Celebrity endorsements: a literature review and research agenda

Abstract

This paper presents a narrative review of celebrity endorsement research. The review identifies six areas of research on celebrity endorsements (celebrity prevalence, campaign management, financial effects, celebrity persuasion, non-evaluative meaning transfer, and brand-to-celebrity transfer). A review of the research in each area identifies key findings, conflicting results, and research gaps. In addition, this paper reviews the celebrity endorsement literature with a focus on the psychological processes underlying celebrity endorsement effects that has been put forward in the literature. Based on the review an agenda for future research is offered.

Keywords:

• celebrity endorsement
• definition
• literature review
• research agenda
• source effects
• meaning transfer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.