What do celebrity endorsements do for brand equity long term? A very interesting study published by Emerald Insights revealed that they apparently help brand equity even if they don’t trust the celebrity doing the endorsing!
Of course, as they say, you need a brand that is credible too to go along with your endorsement, but the interesting thing they found is even a comparably low trustworthy celebrity still helped the brand, which you would not expect to have happen. You can read their summary here:
Findings
– Results suggest endorser credibility has an indirect impact on brand equity when this relationship is mediated by brand credibility. This mediating relationship was moderated by type of branding. However, the “endorser credibility‐brand credibility” and “endorser credibility‐brand equity” relationships did not vary according to the type of branding employed.
Practical implications
– In support of past findings, the present study shows that a celebrity endorser should be one who is perceived as credible based on their attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness. Moreover, in this research, even a moderately low credibility endorser proved to be able to build the brand.
Originality/value
– The present study is one of the first to empirically examine and confirm the impact of endorser credibility on brand credibility and consumer‐based brand equity.
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