Story notes contributed by James Hunt, Professor in Marketing at the UNCW Cameron School of Business.
James Hunt, Ph.D. professor of marketing at UNCW Cameron School of Business recently published “Fifty Years of Celebrity Endorser Research: Support for a Comprehensive Celebrity Endorsement Strategy Framework” in Psychology & Marketing. The journal is rated “A” by the Australian Business Dean’s Council.
Coauthored with Dr. Christian Schimmelpfennig of Brand Laboratory in Zurich, Switzerland, the primary finding is support for the four traditional celebrity endorsement theories: source credibility, source attractiveness, match-up hypothesis, and meaning transfer model. Each theory constitutes an effective construct for a particular set of endorsements.
According to Hunt, “We argue that, contrary to the assertion in the literature, no single theory is able to holistically explain celebrity endorsements. Only a comprehensive framework comprising all theories can explain the great variety of celebrity endorsements executed in advertising praxis. We present a prescriptive framework that allows marketers to identify the most effective celebrity endorsement strategy based on a product’s or brand’s value proposition, as we believe traditional product categories are no longer an appropriate concept on which to base an effective advertising strategy.”
Read the journal article here: https://doi.org/10.1002/mar.21315
