He should not have tweeted that:
The influence of social media on the
celebrity perception
The influence of the management perception of negative social media
messages on celebrity brand value
Manouk Winterkamp 10868194
February 24th 2016 Final thesis
MSc in Business Administration – Marketing Track University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: Roger Pruppers MSc Second supervisor: Jorge Labadie MSc
Statement of originality
This document is written by Student Manouk Winterkamp, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Acknowledgement
Hereby I would like to thank my supervisor Roger Pruppers who guided me during the whole thesis process. It was not easy, but the guidance helped me finishing my thesis. Additionally, I would like to thank my fellow students, Bob Hoeksema and Thomas van Rest who were always there for advice, Michael Suijkerbuijk, who helped me through the hard times. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my boyfriend Pel van Zijderveld, who were and are always there for me, not only during my thesis but during the whole Master. They gave me the strength and motivation to complete this thesis.
Abstract
The aim of this study is to get insight into the influence of celebrities’ social media usage, from a personal brand management perspective, on the attitude towards the celebrity. The main research question answered in this research is: ‘What is the influence of the management perception of negative social media messages on celebrity brand value?’.
This research consists of two studies, of which the first study consists of a 3 (valence of the social media message; positive, minor negative vs. major negative) x 2 (management of the social media account of the celebrity; non-managed vs. managed) x 2 (realism; real vs. hypothetical) experimental design in order to measure the influence of the interaction of perceived management of the social media account and valence of the social media message on the dependent variable attitude towards the celebrity. The second study consists of a 2 (valence of the social media message; minor negative vs. major negative) x 2 (management of the social media account of the celebrity; non-managed vs. managed) x 2 (attribution of the blame; taking responsibility vs. shifting the blame) experimental design in order to measure the influence of the interaction of the attribution of the blame, and management of the social media account in different levels of valence on attitude towards the celebrity.
In the studies a significant main effect of management as well for attribution on attitude towards the celebrity is found. Perceived management of the social media account leads to a less positive attitude towards the celebrity, than when the social media account is perceived as not managed. The attitude towards the celebrity is more positive if there has been taken full responsibility instead of shifting the blame. Several interactions are found. First, an interaction between valence and management, and valence and the realism of the scenario. Second, the interaction between attribution of the blame and perceived management is significant. Although management of the celebrity is important, the management perception itself can have a negative influence on the attitude towards the celebrity. This can be due to direct effects of management, but also as higher levels of management lead to lower levels of perceived authenticity.
Concluding, perceived management influences the attitude towards the celebrity after negative social media messages. It is best to be implicitly managed on social media, and to be perceived as non-managed, which leads to a more positive attitude towards the celebrity after a negative social media message. Perceived management of the celebrity on social media is
Table of content
Statement of originality II
Acknowledgement III
Abstract IV
Section I: Theoretical foundation 1
Introduction 1
Personal branding 2
Managing the perception 3
Research question 3 Delimitations 4 Contributions 5 Theoretical contribution 5 Managerial contribution 5 Structure 6 1. Personal branding 7
1.1. Compared to product branding 7
1.2. Personal branding in the digital era 9
1.3. Celebrity personal branding 9
1.4. Management of personal brands 11
1.4.1. Authenticity 11
1.4.2. Distinguishable 12
1.4.3. Notable 12
1.5. Tools 12
2. Social media as tool for personal brands 14
2.1. The usage of social media 14
2.2. Possible negative consequences of social media 15
3. Social media management 19
