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This study aims to examine the influence of five sports celebrity personality (SCP) attributes – attractiveness, expertise level, credibility, trustworthiness and character – on consumers' purchase intentions (CPI). It identifies celebrity brand congruence (CBC), endorsed brand celebrity (EBC) and transfer of brand image (TBI) as antecedents of CPI.

The purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data from 838 respondents. This study developed a multidimensional construct for SCP. The covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) technique was used to examine the relationship between SCP and the endorsed brand. The study used CBC as a mediator and EBC and TBI as partial mediators. The direct and indirect effect of SCP on CPI was investigated using CBC, EBC and TBI as mediators.

This study supports the importance of three antecedents (i.e. CBC, EBC and TBI) on CPI. It finds congruence across SCP and CBC variables, and a positive impact of SCP on EBC and TBI variables. Also, it exhibits a significant direct effect of CBC on EBC and TBI, whereas the direct effect of CBC on CPI is not substantial. The indirect effect of CBC through mediating variables EBC and TBI found to be significant.

This study concludes that sports celebrity endorsement is essential to transfer the positive celebrity image to the endorsed brand image. However, it is not merely sufficient to influence the buyers' purchase conduct; the brand credibility additionally assumes to take a role in changing their behavioral intentions.

This study contributes to the sports marketing literature by its novelty in analyzing the sports celebrity personality at a multidimensional level. It uses SCP's different attributes as one construct and studies its impact on CPI by taking CBC, EBC and TBI as mediators. The results of this study equip sports management professionals with the knowledge to build better long-term relationships with consumers.

The present study aims to examine how consumers evaluate the extended human brands of athlete celebrities beyond their unique brand personality associated with sports. Athlete celebrities' unique image in sports is used as a human brand, and attitude toward the athlete brand extensions is investigated when the athlete's name is included in a new non-sport brand. The concepts of brand extensions were employed to develop the ideas of human brand extensions.

In total, 198 participants answered online survey questions before and after being informed of athlete brand extensions. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is utilized to test the hypotheses.

The survey results indicated that athlete–product fit and image transfer positively influenced attitude toward the extension. In addition, attitude toward the athlete brand extensions was significantly influenced by consumers' pre-existing attitude toward the celebrity; however, not by celebrity's expertise.

The research findings imply that some brand extension concepts are applicable to human brands to understand the effectiveness of athlete brand extensions for non-sport products.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of celebrity endorser credibility on consumer self-brand connection and endorsed brand equity. A conceptual model is developed, positioning consumer self-brand connections as a partial mediator of the effect of endorser credibility on endorsed brand equity.

A cross-sectional survey of 382 consumers of sports drinks in the USA was conducted to estimate the conceptual model. Stimuli, devised on the basis of a pre-test, involved celebrity–brand pairings in the context of the US non-aseptic sports drinks industry. Structural equation modeling is used as the analytic tool.

The research model is empirically supported. Celebrity endorsements impact endorsed brand equity via two pathways. First, a direct effect of endorser credibility on endorsed brand equity was observed, which is positively moderated by the degree of consumer-perceived endorser–brand congruence. Second, self-brand connection partly mediates the effect of endorser credibility on endorsed brand equity, supporting an indirect mechanism of brand equity enhancement.

Managers can now consider using celebrities as tools to develop meaningful self-concept-related connections with consumers. Additionally, the results of this study support for the use of celebrity endorsers as direct brand equity-enhancing tools.

This study is among pioneering investigations that examine the self-concept repercussions of celebrity endorsements, suggesting that celebrity endorsers possess the ability to engage with consumers at the self-concept level, in turn, impacting endorsed brand equity. Additionally, this paper examines the direct and indirect mechanisms by which celebrities influence consumer-based brand equity of the endorsed brand.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the personality dimensions of consumers and celebrities; the effect of celebrity personality on attitude towards the celebrity; and the effect of attitude towards the celebrity on purchase intention.

Data were gathered from 400 respondents in the North of England to explore the connections between five consumer personality dimensions (agreeableness, extroversion, openness, conscientiousness and neuroticism) and nine celebrity personality dimensions (neuroticism, extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, sincerity, excitement, stylishness and positivity) and were analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings suggested that some dimensions of consumer personality, i.e. conscientiousness, extroversion and openness, were significantly related to all the celebrity personality dimensions. Moreover, all the celebrity personality dimensions had a significant effect on consumers’ attitude towards the celebrity; however, only neuroticism, extroversion, openness, sincerity and positivity significantly affected purchase intention. Finally, attitude towards the celebrity had a significant effect on purchase intention.

The study introduces a celebrity personality scale and explores a topic that has not previously been researched.

It is not possible for every fan of a sport to watch matches at stadiums because of the capacity and location constraints. Furthermore, although sport fans could not physically attend sporting events during the COVID-19 pandemic, corporations still showed interest in sponsoring such events. To better understand this phenomenon, this study examined the effects of fans' event involvement on event reputation, event commercialization, corporate brand credibility, corporate brand image and purchase intentions of the corporate sponsor brand.

A total of 646 responses were collected from fans of Indian Premier League teams. Confirmatory factor analysis and covariance-based structural equation modelling analyses were conducted on the collected data.

Results showed that fans' involvement in televised sporting events had a positive influence on the events' reputation, which, in turn, had a significant impact on their corporate brand credibility and image. Furthermore, the corporate brand credibility and image had a positive impact on the fans' purchasing decisions.

