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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.

Matching celebrity athletes with potential endorsement opportunities is often difficult. Yet there are easy-touse survey-based methods available. Based on a survey of the general public in New Zealand, this study uses both Ohanian's source-credibility scale and a constant-sum scale to help brand managers, player agents and advertising practitioners select good celebrity athlete-product fit. Four New Zealand athletes (two males and two females) and several products were included in the test. Results show that the female celebrity athletes outperformed their male counterparts as potential endorsers. Use of Ohanian's multi-attribute scale yields a level of richness and insight, prompting us to advocate the use of both scales in the pursuit of endorser-product congruences.

This research has been conducted with the aim of determining if celebrity endorsers in political party advertising have a significant impact on UK voter intentions. The use of celebrity endorsements is commonplace in the USA, but little is known about its effects in the UK. This research also aims to incorporate the use of celebrity endorsements in political party advertising with the political salience construct. Political salience represents how prominent politics and political issues are in the minds of the eligible voter.

A 2 (endorser: celebrity; non‐celebrity)×2 (political salience: high; low) between‐subjects factorial design experiment was used. The results show that celebrity endorsements do play a significant role in attitudes towards the political advert, attitudes towards the endorser and voter intention. However, this effect is significantly moderated by political salience.

The results show that low political salience respondents were significantly more likely to vote for the political party when a celebrity endorser is used. However, the inverse effect is found for high political salience respondents.

The results offer significant insights into the effect that celebrity endorsers could have in future elections and the importance that political salience plays in the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. If political parties are to target those citizens that do not actively engage with politics then the use of celebrity endorsements would make a significant impact, given the results of this research.

This research would be of particular interest to political party campaigners as well as academics studying the effects of advertising and identity salience.

The purpose of this study was to examine the dimensions of athletic star power associated with Generation Y sports consumption. Multivariate analyses revealed that athletic star power factors (Professional Trustworthiness, Likeable Personality, Athletic Expertise, Social Attractiveness and Characteristic Style) were positively (p < .05) predictive of the sport consumption factors (Event Consumption and Merchandise Consumption).

The purpose of this study was to test whether endorsements that show a low strength of association (bottom-up bias) benefit from increased attention and processing efforts. The current study also tested whether consumer involvement level (top-down bias) dynamically interacts with the bottom-up attention phenomena.

Through a series of pretests, 36 potential celebrity-product matches were identified using real athletes and product brands. Two experiments were conducted: 330 individual responses (110 participants × three conditions) were obtained in a within-subjects lab experiment, and 868 participants were recruited for a between-subjects online experiment. Linear mixed modeling and moderated mediation analysis were performed.

The relationships between the strength of image associations and attention time to endorsements and recall and choice consideration of endorsed brands were U-shaped and curvilinear. Attention largely mediated the relationship between the strength of association and recall/choice. Involvement effects were diluted by the strength of association effects, rejecting top-down attentional control.

Brand managers for both products and celebrities are recommended to search for corresponding not only image-matched partners but also endorsement partners with dissonant pre-existing images.

The majority of the existing endorsement literature has conventionally suggested that congruence between the endorser and the endorsed property, rather than incongruence, induces consumers’ positive endorsement evaluation. This study constructs important theoretical advancements to the existing literature by empirically proving that through an attentional process, an endorsement contract, conventionally perceived as mismatched, can also generate positive outcomes.

This chapter has three central goals: First, it aims to introduce the concept of consumers’ online brand endorsements, which we define as consumers’ intentional, public, and positive online affiliations with brands (e.g., liking a brand page on Facebook). Second, it provides an overview of the drivers and consequences of this phenomenon. Third, it answers the question whether and when the broadly adopted marketing strategy of consumers’ online brand endorsements is feasible.

To accomplish these goals, we conducted a general review of the literature.

We identified three different drivers of consumers’ online brand endorsements: Identity-related drivers, brand-related drivers, and community-related drivers. Based on the literature we suggest that from the perspective of the endorsing consumer, online brand endorsements have the potential to be a two-sided sword.

The greater potential of this marketing technique appears to rely on the fact that consumers’ online brand endorsements are broadcasted to a gigantic network of other consumers and their potential to be contagious.

Consumers’ online brand endorsements are a new phenomenon and therefore quite understudied. Still, many brands have social media marketing strategies that aim to acquire huge amounts of endorsements by their consumers. This chapter contributes to our knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of consumers’ online brand endorsements. Moreover, it shows how and when consumers’ online brand endorsements can be a feasible marketing strategy.

This paper's aim is to study a neglected research outcome within the last ten years, i.e. the impact of unemployment on the willingness of those laid off (victims) to endorse their previous employer to others.

A unique sample of unemployed victims completed an on‐line survey investigating the impact of personal background variables, organizational background variables and layoff treatment variables on their willingness to endorse their previous employer.

