Influencer Marketing Affect Consumer Purchase Decisions On Cimory Product

Social media influencers are the ones who become famous for their skills. As a result, influencers have many followers. Influencer credibility impacts consumers` willingness to shop for products, such a lot of manufacturers pay influencers to promote their products. Influencers do not influence sales but through several processes such as increasing brand awareness, brand image


INTRODUCTION
Marketing activities are greatly helped by the disruption of technology, especially the increasing number of people who are digitally connected. Technology has been used to develop digital marketing strategies, which are devoted to marketing activities in the digital world such as social media. One of the digital marketing strategies that brands usually use is to hire influencers as part of their digital marketing strategy. Social media influencer are someone who has become famous online because of their knowledge and/or expertise on a particular topic such as food, fashion, technology, travel, music, movies, and sports (Lou & Yuan, 2019).
Influencers have diverse followers, but in general, each social media influencer has followers who are in certain market segmentation. In hiring influencers, brands must ensure that the characteristics of the followers of these influencers match the targeted market segmentation. Therefore, if a brand hires a social media influencer and the influencer promotes a brand related to their area of expertise, consumers may easily trust and accept the influencer's opinion. This condition makes using social media influencers for marketing communications an efficient and valuable tool for brands. (De Veirman et al., 2017). Based on a study conducted by Schouten et al. (2020), it is known that in this digital era there has been a disruption that has made influencers surpass celebrity endorsers. Consumers can identify more influencers than celebrities, feel more similar to influencers than celebrities, and trust influencers more than celebrities. This fact allows brands to approach consumers through influencers, as brands prefer to pay influencers over celebrities. An influencer is a representation of the brand, consumers evaluate congruence between influencer and brand based on their concern about brand ethicality and brand credibility, which generates an attitude toward the brand and purchase intention (Cespedes-Dominguez et al., 2021). Influencers are more trusted by consumers than online reviews given by other consumers, this happen due to the trust factor because consumers feel they know influencers better than other people they don't know (Dwidienawati et al., 2020). According to Wang et al. (2018), Strong bond relationships can strengthen word-of-mouth and increase consumer purchasing decisions. Therefore, the consumer considers the opinions of those they knows. Information credibility was a significant factor in consumers' decision to adopt word of mouth, this means information credibility becomes a significant factor because if the consumer does not trust the information, the purchase intention will get lower (Sardar et al., 2021). Saima & Khan (2021), in their research found that influencer credibility has the most significant influence on consumer purchase intentions. Influencer credibility itself is influenced by consumer trust in Shiller, the quality of information shared by shiller, and the entertainment value in content created by shiller. Thus, a brand must choose influencers who can be trusted by their followers and can create quality and entertaining content, which in turn can affect consumer credibility and purchase intention. Influencers also play a role in the formation of word of mouth marketing according to research by Mahmud et al., (2020). Choi (2018), found that information quality, information credibility, information needs, and attitudes towards information increase consumers' word of mouth, and consumers' word of mouth can increase their purchase intention.
Therefore, influencers help build consumer reviews based on the quality and reliability of information. According to Torres et al. (2019), trust toward word of mouth have a significant impact on purchase intention. Although word of mouth can affect consumers' decisionmaking, there is still not enough evidence or research to know how consumers actively consume and process information from word of mouth during different stages of the decision process (King et al., 2014). In addition, according to Pramesti (2019), word of mouth can also affect brand image, brand image is created by consumers subjectively and is influenced by consumers' emotions. Brand image is one of the important things that must be considered in marketing. In a study conducted by Masato (2021), it was found that the role of influencer or celebrity endorser significantly influences the brand image and consumer purchasing decisions. In addition to brand image and word of mouth, influencers are also proven to affect brand awareness. Research conducted by Andreani et al. (2021), found that social media influencers have a significant effect on brand awareness and influence purchasing decisions. The study also found that brand awareness can significantly influence purchasing decisions. Influencers do not necessarily affect sales but through several processes such as increasing brand awareness, brand image, and is expected to trigger word of mouth marketing among consumers. One of the brands that is aggressively promoting using influencers is Cimory, Cimory is a company that sells dairy products, this company is a new player in the dairy industry. Cimory is very aggressive in promoting its products on social media. Cimory tries to attract the attention of its consumers by paying influencers who often review food on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Cimory's use of influencers is quite interesting, some influencers create content to buy Cimory products at minimarkets to get consumers' attention. This makes research on the influence of influencers on brand image, brand awareness and purchase decisions interesting to observe. Based on several previous studies, it has not been studied comprehensively how influencers employed by brands can influence consumer purchasing decisions through word of mouth, brand awareness, and brand image. Therefore, this survey explores the role of influencers in influencing purchasing decisions through word of mouth, brand awareness, and brand image.The hypothesis in this study is as follows: H1: It is assumed that Influencers affect Word Of Mouth. H2: It is assumed that Influencers affect brand awareness of the Cimory brand. H3: It is assumed that Influencers affect the brand image of the Cimory brand. H4: It is assumed that Influencers affect the Purchase Decision of Cimory products. H5: It is assumed that Word of Mouth affects brand awareness of the Cimory brand. H6: It is assumed that Word of Mouth affects the brand image of the Cimory brand. Agro Ekonomi Vol. 33/Issue 2, December 2022 83 H7: It is assumed that Word of Mouth affects purchasing decisions for Cimory products. H8: It is assumed that brand awareness affects purchasing decisions for Cimory products. H9: It is assumed that brand awareness affects the brand image of the Cimory brand. H10: It is assumed that brand image affects purchasing decisions for Cimory products.

