When and How Do a Brand Endorser's Benefits Get Transferred to a Brand?

摘要

Why do brands continue to rely on celebrities and spend billions on hiring various celebrities in the hope of strengthening the brand? We study what type of key celebrity benefits get transferred to brands for enhanced brand love,brand trust,and brand respect.Critically,our study focuses on how the celebrity endorser benefits can complement the weak corresponding benefits of brands by the benefit transfer whereas most extant studies on the celebrity endorsement have focused on similarity or congruence between a brand and its endorser.Moreover,we explore when such transfer occurs and when it does not.Is the usage of celebrities equally effective for brands that are known by consumers vis-a-vis brands that are completely unknown by consumers? Such questions are of great importance to the marketing practice as answers to these questions inform managers as to which celebrities might be best for a particular brand and when such endorsement is likely to lead to the desired transfer of celebrity benefits to a brand.