As expected, the perceived legitimacy of closure/procedural justice explained willingness to endorse. It was also found that higher perceived distributive justice was related to willingness to endorse. Collectively both layoff treatment variables explained most of the endorsement variance. Length of unemployment was positively related to anger and depression, and anger and depression were each negatively related to previous employer endorsement. In addition, it was also found that an unexpected new outcome, potential rehire, emerged as related to but distinct from willingness to endorse. Supporting this distinctiveness, victims who were angrier about being unemployed were less likely to endorse their previous employer to others, but victims who were more depressed about being unemployed were willing to potentially reapply to their former employer.

Study results reinforce the importance of perceived justice affecting not only layoff victims' previous employer endorsement but also their potential rehiring.

A uniquely unemployed sample, primarily executives, middle managers and professional, salaried individuals, with most being longer‐term unemployed, was utilized. There was also a stronger measure of distributive justice. Potential rehire emerged as a distinct outcome from willingness to endorse previous employer.

Endorsement deals are a key contributing factor for companies to gain brand recognition and positive brand associations from consumers. However, endorsement relationships can be risky for firms in the event of an endorser’s bad behavior or involvement in scandals. The purpose of this paper is to examine how brands can use endorsement exit strategies to minimize and even benefit from negative situations involving its endorser.

After a review of celebrity endorsement literature, the paper investigates the Rio Olympic Games robbery scandal involving American swimmer Ryan Lochte as a detailed case. By studying the timeline of sponsor-related activities, relevant theories and brand outcomes through Google Trends, indications of a calculated and strategic exit from the endorsement relationship emerge.

The case analysis establishes that sponsors can successfully leverage the negative associations toward a disgraced endorser. Based on the process of meaning transfer, this case proposes that sponsors can benefit from its public dissociation from the endorser and gain awareness from this separation.

This paper is the first study to examine the positive impact of a celebrity endorsement scandal. It highlights the need for managers to actively prepare endorsement exit strategies in the event of negative associations or endorser actions. The timing and scope of the exit strategy can both limit negative meaning transfer, and leverage the situation creating positive perceptions of integrity and ethics for the sponsor.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the insertion of an endorsement – or the lack of it – in conjunction with product information relevancy, have an impact on consumers' purchase intentions related to a particular product.

An experiment was conducted to test the research hypotheses posited by this study. A 3 × 2 factorial design manipulating three product‐communication forms was employed. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two counterbalanced subgroups associated with each of the six experimental conditions, with 12 experimental conditions. The experimental stimuli included two type of product‐performance information, each highlighting either the “superb power” or “superb control” feature of a tennis racquet.

Study findings indicate that product information relevancy to consumers' desired product characteristics had a significant influence on purchase intention.

The study described in this paper suffers from the generic limitations of all laboratory studies with forced exposure to stimuli in that the external validity is sacrificed at the cost of the internal validity. A related external validity issue involves the generalizability of the present research findings across different types of products.

Endorsements – while potentially effective in enhancing purchase intention – may elicit different responses from consumers, depending upon the content class and information relevancy. In order to level the playing field, advertisers may wish to consider advertising strategies that not only feature endorsements, but also provide potential consumers with easy access to publicity articles that further substantiate these claims. For promoting products, it is imperative that ease of access to this third‐party information becomes a strategic priority. In addition to prominently displaying and drawing attention to the endorsement in their advertising, advertisers may also want to obtain and manage available endorsements on their own web sites.

The paper compares the effectiveness of three forms of product communication in relation to endorsement and product‐information relevancy on consumers' purchase intentions; it also contributes in expanding the understanding of these relations to the online product promotion context. Given that performance relevancy in product information is rather prevalent in the online environment, the paper's findings can also help inform both researchers and practitioners in this particular area of research inquiries in the future.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of multiple brand celebrity endorsement strategies on firms’ performance and different attributes associated with celebrities on firms’ performance. In this regard, the present study specifically explores the role of celebrity reputation and experience, as well as social media as a promotion platform in influencing the economic effectiveness of multiple brand endorsement strategies, i.e. proportion of brands endorsed in a firms’ brand portfolio.

Study is based on instrumental variable regression analysis approach and is conducted in one of the emerging markets, i.e. India.

The findings indicate that firms’ market valuations increase as its proportion of brands endorsed by celebrities increases. Furthermore, popularity reputation of celebrity also influences market valuation, and relationship is positively moderated by celebrity’s experience.

Extant studies have considered one endorsement news of a firm at a time. However, how total proportion of firms’ brand endorsed by celebrities impacts its performance has not been investigated. Furthermore, impact of celebrity traits has been examined only in consumer behavior studies and has been rarely investigated in context of firms’ economic performance.