Journal of African Development

Purpose: This paper synthesises existing academic and industry literature on Instagram Reels-based influencer marketing and impulse buying among fashion consumers, using Punjab, India as a contextual lens. Rather than collecting new primary data, the paper reviews and integrates published evidence through the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework to build a literature-grounded conceptual model that positions Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) as an organism-level mediator and regional cultural identity as a moderator of influencer credibility and consumer engagement.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The study adopts a thematic secondary research design. Peer-reviewed articles, conference papers and industry reports published between 1974 and 2026 were identified through Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Emerald Insight, ScienceDirect, Taylor & Francis Online and platform-audience statistics providers, and were synthesised thematically around the four stimulus constructs (content quality, visual appeal, influencer credibility, social proof), two organism states (FOMO, consumer engagement) and two response constructs (impulse buying intention, actual impulse purchase) of the extended S-O-R model.

Findings: The reviewed literature consistently associates influencer source credibility and social-proof cues with heightened consumer engagement and impulse buying intention, and identifies FOMO as a recurring mediating mechanism between social media stimuli and impulsive purchase outcomes. Evidence from Indian and comparable emerging-market studies further suggests that culturally congruent influencer content strengthens engagement, although no prior S-O-R study has yet examined Punjab specifically. This gap motivates a set of literature-derived research propositions intended to guide future primary data collection rather than reporting statistically tested results.

Research Implications: The paper contributes a synthesised, citation-grounded conceptual model that (a) positions FOMO within the S-O-R tradition for short-form video commerce, (b) proposes regional cultural identity as a contextually relevant moderator, (c) offers an evidence base for fashion retailers and influencer-marketing agencies operating in culturally distinctive regional markets, and (d) identifies Punjab's fashion-retail sector as an under-researched empirical setting warranting primary investigation.

Originality/Value: This is a desk-based literature synthesis, not an empirical study; no primary survey data were collected or analysed. Its value lies in consolidating dispersed literature into a single, testable conceptual framework and in making explicit which claims are supported by prior evidence, as distinct from claims that remain propositions for future research