1. The Rise of the Selfies
An In-Depth Research Analysis of Selfies in the Marketplace
Emillie Benka, Dan Lenge, Alex Lukens, Kaitlyn O’Brien,
Kelsey Rodgers, Kim Ryder, and Andrew Smith
MKTG 482
Dr. Hemant Patwardhan
December 9, 2015
The Rise of the Selfies: An In-Depth ResearchAnalysis of Selfies in the Marketplace
Recognizing the selfie trend that consumes today’s society, this study seeks to understand
the impact selfies have on marketing and consumers. To study this phenomenon, a survey was

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developed and administered to 226 participants, producing 208 usable responses. The survey
was structured with the following objectives in mind: to understand why people take selfies, to
understand the impact selfies have on marketing, to understand the opinions people have toward
selfies and the people who take them, and to understand the correlation between selfies and
narcissism.
The survey consisted of 60 questions that were categorized into five subsets of questions:
general selfie usage, the self and selfies, selfies and marketing, selfies and others, and
demographics. The questions were formatted to produce categorical and interval level data with
forced response to minimize non-response. The survey was administered using Qualtrics
research software and data was collected for 226 respondents. However, 18 responses were
deemed unusable and were eliminated from analysis. Approximately two-thirds of the 208
person sample consisted primarily of female respondents and about 65% were in the 18-22 or the
40 or older age range.
The data was analyzed through inferential and descriptive statistical analysis with SPSS
Statistics software. Independent samples t-tests, one way ANOVAs, correlations, and
regressions were performed on the data at a 10% level of significance. Through this analysis, we
were able to conclude that people take selfies for a variety of reasons, but they do not like to
admit the true motivations for posting selfies because they are insecure and merely wish to be
accepted by their peers and society. We can also conclude from this study that products featured
in friends’ and celebrities’ selfies impact consumers’ intent to use the featured product. But
products featured in friends’ selfies, particularly friends they like, are more trusted. We can also
see from the research that females in the 18-22 age range are most likely to take selfies. While
the analysis did not support that people who take selfies are narcissistic, the discrepancies in
responses showed that people do not understand the true motivations behind their behaviors.
These discrepancies indicate the true motivation behind posting selfies: to gain acceptance from
society. With this knowledge, we recommend that companies use selfies as a marketing tool. We
also recommend that companies place an emphasis on selfie-improving product features in
advertising as consumers have not yet embraced selfie-enhancing products.
Introduction:
Selfies, “A photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a
smartphone or webcam and shared via social media.” Selfies started to become a global
phenomenon in 2013. Oxford English Dictionary announced the word selfie to be the word of the
year in November 2013. With this selfie phenomenon, a number of selfie-related products have

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entered the marketplace, perhaps the most popular being the selfie stick. Social media has also
been greatly impacted with selfies plastered across the Instagrams of teens and parents alike.
While it is clear that society has largely become selfie centered, the impact selfies have
on the marketplace and the effectiveness of selfie based marketing have yet to be fully evaluated,
leaving much room for discovery. Thus, in an effort to understand the selfie obsession and the
impact it has on marketing and consumers, we have completed an in-depth analysis of selfies in
the marketplace through the administration of a survey.
To gain a full understanding of the topic, the survey was structured around the following
objectives:
➢ To understand why people take selfies.
➢ To understand the impact selfies have on marketing.
➢ To understand the opinions people have toward selfies and the people who take them.
➢ To understand the correlation between selfies and narcissism.
Through observation, it is evident that this selfie obsession spans several generations,
with numbers of grandparents taking selfies with their grandchildren. Thus, we sought to obtain
feedback from males and females of all ages. (We restricted the survey to people over 18 to
avoid legal issues with informed consent). The survey was administered to a convenience sample
comprised of individuals across a variety of age ranges.
The data obtained from the 208 responses to the survey were analyzed for their relevance
to the research objectives. Much of the data were found to lie beyond the scope of this study, but
the material found to be relevant to the above-stated objectives was analyzed. Through this
analysis, we were able to identify ways companies could incorporate this trend into advertising
and marketing their products to consumers.
ResearchMethodology:
To begin the research process, our team identified the selfie trend as an area of research
and determined the information about selfies we wanted to learn about. From this, objectives
were created for the research study and many questions were created to help us reach those
objectives. As a team, the questions were reviewed and the ones that did not fully help reach our
objectives were thrown out. With these questions, a 60 question survey was developed and
formatted to produce categorical and interval level data.

