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The author examined effects of endorser type and message framing on visual attention and ad effectiveness in health ads, including the moderator of involvement. This paper aims to discuss this issue.

An experiment was conducted with a 2 (celebrity vs. expert) × 2 (positive vs. negative framing) between-subject factorial design. Eye-tracking measured visual attention and a questionnaire measured ad effectiveness and product involvement.

Experimental data from 78 responses showed no vampire effect in the health advertisements. Celebrity endorsement with negative message framing received more attention and had less ad recall than that with positive message framing. Negative and positive message framing attracted the same amount of attention and ad recall in the expert endorsement condition. High involvement participants paid more attention to the ad message with the expert than that with the celebrity, but ad recall was not significantly increased. Low involvement participants exhibited the same attention to the ad message with the expert and with the celebrity, but had greater recall of the ad message with the expert. Visual attention to the endorser was associated with ad attitude but not with ad recall. Ad attitude impacted behavioral intention.

Studies examining influences of celebrity and message framing on ad effectiveness have focused on the response to advertising stimuli, not the information process. The author provides empirical evidence of the viewers' information processing of endorsers and health messages, and its relationship with ad effectiveness. The study contributes to the literature by combining endorser and message framing in health ads to promote public health communication from the information processing perspective.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer advocacy, customization and entertainment intentions based on the notion of the stimulus–organism–response (SOR) framework. In addition, this study aims to examine the mediating and moderating role of customization and entertainment intentions on the proposed relationships. The authors also intend to highlight the comparative effects between male and female young social media consumers on those proposed associations.

In the pursuit of comprehensive and rigorous data collection, this study adopted a quantitative methodology using a meticulously crafted questionnaire. The questionnaire survey was conducted in major cities of Malaysia using the convenience and snowball sampling techniques. A total of 576 responses were collected, even though 549 retorts were used for data analysis. In this investigation, the authors strategically used covariance-based structural equation modeling through the use of AMOS v. 24 as the primary data analysis tool. Augmenting the analytical depth, the authors also conducted a supplementary bootstrap analysis. The additional layers of examination were crucial for appraising the mediating and moderating effects inherent within the model, in which the PROCESS MACRO v.4.20 was used.

The results of this study revealed the significant direct positive effects of celebrity endorsers on consumer customization, entertainment and advocacy intentions. Consumer customization and entertainment intentions also found significant direct affirmative effects on consumer advocacy intention, along with the significant direct positive effects of consumer entertainment intention on consumer customization intention. The results further revealed that consumer customization and entertainment intentions cannot mediate the relationship between celebrity endorsers and advocacy intention. The entertainment intention also declined the mediating effects between celebrity endorsers and consumer customization intention. On the contrary, consumer customization intention significantly and positively, and entertainment intention also significantly but negatively, moderate the association between celebrity endorsers and consumer advocacy intention. This study also illustrates that the effects of those examined relationships differ between male and female young social media consumers.

This study investigates the impact of celebrity endorsers on consumer behavior, focusing on their customization, entertainment and advocacy intentions. It extends current SOR framework, enhances source credibility theory, fills gaps in the literature on social media brand engagement and underscores the significance of customization and entertainment intentions. The findings provide insights for managers aiming to harness consumer brand advocacy through celebrity endorsers effectively.

This study aims to investigate the influence of personality characteristics (risk-aversion and self-consciousness) on skepticism toward online services information (STOSI), consumer stress and health.

A between-subjects experiment (n = 228) was designed to compare effects based on third-party organization endorsement (TPO endorsed vs nonendorsed).

Results revealed that personality characteristics positively influenced STOSI, which in turn escalated consumer stress. Furthermore, consumer stress predicted detrimental effects on consumer health (increased blood pressure and heartbeat). Regarding TPO endorsements, both the risk-aversive and self-conscious consumers showed lesser STOSI when exposed to TPO-endorsed ads compared with nonendorsed ads.

This study is one of the first to examine the effects of consumer personality on consumer health through STOSI and consumer stress. In addition, the remedial roles of TPO in coping with STOSI and consumer stress also accumulate to the novelty of this study.

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 purpose of this study is to explore the comparative effects of mainstream celebrities and social media influencers on consumer advocacy and relationship intentions. The study also examines the direct and serial mediation effects on those relationships.

The survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 718 respondents throughout Malaysia, with convenience and snowball sampling techniques employed. The data were analyzed based on the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach through the AMOS version 24. The PROCESS MACRO v-4.20 was applied to evaluate mediating effects in the model.

The results reveal that celebrity endorsers' involvement in social media significantly influences the uses of social media, which also impacts the attitudes and, subsequently, consumer relationship and advocacy intentions. The study found that mainstream celebrities and social media influencers effectively promote brands, and it discovered insignificant differences in their effects on the analyzed relationships.

