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This paper aims to clarify the persuasion mechanism of chief executive officers (CEOs) and employees as endorsers of brand advertising and helps discern consumer attitudes toward internal endorsement.

The exploratory character of the present research required a qualitative approach combining focus groups and face-to-face interviews considered as both meaningful and complementary.

The findings suggest that while the celebrity endorsement ensures familiarity and likability, internal endorsement supports credibility and congruity with an important role of storytelling. Moreover, employee endorsements induce an internalization process based on the real-self, while the endorser CEO induces admiration grounded in the ideal self. More fundamentally, the study reveals how the internal endorsement modifies the meaning transfer model and involves a process of meaning translation, which affects the corporate brand image rather than the product brand image.

The present paper reveals that CEOs and employees can be strong levers for gilding the corporate brand image compared to the celebrities who enhance the product brand image. Moreover, the authors show that the CEO is a character who can be admired without the threat of upward comparison at the opposite of celebrities. Finally, this research highlights the specific role of employees bringing authenticity because of their anchorage in real life.

This study aims to investigate a randomized 3 (endorser type: celebrity vs CEO vs expert) × 2 (product type: hedonic vs utility) between-respondents factorial experiment to inspect the effects of the endorsers and product types on consumers’ engagement in BRM through brand-relationship variables [i.e. self-brand connection (SBC), perceived product attachment (PPA) and source credibility (SC)]. Marketing in a digital era is witnessing a rising trend of “brand resurrection as revolution” led by consumer power. The successful revitalization of various dead brands provides some new opportunities for companies to engage millennial consumers in brand resurrection movements (BRM) through the right choice of brand endorsers. The new-found love of companies for the revitalization of long-forgotten brands has attracted considerable interest among scholars and marketing practitioners. Despite the brand resurrection’s high practical relevance, little is known in marketing research about how to revive failing brands back to life.

Using source credibility theory (SCT) as a lens, this study conducted two studies (i.e. Study 1, N = 300; Study 2, N = 300) and builds on an analysis of data from Pakistani millennials. The hypotheses were inspected using both structural equation modeling and SPSS’s PROCESS macro.

Through two studies, the authors find that the match between endorser types and product types affects customer motivation to engage in BRM via SBC, PPA and SC (i.e. attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise).[AQ2] The results showed that for utilitarian products, both SBC and PPA mediate the link between endorser types and BRM, but for hedonic products, PPA does not play a role. Similarly, the authors’ results indicate that for hedonic products, attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise mediate the link between endorser types and BRM, but for utilitarian products, trustworthiness does not play a role.

The results of this research will help marketing managers devise effective brand endorsers strategies in reviving failing brands. Specifically, this endeavor highlights that understanding brand advertisements merely in terms of celebrity endorsement restricts the full potential that brand advertisements could have and also that a comprehensive understanding must include expert and chief executive officers (CEO) endorsers. Therefore, one of the central contributions of this research is the introduction of expert and CEO endorsers and the evidence that both celebrity (i.e. celebrity and CEO) and non-celebrity endorsers (i.e. experts) have an impact on consumers’ motivation to engage in BRM.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first endeavors of its kind to empirically explore consumer attitude/motivation behind participation in reviving failing brands. The significance of this work is underscored by the fact that numerous dead brands are being brought back by companies because of consumer–brand co-creation movements.

This paper aims to explore the effectiveness of children as advertisement endorsers in the airline context, including images of safety and reliability.

This paper is intended to examine the advertising effect of endorsers (celebrities, CEOs, experts, consumers and children) in the context of the airline industry. A factorial experiment was conducted to test the communication effect (CE) of ten groups of advertisement combinations (five endorser types – with/without safety attribute).

The results indicate that a child endorser yielded a better CE than celebrity, CEO or typical consumer endorsers. Second, advertisements that emphasized safety had better CE than those without this emphasis. The group combining children and safety generated a better CE than most of the other groups comprising different combinations.

A child endorser and a safety message are recommended to be used in advertisements for airlines because flight passengers place importance on safety. Fragile image of child reinforces safety of an airline.

The integration of advertising endorsement and message into a conceptual model allows the current results to provide meaningful theoretical and practical implications.

While the branding of individuals has attracted increasing attention from practitioners in recent decades, understanding of personal branding still remains limited, especially with regard to the branding of celebrity CEOs. To contribute to this debate, this paper aims to explore the co-branding of celebrity CEOs and corporate brands, integrating endorsement theory and the concept of meaning transfer at a level of brand attributes.

A between-subjects true experimental design was chosen for each of the two empirical studies with a total of 268 participants, using mock newspaper articles about a succession scenario at the CEO level of different companies. The study is designed to analyse the meaning transfer from celebrity CEO to corporate brand and vice versa using 16 personality attributes.

This study gives empirical support for meaning transfer effects at the brand attribute level in both the celebrity-CEO-to-corporate-brand and corporate-brand-to-celebrity-CEO direction, which confirms the applicability of the concept of brand endorsement to celebrity CEOs and the mutuality in co-branding models. Furthermore, a more detailed and expansive perspective on the definition of endorsement is provided as well as managerial guidance for building celebrity CEOs and corporate brands in consideration of meaning transfer effects.

This study is one of only few analysing the phenomenon of meaning transfer between brands that focus on non-evaluative associations (i.e. personality attributes). It is unique in its scope, insofar as the partnering relationship between celebrity CEOs and corporate brands have not been analysed empirically from this perspective yet. It bridges the gap between application in practice and the academic foundations, and it contributes to a broader understanding and definition of celebrity endorsement.

