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Indonesian Beauty Vloggers’ Use of English and Its Influence towards its Viewers’ Purchase Intention

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Vlog or video blog is now booming along with the existence of YouTube. In Indonesia, YouTube is a third rank of most visiting website in Indonesia (https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/ID). This social media platform is advantageously employed to filming the actions which are easily accessed by public and it offers free video hosting which means vloggers may post unlimited videos without paying web hosting fees. Some vloggers perform videos for fun while others display for revenue generating through advertisements. Westenberg (cited in Subramani & Rajagopalan, 2003:302) mentions that YouTubers are influential in encouraging trial and adoption of new products and services. In line with Westenberg’s idea, Edward (2011:11) adds that “interactive advertising can be targeted in more sophisticated ways than print ads, we must recognize that power of social media as means of persuasion is far beyond that of another vehicle in which to serve advertising.” These two complementary propositions interest the researchers to conduct a deeper investigation about some vlogs on YouTube with the other variable of parameter, English use. The use of English gives efficacious consequence on advertisements. Biswal (2009:32) strongly mentioned that the use of two languages attracts consumers. Thus, capturing the four Indonesian beauty vloggers, assorted by the two who frequently insert some English codes and the other two who rarely interpolate them, as the object of research, this current investigation examines its use and influence towards viewers’ purchase intention. Questionnaire as helpful instrument is going to be delivered to viewers to see their purchase intention based on the indicators proposed by Schiffman and Kanuk (2009). The result shows that English codes do not significantly influence the viewers’ purchase intention. Viewers prefer beauty vlogs which are variously performed (not monotonous), humorously presented, and politely language-used. Besides, the content of the vlogs should be novel and honest.