The cosmetic industry has shown rapid growth worldwide and is seen as a profitable business yet highly competitive. A popular grab-attention strategy being adopted worldwide by the brand manufacturers is celebrity endorsement to improve the effectiveness of the advertisement. Despite its popularity, companies increasingly abandoning it in favor of social media influencers due to the popularity of social media and online stores. However, the effectiveness of this new way of communication using an influencer is not well understood. To address this gap, this research investigated the influence of social media influencer credibility (attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise) on advertising effectiveness (attitude toward the product, attitude toward the advertisement, and purchase intention to ensure if it is suitable to hire a social media influencer to advertise cosmetic products in Malaysia over a celebrity. The finding can serve as a reference to help cosmetic products marketers to develop effective ads using source credibility to communicate with their customers and stand out from the surrounding media clutter.

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One of the strategies that are used by companies to differentiate their cosmetic products is celebrity endorsement. Despite this popular advertising technique, researchers and advertisers have not agreed as to which celebrity source characteristics are most effective in influencing consumers' purchase intention. Another important factor that affects consumers' purchase intention is the consumer ethnocentrism level. Consumers in different countries have different preference over local and international products. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to examine the source credibility theory with the moderating role of ethnocentrism. The result suggests that celebrity endorsers' trustworthiness (TR), attractiveness (AT), and expertise (EX) had a significant positive influence on cosmetic product purchase intention (CPPI). The moderating role of ethnocentrism between AT, TR, and CPPI were examined and found to be significant. This indicates that AT and TR are stronger when consumers' ethnocentrism is high.