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The team then input the survey into Qualtrics based off of the questionnaire. Each of our
team members took the survey to establish that it was structurally firm and aesthetically pleasing.
Once it was tested, the survey was finalized by grouping the data to ensure the fluidity of the
questions. The majority of the questions were interval level questions with a likert scale
construction, but some questions, such as demographics, were categorical. The Qualtrics survey
had a total of 60 questions that were broken up into five different groups. These groups were
General Selfie Usage, The Self and Selfies, Selfies and Marketing, Selfies and Others, and
Demographic Questions. The survey questions were preceded by the following statement:
“We are students of a marketing research class and are conducting a survey on
selfies in the marketplace for class credit. We would appreciate you taking ten minutes to
give us your honest responses. Your participation is voluntary and will remain
anonymous. All data will be confidential. Thank you for your participation.”
The survey was opened for participants on October 21st, 2015 and it was closed on
October 30th, 2015. The survey was administered online by distributing a link to a non-
probability convenience sample comprised of friends and family. Social media was used to reach
a large group of people in a short amount of time. Surveys were also distributed via email and it
was asked that our participants forward it out to their friends and family.
Using this method of distribution, 226 people responded to the survey. However, several
people did not finish taking the survey while others did not seem to take the survey seriously as
was indicated by their absurd responses to the ethnicity question. (For example, one person
indicated his ethnicity as “blue.”)Thus, these responses were not included in the analysis, leaving
208 responses for analysis.
The data collected from the Qualtrics survey was imported into SPSS to analyze the
results. The data was then coded to reflect the wording of the questions from the survey. The
survey questions were then categorized by objective for ease of analysis. The data was analyzed
using descriptive and inferential statistics. Independent samples T-tests, one way ANOVAs,
regressions, and correlations were performed at a 10% level of significance. Marketing
recommendations were then made based on the results of these tests.
Sample and Sample Characteristics:
This survey was distributed to a variety of participants using a non-probability sampling
technique. Using this method, 226 people responded to the survey. Due to incompletion and
uncooperative respondents, 18 responses were discarded leaving 208 responses for analysis. Of
these participants almost twice as many females were sampled as males (134:73:1). The
participants were primarily in the 18-22 (35.1%) and the 40 or older age ranges (30.29%) but
with a large portion in the 23-27 year old age range (24.04%) (Figure 1). Of the 208 participants,
188 were caucasian, making up over 90% of the sample. The majority of participants identified
as being currently single, with only 37% of them identifying as married or in a domestic
partnership. Out of the total 208 participants, 83 responded as having 1 child or more (Figure 2).

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In addition, the majority of the sample (84%) has an education level of some college or greater
(Figure 3).
Figure 1: Frequencydistribution of age ranges within the sample.
Figure 2: Frequencydistribution of number of children across 83 parents in the sample.

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Figure 3: Frequencydistribution of level of education.
Data Analysis:
Objective 1 >To understand why people take selfies: To understand the most common
reasons people post selfies, we developed statements offering a variety of reasons as to why
people post selfies and asked respondents to evaluate the accuracy of these statements on a likert
scale. These statements included the following:
➢ I take selfies to boost my confidence.
➢ I take selfies to show off.
➢ I take selfies to stay relevant or to “fit in.”
➢ I take selfies to keep my friends in touch with my life.
➢ I take selfies to convey a message.
➢ I take selfies to show off a product.
➢ I am more likely to post a selfie during/after a special event or occasion.
➢ I am afraid people will forget me if I do not post selfies on social media.
Figure 4 shows the mean results of respondents’ feelings toward these statements. From
this we found that, with a mean of 3.67, people are more likely to post a selfie during or after a
special event or occasion than for any other reason. Overall respondents said they “disagree”
with the statements of showing off and fitting in, with means of 2.07 and 2.03 respectively.
However, posting a selfie for a special event or occasion is a way of showing off and fitting in.
The variance between these findings causes a disconnect between respondents’ behaviors and

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how they personally view those behaviors. This disconnect occurs on a subconscious level,
though. Respondents are unable to comprehend the belief that they are trying to “show off” or
“fit in” when posting selfies during or after a special event or occasion.
Figure 4: Mean results of respondents’ reasons for taking selfies.
Objective 2 > To understand the impact selfies have on marketing: To gain a better
understanding of the impact of selfies on marketing, we first asked if people market products in
their own selfies. We found that, on average, people are neutral about promoting a product in a
selfie (2.85). However, 73 people (35%) indicated that they “agree” or “strongly agree” with the
statement “I am more likely to take a selfie with a product than alone.”
We then tested the difference of impact in product promoting on friends’ selfies and
celebrities’ selfies. These results can be seen in Figure 5. When asked if people have a better
opinion of products they have seen featured in a friends’ selfies, the mean was 2.63, but for
products in celebrities’ selfies the average response was slightly lower at 2.46. Next, we asked
our audience if they are more likely to use products they have seen featured in friends’ selfies
compared to celebrity selfies. The mean for friends’ selfies was 2.73 while celebrities was 2.39.
We also asked if they were willing to spend more money on products featured in selfies.The
mean for friends’ selfies was 2.39 and for celebrities’ selfies was 2.23. Lastly, we asked the
respondents if they were more likely to recommend a product to a friend if they have seen it
featured in friends’ selfies compared to celebrities’ selfies. The mean for friends’ selfies was
2.50 while the celebrity mean was 2.34.
Although the numbers were close, the statements pertaining to friends’ selfies produced
means that were a bit higher than the statements pertaining to celebrities’ selfies. We can
conclude from this that people trust products in their friends’ selfies more than celebrities’
selfies. Although celebrities have more exposure to a bigger audience, consumers have a more
significant influence on their friends. It is to be noted that all the averages in this comparison are
neutral. This could be explained by the unconscious impact people have on each other. This

