When is celebrity endorsement effective? Exploring the role of celebrity endorsers in enhancing key brand associations

This study examines how a celebrity endorser’s key associations can complement and help improve a brand’s low corresponding associations. By conducting three studies, we find that when consumers have no prior knowledge about the benefits of a brand, a celebrity’s enabling, enticing, and enriching (3E) associations get transferred to the brand. However, when consumers know that a brand has low 3E benefits, only the celebrity endorsers’ enriching associations are transferred to the brand. Thus, from the current study the importance of a celebrity’s enriching benefits is emphasized for both unknown and well-known brands. Furthermore, we theorize and demonstrate consumer elevation as the underlying mechanism whereby the enriching benefits of a celebrity endorser are transferred to a brand. The current findings extend the extant literature on celebrity endorsement management and provide valuable managerial insights for developing effective celebrity endorsement strategies.