This study has been conducted on consumers in Malaysia; it may have different effects on consumers in other countries.

Brand managers and policymakers may benefit from following the study's guidelines for making consumer relationship and advocacy intentions by celebrity endorsers and uses of social media.

The brand community can benefit from tightening their social bondage by sharing and managing crucial information from celebrities and using social media.

The study explores the effects of mainstream celebrities on consumer relationship and advocacy intentions using social media networks and managing consumer attitudes.

In recent years, negative spokesperson incidents have raised significant concerns in academia and industry. While several studies have addressed celebrity endorser scandals, comprehensive analyses of current knowledge are lacking. Therefore, this study systematically reviewed the related literature to better understand trends and suggest future research directions for advancing this field.

This study employs the theory–context–characteristics–methodology (TCCM) framework to examine 76 articles on celebrity endorser scandals.

Utilizing the TCCM framework, this study presents a comprehensive research framework, revealing that (1) the celebrity endorser scandal effect primarily includes associative learning, attribution of responsibility, and moral reasoning; (2) entertainment celebrities and athletes have received significant research attention; (3) both individual- and relationship-level characteristics serve as crucial moderators, with focal brand and related brand being the primary outcome variables. Additionally, this study outlines enterprise response strategies, encompassing the reformation of existing spokesperson relationships and the establishment of future spokesperson connections; and (4) quantitative approaches dominate the field.

This study integrates and expands existing research on celebrity endorser scandals while proposing future research opportunities to advance the field.

The aim of this research is to measure the impact of eWOM (electronic word of mouth) and brand celebrity use on the purchasing behavior of sports consumers.

To test the model hypotheses, sports consumers who use social media and have purchased at least one online sports product were selected as the research group. Online survey method was used, and 836 participants were reached. The model was tested with structural equation modeling (SEM) through smart PLS software.

As a result, the quality, credibility and usefulness of the information consumers encounter on online platforms cause them to adopt information about products or services, and then exhibit online purchase behavior. While the attractiveness and trustworthiness of celebrities are seen as important factors affecting consumers' online purchase of sports products, the effect of celebrity expertise was found to be ineffective in this study.

Marketers can develop more effective eWOM strategies by considering consumers' expectations. Businesses that want to implement an effective marketing strategy may prefer celebrities in product promotions or advertisements of their brands.

This research revealed the effect of eWOM and celebrity endorsement on the online purchase behavior of sports consumers in terms of the sports industry. Unlike previous studies, this study examined these variables together on sports consumers and contributed to the development of models.

Users' voluntary forwarding behavior opens a new avenue for companies to promote their brands and products on social networking sites (SNS). However, research on voluntary information disseminators is limited. This paper aims to bring an in-depth understanding of voluntary disseminators by answering the following questions: (1) What is the underlying mechanism by which some users are more enthusiastic to voluntarily forward content of interest? (2) How to identify them? We propose a theoretical model based on the Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM) and examine three types of factors that moderate the effect of preference matching on individual forwarding behavior, including personal characteristics, tweet characteristics and sender–receiver relationships.

Via Twitter API, we randomly crawled 1967 Twitter users' data to validate the conceptual framework. Each user’s original tweets and retweeted tweets, profile data such as the number of followers and followees and verification status were obtained. The final corpus contains 163,554 data points composed of 1,634 valid twitterers' retweeting behavior. Tweets produced by these core users' followees were also crawled. These data points constitute an unbalanced panel data and we employ different models — fixed-effects, random-effects and pooled logit models — to test the moderation effects. The robustness test shows consistency among these different models.

Preference matching significantly affects users' forwarding behavior, implying that SNS users are more likely to share contents that align with their preferences. In addition, we find that popular users with lots of followers, heavy SNS users who author tweets or forward other-sourced tweets more frequently and users who tend to produce longer original contents are more enthusiastic to disseminate contents of interest. Furthermore, interaction strength has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between preference matching and individuals' forwarding decisions, suggesting that users are more likely to disseminate content of interest when it comes from strong ties. However, the moderating effect of perceived affinity is significantly negative, indicating that an online community of individuals with many common friends is not an ideal place to engage individuals in sharing information.

This work brings about a deep understanding of users' voluntary forwarding behavior of content of interest. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine (1) the underlying mechanism by which some users are more likely to voluntarily forward content of interest; and (2) how to identify these potential voluntary disseminators. By extending the ELM, we examine the moderating effect of tweet characteristics, sender–receiver relationships as well as personal characteristics. Our research findings provide practical guidelines for enterprises and government institutions to choose voluntary endorsers when trying to engage individuals in information dissemination on SNS.

This paper aims to explore how parasocial relationships with Korean celebrity endorsers on social media result in brand credibility and loyalty.