3.1 Strategies 19
3.2 Consumer behavior 20
3.3 Components of social media management 21
3.4 Response to negative social media 22
Section II: Study 1, the influence of valence on attitude towards the celebrity 25
4. Conceptual model 25
Valence – valence of the social media communication 26
Attitude – the attitude towards the celebrity 26
5. Methodology 30 5.1 Research design 30 5.2 Data collection 30 5.2.1. Research procedure 31 5.2.2. Celebrities 31 5.2.3. Independent variables 33 5.2.4. Dependent variables 33 5.2.5. Control variables 34 5.3. Study sample 34 5.4. Pre-test 34 Manipulations 35
Results perceived valence 36
Results perceived management 39
Results of familiarity 41 Discussion 42 6. Results 43 6.1 Sample characteristics 43 6.2 Data preparation 43 6.2.1. Computing values 44 6.2.2. Normality check 44 6.2.3. Reliability check 45 6.2.4. Manipulation check 46 6.2.5. Correlation analysis 49 6.3 Hypothesis testing 50 Hypothesis 1 53 Hypothesis 2 53 Hypothesis 3 54 6.4 Additional analysis 56 7. Discussion 59 7.1 Perceived management 59 7.2 Perceived valence 61 7.3 Interaction 62
Section III: Study 2, the importance of the attribution of blame 65 8. Conceptual model 65 Attribution of blame 65 9. Methodology 70 9.1 Research design 70 9.2 Data collection 70 9.2.1. Research procedure 70 9.2.2. Stimuli 71 9.2.3. Independent variables 71 9.2.4. Dependent variables 72 9.2.5. Control variables 72 9.3. Study Sample 72 9.4 Pretest 73 10. Results 74 10.1 Sample characteristics 74 10.2 Data preparation 75 10.2.1. Computing variables 75 10.2.2. Normality check 75 10.2.3. Reliability check 76 10.2.4. Manipulation check 77 10.2.5. Correlation analysis 79 10.3 Hypothesis testing 79 Hypothesis 4 82 Hypothesis 5 82 Hypothesis 6 84 Hypothesis 7 85 10.4 Additional analysis 86 Hypothesis 1 86 Hypothesis 2 87 Hypothesis 3 87 11. Discussion 91 11.1 Attribution 91
11.2 Interaction between attribution and valence 92
11.3 Interaction between attribution and management 93
11.5 Conclusion 95
Section IV: General discussion, contributions and conclusions 96
12. General discussion and implications 96
12.1 Discussion 96
12.2 Conclusion 102
12.3 Implications 103
12.2.1. Theoretical implications 103
12.2.2. Managerial implications 105
12.4 Limitations & future research 110
12.3.1. Limitations 110 12.3.2. Future research 111 References 114 Section V: Appendix 123 1. Questions study 1 123 2. Questions study 2 141
3. Results of the analyses 155
3.1 Tables of the correlation analysis 155
3.2 Tables for the ANCOVA of hypothesis 3 157
4. Examples of social media mistakes 158
4.1 Minor negative social media messages 158
4.2 Major negative social media messages 163
4.3 Management of social media accounts 166
5. SPSS outputs 167
5.1 Study 1 167
5.1.1. Manipulation check 167
5.1.2. ANCOVA 186
5.1.3. Regression via Process 238
5.2 Study 2 241
5.2.1. Manipulation check 241
5.2.2. ANOVA 261
Section I: Theoretical foundation
Introduction
A lot of research is done in the area of branding, with more recently the introduction of personal branding. In this theory, everyone is his or her own personal brand, which means that also celebrities are their own personal brand. This can be seen from the following example, Britney Spears, who started as a cute and innocent Disney star. However, by the time she became an adult, she made different music and was dressed sexier, which caused a lot of parents of little Disney fans that were not amused. Britney made herself a brand as a Disney star, so when she changed, a lot of people thought her behavior did not fit the brand image she was associated with.
Brands can be placed in a personal perspective, by which people, and thus celebrities are their own brand. For brands it is important to build and manage the perception of the brand, especially when looking at the awareness, image and loyalty (Keller, 1993). Putting this in a personal perspective as done by McNally and Speak (2004) the brand is a perception or emotion that a person, other than you, has from you as a brand, and this describes the total experience of having a relationship with you. This personal branding perspective can also be used when looking at celebrities. The example of Britney Spears indicates that it is important, as a personal brand, to build your brand, but also manage the way you are perceived. People perceived her in a particular way, they thought they knew Britney, but then the image changed. While changing down her existing image Britney lost a lot of fans among the early Disney crowd.
