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The Differential Effects Of Celebrity And Expert Endorsements On Consumer Risk Perceptions

Neel Das

NC Digital Online Collection of Knowledge and Scholarship (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) · 2019 · 121 citations · 0 references

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The study investigates how celebrity and expert endorsements influence consumer risk perceptions, hypothesizing that expert endorsements more strongly reduce risk for high‑technology products and that this effect interacts with consumer knowledge, with a third study also examining how internalization versus identification can neutralize expert advantages when celebrity congruency is high. The first two studies confirm the hypotheses, while the third study finds that expert endorsement advantages for high‑technology products are partially neutralized for certain risks when the celebrity endorser aligns closely with the product.

Abstract

This paper examines the differential effects of celebrity and expert endorsements on consumer risk perceptions via three studies. Using source model theories, it is hypothesized that for high technology-oriented products there will be stronger effects of expert endorsers than celebrity endorsers in reducing consumer risk perceptions. In addition, for high technology-oriented products, there is likely to be an interaction effect between endorser type and consumer knowledge on respondents' risk perceptions. Such an interaction effect is likely to be absent for products with a low technology orientation. These hypotheses are supported by the first two studies. The third study examines the underlying theoretical processes of internalization versus identification and shows that the stronger effects of expert (versus celebrity) endorsers for high technology-oriented products is somewhat neutralized for certain types of perceived risks when there is high congruency between the celebrity endorser and the product.