When Celebrities Count: Power Distance Beliefs and Celebrity Endorsements

Abstract

The use of celebrity endorsements varies across countries; does their effectiveness similarly vary across cultures? The authors propose that power distance beliefs (PDB), a cultural orientation related to the extent to which people expect and accept differences in power, moderate the effects of celebrity endorsements. A positive effect of celebrity endorsers on evaluations of advertising should be more potent with greater PDB; source expertise and trustworthiness likely underlie this effect. To test the hypotheses, the authors use moderated mediation analyses, with corrections for measurement error and endogeneity of the mediators (source expertise and trustworthiness). The results of three studies, using both manipulated and measured PDB for respondents in different countries and with a variety of endorsers, demonstrate that PDB determine the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements on attitudes toward the advertisement and the brand. In support of the moderated mediation model, perceptions of source expertise and trust mediate the effect of celebrity endorsements, conditional on PDB. The results hold for nondurables but do not generalize to durable products.

The interplay between endorser social status and normative appeals on the endorsement effectiveness of pro-environmental behaviors

“…In Experiment 1, we examine the hypotheses in a celebrity vs. ordinary consumer endorser context. As previous literature points out, celebrities are authority figures [7] who possess higher social status than do ordinary consumers [6], therefore, we try to explore whether this discrepancy in social status between celebrities and ordinary consumers would affect endorsement effectiveness when paired with different forms of normative appeals as predicted in the hypotheses.…”

“…In Experiment 2, we asked participants to evaluate the endorsers for social status to serve as manipulation checks (a 7-point semantic differential item). As prior literature suggests, social status could affect endorser trustworthiness and attractiveness [5, 7], which are predictors of endorsement effectiveness [14, 17]; therefore, we also asked participants to evaluate the endorsers for attractiveness and trustworthiness (each with one 7-point semantic differential item) to rule out the alternative explanations. In addition, we measured the environmental knowledge of the participants as control variables with scales used in Experiment 1 (Cronbach’s α = .79).…”

“…However, the role that social status can play in endorsement effectiveness has received limited attention [5] despite the fact that some endorsers (e.g., celebrities) enjoy higher social status than do the others (e.g., ordinary consumers) [6]. Social status is the relative standing a person holds within a social hierarchy [5, 7]. Higher status individuals have greater access to desirable benefits, such as resources, social approval, and respect from others [5, 8].…”

Fifty years of celebrity endorser research: Support for a comprehensive celebrity endorsement strategy framework

“…For example, Choi, Lee, and Kim () and Biswas et al () argued that endorsement research has been mainly conducted in the context of source credibility and attractiveness theory, and thus endorsements are typically found to be effective due to the source's credibility and attractiveness. Similarly, Winterich, Gangwar, and Grewal () interpreted research findings as evidence that trustworthiness and expertise (the two components of credibility) are the most influential determinants of the effect of celebrity endorsers on evaluations, whereas Zwilling and Fruchter () observed that in most cases, it is the attractiveness of the celebrity that strengthens consumer intention to purchase the advertised product.…”

Effects of celebrity endorsement on firms’ competition: from industrial organisation perspective

“…This attribute constrains its efficiency of obtaining the common and robust conclusions about product endorsement from management or marketing perspective. Evidences show that the effects of celebrity endorsements vary across countries and cultures (Winterich, Gangwar, & Grewal, 2018). On the contrary, economics has the inherent strength of revealing common and robust economics behaviours.…”