This study provides valuable implications for marketing managers aiming to enhance their understanding of the impact of event sponsorship on corporate brands. In addition, the findings provide insight into how to support the development of effective sponsorship strategies in the future. The results suggest that sponsoring companies should consider maintaining the credibility and image of their brands to achieve the desired outcomes from sponsoring such sporting events.

This chapter discusses the extent to which the absorptive class has been created as essentially narcissistic in character by the system of capitalist production. Guy Debord, an early critic of a post modern capitalism, argued that capitalism had gone so far in the production of the commodity that society is turned into a mirror or spectacle that represents the kind of void in existence felt at the core of the individuals within it. He also laments the way in which the economy exists for its own sake, rather than for those that live within it and as part of it. In his somewhat incoherent work, The Society of the Spectacle, he writes of the commodity as spectacle, and we find such assertions as (Debord, 1983):“The spectacle aims at nothing other than itself.”“The spectacle subjugates living men to itself to the extent that the economy has totally subjugated them. It is not more than the economy developing for itself.”“The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.”

Quantitative objective studies on the problem of celebrity selection are lacking. Furthermore, existing research does not recognize the group decision-making nature and the possibility of customer involvement in celebrity or influencer selection for social media marketing. This study conceptualizes celebrity selection as a multi-attribute group decision-making problem while deriving the final ranking of celebrities/influencers using interactive and flexible criteria based on the value tradeoff approach. The article thus proposes and demonstrates a quantitative objective method of celebrity selection for a brand or campaign in an interactive manner incorporating customer's preferences as well.

Each decision-maker's preferences for celebrity selection criteria are objectively captured and converted into an overall group preference using a modified generalized fuzzy evaluation method (MGFEM). The final ranking of celebrities is then derived from an interactive and criteria-based value tradeoff approach using the flexible and interactive tradeoff method.

The approach gives a different ranking of celebrities for two campaigns based on group members' perceived importance of the selection criteria in different scenarios. This group includes decision-makers (DMs) from the brand, marketing communication agency and brand's customers. Further, each group member has an almost equal say in the decision-making based on fuzzy evaluation and an interactive and flexible value tradeoff approach to celebrity selection for receiving a rank order.

The approach uses secondary data on celebrities and hypothetical scenarios. Comparison with other methods is difficult, as no other study proposes a multi-criteria group decision-making approach to celebrity selection especially in a social media context.

This approach can help DMs make more informed, objective and effective decisions on celebrity selection for their brands or campaigns. It recognizes that there are multiple stakeholders, including the end customers, each of whose views is objectively considered in the aspects of group decision-making through a fuzzy evaluation method. Further, this study provides a selection mechanism for a given context of endorsement by objectively and interactively encapsulating stakeholder preferences.

This robust and holistic approach to celebrity selection can help DMs objectively make consensual decisions with partial or complete information. This quantitative approach contributes to the literature on selection mechanisms of influencers, celebrities, social media opinion leaders etc. by providing a methodological aid that encompasses aspects of interactive group decision-making for a given context. Moreover, this method is useful to DMs and stakeholders in understanding and incorporating the effect of nature or context of the brand and the campaign type in the selection of a celebrity or an influencer.

Framed by nostalgia marketing, this research draws upon lessons from ParticipACTION, a Canadian non-profit health promotion organization, to examine one of their most well-known campaigns, Body Break with ParticipACTION, in order to assess the potential role for nostalgia-based marketing campaigns in sport participation across generational cohorts.

Exploratory sequential mixed methods involving two studies were completed on behalf of ParticipACTION, with the authors developing the research instruments and the collection of the data undertaken by research agencies. Study 1 was the secondary analysis of qualitative data from five focus groups with different demographic compositions that followed a common question guide. Study 2 was a secondary data analysis of a pan-Canadian online survey with a sample (n = 1,475) representative of the overall adult population that assessed awareness of, and attitudes toward, ParticipACTION, Body Break, physical activity and sport participation. Path analysis tested a proposed model that was based on previous research on attitudes, brand and loyalty. Further, multi-group path analyses were conducted to compare younger generations with older ones.

The results provide direction and understanding of the importance of nostalgia in marketing sport participation programs across generational cohorts. For instance, in the four parent-adult focus groups, unaided references as well as frequent and detailed comments regarding Body Break were observed. Similarly, Millennials reported that Body Break was memorable, Canadian and nostalgic, with a mix of positive and negative comments. The importance of nostalgia was supported sequentially via results from the national survey. For example, while 54.1% of the 40–54 age-group associated ParticipACTION positively with Body Break, so did 49.8% of the 25–39-year age group, most of whom were not born when the promotion ran. Further, brand resonance was found to explain 4% more variance in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), the proxy for sport participation, for younger people compared to older people.

Results provide direction to brands, properties and agencies around the use of nostalgia in sport marketing campaigns and sponsorship efforts. For brands seeking to sponsor sport properties to alter their image with potential consumers in a new market, associating with a sport property that many view as nostalgic could improve the impact of the campaign. On the sport property side, event managers and marketers should both identify existing assets that members or fans are nostalgic about, as well as consider building nostalgia into current and new properties they develop.

This research is valuable to the sport marketing and sponsorship literature through several contributions. First, the use of nostalgia marketing, and nostalgia in general, is novel in the sport marketing and sponsorship literature, with future research in nostalgia and sponsorship recommended. Second, the potential to adopt or adapt Body Break to other sport participation and physical activity properties is empirically supported. Finally, the finding that very effective promotions can have a long-lasting effect, both on those who experienced the campaigns as well as younger populations who only heard about it, is notable.