Celebrity endorsement in the world of luxury fashion – when controversy can be beneficial

ABSTRACT

Can a negatively publicised celebrity endorser ever lead to favourable brand attitudes toward a luxury fashion product (i.e. a perfume)? An online experiment was conducted with a sample of 260 target-relevant female consumers where two factors were manipulated: the brand’s positioning objective (image reinforcement versus revitalisation) and the type of celebrity endorser (naturally versus incidentally controversial). Consumer attitudes towards the luxury fashion brand were generally more positive when the type of celebrity endorser was consistent with the brand’s positioning strategy, that is, when a naturally controversial celebrity endorses a brand with a reinforcement strategy and when an incidentally controversial celebrity endorses a brand with a revitalisation strategy. Furthermore, this effect was mediated by consumers’ appreciation of the celebrity-positioning match-up (i.e. the consistency between the celebrity’s persona and the brand’s strategy) but not by their perceptions of appropriateness (i.e. the traditional match-up hypothesis). Several implications suggested by these findings are developed.     

Consumers’ Reactions to a Celebrity Endorser Scandal

This research examined the impact of a widely publicized celebrity scandal on consumers’ attitudes toward the involved celebrities and the products they endorsed. Special attention is placed on the interplay between consumers’ perceptions of the celebrities’ responsibilities for the events that occurred, their affective reactions to both the events and the celebrities, and their consequent reactions to the products that the celebrities endorsed. The use of a real celebrity scandal permitted the effects of several variables to be identified that are normally not taken into account, including individuals’ a priori liking for the celebrities, perceptions of the scandal's impact on both the involved celebrities and the society, individuals’ own involvement in scandal‐related activities. These and other effects were evaluated using structural equation modeling. Two parallel analyses, one for each celebrity, fit the model well and provided insight into the processes that potentially mediate the effects of a celebrity scandal on product evaluations.     

What affects the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement? Impact of interplay among congruence,identification, and attribution

This study draws upon congruence theory, identification theory, and attribution theory as a means of examining how celebrity endorsement works. The study proposes that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement may be influenced by the following three factors: congruence between a celebrity endorser and endorsed brand/product, identification with a celebrity endorser, and consumers’ attribution styles (i.e., internal vs. external). To test the proposed hypotheses, the study employs a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design. A total of 317 college students participated in the study in return for course credits. The study findings suggest that congruence, identification, and consumers’ attribution styles indeed have impacts on consumers’ attitude toward ad, brand, or purchase intention. The study also finds that there is a relationship between congruence (low vs. high congruence) and attribution styles (internal vs. external). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Young adults’ responses to product placement in movies and television shows

This research examines young adults’ attitudes towards product placement in films and television shows from two countries that represent contrasting cultural distinctions: the US and Korea. The results suggest that young adults in both countries perceive film product placement in a similar way but, with respect to television, Korean respondents tend to perceive it as less effective in enhancing content realism and more unethical and misleading. In addition, the findings suggest that, for both film and TV, materialism, attitude towards advertising, and realism enhancement appeared to be significant predictors of consumer cognitive response to product placement. However, cross-cultural differences were observed for TV product placement. In the US, materialism and realism enhancement were found to be most powerful predictors of cognitive response to product placement. In contrast, attitude towards advertising and materialism were found to be the strongest predictors in Korea. Implications for both advertising researchers and practitioners are provided.     

Name Dropping and Product Mentions: Branding in Popular Music Lyrics

Product placement provides a unique advantage over traditional advertising as it can be integrated into program content through a symbiotic relationship. A content analysis of the Billboard year-end top 20 songs for Rap, Country, R&B/Hip-Hop, Adult Contemporary, Rock, and Pop over five years (2009–2013) was conducted to determine the use of celebrities, product placement, and nonbranded product mentions in song lyrics. Results found male artists used celebrity mentions and product placement more than females, Rap contained the most mentions (73% of songs), clothing and shoes was the most prevalent product category, musicians were the most common type of celebrity mentioned, and nonbranded product mentions were in 54.5% of songs. The paper concludes by discussing practical implications of utilizing branded, nonbranded, and celebrity mentions in song lyrics.     

