CClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT06433466Updated May 29, 2024

Influencer Marketing: a Survey-based Experiment

An interventional study of Videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities in Vaping, sponsored by University of Southern California. Completed at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 24 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2024-05-29.

Sponsored by University of Southern California · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other

From the registry’s dates

  • Registered 1 year after the study started (first participant enrolled May 2023, registered May 2024).
Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
1,500
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years to 24 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Young adults (N = 1,500) will participate in the online survey-based experiment. They will be randomly shown 10 videos, featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities (experimental group), or a healthy lifestyle activity alone (control). After watching each video, participants will rate perceptions of influencer credibility (i.e., honesty, trustworthiness, knowledge, attractiveness, intelligence, and popularity) on the scale of 0 (e.g., dishonest) to 100 (honest).

Among all participants, harm perceptions of e-cigarettes will be assessed. Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes will be assessed among never users. These outcomes will then be compared among participants who perceived influencers as credible and those who perceived influencers as non-credible.

Read the detailed description

Young adults (18-24 years of age) living in California were recruited by YouGov marketing research panel to participate in a survey on tobacco-related attitudes and behaviors. YouGov, a research panel agency, has been used in prior research to survey young adults about their tobacco-related attitudes and behaviors. Respondents (N=1,500) were matched to a sampling frame based on gender, age, race, and education. The sampling frame was a politically representative modeled frame of United States (U.S.) adults based on the American Community Survey. The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using a propensity score matching procedure. Participants were provided with a survey URL link. After completing informed consent, participants completed the survey online. The study was approved by the University of Southern California Institutional Review Board (UP-21-00135). Respondents were randomly assigned to watch 10 10-second long TikTok videos in either experimental (influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities ) or control group (influencers showing healthy lifestyle activity alone).

02

Conditions studied

  • Vaping
03

In context

Lead sponsor

University of Southern California is the lead sponsor of 773 studies on the registry; 135 are open to participants now.

Of its 68 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 32 (47%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 24 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Inclusion criteria

  • 18-24 years of age,
  • English fluency,
  • Current California resident.

The survey was sampled to be representative by age group (18 to 24) and gender, and was weighted to be representative by age, gender, race, and educational attainment using propensity score weighting.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

Not meeting these criteria:

  • 18-24 years of age,
  • English fluency,
  • Current California resident.
05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Other
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Factorial assignment
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
1,500 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    Videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities

    Young adults were randomly shown 10 videos, featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities (experimental group).

    Other: Videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities

  • Active comparator
    Videos featuring influencers showing healthy lifestyle activities

    Young adults were randomly shown 10 videos, featuring influencers promoting healthy lifestyle activity alone (control).

    Other: Videos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities

Interventions

  • OtherVideos featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities

    Young adults were randomly shown 10 videos, featuring influencers promoting e-cigarettes alongside healthy lifestyle activities (experimental group), or a healthy lifestyle activity alone (control).

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. harm perceptions of e-cigarettes

    Responses to the question, "Do you think vaping e-cigarettes is harmful to your health?" were measured on a Likert scale, ranging from "definitely yes" (1), "probably yes" (2), to "probably not (3)," "definitely not (4)." The measure represents one validated item from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH).

    Time frame: one-time assessment after the experimental exposure (immediately post-treatment)

  2. Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes

    Susceptibility to use e-cigarettes was measured (among never-users of e-cigarettes), using the validated three-item scale adapted from PATH, and combined into one variable (α=0.93). Consistent with prior research, the measure was dichotomized with responses "definitely not" to all items being coded as "not susceptible" and responses "probably not," "probably yes", or "definitely yes" being coded as "susceptible."

    Time frame: one-time assessment after the experimental exposure (immediately post-treatment)

  3. Perceptions of influencer credibility

    Perceptions of influencer credibility (i.e., honesty, trustworthiness, knowledge, intelligence, attractiveness, and popularity) were assessed using a 0 (e.g., dishonest) -100 (e.g., honest) scale that has been validated in prior research.

    Time frame: assessed 10 times after each video (during treatment, immediately after each video)

07

Study locations

1 site
  • YouGov, online
    Los Angeles, California 94102, United States
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: No

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Updates

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on May 29, 2024, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT06433466
Lead sponsor
University of Southern California
Responsible party
Jennifer Unger (Professor, University of Southern California) — Principal investigator
First posted
May 29, 2024
Start date
May 1, 2023
Primary completion
Jun 30, 2023
Completion
Jun 30, 2023
Last update
May 29, 2024

Oversight

FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in May 2024. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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