K-Food and Influencer Marketing: How Silver vs. Young Influencers Shape Consumer Preferences Across Consumer Gender and Generation

This study examines how influencer generation type (silver vs. young influencers) influences consumer preferences for K-Food collaboration products and through which psychological mechanisms these effects occur. Drawing on the Stereotype Content Model (SCM), the study focuses on perceived warmth and perceived competence as key mediators and investigates whether these mediation processes differ by consumer gender and generation. An experiment was conducted with 207 consumers aged between their 20s and 50s. Moderated mediation analyses were performed using PROCESS Model 7. The results show that the effects of influencer generation type on consumer preferences differ systematically by consumer gender and generation through distinct psychological pathways. Specifically, perceived warmth served as the primary mechanism linking silver influencers to higher product preference among female consumers and young consumers, whereas this pathway did not play a meaningful role for male consumers and middle-aged consumers. In contrast, perceived competence emerged as the dominant mechanism linking young influencers to higher product preference among male consumers and middle-aged consumers, while this pathway was not salient for female consumers and young consumers. This study contributes to influencer marketing and consumer behavior literature by extending SCM to the context of influencer age and by demonstrating that influencer effectiveness depends on the alignment between influencer attributes and consumers’ psychological priorities rather than simple demographic similarity. The findings also provide practical and policy-relevant insights for developing more targeted and effective influencer strategies in the expanding K-Food market.