Consumers under the influence : Endorser effectiveness through source characteristics and attributions of authenticity

Both research and advertising practice support the proposition that endorsers, particularly celebrity endorsers, are effective in persuading consumers to buy products. Unfortunately, our understanding doesn’t go far beyond that point. The existing literature presents a number of factors (e.g., expertise, attractiveness) that increase persuasion under certain circumstances, but the relative importance of different factors and the circumstances that moderate which factors are most important remain poorly understood. We contend that one of the main reasons for our poor understanding of endorsement effectiveness is the lack of a systematic framework explaining the persuasion processes associated with endorsers. The present paper examines theories and empirical research relevant to endorsement advertisements over the last four decades in order to provide such a framework. The resulting framework uses the social influence processes of identification and internalization to provide an organizational structure to integrate previous research and to develop potential avenues for future research. JEL code: M37