Impact of reel marketing on purchase intention

Abstract

The usage of internet and time spent by people online on social platforms, exploded during the pandemic, all over the globe. That is same around which Instagram launched it’s new Reel feature. Reels are 30 seconds or less videos, which can be edited to add music, video, text in it. According to experts, the pandemic has resulted in mental exhaustion of individuals. And it directly impacts the attention span, as there is a shift in attention span of individuals. People do not have the patience to read long posts or watch long videos. This trend has worked in favor of Reels feature in Instagram. Once you open the Reels section, you have an option to keep on scrolling the reels one after the other by just the swipe of your thumb. This makes Reels highly addictive. While you are swiping, both sponsored and non-sponsored content comes up. You don’t need to be an influencer for your reel to show up in someone’s feed. This enables you to reach a larger audience, who can engage with your content even if they are not your followers on Instagram. As it happens with all the new trends, how can digital marketers be behind this time? Many companies in various industries have tapped in the power of reel marketing to increase the user engagement with their brand and reach a larger audience. The report analyses the impact of Reel marketing on consumer engagement and purchase intention. We have formed three hypotheses, where we are trying to check whether reel marketing done by brands have a positive impact on customer engagement and purchase intention. We have later checked the same for a sub-group of 18 to 35 years old. The reason for taking this sub-group is that a major portion of Indians on the social media platforms, belong to this demographic. Univariate analysis of variance and regression was performed using SPSS software. Survey data was used for this purpose to test whether each of the three hypotheses is statistically significant or not. All three of our hypotheses including direct, mediating and moderating hypothesis, proved significant at 95% confidence interval. This shows that reel marketing positively impacts the customer engagement and also leads to an increase in the purchase intention of consumers. We also proved that this effect is especially significant for our chosen age group of 18 to 35 years old.