Investigating the celebrity effect: the influence of well-liked celebrities on adults' implicit and explicit responses to brands

Abstract

Celebrities are used within advertisements in an attempt to impact positively on consumers’ attitudes toward brands, purchase intentions, and ad believability. However, the findings from previous research on the effects of celebrity liking on brand evaluations have been mixed. In the study presented here, explicit and implicit responses to brands were more positive after pairing with well-liked celebrities (p < .01) and more positive than for brands paired with noncelebrities (p < .001). Participants also demonstrated a preference for celebrity-paired brands in their brand choices (p < .001). Participants’ general accuracy-based advertising skepticism was negatively correlated with explicit celebrity brand preferences (p < .05), whereas affect-based skepticism was negatively correlated with implicit (p < .05) preferences. These results are discussed in relation to the contextual and attitudinal factors that might trigger resistance to the effects of celebrity endorsement as well as the underlying psychological processes involved in responding to ads.