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This study aims to examine how young consumers perceive the advertising effectiveness of endorsements by virtual idols and how endorsements by virtual idols differ from endorsements by real human celebrities such as traditional celebrities and online influencers.

An experimental study was conducted with 400 randomly selected young respondents in China in December 2022. A 3 × 2 factorial design was used to test how the type of celebrity endorser and level of product involvement influence the persuasiveness of advertising aimed at young adults. Among 400 respondents, the average age was 21.5 years. A total of 193 male and 207 female respondents participated in the experiment.

Young consumers find virtual idols, online influencers and traditional celebrities attractive. Although virtual idols are the least credible among the three types of celebrity endorsers, young consumers tend to be more convinced by their endorsements of products with low levels of consumer involvement than those with high levels of involvement. Among the three types of celebrity endorsements, young consumers find traditional celebrities the most effective. In addition, young consumers’ attitudes toward celebrity endorsers mediate the impact of celebrity endorsers’ attractiveness and credibility on their attitudes toward the advertisements. The perceived level of product involvement moderates the transfer of meaning from the attitude toward the celebrity endorsers to the attitude toward the advertisement.

First, when choosing celebrity endorsers to advertise products targeting young consumers, marketing communication practitioners should give priority to the endorsers’ perceived credibility, as young consumers have a variety of views about them that can significantly affect their attitudes toward the advertisement. Second, real human celebrity endorsers are more effective than virtual idols in celebrity endorsements. However, virtual idols may be suited for use in advertisements to promote products with low involvement levels, such as soft drinks.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first experimental study to attempt to analyze the effectiveness of virtual idols in advertising aimed at young consumers. This is also the first comparative study to introduce virtual idols as celebrity endorsers in product advertising and to compare their effectiveness with that of the two other types of commonly discussed celebrity endorsers, traditional celebrities and online influencers.

The final effectiveness of employee voice largely depends on voice endorsement. This study aims to review, assess, analyze and synthesize the emerging literature on voice endorsement by focusing on its antecedents to promote future research from a comprehensive perspective.

Based on an integrative review of the literature, the authors conducted a content analysis of 53 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Building on the Shannon–Weaver communication model, this paper summarizes that factors influencing voice endorsement can be classified into five prominent aspects: voicer, voiced idea, contextual factors and noises, voice channel (medium) and voice receiver.

This research holds important implications for practice, providing practical guidelines for employees to speak up, for leaders to endorse voice and for organizations to maintain sustainable development by making full use of employee voice.

This review enriches voice endorsement research by introducing a communication framework to synthesize its antecedents and extends the application of the communication model in organization research. Additionally, the authors offer directions for future research.

Given the importance of third-party endorsements as external cues during purchase evaluations, the manipulation of endorsements may raise consumers’ suspicion and thereby reduce the effectiveness of marketing messages. Consumers find it increasingly difficult to distinguish between authentic and biased brand reviews. This research conducts two experiments regarding brand rankings of third-parties in four industries. Study 1 aims to probes the interaction effect of persuasion knowledge and fairness of rating method (fair vs. unfair) on brand rankings’ credibility and brand image enhancement. Study 2 examines the interplay of dispositional persuasion knowledge and reputation of third parties (high vs. low).

This research builds on an analysis of data (Study 1, N = 122; Study 2, N = 123) from Taiwan, where brand rankings held by third-party organizations are regular. The hypotheses were tested using SPSS’s PROCESS macro.

Drawing on previous research of persuasion knowledge, the authors find that a fair rating method and a high reputation of third-party organization can mitigate the negative effect of persuasion knowledge.

The results of this research suggest that marketers need to manage third-party endorsements carefully. Consumer skepticism toward these endorsements (e.g. third-party’s brand rankings) can be weakened when persuasion attempt is considered appropriate.

This is one of the first efforts to empirically explore the influences of persuasion knowledge on third-party endorsements. The importance of this work is underscored by the fact that a growing number of third-party endorsements are sponsored or even manipulated by brand owners.