This paper aims to model and estimate how celebrity chief executive officers (CEOs) credibility (i.e. expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness) is related to their brand image (i.e. functional, sensory/visual). This paper further examines the effects of consumer materialism on both celebrity CEOs’ credibility and the image of their brand.

A total of 260 participants knowledgeable of CEOs and their corresponding brands completed an online questionnaire in a cross-sectional study. The data were analyzed through covariance-based structural equation modeling.

Celebrity CEOs’ expertise and attractiveness are positively related to both functional and sensory/visual images of their brands. Results also demonstrate the positive effect of materialism on both celebrity CEOs’ credibility and brand image.

The research was conducted in one country (France) using a cross-sectional design. Additional studies in other settings or countries should be carried out to establish the generalizability of results and strengthen causality inferences.

CEOs need to understand and manage their key role as celebrities, given the direct influence they may have on consumer brand perceptions and behavior.

This study refines the relationship between celebrity CEOs’ credibility and brand image. It is the first to introduce and validate the effect of consumer materialism on the perception of celebrity CEOs.

This paper aims to explore the role of spiritual leaders as celebrity business founders and brand endorsers by investigating the mediating role of perceived value in the impact of normative community pressure and perceived brand credibility on purchase intention.

The authors collected data from two studies in India, one with urban (N = 307) and another with rural (N = 206) consumers of fast moving consumer goods brands being endorsed by popular celebrity business founders. The authors tested all our hypotheses using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach with SmartPLS software.

Perceived value mediates the positive impact of normative community pressure and perceived brand credibility on purchase intention for the brands endorsed by celebrity business founders, and these mediating effects are stronger for urban (vs rural) consumers.

The results from Indian consumers may not be generalizable to other emerging markets with diverse cultural and socio-economic conditions.

This research would help international marketers understand the unique branding and marketing strategies used by local players to learn how to successfully target both urban and rural consumers in the emerging markets.

This paper extends the celebrity endorsement literature by exploring the role of spiritual leaders as celebrity business founders and brand endorsers, a growing trend in the emerging markets with high cultural and religious diversity (e.g. India and Indonesia).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between attractiveness of athlete endorsers, match‐up, and consumers' purchase intention embedded in the China context.

The authors used a 3×2×2 between‐subject experimental design. Specifically, in this 12‐scenario study depicting a purchase experience they manipulated endorser attractiveness levels (high/middle/low), endorser‐product match‐up (high/low), and product type (to prevent single product bias).

The results showed that no matter whether the attractiveness is high, middle, or low, the high endorser‐product match‐up could produce higher purchase intention than the low endorser‐product match‐up could. Moreover, the purchase intention generated by the high‐attractive endorser with low match‐up would be higher than that generated by low‐attractive endorser with high match‐up.

This research demonstrates that endorsers' attractiveness, even compared to match‐up factor, and could affect consumers' purchase intention more significantly in China sport market. Practically speaking, the result suggests the companies which are related to sports should try their best to choose a highly attractive athlete endorser with outstanding performance and good morality in order to increase consumers' purchase intention.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the brand personality and brand user‐imagery constructs in congruity theory to examine their relationship in the image congruence model as a basis of modeling brand attitudes for publicly and privately consumed brands.

A total of 272 surveys measured subjects' self‐image perceptions and subjects' perceptions of brand personality and user‐imagery. Congruence measures were used as indicators of the difference between respondent self‐image and each brand's image, and served as independent variables in stepwise regressions with brand attitude as the dependent variable.

The results indicated that, for publicly consumed brands, user‐imagery‐based congruence measures contributed more often to the explanatory power of the model. For privately consumed brands, brand personality congruity produced significant regressions but did not account for a large portion of explained variance, while user‐imagery only entered one private brand model.

Brand personality and brand user‐imagery are often used interchangeably in self‐congruity theory research. Although both constructs have received past research attention, no studies have compared them in the same study. The study fills the gap in the literature and enhances the usefulness of the self‐brand congruity model, providing a knowledge base for determining an overall brand positioning strategy.

The objective of this study is to develop a theoretical structure of sporting event personality and to build a measuring scale for that personality. This study identifies five sporting event personality dimensions: diligence, uninhibitedness, fit, tradition and amusement. The findings show that these personality dimensions are related to attitudes towards sporting events, which in turn lead to positive sponsorship evaluation and favourable evaluation of the sponsoring brands.

Brand love is perceived as one of the main objectives in brand management. Nevertheless, research into the factors influencing brand love are scarce. This paper aims to apply the theory of planned behaviour to the context of brand love and investigate the influence of several factors on brand love, including attitude towards loving a brand, subjective norm and perceived control factors, namely, the propensity to anthropomorphise and the affordability of the brand. Further, the influence of brand love on brand forgiveness is proven. Additionally, this research investigates the influence of involvement with the product category on the proposed relationship.

A survey (N = 274) was used to test the model in the context of fashion industry with the help of a convenience sample. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and (multi-group) structural equation modelling techniques assessed the proposed model.

Results show that the proposed model gives valuable insights to brand love, where involvement serves as a moderator. While the attitude towards loving a brand has a strong influence on brand love for both high and low involved consumers, affordability only plays a minor role for experiencing brand love. Subjective norm is found to facilitate brand love for high-involved consumers, while propensity to anthropomorphise leads to higher brand love for low involved consumers.

This paper demonstrates the applicability of the theory of planned behaviour to a consumer–brand relationship context. This adds to a deeper theoretical understanding of the managerially relevant construct of brand love. Further, the study demonstrates that brand lovers are more forgiving in times of disappointment. Introducing involvement into the research model provides valuable insights into the processes underlying brand love.