Abstract
ABSTRACTWhen a celebrity receives negative news coverage, his or her endorsements of politicians can pose negative consequences for the politicians. We investigated such negative consequences with the help of two experimental studies. In Study 1 (celebrity involved in tax scandal), we manipulated whether an endorsement was initiated by a politician or a celebrity (i.e., controllability) in a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment. We also manipulated politicians’ responses (i.e., no response vs. response). Study 2 was a conceptual replication of the first experiment (celebrity involved in a real estate scandal). Results of Study 1 revealed that politicians are perceived to be more in control of self-initiated endorsements than other-initiated ones. Perceived controllability, in turn, influenced feelings of anger and pity, eventually affecting voting intentions. For self-initiated endorsements, no response appears to be the best reaction. By contrast, public response is advised when the endorsement was initiated by another entity. Results were replicated in Study 2. However, particular responses of a political candidate revealed no influences in connection with a real estate scandal. We explain our findings by applying the theory of planned behavior, attribution theory, and situational crisis communication theory.
Highlights
As a well-established strategy in advertising and health communication (Bergkvist & Zhou, 2016), celebrity endorsements have become increasingly popular in the political sphere
Eighty-seven percent of the participants in the selfinitiated group perceived the endorsement as initiated by the politician, whereas only 21% reached that conclusion in the other-initiated group
When participants regarded the politician to be responsible for a harmful endorsement, they pitied her to a lesser extent
Summary
As a well-established strategy in advertising and health communication (Bergkvist & Zhou, 2016), celebrity endorsements have become increasingly popular in the political sphere. Researchers worldwide have reported the increased involvement of celebrities in political campaigns as endorsers of parties, candidates, and issues (Chou, 2014; Pease & Brewer, 2008; Štechová & Hájek, 2015). Findings generally show a positive effect: Celebrity endorsements enhance attitudes about issues, parties, and candidates, as well as increase intentions to vote for a party or candidate compared to no or non-celebrity endorsements Exceptions to such findings come from Frizzell (2011) and Nownes (2012), whose studies revealed no or opposite effects. Whereas the vast majority of literature recommends some kind of response no matter what (e.g., Benoit, 1997; Coombs, 1998, 2007), recent work on political scandals suggests that a response can signify responsibility and be tantamount to an admission of guilt (Geiss, 2016)
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