There are two major strategies for short video advertising which are KOL (key opinion leader) endorsement and in-feed advertising. The authors aim to research the effectiveness of these two strategies for heterogeneous sellers.

The study employed a data set of users from Douyin. Using an endogenous treatment model, the study empirically examines the two strategies' effectiveness in attracting product traffic for online retailors at a short video app Douyin (TikTok).

The results show that the performance of in-feed advertising is higher when the seller's product is of lower price and when the seller has smaller cumulative video exposure. In addition, KOL endorsement is effective regardless of the product price, but performs better when the seller has larger cumulative video exposure.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to explore the interaction effects of two major advertising strategies, KOL endorsement and in-feed advertising on short video platforms. The findings provide important theoretical contributions and practical implications.

The authors examine mutually exclusive sub-groups of congruent expectations for leader and follower roles relate to sub-groups of self-other endorsement, and how these patterns predict relationship quality.

The authors examine patterns of congruent implicit theories relate to patterns of self-other endorsement, at the dyadic level, using latent class analysis in 193 working-adult dyads. The authors then examine how these patterns predict leader and follower assessments of relationship quality using general linear models (GLM).

The authors supported 4 classes of dyads with specific patterns of congruent (or incongruent) ILT's and IFT's: Role congruent, exchange congruent, committed leader congruent, and role incongruent dyads. Class membership predicted leader-assessed leader-member exchange (LMX) and perceived support. The authors then supported 3 classes of self-other endorsement: dyads with mutual endorsement, leader identity endorsement, and no endorsement. Class membership predicted follower-assessed LMX, perceived support, and perceived contribution from leaders. Class membership corresponded meaningfully.

The authors empirically examine the extent to which relationship behavior can be understood: (1) by similar implicit theories, or (2) through identification with a leader or follower role. Moreover, the authors uncover unique combinations of congruence, and address a key challenge posed by traditional variable-oriented strategies typically used in LMX research.

Many consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies have increased the visibility of their corporate brand to consumers by adding a corporate logo (e.g. Unilever “U”) on the packaging of their product brands (e.g. Dove, Domestos, Lipton, Knorr) and showcasing their product-brand portfolio in additional corporate-brand advertising. This paper aims to investigate consumer needs and product-brand familiarity as moderators of the impact of such a strong form of corporate-brand endorsement on the evaluation of established CPG product brands.

Two experiments with n = 670 and n = 118 respondents compare consumer evaluations of eight (Study 2: ten) product brands of a major German (Study 2: Anglo-Dutch) CPG company with versus without corporate-brand endorsement. The authors measure (Study 2: manipulate) the importance a consumer attaches to symbolic, experiential, relational and functional needs in brand choice.

Corporate-brand endorsement improves (decreases) the evaluation of established CGP product brands among consumer segments who base their brand choice in a CPG category predominantly on functional or relational (experiential or symbolic) needs. Furthermore, it exerts a negative effect on product brands among heavy category users due to their higher product-brand familiarity.

Rather than endorsing all its product brands with the corporate brand, a CPG company should do so selectively, depending on the positioning and target audience of each product brand.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to demonstrate the importance of consumer needs and product-brand familiarity in corporate-brand endorsement.

In view of the influences of online videos on the cultural tourism industry, this study aims to explore the mechanisms triggered by watching online video behaviors of fans. This study examines how fans who have watched celebrities’ online videos become tourists who attend concerts held at destinations based on celebrity and destination endorsements.

This study builds for celebrity and destination endorsements on online videos by combining media richness and source model theory. This research adopts partial least squares structural equation modeling to analyze the mechanism triggered by online media.

Watching online media influences celebrity and destination endorsements, which, in turn, affects the concert experience and intention to return to the destination. Results reveal less intertwined relationships between celebrity and destination endorsements and the complex mechanisms between the two endorsements.

