The Brand’s Effect on the Evaluation of Advertising Endorsed by Celebrities: an Experimental Study

Abstract

Celebrity endorsement aims to influence consumers to buy advertised products. In endorsing products, celebrities transfer their attributes to the objects, making them more desired by consumers. Celebrity endorsement is a promotional technique to better integrate brand, product and message, thus justifying the high investments by companies to engage celebrities. Although well established, the phenomenon lacks scientific studies that explain, based on the concept of celebrity congruence, the alignment between the celebrity’s profile and the product, also considering brand strength. After an extensive literature review, we performed three experiments, involving 713 respondents, to verify the effect of celebrity endorsement with different levels of congruence with the product, while manipulating the brands. The results of analysis of variance indicated a significant positive effect of celebrity endorsement with high congruence for unrecognized brands, but not for recognized brands.

Keywords

• endorsement
• celebrity
• brand
• congruency
• advertising