The moderating role of parasocial relationships in the associations between celebrity endorser’s credibility and emotion-based responses

Abstract

ABSTRACT Drawing on stimulus-organism-response theory, the current paper was an investigation of the associations among a celebrity endorser’s credibility and brand affection, self-brand connection, and purchase intention along with how parasocial relationships moderate these emotion-based associations. Data from 299 Korean millennials were tested applying structural equation modeling and multi-group methods. The findings indicated that celebrity endorser’s credibility positively correlated with brand affection and self-brand connection and that they were in turn, associated with purchase intention. Furthermore, both brand affection and self-brand connection fully mediated the impact of celebrity endorser’s credibility on intention to purchase. Parasocial relationships moderated the influence on self-brand connection but not on brand affection. More precisely, the impact on self-brand connection was stronger with more parasocial relationships. The theoretical and practical contributions arising from these results are discussed.