Trustworthiness Trumps Attractiveness and Expertise: Enhancing Brand Credibility via Celebrity Endorsement

Abstract

Building on source-credibility theory, the authors tested a structural model for advertisers and scholars to explain brand outcomes of celebrity endorsement. The empirical context is the global airline industry, with a fitting sample surveyed at an international airport (N = 637). Results of structural equation analyses show that consumers' perception of a celebrity endorser's attractiveness and trustworthiness brought a lift in brand attitude, brand credibility, and purchase intention toward endorsed brands. The contribution to source-credibility theory is the finding that endorser trustworthiness was the only component of source credibility that was important to low-involvement consumers. The takeaway for advertisers in this industry is to use attractive celebrity endorsers with a global appeal who are trustworthy to enhance brand credibility.