Guilty by Association: The Perils of Celebrity Endorsement for Endorsed Brands and their Direct Competitors

The objective of the research presented in this article is to examine the possibility that the adverse effects on consumer brand attitudes engendered by the involvement of a celebrity endorser in a negative event may spill over brands of the same product category (i.e., competitors). The results of an experimental study with 165 adult consumers showed that a scandal involving an athlete endorser had a negative impact not only on the attitude toward the endorsed brand, but also on the attitude toward competitor brands. This suggests that brands strongly associated with one sport may be vulnerable in the context of a scandal falling upon a celebrity athlete endorsing one of their direct competitors.     

Design of a novel adaptive inventory control system based on the online identification of lead time

In this paper, an adaptation method for the online identification of lead time is incorporated in production–inventory control systems. Based on the lead time estimate, the tuning parameters are updated in real time to improve the efficiency of the system. Combination of the adaptive scheme with a proportional control law is able to eliminate the inventory drift that appears when the actual lead time is not known in advance or when it varies with time. A detailed analysis is provided for the proposed production–inventory system, including a stability analysis and the quantification of its bullwhip effect. Several examples and comparison with state-of-the-art alternative approaches illustrate the efficiency of the system.