Investigating endorser personality effects on brand personality: Causation and reverse causation in India

Abstract

A considerable amount of research has been conducted in the area of celebrity endorsements and brand personality (BP). However, there has been no effort (at least as far as the authors are aware) to integrate both aspects of celebrity endorsements and BP to ascertain the effect of celebrity personality on brand personality. The current study aims to examine whether celebrity personality has an effect on BP (defined formally by Aaker as ‘the set of human characteristics associated with a brand’) with the help of construction and testing of a conceptual model. Moreover, the authors also test the applicability of brand personality dimensions for a celebrity, assuming the celebrity as a brand. Analysing data collected from 394 respondents, the authors use structural equation modelling to test the conceptual model. The Brand Personality scale dimensions are found to be reliable and valid for both the brand and the celebrity. The results also indicate a statistically-significant effect of the celebrity personality on the brand personality. However, a significant effect of the brand personality on the celebrity personality is also observed, which indicates a reverse flow of personality from the brand to the celebrity. In a broader sense, the study tries to achieve a link between celebrity endorsement and brand personality literature with the help of the concept of meaning or personality transfer between the celebrity endorser and the brand endorsed.