Abstract
In reality, some influencers who publicly share failures can gain more attention, which defies common sense. Existing research primarily focuses on the depth of self-disclosure by influencers, which fails to explain the current phenomena. Here, we focus on negative self-disclosure and explore whether an influencer's proactive disclosure of failures can enhance purchase intentions, along with the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of this strategy. We conducted three online experiments on the Credamo platform. Study 1 (N = 94) explored the main and mediating effect, whereas Study 2 (N = 238) and Study 3 (N = 238) investigated the moderating effects of observer and influencer characteristics, respectively. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) Influencers' proactive disclosures of failures can boost purchase intentions when recommending products; (2) perceived authenticity plays a mediating role in this process; (3) the degree of viewers' self-discrepancy moderates the mediating effect of perceived authenticity; and (4) influencers' follower scale moderates the impact on purchase intentions. This study offers practical implications for influencers on how to enhance marketing effectiveness through self-disclosure.