Gender and Celebrity Scandals: A Cross-Cultural Examination on Celebrity Endorsement

Abstract

This research examines the effects of consumers’ culture and celebrity’s gender role on source credibility and attitude toward brand. Using culture difference theory (individualism and Confucianism) helps to explain why sex scandals can result in a greater negative impact on the response of Chinese customers than US customers. Finally, we provide a celebrity-select suggestion to mitigate the negative damage brought by the endorser’s sex scandal. Specifically, we conducted experiments by using a 2 (sex scandal vs. tax evasion) x2 (Confucianism vs. individualism) x3 (celebrity gender: male vs. female vs. transgender) between-subjects design.     

Investigating the marketing impact of consumers’ connectedness to celebrity endorsers

Consumers enjoy following famous media personalities, discovering details about their habits, food preferences, or designer brands that they wear. Consumers model their consumption behaviors based on their favorite celebrities’ preferences. Marketers are aware of such celebrity admiration and frequently use celebrities as part of marketing communication strategies. Grounded in parasocial relationship and social connectedness theories, this study tests a model of connectedness to the celebrity, attitude toward the celebrity, receptivity toward the celebrity‐endorsed message, and purchase intentions of the celebrity‐endorsed market offering. These relationships were investigated using structural equation modeling. The findings indicate an individual's level of connectedness to their favorite celebrity is positively linked with both their receptivity toward the celebrity‐endorsed message and purchase intentions of the celebrity‐endorsed market offering. On the theoretical side, the integration of parasocial relationship and social connectedness theories explain the processes through which celebrity endorsements impact consumers’ attitudes and behaviors. On the practical side, the findings suggest marketers should carefully choose the best celebrity endorsers for advertisements after considering how constituents from within their key target markets are likely to connect with the chosen celebrity. However, beyond consumers’ connectedness to the celebrity, the findings also suggest that receptivity toward the celebrity‐endorsed message is an essential link to purchase intentions of the endorsed offering.     

Can a Celebrity Serve as an Issue‐Relevant Argument in the Elaboration Likelihood Model?

While celebrity endorsement has been traditionally perceived as a peripheral cue in the elaboration likelihood model, several conceptual studies suggest otherwise that it may play a significant role in delivering issue‐relevant information when celebrity–product congruence exists. The current study provides empirical evidence that a celebrity indeed serves as an issue‐relevant argument by investigating the interaction effects between endorser–product congruence and product involvement on consumer responses in two different match‐up conditions. Moderated regression analysis results indicated that product involvement strengthened the effect of expertise‐based endorser–product congruence on consumer responses. However, the relationship between attractiveness‐based endorser–product congruence and consumer responses generated insignificant results. Research findings entail that a celebrity persuades consumers through the central route when the expert image in particular fits well with the endorsed product. Further analyses indicated that attitude toward the brand mediated the relationship between attitude toward the advertisement and purchase intention in both match‐up environments.     

PP for ‘product placement’or ‘puzzled public’?

This research examines the effectiveness of the European ‘PP’ symbol, recently introduced as a warning of product placement in locally produced television programmes. The authors test whether this symbol counters the pervasive effect of product placement on purchase intention. Study 1 shows that the symbol does not prompt resistance to the influence of product placement. This is because the majority of consumers neither notice nor comprehend the symbol. In Study 2, two training methods are tested to increase the symbol’s effectiveness: (1) verbal label training and (2) a combination of verbal label training and information training. The addition of information training is necessary to increase the symbol’s noticeability, whereas verbal label training helps increase the symbol’s comprehensibility and effectiveness in activating persuasion knowledge and decreasing purchase intention. Finally, the results provide evidence that brand recall is crucial for resistance to product placement, suggesting the importance of brand recall as a moderator of resistance processes.     

Korean Advertising Practitioners’ Perspectives on Celebrity Endorsement

Practitioners’ perspectives have been neglected to some extent. Research on practitioners’ perspectives is important because it will provide valuable information, especially on how theories have been reflected in practice. The study investigates Korean advertising practitioners’ perspectives on celebrity endorsement in advertising campaigns. By comparing the perspective between advertising practitioners and that from their counterparts on the client side, this study may provide insights into their respective roles in advertising campaigns. This study finding suggests that Korean advertising practitioners consider a celebrity's likeability as the most important criterion when selecting a celebrity endorser. The most important reason why they employ a celebrity endorser is that celebrity endorsement helps generate awareness of the brand. In addition, concerns over celebrity endorsement as well as limitations and suggestions for future research have been discussed.     

