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This study aims to develop and test a new research model of consumer response to celebrity transgression. It examines the effects of celebrity past transgression and philanthropic histories in influencing consumer acceptance (i.e. forgiveness and blame) of a single celebrity transgression behavior and the subsequent endorsement potential of the transgressed celebrity. It also examines consumer acceptance of celebrity transgressions from the gender perspective.

By using real celebrities, this study conducted a 2 (transgression history: high vs low) × 2 (philanthropic history: high vs low) × 2 (celebrity gender: male vs female) between-subject online experiment with 823 US young adults.

Results showed that forgiving (blaming) the transgressed celebrity was positively (negatively) associated with the celebrity’s endorsement potential. Transgression history had a significantly negative indirect effect on endorsement potential via its negative effect on forgiveness and positive effect on blame. Philanthropic history mitigated the negative indirect effect of transgression history on endorsement potential only for male celebrities, not female celebrities.

This study contributes to the current human brand and celebrity transgression literature and fills the research gap by using real male and female celebrities to incorporate the real history of celebrities as determinants of consumer judgment of celebrity transgression. This study also makes its unique contributions by focusing on the celebrity-related outcomes and demonstrating the moderating roles of past philanthropic behaviors and celebrity gender for their potential to mitigate the negative effects of transgression history on consumer responses to a single transgression.

The purpose of this study is to examine the kinds of ad appeals and brand types that contribute to perceived ad–media congruence on Instagram and how such congruence influences consumers’ engagement intentions via the interaction of self-related congruence constructs. Additionally, ad intrusiveness was studied as a mediator of the relationship between ad–media congruence and consumers’ behavioral engagement intention.

An online 2 (Ad appeal: hedonic vs utilitarian) × 2 (Brand type: hedonic vs utilitarian) between-subject experiment was conducted with four versions of mock-up Instagram in-feed native ads.

Results showed that hedonic advertising appeals contributed to ad–media congruence on Instagram, which yielded a lower level of ad intrusiveness and further resulted in higher consumer behavioral engagement intentions. The brand type did not significantly influence participants’ perceptions of ad–media congruence. Moreover, the findings indicate individuals’ brand-self congruence and ad-self congruence were significant moderators in interactions with ad–media congruence in influencing consumers’ behavioral engagement intentions.

Both brand managers and social media providers can leverage this study’s findings to improve ad effectiveness and consumer experiences in their respective social media landscapes. Specifically, knowing what kind of ad is more congruent and less intrusive, as well as how to better tailor targeting strategies in digital media spaces by building higher ad self- and brand self-congruence, can help them achieve persuasive effects when complying with the Federal Trade Commission disclosure guideline.

The current study advances extant literature on native advertising by examining the core characteristic of ad–media congruence and its relation to the key metric of social media marketing success – consumer engagement intentions. The findings also extend the congruence theory by examining the interaction effect of media- and self-related congruence constructs.