The effect of human brand attachment on brand supportive behavior and brand authenticity for the endorsed brands

This study examined the outcome variables of the attachment to two different types of human brands, celebrities and heroes. The main objective of the current study is to investigate how the attachment to celebrities and heroes differently influences brand supportive behavior and brand authenticity. Four important hypotheses were developed according to the literature review on established studies. We conducted a survey to empirically test proposed hypotheses and analyzed the survey data using a structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. The results showed that both attachments to celebrities and heroes have positive effects on brand supportive behavior and brand authenticity. More importantly, we also found that the attachment to heroes has relatively stronger effect on brand authenticity than the attachment to celebrities does while the attachment to celebrities has relatively stronger effect on brand supportive behavior than the attachment to heroes does. Based on the major findings of the current study, several important theoretical and practical implications were provided.