METHODS
The method used in this research is the descriptive, The descriptive method used for this research is the survey method. This research was conducted by surveying 300 people who had seen content created by influencers that using social media to share their content, and the influencers share their experience when consume Cimory products. All samples were taken by accidental sampling method. Sampling was carried out in November 2021 by relying on social media, questionnaires in the form were distributed via Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, and telegram. The questionnaire was given using a Likert scale. Sugiyono (2016), states that the Likert scale is a measurement of respondents' opinions, attitudes, and behavior, the data will be obtained in the form of rankings. The following is the answer form on a Likert scale: • Strongly Agree = 5 • Agree = 4 • Neutral = 3 • Disagree = 2 • Strongly Disagree = 1 To measure the validity of a questionnaire given to respondents, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was used. The significant value of the factor used in this study was 0.5 (Bahri, 2015). Cronbach's alpha value greater than or equal to 0.5 is declared valid.
In addition to the validity test, a reliability test is also carried out which serves to measure a questionnaire. The questionnaire is said to be reliable if the construct reliability value is > 0.7 (Ghozali, 2016). After that, the data normality test was carried out with Univariate and Multivariate Normality, namely analyzing the level of normality of the data used in this study. Univariate sees the CR value on Skewness around ± 2.58 (Santoso, 2018).
However, if the value is outside this number, it can be tolerated if the Multivariate value is still around ± 2.58. After that, the overall model fit is checked, whether it is fit or needs to be re-specified to make it fit. There are several goodness of fit tests used in this study, the criteria used in each goodness of fit test are as follows:

Figure 1. Model after GoF test
After collecting response from 300 respondents, the data being tested for validity and reliability test using confirmatory factor analysis. The result from validity and reability test show that the indicator influencer (x1), word of mouth(Y1), brand awareness (Y2), brand Image (Y3) and Purchase decision (Z) are valid and reliable. After that, the model must tested with several goodness of fit test to mesure the model in this research are fit. Figure 1 is a model that has been respecified after adding the covariance  (Latan, 2013).
Another test for the model at figure 1 is GFI and AGFI, the result shows that the model was fit.

H1: It is suspected that Influencers have an effect on Word of Mouth.
The total effect of X1(Influencer) on Y1 (Word of Mouth) is 0.851, this results suggests that the increased use of influencers to promote the brand has led to increased word-of-mouth, or a consumer desire to talk about the Cimory brand. This situations happens because consumers trust influencers with the goods they promote, or the influencers can make their follower believe it's pure review not commercial content. According to Nyilasy (2006), Even if the word-of-mouth content is commercial, the communicator is not commercially motivated, or at least the recipient recognizes that The total effect of X1 on Y2 is 0.352, this indicates that when the influencer variable increases, brand awareness increases too. This result illustrates the effect of using influencers, influencers had an audience that believe influencers word. The audience or followers of influencer will believe influencers word as long as the audience feel the influencer is credible. According to Saima (2021), entertainment value has a significant direct effect on Influencer credibility, if consumer feel the content not interesting, they leave it.

