Attitude Towards Online Product Endorsement Using Digital Celebrities: The Case of Laptops

Although the broad concept of celebrity endorsement is not new, the popularity of its Social Media version skyrocketed over the last several years, being exploited even by notorious and top-tier companies. A substantial body of academic research approached the traditional celebrities’ endorsement, leaving rather unstudied the impact of digital celebrities’ endorsement power. Aiming at reducing the literature gap, the present study investigated the audience’s attitude towards online endorsement that includes famous vloggers (a category of digital celebrities) and its effect on future behaviors. In this sense, a conceptual model was tested using the structural equation modeling technique in the context of a primary research. The results unveiled that the perceived characteristics of the celebrity reflect on the overall attitude towards the vlogger. Despite influencing the attitude towards endorsed products, video content, product recommendation and engagement on source’s Social Media channel, the attitude towards the celebrity didn’t have a direct effect on purchase intention. The attitude towards the video content affected the attitude towards the product and both were shown to have a positive influence on purchase intention and recommendation. Yet, only the first one reflected on actions concerning celebrity’s online platform.