With the rise in popularity of online media, online content has become a major source of information in the tourism industry and a means of enjoying travel seamlessly. This study highlights not only the role of “watching online videos” as one of the richest media but also the role of live concerts in cultural tourism for understanding complex cultural tourism.

为了探讨在线视频对文化旅游业的影响, 本研究探讨了观看在线视频所触发旅游行为的机制。本研究考察了在名人和景区的宣传下, 观看名人在线视频的粉丝如何成为参加目的地举办的演唱会的旅游者。

基于媒体丰富度和来源模型理论, 本研究调查了名人与景区的宣传视频。本研究采用partial least squares（PLS）结构方程建模来分析在线媒体所引发的机制。

观看在线媒体影响了名人和目的地宣传效应, 进而影响了演唱会的体验和到访目的地的意愿。研究结果揭示了名人和目的地宣传之间的关系并不紧密, 这两种宣传之间存在着复杂的机制。

随着在线媒体的普及, 在线内容已成为旅游业中信息的主要来源和享受旅游的手段。本研究不仅突出了“观看在线视频”作为最丰富的媒体之一的作用, 也突出了演唱会在文化旅游中的功能, 以更全面地理解复杂的文化旅游。

Celebrity endorsement is one of the most popular marketing communication tools that have been used by beverage companies to influence consumers’ behaviour, but little is known about the extent this communication strategy can be impactful and benefit alcoholic beverages like beer and wine. In this context, this study aims to examine whether and how social media celebrity endorsement influences consumers’ beer and wine purchase behaviour. Further, this study examines what are the characteristics of the celebrities that exert greater influence on beer and wine purchase behaviour.

Based on the source credibility and source attractiveness theoretical models, and on the match-up theory, a model of consumer purchase behaviour was proposed. Online celebrity endorsement was categorised as promoting either beer or wine, as well as beer and wine brands. Then, this model is empirically analysed through multiple group structural equation modelling on two samples of consumers who read online celebrity’s recommendations in Spain (beer = 280; wine = 277).

Findings indicate that celebrity’s recommendations exert a different influence pattern on consumer purchase behaviour depending on the product category: congruence is the most relevant variable in beer endorsement, whereas expertise is the most influencing factor in wine celebrity recommendations. Therefore, beer celebrity endorsers should be congruent with the product, whereas wine endorsers should be perceived as experts.

This study extends the literature on celebrity endorsement providing an empirical examination of the social media celebrity characteristics that influence consumer purchase behaviour of beer and wine, reporting interesting differences between these two alcoholic beverages.

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 paper aims to elucidate instances whereby celebrity endorsements by social media influencers (SMIs) embedded within online consumption communities are perceived as transgressive by their fellow community members. In doing so, this study provides insights into the new challenges and considerations that such community contexts present for celebrity endorsement.

The research team conducted a longitudinal, netnographic study of the YouTube beauty community, involving an initial phase of netnographic immersion followed by an investigative netnography that examined community members’ response to celebrity endorsements by 12 SMIs within the community.

This study identifies five recurring celebrity endorsement transgressions, each violating an established moral responsibility within the community. The paper explores how community members attribute responsibility for transgressive endorsements and identifies consequences for both the SMI and the endorsed brand.

This study focused on a single consumption community, developing a deep understanding of the distinct moral responsibilities that shape the reception of celebrity endorsements within this context.

The paper presents managerial recommendations that will aid both SMIs and brands in implementing celebrity endorsements that avoid communal perceptions of transgression.

The analysis extends prior study on celebrity endorsement by SMIs by explaining when and why SMI endorsements are likely to be perceived as transgressive by the community and providing new insights into community member responses to transgressive SMI endorsements. It also extends wider theories of celebrity endorsement by highlighting the influence of consumption community contexts upon endorsement reception and examining consumer responses to celebrity endorsements perceived as transgressive in and of themselves.