Investigating the Effect of Celebrity Credibility on the Consumer-based Brand Equity with the Mediating Role of Celebrity Congruence

One of the important strategies to build powerful consumer based-brand equity (CBBE) for products is to connect them to celebrities. The use of this key marketing strategy is growing around the world. The present study aimed to explore the effects of endorser credibility and endorser congruence on CBBE while considering the mediating role of congruence and the moderating role of brand type (strong/weak). To this end, two advertisements were selected based on a pretest conducted among students in University of Isfahan about brands using celebrity endorser in order to choose the strongest and the weakest brand. The statistical population of the study constituted the buyers of megamalls in Tehran. Totally, 186 questionnaires were completed. The data analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) approach in SmartPLS software was used to test the research hypotheses. The results of the hypothesis tests showed that celebrity endorser’s credibility had a significant positive effect on endorser congruence and CBBE. In addition, endorser congruence had a positive impact on CBBE. The findings reveal that in the statistical sample of the present study, the effect of the variable celebrity endorser on congruence and CBBE did not differ from the perspective of brand type (strong/weak) and that this variable had a positive and significant effect on paths between ‘celebrity credibility-celebrity congruence’ and ‘celebrity credibility-CBBE’. From these findings, important theoretical and managerial implications have been derived.