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causes people to want to purchase a product without the awareness that they are trying to obtain
social acceptance.
Figure 5: Mean results of respondents’ reasons for taking selfies.
We also wanted to see if personal selfie taking to show off products causes people to
have better opinions of products in friends’ selfies. We tested this hypothesis with a regression in
which we accepted our assumption at a significance level of 10% with a .000 test significance.
Figure 6 shows the results of this test. The results of this test tells us that there is a strong
relationship between the independent and dependent variables with a Pearson R of .425 and an
adjusted R square of .176, forming a regression line of y = .419x + 1.653. From this we can
conclude that people who take selfies to show off products have better opinions of products they
see in friends’ selfies.

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Figure 6: Regression results of “I take selfies to show off a product” (IV) and “I have a
better opinion of products I have seen featured in friends’ selfies” (DV).
We also wanted to acknowledge gender and age as a predictor of who takes selfies and
the impact this has on marketing. This relationship was measured using an Independent samples
t-test and a One way ANOVA respectively. Figures 7 and 8 show the results of these tests. In
regards to gender as a predictor of who will take selfies, we concluded with a 10% level of
significance and a test significance of .055 that gender does predict who will take selfies.
Specifically, females are more likely to take selfies than males with means of 2.90 and 2.55
respectively. These findings indicate that companies with a target market comprised of females
should use selfie-based marketing. In regards to age as a predictor of who will take selfies, we
concluded with a 10% level of significance and a test significance of .004 that age does predict
people who will take selfies, with the 18-22 age range producing the highest mean of 3.14. Thus,
companies with a target market comprised of 18-22 year olds should use selfie-based marketing.

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Figure 7: Gender as a predictor of who will take selfies.
Figure 8: Age as a predictor of who will take selfies.
With the rise of the selfie trend, we were also curious to see if people have adopted the
use of selfie improving products. We found that only 16 respondents own a selfie stick and only
18 respondents edit their selfies with a selfie editing app.
Objective 3 > To understand the opinions people have toward selfies and the people
who take them: To understand our objective, we tested to see if people get annoyed with selfie
posts if they think people are showing off. We tested this relationship through a regression
analysis as shown in Figure 9. With a 10% level of significance and a test significance of .000,
we concluded that people are more likely to get annoyed with selfie posts if they think people are

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showing off. The test also indicates that this relationship is strong with a Pearson R of .400 and
an adjusted R square of .156 producing a regression equation of y = .427x + 1.583.
Figure 9: Regression results of “I think people post selfies to show off” (IV) and “I get
annoyed when I see selfies of other people” (DV).
Seeing this relationship, we then wanted to explore if people enjoy seeing selfies when
they think people are trying to stay in touch with friends. We tested this relationship with a
regression analysis which can be seen in Figure 10. With a 10% level of significance and a .000
test significance, we concluded that people do enjoy seeing selfies when they think people are
trying to stay in touch with friends. This regression analysis also indicates a strong relationship
between the independent and dependent variables with a Pearson R of .343 and an adjusted R
square of .114 producing a regression equation of y = .345x + 1.961. These tests explain that
people only enjoy seeing selfies of people they like.

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Figure 10: Regression results of “I think people post selfies to keep in touch with
friends” (IV) and “I enjoy seeing selfies of other people” (DV).
We also wanted to test if people are more likely to take selfies if they enjoy seeing
selfies. We tested this through a regression analysis which can be seen in Figure 11. With a 10%
level of significance and a test significance of .001, we concluded that people are more likely to
take selfies if they enjoy seeing selfies of others. This relationship is relatively strong with a
Pearson R of .233 and an adjusted R square of ___ producing a regression equation of
y = .287x + 1.890.

