Celebrity as the human brand: The association between corporate brand communication and credibility with brand equity

Abstract

Scholars and practitioners interest in studying consumer relationship has evolved (Sheth & Paratiyar, 1995) and one approach is by studying these relationships which lay “at the core of all strong brand relationship” (Fournier, 1998), is a ‘human brand and celebrity endorser’ (Thomson, 2006). The field of marketing communication and promotion for human brand and celebrity brand associated with corporate brand has been in its existence for long on research studies but short on insights (Thomson, 2006; Keel & Nataraajan, 2012). Authors and scholars emphasized on the studies pertaining to attitude-toward, purchase intention and satisfaction as the impact of associating celebrity as the human brand with product and corporate brand. However, they remain at conceptual level with little attempt trying to take this further (empirically) studying these effects on brand equity or purchase decision making (Thomson, 2006; Keel & Natarajaan, 2012; Spry, et al., 2011). Furthermore, dual credibility studies has been suggested as vital to understand a consumer’s decision making (Lafferty et al., 2002; Goldsmith & Newell, 2000, Spry et. al., 2012). However previous works have focused mainly on the impact of a single celebrity rather than multiple identities (for example, see Thomson, 2006; Keel & Natarajaan, 2012; Spry, et al., 2011), thus, making a thorough generalization on consumer purchase decision making limited. Understanding a comprehensive model on dual credibility (including both the human brand attributes with the celebrity credibility attributes) is thus important because of the impact they have on both corporate brand image and equity. Furthermore, the study is addressing the use of multiple types of celebrities in the dual credibility model in order to fill the previous literature gap due to their focus has been limited to a one-type of celebrity (Thomson, 2006). This study defines human brand as celebrity brand, consistent with Fournier, 2010; Thomson, 2006, as put forward on their researches which recognized brands can also be human, though traditionally, brands have been associated with businesses, companies, organization, products or services. Human brand is a term that refers to any well known persona who is the subject of marketing communication efforts (Rindova et. al., 2006; Thomson, 2006). Celebrities are individuals who are symbolic icons, popular in the culture, and transfer their symbolic meaning to the products they endorse and been associated with in advertising and company’s marketing communication tool (McCracken, 1989; Goldsmith et. al., 2000). Despite the positive impact of associating human brand with a corporate brand, eclipsing condition occurs when stronger celebrity brand is associated with a corporate brand (Thomson, 2006; Keel & Natarajaan, 2012), and this has indeed triggered the study to be conducted. This study thus focuses on the human brand engagement in relation to his attachment with a corporate brand that will result in corporate brand image and brand equity. This study will embark on a mix method approach. Five Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) comprising seven to eight participants have been conducted to explore the concept and to assist in drawing the conceptual framework. A longitudinal experimental study will be conducted to precisely and accurately analyse the repetitive actual behaviour over time. Experimental group participants will be tested and exposed to visual stimulus in response to celebrity and corporate brand credibility. A model for analysing the celebrity as the human brand association with corporate brand credibility toward brand equity is drawn by synthesizing both theoretical and empirical works in marketing, psychology and sociology. Scholars and practitioners will benefit from this study in term of strategizing on local and global marketing strategies particularly with respect to the corporate marketing mix.