The Hot College Gig: Online Brand Promoter

I think you vastly underestimate how easily impressionable teens and young adults are. Why do you think companies still use celebrities? I sure as shit wouldn't buy anything because a Kardashian said so, but millions of young women would. Savvy to it or not, they just don't care if it's a paid promo.

I don't know if this satisfies your definition of evidence, but Tinder's execs have previously spoken about how it's what they used to form their initial userbase.

I believe Yik Yak also pursued a similar strategy.

It's complex, I suspect that "influencers" are inferior to other kinds of marketing, but the reason isn't obviousness. There is evidence that this works even if you know exactly what's happening.

I know people that plan this sort of campaigns and it works on them, too, when it's done by others. The idea is more to estabilish legitimacy for a brand (even just being -seen- often is useful for this) and create awareness that a product exists more than to directly sell it.

One of memories of Psychology 101 is that people will retain brand preferences by the mid to late 20's for the better part of the rest of their adulthood so the earlier you can imprint your product on them, the better the opportunity for marketing to work. It's also why TV advertising can charge so much more for shows with a younger demographic (> 18).

That's also like every dating article

1) Be attractive

2) Don't be unattractive