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Figure 11: Regression results of “I enjoy seeing selfies of other people” (IV) and “I use
my mobile device to take selfies” (DV).
Objective 4 > To understand the correlation between selfies and narcissism: To
understand the underlying relationship between selfies and narcissism, we constructed several

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statements and asked respondents to indicate their agreement with the statements on a likert
scale. These statements included the following:
➢ Peer responses (likes, shares, comments) to my selfies are important to me.
➢ I check social media to see the number of “likes” I received on selfies I post.
➢ I am satisfied with the number of “likes” I get on the selfies I post.
➢ I wish I could receive more “likes” on the selfies I post.
Figure 12 shows the means of respondents’ agreement with these statements. With a
mode of 4 it is evident that more people “agree” that selfie responses, which includes likes,
shares, and comments, are important to them and, with a mode of 4, they will also check social
media to see these selfie responses. This contradicts our results in objective 1 which found that
people do not believe they post selfies to “show off” or to “fit in.” If people care about selfie
responses, then they are clearly looking for a way to fit in and boost their confidence. With the
number of people who find peer responses to be important to them, it is evident that people are
posting selfies to boost their confidence, feel relevant, and show off even though people do not
admit to doing so. Again, our respondents are contradicting other claims because they do not
want to disclose the true motivations behind their behaviors.
Figure 12: Mode results of the importance respondents’ place on peer responses to
selfies.
We also asked people if they think others are conceited and narcissistic for taking selfies.
This produced a neutral response with a mean of 2.99. However, we were curious as to whether
the likelihood of taking selfies increased as the belief that people are conceited and narcissistic
for taking selfies decreased. This relationship was tested with a correlation and the results can be
seen in Figure 13. The results of this test indicate a negative correlation between “I use my

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mobile device to take selfies” and “I think people who take selfies are conceited and narcissistic”
(R=-.266) with a significance of .000/2 at a 99% confidence level. Despite the neutral belief
towards the statement “I think people who take selfies are conceited and narcissistic,” this belief
does affect whether people will take selfies. While people refuse to admit others are conceited
and narcissistic, it is evident that they do believe this is true or else there would not be a
correlation between these variables. It follows then that people who take selfies do not like to
consider themselves conceited or narcissistic either because they want to appear more desirable
than they think they are. They merely want to be accepted by society. What may be considered
as narcissism by some is actually individuals seeking peer support to build their confidence.
Figure 13: Results of correlation between “I use my mobile device to take selfies” and “I
think people who take selfies are conceited and narcissistic.”
Recommendations:
To capitalize on the selfie trend of today’s society, we recommend that companies
integrate selfies into their marketing and product lines when possible. Based on our findings we
suggest companies incorporate selfies in the following ways:

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➢ This study found that people are more likely to post selfies before and during special
occasions than any other reason. We encourage companies to capitalize on this finding by
incorporating selfie-based tactics into marketing their events. This can be done by
creating a hashtag for the event and encouraging attendees to use their hashtag when
posting selfies from the event on social media.
➢ This study also showed that people are willing to take selfies with products. Therefore,
companies should ask them to do so. We also found that consumers are more receptive to
product recommendations from friends than celebrities. So, rather than dishing out big
bucks to celebrities, companies should identify early adopters of their products and offer
them free products in exchange for promoting it on social media. However, our objective
3 findings indicated that it is important to select people who are well liked by their peer
group. This is because the research also found that consumers are annoyed by selfies
posted be people who they think are showing off which would logically be people they
do not like. If a company does choose to market their product with a celebrity
endorsement, they should take this into consideration as well and select celebrities who
are well-liked in relationship to the product category. For example, Angelina Jolie would
be an ideal celebrity endorser for an adoption agency.
➢ The data also showed that females in the 18-22 age range were the most likely group to
take selfies. For companies with this group as their target audience, they should
incorporate selfies into their marketing. For example, Lilly Pulitzer could promote their
brand by encouraging female consumers to take selfies with their new planner to receive
a discount on future purchases.
➢ While the selfie trend is growing, our research shows that few consumers have adopted
the use of selfie-related products. This is likely due to the lack of marketing for these
products. Thus, we encourage companies to continue to put an emphasis on selfie-related
product features through their advertising. For example, phone companies could focus
more on camera quality and the front camera features when advertising. Some features
that would likely interest a selfie user would be quick and easy access to more editing
features such as red eyes, smoothing for blemishes, and brightening and whitening for
pictures taken on a front camera. App creators could also include both front and back
camera access if the app uses a camera.
➢ Our research also indicated that consumers are merely seeking to gain social acceptance
through the posting of selfies. This desire to gain acceptance from peers and society
indicates low self-confidence and self-worth in consumers. We highly recommend that
companies selling beauty-related products place an emphasis on self-confidence in
marketing their products. For example, Bare Minerals could create a brand-building

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campaign encouraging female consumers to embrace their natural beauty by posting
selfies with the hashtag “#Bareisbeautiful.”
As can be seen with the development of the selfie trend, Generation Y has become increasingly
self-consumed and is constantly seeking acceptance from society to build their confidence. This
trend is a fun and easy way to gain consumer participation for minimal cost while allowing
consumers to find the social acceptance they seek. This leaves many opportunities for companies
to incorporate selfies into their marketing and brand building efforts.