Reverse Transfer Effect of Celebrity-Product Congruence on the Celebrity's Perceived Credibility

In contrast with traditional celebrity endorsement research, this study examines the effect of celebrity advertisement on the celebrity himself/herself, that is, a reverse transfer effect, in terms of the celebrity's perceived attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise. Online questionnaires were conducted for sport and film celebrities using an identical 2 (Korean vs. non-Korean) X 3 (very congruent, moderately incongruent, very incongruent) design. The results show that a celebrity's perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness were significantly decreased when the celebrity-product congruence was low, whereas no significant effects were found when the congruence level was high. Theoretical and managerial implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.     

Effects of Negative Brand Information: Measuring Impact of Celebrity Identification and Brand Commitment

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the relationship between negative brand publicity and a celebrity endorser. First, it explores whether identification with a celebrity moderates the relationship between negative brand publicity and evaluation of a celebrity endorser and a brand. Second, it delves into whether consumers’ brand commitment moderates the relationship between negative brand publicity and evaluation of a celebrity endorser and a brand. And the study poses the research question, “Does negative brand information impact consumer evaluation of a celebrity endorser, a brand, and purchase intention?” A 2 × 2 between-subject factorial design was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The two factors are level of identification with a celebrity endorser (low or high identification) and level of brand commitment (low vs. high brand commitment). The study found that negative brand publicity had negative impacts on the celebrity endorser, brand evaluation, and purchase intention.     

Celebrity Endorsement for Nonprofit Organizations: The Role of Celebrity Motive Attribution and Spontaneous Judgment of Celebrity-Cause Incongruence

This study investigated relationships among celebrity motive attribution, celebrity-cause congruence, and involvement with a cause. A 2 (altruistic motive: high vs. low) X 2 (congruence: high vs. low) X 2 (involvement: high vs. low) experimental study examined perceptions of celebrity credibility, attitudes toward celebrity endorsement and nonprofit organization, and intentions to donate money and volunteer time. The findings attest to main effects of causal attribution of a celebrity's altruistic motive and interaction effects between motive attribution and congruence (i.e., spontaneous judgment of celebrity-cause incongruence). Further, three-way interaction effects suggest the role of involvement in spontaneously activating celebrity-cause disassociation.     

An ethical evaluation of product placement: a deceptive practice?

Product placement, the practice of placing brands into non-advertising media, is a growing marketing phenomenon, which has received relatively little attention from business ethicists. Such attention is timely because the UK regulatory framework for television product placement is under review at the time of writing. In this paper, we seek to locate product placement in relation to traditional frameworks of marketing ethics. We suggest that this location is problematic because product placement is a form of marketing communication in which the message, the sender and the precise intention behind a brand seen in a television (TV) show, movie or computer game are often implicit. We suggest that the possibilities for an ethically principled regulation of product placement rest on two key issues: (1) the extent to which programme makers, media owners and brand owners make their product placement strategies explicit to audiences, and (2) the degree of commercial sophistication, which regulators attribute to non-expert entertainment audiences.     

Engaging fans on microblog: the synthetic influence of parasocial interaction and source characteristics on celebrity endorsement

Brand managers use celebrity microbloggers to endorse their products on microblogs. Previous studies on celebrity endorsement mechanisms concentrated on source factors such as celebrity's characteristics and celebrity—product congruence. This study introduces a new audience factor: the fan–celebrity parasocial interaction (PSI) to explore the celebrity endorsement mechanism within a microblog context. The study hypothesizes that PSI and source factors (credibility, attractiveness, and congruence) significantly influence endorsement effectiveness. The results of an online survey (N = 862) indicate that PSI and celebrity–product congruence are salient antecedents of endorsement effectiveness. PSI serves as a mediator of the effect of source attractiveness on endorsement effectiveness. Source credibility and celebrity–product congruence are mediators between PSI and endorsement effectiveness. The study develops and tests a conceptual model to illustrate the influential mechanism of celebrity endorsement on microblog platforms.     

“Green cannibalism” or an “organic inside job”? Empirical insights into the rivalry of ethical grocery types

Despite having favorable purchase intentions toward organic groceries, the respective purchase behavior falls often short. This so‐called intention–behavior gap is investigated by exploring the impact of competing ethical products fulfilling green consumption motives (“green fit”) as well or lacking credibility of organic groceries on organic purchase behavior. The first two studies (n ₁ = 225; n ₂ = 321) assessing actual and reported purchase behavior are testing the impact of perceived substitutability of local and fair trade alternatives compared with organic groceries. A third study ( n ₃ = 145) examines the impact of food miles and packaging on perceived product quality and credibility as possible reasons for a lacking “green fit” of organic groceries in terms of an experimental design. Local (fair trade) and organic groceries are perceived as substitute (complementary) alternatives. Additionally, local (organic) “green fit” impedes (enhances) the transformation from organic intentions into a respective purchase behavior. Wrapped organic produces with high food miles are linked to lower quality and credibility perceptions, reducing organic sales rates in favor of local groceries.     

