ABSTRACT

Drawing on stimulus-organism-response theory, the current paper was an investigation of the associations among a celebrity endorser’s credibility and brand affection, self-brand connection, and purchase intention along with how parasocial relationships moderate these emotion-based associations. Data from 299 Korean millennials were tested applying structural equation modeling and multi-group methods. The findings indicated that celebrity endorser’s credibility positively correlated with brand affection and self-brand connection and that they were in turn, associated with purchase intention. Furthermore, both brand affection and self-brand connection fully mediated the impact of celebrity endorser’s credibility on intention to purchase. Parasocial relationships moderated the influence on self-brand connection but not on brand affection. More precisely, the impact on self-brand connection was stronger with more parasocial relationships. The theoretical and practical contributions arising from these results are discussed.

摘要

本论文利用刺激-有机体-反应理论，研究了名人代言人的可信度与品牌喜爱度、自有品牌联系和购买意愿之间的关联，以及准社会关系如何调节这些基于情感的关联。应用结构方程模型和多组方法对来自 299 名韩国千禧一代的数据进行了测试。研究结果表明，名人代言人的可信度与品牌喜爱度和自有品牌联系呈正相关，反过来又与购买意愿相关。此外，品牌喜爱度和自有品牌关联度都充分中介了名人代言人可信度对购买意愿的影响。准社会关系调节了对自我品牌联系的影响，但对品牌情感没有影响。更准确地说，对自我品牌联系的影响随着更多的准社会关系而更强。讨论了这些结果产生的理论和实践贡献。