The relationship between celebrity endorsement and brand equity: What's happening on the social network?

Abstract

Today, using celebrity endorsement is the main advertising trend on social networks. However, choosing which celebrity to fit the brand is still a difficult issue for businesses. The purpose of this research is to solve this issue by surveying 472 social media customers in Vietnam from June 2017 to November 2017 for the congruence of celebrity-brand pairs and their impact on brand equity. Data were analyzed through the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) process. The results have shown a positive relationship between the sub-components of Celebrity Endorsement (such as Attractiveness, Trustworthiness, and Expertise) and Brand Equity, in which the impact of Expertise is strongest. Another interesting finding was that Expertise has a key factor in helping customers trust the recommendations that celebrities want to convey to them. Besides, this study proved that Celebrity-Brand fit plays an important mediator role in this such relationship. This is an important guide to help businesses improve the effectiveness of their brands advertising campaigns.