Materialism,fashion consumers and gender: a cross‐cultural study

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among materialism, gender and fashion consumer groups from two countries – one representative of an individualistic culture (US) and one representative of a collectivistic culture (Korea). Participants were 397 students from a university in Korea (n = 221) and a university in the US (n = 176) who completed the questionnaire. The materialism construct showed adequate reliability for participants in both cultures. Fashion change agents scored higher on materialism (centrality and success) than fashion followers. Females scored higher on materialism than males which seemed to be based on higher scores on the centrality subscale. Participants from the US and Korea differed on all three subscales of materialism with US participants scoring higher on centrality but lower on success and happiness than Korean participants. The findings of this study provide valuable implications for fashion marketers and retailers in Korea and US. The findings are limited to Korean and US consumers and cannot be generalized to other cultures. This paper fills a gap in the literature by comparing materialistic values between genders and fashion consumer groups in an individualistic culture (US) and a collectivistic culture (Korea).     

Above all,garnish and presentation: An evaluation of Fanny Cradock's contribution to home cooking in Britain

The development of cooking on television, and the associated rise in ‘celebrity chefs’ is often seen as a modern phenomenon involving cooks like Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson in Britain. Fanny Cradock (1909–1994) is from time to time credited as a pioneer in television cooking and Britain's ‘first celebrity chef’. However little detail of her career has been documented, despite working as a journalist, radio and television presenter, food demonstrator, writer of fiction, children's books and cookbooks spanning from 1942 until 1986. Cradock was prominent on television between 1955 and 1975, with her final appearance in 1985. Cradock is as often remembered for her colourful character as for the colourful food she presented and her name remains synonymous with elaborate cooking in ball gowns, using copious amounts of food colouring and aspic, and for berating her husband who assisted her on stage, on television, and in print. However, from Cradock's personal archive a far more substantive contribution to home cooking through the development of television cooking and cookbooks, looking at her undocumented ideas and innovations. Additional archive materials and collections of newspaper clippings collected between 1942 and 1982 by Cradock herself shed light on how she was perceived at the time, her role as an entrepreneur and her own ‘brand’ identity. From this documentary evidence, it is argued that Cradock deserves to be much better remembered for her contribution to British food culture.     

Product Placement in Mass Media: A Review and Bibliometric Analysis

This article provides a comprehensive and systematic review of the product placement literature in order to map the thematic development of product placement research, help researchers understand the current research status, and suggest directions for future research. A pool of 874 publications related to product placement in mass media was retrieved from the Web of Science, Scopus, EBSCOhost, and Google Scholar databases. Bibliometric and network analyses were used to identify the leading journals, scholars, and publications to capture information about emerging issues and to map the development of product placement research. Three major clusters of product placement research were identified: (1) basic concepts, fundamental research frameworks, and empirical studies on product placement in movies and television programs; (2) empirical studies on product placement in games, especially focusing on children and food product placements; and (3) empirical studies on the effects and underlying mechanisms of product placement disclosures. This article concludes by suggesting a future research agenda for product placement research.     

Impact of Celebrity Endorsements and Brand Mascots on Consumer Buying Behavior

ABSTRACT

Celebrity and brand mascot endorsements are very popular and often-used techniques by marketers. Marketers believe that celebrity and brand mascot endorsements provide a higher degree of appeal, attention, and customer recall ability compared with when this technique is not used. Marketers also claim that a celebrity affects the credibility of claims about a product and increases the memorabilia factor of the message, which may provide a positive effect that could be generalized to the brand. Primarily this essay has been designed such that it examines various parameters related to advertisements containing celebrity and brand mascot endorsements. Data were been collected from 150 respondents through questionnaire and subjected to t test, χ² test, and difference of means test to enforce the hypotheses that celebrity endorsements have impacts on customers’ perceptions and their purchase intentions. The findings of this study provide insights for marketing and brand managers to design and market their campaigns effectively.