The participants were identified through a purposive sampling approach, and they were composed of consumers who purchased Korean-celebrity-endorsed products and services of a telecommunications company. The hypothesized relationships were gauged using a predictive approach as a research design via partial least squares (PLS) path modeling.

The findings show that all hypothesized relationships are supported. In particular, social media interaction was found to have a substantial, positive and significant effect on self-disclosure. Moreover, self-disclosure has a considerably significant and direct effect on parasocial relationships and was found to indirectly affect the link between social media interactions and parasocial relationships. The results further reveal that social media interactions and parasocial relationships predict source trustworthiness, leading to brand credibility and loyalty.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present undertaking is the only study that examined how parasocial relationships on social media are built when foreign celebrities, in this case, the well-known Korean popular group BTS, endorse telecommunications products and services.

La presente investigación explora cómo las relaciones parasociales con celebridades coreanas en las redes sociales generan credibilidad de marca y lealtad.

Los participantes se identificaron mediante un muestreo intencional y estaban compuestos por consumidores que compraban productos y servicios de una empresa de telecomunicaciones avalados por famosos coreanos. Las relaciones hipotetizadas se midieron utilizando un enfoque predictivo como diseño de investigación mediante un modelo de mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS).

Los resultados muestran que todas las relaciones hipotetizadas se confirman. En particular, la interacción con los medios sociales tiene un efecto sustancial, positivo y significativo en la autodivulgación. Además, la autodivulgación tiene un efecto considerablemente significativo y directo en las relaciones parasociales y se descubrió que afecta indirectamente al vínculo entre las interacciones en los medios sociales y las relaciones parasociales. Los resultados revelan además que las interacciones en los medios sociales y las relaciones parasociales predicen la fiabilidad de la fuente, lo que conduce a la credibilidad de la marca y a la lealtad.

El presente trabajo es el único estudio que examina cómo se construyen las relaciones parasociales en los medios sociales cuando celebridades extranjeras, en este caso, el conocido grupo popular coreano BTS, promocionan productos y servicios de telecomunicaciones.

本研究探讨了在社交媒体上与韩国名人的寄生关系如何建立品牌可信度和忠诚度。

通过目的性抽样确定参与者, 包括购买韩国名人代言的电信公司产品和服务的消费者。研究设计使用偏最小二乘法（PLS）模型对假设关系进行预测测量。

研究结果表明, 所有假设关系都得到了证实。特别是, 社交媒体互动对自我披露具有实质性的、积极的和显著的影响。此外, 自我披露对寄生关系也有明显的直接影响, 并被发现间接影响社交媒体互动与寄生关系之间的联系。研究结果进一步揭示了社会化媒体互动和寄生关系能够预测来源的可信度, 从而提高品牌可信度和忠诚度。

研究结果表明, 所有假设的关系都得到了证实。特别是, 社交媒体互动对自我披露具有实质性的、积极的和显著的影响。此外, 自我披露对寄生关系也有明显的直接影响, 并被发现间接影响社交媒体互动和寄生关系之间的联系。研究结果进一步揭示了社会化媒体互动和寄生关系能够预测来源的可信度, 从而提高品牌可信度和忠诚度。

本文是唯一一篇研究外国名人在社交媒体上推广电信产品和服务时如何建立寄生社会关系的研究。

This study aims to empirically test how sponsored video customization (i.e. the degree to which a sponsored video is customized for a sponsoring brand) affects video shares differently depending on influencer characteristics (i.e. mega influencer and expert influencer) and brand characteristics (i.e. brand establishment and product involvement).

This study uses a unique real-world data set that combines coded variables (e.g. customization) and objective video performance (e.g. sharing) of 365 sponsored videos to test the hypotheses. A negative binomial model is used to analyze the data set.

This study finds that the effect of video customization on video shares varies across contexts. Video customization positively affects shares if they are made for well-established brands and high-involvement products but negatively influences shares if they are produced by mega and expert influencers.

This study extends the influencer marketing literature by focusing on a new media modality – sponsored video. Drawing on the multiple inference model and the persuasion knowledge theory, this study teases out different conditions under which video customization is more or less likely to foster audience engagement, which both influencers and brands care about. The chosen research setting may limit the generalizability of the findings of this study.

The findings suggest that mega and expert influencers need to consider if their endorsement would backfire on a highly customized video. Brands that aim to engage customers with highly-customized videos should gauge their decision by taking into consideration their years of establishment and product involvement. For video-sharing platforms, especially those that are planning to expand their businesses to include “matching-making services” for brands and influencers, the findings provide theory-based guidance on optimizing such matches.

This paper fulfills an urgent research need to study how brands and influencers should produce sponsored videos to achieve optimal outcomes.