H3: It is suspected that Influencers affect the brand image of the Cimory brand.
The total effect of X1 on Y3 is 0.765. In other words, influencer have a positive impact on brand image, so increasing influencer usage can improve your brand image in Cimory. The use of influencers has proven to have a positive impact on Cimory's brand image. Using influencers who are able to serve ads among entertaining content can affect positive brand image. This outcome is comparable to Weismueller (2020) who found that influencers can affect consumer confidence in a brand because of consumer confidence in the influencer, thereby increasing the brand image of the brand.

H4: It is suspected that the influencer affects the decision to buy Cimory products.
The total effect of X1 on Z is 0.645, this indicates that increased influencer usage can influence purchase decision. According to Saima (2021), entertainment value has a significant direct effect on Influencer credibility , and influencer credibility will affect the purchase decision. It makes brand can hire influencer for increasing their sales, but brand must chose influencer wisely because when the influencer doesn't have great credibility, it can make the sales decreasing.

H5: It is suspected that Word of Mouth affects brand awareness of the Cimory brand.
The total effect of Y1 on Y2 is 0.983, this means that the word-of-mouth has a positive impact on the brand awareness. It is similar with Lou (2019), Lou found that the word-of-mouth delivered by influencer had significant effect to brand awareness. The more people who know about the Cimory brand, the more people will consider buying a Cimory product.

H6: It is suspected that Word of Mouth affects the brand image of the Cimory brand.
The total effect of Y1 on Y3 is 0.481, this means that the word of mouth has a positive impact on the brand image so that when there is an increase in word of mouth the brand image will increased too, this results similar with Pramesti (2018) who found that brand image mediates the influence of word of mouth before influencing consumer purchasing decisions. According to Wood (2017), Word-of-mouth marketing has a significant impact on consumer preferences and purchases. As a result, word of mouth about a brand is now crucial, and brands must manage this word of mouth. If a brand can spread positive reviews about their brand, it will enhance their brand image. H7: It is suspected that Word of Mouth affects purchasing decisions for Cimory products. The total effect of Y1 on Z is 0.347. This indicates that the word of mouth has a positive effect on purchasing decisions, this results similar with Masato (2021) who found that word of mouth can influence purchasing decisions. In addition, according to Khasanah et al. (2021), Since consumer purchasing decisions are also influenced by the quality of the product, brands need to maintain the quality of the product, which can lead to the creation of wordof-mouth. The word of mouth effect will increase positive impact if the product had a good quality. H8: It is suspected that brand awareness affects purchasing decisions for Cimory products. The total effect of Y2 on Z is 0,436, this indicates that when people realize the existence of the Cimory brand, they will put Cimory brand on their mind to considering it. according to Schiffman (2019), consumer had a along journey before make a purchase decision. Brand awareness is the first step to make the consumer buy cimory products, influencer is a tool to pursue consumer to immediately make a purchase decision. The positive impact from brand awareness to purchasing decisions is in accordance with Shahid's research (2017) which found that consumers will only buy products they know well, the more consumers know about a brand, the more likely a consumer is to buy or consume products from a brand. H9: It is suspected that brand awareness affects the brand image of the Cimory brand. The total effect of Y2 on Y3 is 0.489, this means the brand awareness has a positive effect on brand image. This results similar with Dülek (2020) that found brand awareness had a positive impact on brand image, increasing brand awareness can affect increasing brand image.

H10: It is suspected that brand image affects purchasing decisions for Cimory products.
The total effect of Y3 on Z is 0.945, which means that the brand image variable has a positive effect on purchasing decisions so that an increase in the brand image can affect purchasing decisions. Which means it can increase sales of Cimory products. This result had a similar result with Torlak et al. (2014), that there is a significant impact of brand image on purchase intention. Masato (2021) discovered in another study that celebrity endorsers have a good and significant impact on the brand image, which implies that the better the celebrity endorser, the better the brand image will be. Additionally, brand image has a positive and considerable impact on buy intention. In other words, the stronger a brand's image, the more likely it is to be able to increase purchase intention. These two studies support the findings of this study and provide more proof that influencer marketing is a crucial component of digital marketing in the globalized world today.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that influencers are proven to have a positive influence on word of mouth, brand awareness, brand image and purchase decisions. This data demonstrates the significance of influencers in digital marketing. If a firm wants to connect with customers online, influencer marketing is a wonderful strategy. Based on the results of this study, further research is needed on the right strategy in the use of influencers to maximizing the positive effect from the influencers.