influencer. Rather, it only contributes to how they are treated as celebrities whose activity is followed on social media but does not necessarily result in imitation. The data on a large number of tracked influencers showed that over 72% of people follow just a few influencers seems to support this argument.
When analyzing the results, one could notice some limitations. The first is the study population itself. The research was conducted on a group of young people belonging to Generation Z but recruited only among students of two academic centers. Generally, they are characterized by a higher level of knowledge, including knowledge about green energy and its features and benefits, more than young people who do not study. It would certainly be worthwhile to include other groups with lower education, living in various types (sizes) of localities, not having contact with the knowledge of green energy, with different professional activities and with different housing statuses.
In future studies, taking into account the significance of the issue, we propose to extend the scope by increasing the sample and diversifying its structure in order to reach the full cross-section of Generation Z and thus increase the representativeness of the study. It would also allow researchers to look for other, more in-depth relationships between the attitudes of the respondents. It would also be worth focusing on deepening the attitudes towards social networks and influencer activity as well as their impact on the behavior of followers and their intentions to purchase various products and services, including municipal services. It would also be important to recognize the features that credible influencers should have.