Celebrity entrepreneurship: communication effectiveness through perceived involvement. (5th July 2007)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hunter, Erik; Davidsson, Per
• Is Part Of: International journal of entrepreneurship and small business. Volume 4:Number 5(2007)
• Page Start: 505
• Page End: 527
• Publication Date: 2007-07-05
• Subjects: celebrity endorsements -- celebrity entrepreneurship -- source involvement -- source models -- celebrities -- communication effectiveness -- perceived involvement -- marketing communication; Entrepreneurship -- Periodicals; Small business -- Management -- Periodicals; 658.42105
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-1297

Abstract

Increasingly, celebrities appear not only as endorsers for products but are apparently involved in entrepreneurial roles in the ventures that market the products they promote. We call this phenomenon Celebrity Entrepreneurship. We hypothesise that celebrity entrepreneurs are more effective communicators than typical celebrity endorsers. Further, we hypothesize that this is because celebrity entrepreneurship leads to higher perceptions of Involvement an endorser quality hitherto neglected in the marketing communication literature which in turn affects traditional outcome variables such as Aad and Abr. Two experiments confirm that a) involvement can successfully be operationalised as distinct from variables previously shown to influence communicator effectiveness, b) involvement has a positive effect on Aad and Abr over and above the traditional predictors, and c) celebrity entrepreneurship in experimental manipulations leads to increased perceived involvement.