When Celebrity Endorsers Act in Their Fictional Stage Characters: the Impact of Congruent and Non-Congruent Media Contexts on Advertising Effects

In advertising, film or TV celebrities can give endorsements in character – i.e. playing fictional roles in films and also in commercials. By means of an experimental study, we contribute to the research on media context effects on advertising effectiveness. We argue that an appropriate fictional media context –which creates the stage persona of an endorser– provides information on fictional character traits that consumers may use to evaluate endorsers in character. We show this to affect endorser evaluation and arousal (measured by means of electrodermal registration) evoked by the ad. In our study, we compare one media context including an actor as a character congruent to the in-character advert, with a media context including an actor in another role (non-congruency).

Citation:

Anja Spilski and Andrea Groeppel-Klein (2007) ,"When Celebrity Endorsers Act in Their Fictional Stage Characters: the Impact of Congruent and Non-Congruent Media Contexts on Advertising Effects", in E - European Advances in Consumer Research Volume 8, eds. Stefania Borghini, Mary Ann McGrath, and Cele Otnes, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 115-117.