Elsevier

Journal of Business Research

Volume 109, March 2020, Pages 472-488
Journal of Business Research

Examining the effects of celebrity trust on advertising credibility, brand credibility and corporate credibility

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.11.079Get rights and content

Abstract

Drawing on signalling theory, this study aims to fill a gap in knowledge by examining the effects of celebrity trust on advertising credibility, brand credibility and corporate credibility, both directly and based on the moderating variables of age, gender and ethnicity. The research has three objectives: (i) to explore the effects of celebrity trust on advertising credibility, brand credibility and corporate credibility; (ii) to explore the effects of celebrity trust on advertising credibility, brand credibility and corporate credibility, based on the moderating effects of consumer demographics; and (iii) to explore the effects of the other constructs on each other. A survey of 625 respondents was conducted in London. The results show that celebrity trust has a positive effect on both advertising credibility and brand credibility, and that these effects are moderated by consumers’ ethnicity, with no effects of age or gender. The significant implications for managers and researchers are highlighted.

Introduction

The use of celebrity endorsers is one of the most popular strategies used by advertisers. Celebrities can bring visibility to advertisements and break through the clutter of competing brands. Firms invest substantial amounts of money to gain consumers’ attention and to acquire a competitive position in the market. A rough estimate suggests that as much as 10 per cent of a firm’s annual budget is spent on celebrity endorsements (Bergkvist and Zhou, 2016, Wang and Scheinbaum, 2018). These huge costs make this area of decision-making and spending highly risky (Um & Kim, 2016). Marketers use various techniques to reduce these risks, including hiring celebrities based on an understanding of trust within the context of celebrity endorsement consumers (Bergkvist and Zhou, 2016, Erdogan, 2001, Wang and Scheinbaum, 2018).

The importance of celebrity trust has also led several researchers to study its effectiveness in greater detail (Ohanian, 1990). A related but conceptually and operationally distinct construct, celebrity trustworthiness, has already been explored (Ohanian, 1990). Celebrity trustworthiness is conceived from celebrity credibility, which consists of two other dimensions, so-called expertise and attractiveness (Yoo, Lee, & Jin, 2018). Previous research suggests that although all three credibility dimensions have significance in stimulating consumers’ recall rates and buying behaviours, celebrity trustworthiness is the most important, and also makes the highest contribution to increasing consumers’ confidence in the brand and firm (Frieden, 1986; Deshpande and Douglas, 1994, Erdogan, 2001, Bekk and Sporrle, 2010). This importance, alongside the fact that celebrity trust has different meanings, conceptual characteristics, dimensions, components and effects from celebrity trustworthiness (Dadzie et al., 2018, Franklin and Marshall, 2019, Roy et al., 2018, Yu et al., 2015), demonstrates the need to study celebrity trust in more detail and particularly, as suggested by previous researchers (Delgado-Ballester et al., 2003, Soh et al., 2009), on its own.

The aim of this research is therefore to extend the current knowledge by examining the effects of celebrity trust on other credibility constructs. The study has three objectives: (i) to explore the effects of celebrity trust on advertising credibility, brand credibility and corporate credibility; (ii) to explore the effects of celebrity trust on advertising credibility, brand credibility and corporate credibility, taking consumer demographics into account; and (iii) to explore the effects of the other constructs on each other, i.e. advertising credibility on brand credibility and corporate credibility, and brand credibility on corporate credibility. To examine these effects, signalling theory has been used to establish whether celebrity trust or other credibility constructs can be used to send credible signals, and how these signals affect each of the relationships being examined.

The paper starts with an explanation of the background of celebrity trust, before presenting the conceptual model and a series of hypotheses. It then sets out the research method and the details of a large-scale field survey investigation that was undertaken to test the hypotheses. Finally, the discussion and conclusions are presented.

Section snippets

Research background

Celebrity endorsers are individuals who enjoy high public recognition and use this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement (McCracken, 1989). They are considered to be an effective marketing communication tool (Singh and Banerjee, 2018, Spry et al., 2011). They lead to higher advertisement and brand recall by cutting through the clutter in a competitive market and improving communication with consumers.

The use of celebrity endorsements as a marketing

Conceptual framework and hypotheses development

The conceptual framework proposed in this study uses signalling theory – which is itself based on information asymmetry theory – to provide a roadmap through which consumers can make judgements about a brand and/or a firm’s characteristics. When consumers are uncertain about the quality of a brand or firm, marketers use signals to inform them about the outstanding characteristics of the brand or firm (Erdem and Swait, 2004, Karanges et al., 2018). Various marketing mix elements can be used to

Context and data collection

This study followed Churchill (1979) procedure to gain an in-depth knowledge of the topic by understanding the research questions, generating hypotheses, creating a scale for celebrity trust, and refining or purifying the measures for other scales. These procedures are divided into three phases (Foroudi et al., 2014, Melewar et al., 2017). In the first phase, the researchers reviewed the existing literature on each of the constructs, and conducted exploratory interviews and focus groups with

Discussion and theoretical implications

The findings of this study suggest that celebrity trust has a significant effect on advertising credibility and brand credibility. These findings are consistent with most of the previous studies in which researchers (Dwivedi et al., 2015, Hasanah and Wahid, 2019, Kim et al., 2014, Yoo et al., 2018) examined the effects of celebrity trustworthiness on similar constructs to advertising credibility and brand credibility. However, no effects of celebrity trust on corporate credibility were found,

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