YouTube has played an increasingly important role in people's lives, especially the younger generation. Furthermore, beauty communities in YouTube have been rapidly expanding due to their popularity. This study investigated the impact of message-sidedness on female college students' attitude toward beauty products promoted on YouTube. Specifically, it examined whether two-sided messages have a more positive impact on source credibility, attitude toward the product, attitude toward the brand, attitude toward the video and purchase intention. The study also explored whether there are differences between drugstore and high-end beauty products regarding source credibility, attitude toward the product, attitude toward the brand, attitude toward the video and purchase intention.

An online experiment was conducted to collect data. The results indicated that two-sided messages have a more positive impact on source credibility, attitude toward the product, attitude toward the brand, attitude toward the video than one-sided messages do. However, there was no significant difference between one-sided and two-sided messages regarding purchase intention.

The results also suggested that in this study high-end products performed better on source credibility, attitude toward the product, and attitude toward the brand than low-priced drugstore products do. However, attitude toward the video and purchase intention did not differ significantly between high-end and drugstore products.