How negative celebrity publicity influences consumer attitudes: The mediating role of moral reputation

Lianxi Zhou and Paul Whitla

Journal of Business Research, 2013, vol. 66, issue 8, 1013-1020

Abstract: This paper explores consumer reactions to negative celebrity publicity. We draw from the sociological analysis of morality and propose that an individual's concerns with moral norms of the target celebrity's personal conduct (deontology) and perceived wrongness of his/her act to the general public (teleology) have detrimental effects on celebrity endorsements. The results based upon a convenience sample of young Asian consumers reveal the crucial role of the evaluation of moral reputation in shaping respondents' reaction to the poorly behaving celebrity and the endorsed brands. The major implication is that moral reputation is an important bridging connection between the attribution process and consumers' reaction to negative celebrity publicity and therefore the celebrity endorser's moral reputation should be incorporated into celebrity endorsement research. Our approach captures a broad sociological process underlying consumer resistance to erratic behavior of celebrity endorsers.

Keywords: Negative publicity; Celebrity endorsement; Morality; Asia; Attitudes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296311004322
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:66:y:2013:i:8:p:1013-1020

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.12.025

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside

More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().