Celebrities as human brands: an investigation of the effects of personality and time on celebrities’ appeal

Abstract

This article considers celebrities as brands and relies on the brand personality literature to investigate how celebrities’ personality impacts their appeal. Celebrities’ appeal is analysed across different cultural fields (TV, music, sport and cinema) and over time. Using data gathered by Epoll Market Research about the perception of more than 3000 celebrities among the US population, our results show that apart from rudeness, all dimensions of personality have a positive impact on appeal. Interestingly, our results show that the impact of personality dimensions varies across cultural fields. Finally, we provide a dynamic analysis of the evolution of appeal over time, which also exhibits different patterns (declining, inverted U-shape) across cultural fields.