The impact of TikTok's plastic surgery content on adolescents' self-perception and purchase intention

This paper analyzed the impact of plastic surgery related content generated by patients and by medical professionals on the self-perception and purchase intent of TikTok users. Doing so, this research project focused primarily on the short video platform TikTok, which displayed over 6 billion relevant content views, as well as a high demographic user-relevance to the main recipient of plastic surgery, females. Building upon an extensive literature review, insights and concepts from beauty, self-perception and influencer marketing research were conceptually related to frame the conceptual model for this project. Relevant user data was gathered by means of an online survey and the network sampling technique. This resulted in the receipt of 314 valid datasets. Successive data analysis revealed that patient generated plastic surgery related content negatively impacted the self-perception of TikTok users, whereas plastic surgeon created content positively moderated the impact on purchase intent, through surgeons’ status as medical professionals or experts. The latter provided user legitimization for surgical procedures. Findings have been discussed in the light of platform banned plastic surgery related advertising and potential implications for regulatory bodies.