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Peer-reviewed International coauthorship International journal
Apr, 2020

When Should a Brand Cut Ties With a Scandalized Endorser?

Communication & Sport
  • Shintaro Sato
  • ,
  • Akiko Arai
  • ,
  • Yosuke Tsuji
  • ,
  • Mark Kay

Volume
8
Number
2
First page
215
Last page
235
Language
English
Publishing type
Research paper (scientific journal)
DOI
10.1177/2167479519826054
Publisher
SAGE Publications

It is important for brands to appropriately respond when their athlete endorsers are involved in a scandal. The present study examines how consumer evaluations of endorsed brands are influenced by a brand’s response to an endorser scandal. A 2 (brand response strategy type: maintenance vs. termination) × 2 (endorser scandal type: competence-relevant vs. competence-irrelevant) between-subjects experiment is conducted. Specifically, the authors focus on the perceived appropriateness of the response strategy and consumer attitudes toward an endorsed brand. Subjects were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk ( N = 111). Consumers perceive that terminating an endorsement contract with a scandalized endorser is more appropriate than maintaining the relationship. This is particularly true when celebrity endorsers are involved in competence-relevant scandals. A further analysis provided support for the idea that perceived “appropriateness” mediates the relationship between competence-relevant scandal and consumer attitude toward an endorsed brand. A termination strategy was considered appropriate when scandalized endorsers engaged in competence-relevant scandals, which eventually lead to more favorable consumer evaluations toward an endorsed brand.

Link information
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/2167479519826054
URL
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2167479519826054
URL
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/2167479519826054
ID information
  • DOI : 10.1177/2167479519826054
  • ISSN : 2167-4795
  • eISSN : 2167-4809

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