In order to build a brand image, celebrities can use different ways and tools. One of the tools used by celebrities is social media. An example of social media as a brand management tool is the case of Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift wants to be personal, approachable, and down to earth. She does not only do this offline, but also via her social media. This not only causes her a lot of social media fans, but also a great brand image (Borison, 2014).
There are differences in how and to what extent a celebrity is managed via social media. There are celebrities with complete management teams behind them, but there are also some celebrities that are managed in a very amateurish way.
Deadmau5 is a DJ who is or claims to be fully responsible for his own brand (Stoneyroadscom, 2015). He does not think of the consequences of some statements, which is something that can damage his brand. The Twitter account of President Barack Obama is fully managed by someone else. This was found out by his 2.3 million followers, when he stated in an interview that he had never touched Twitter before (Ryan Tate, 2015). Fans of Sylvie Meis made a full website about her, whereafter Sylvie Meis and her management stated that they are going to maintain the website themselves. This clearly indicates that Sylvie Meis as a brand is managed in every way when looking at the social media (Tates, 2015).
Celebrities as personal brands, are perceived by people in a different way per person, but this also depends on how the celebrity is managed. The way celebrities are managed can also differ, however in this era the tool social media is one that is common to use. Though, the extent to which celebrities are managed with social media as a tool and according to which management style, can influence how celebrities are perceived.
Personal branding
Celebrities are their own brands, according to the personal branding phenomenon. Personal branding is when people, and their careers, are their own brands (Karaduman, 2013). According to Peters (1997) everyone has a personal brand; everyone is the CEO of his or her own personal brand. Your brand is a reflexion of who you are, what you stand for, and to which you behave (McNally & Speak, 2004). As indicated earlier, this phenomenon is becoming increasingly important in the last years (Shepherd, 2005). However, just being a personal brand is not enough. You must be able to manage your personal brand as well. Personal branding is about how you package yourself, instead of possessing certain skills, interests etcetera (Lair, Sullivan, & Cheney, 2005). Furthermore, personal branding is about managing perceptions and managing how others perceive and think of you (Rampersad, 2008). In sum, everything you do affects your personal brand (Gander, 2014).
Nowadays, it is important how and with what tools you manage your personal brand. Besides deciding on whom you are and how you want to be perceived, it is also important to look how you can achieve and maintain this. There are different tools that can be used when looking at branding itself. One of the tools that is especially used for managing your personal brand is social media. The majority of articles on personal branding focus on how social
influences your career as a celebrity. Exemplary are web 2.0 and the social networks, which are seen as marketing tool (Yan, 2011).
Managing the perception
When managing your personal brand, it is all about how your brand is perceived. People cannot see what you think on the inside, so you have to make sure that you expose what you want people to see and perceive. Your brand is a reflection of what you believe and how you do it (McNally & Speak, 2004). The chosen management style and the extent to which social media is used as a tool determines the way you are perceived as a brand.
For a personal brand important elements are being authentic and consistent (McNally & Speak, 2002). Georgina Verbaan, a Dutch actress and singer, was nominated for the best social media account as people perceived her social media account as the true Georgina Verbaan (Debestesocialmedia.nl, 2015). Via social media you can manage the perception of a celebrity brand, but you have to be careful to what extent you manage your social media or to what extent you completely manage it yourself. If your brand appears to be too amateurish, then it has a negative influence on how your brand is perceived, but if you over manage it, you might not appear to be authentic. People think that you are what you post (Schau & Gilly, 2003), so if you appear to be inauthentic, then your brand is perceived in that way. In sum, the perception of a brand being (non-) managed plays an important role in social media branding. Research question
As discussed previously, celebrities are personal brands and it is important to build and
manage your brand, to manage the way you are perceived. One of the tools for managing your brand is social media. This leads to the following question:
What is the influence of the management perception of negative social media messages on celebrity brand value?
There are different management styles when looking at managing a personal brand via social media. This study examines the influence that the use of social media in managing a celebrity has on how a personal celebrity brand is perceived by a consumer. This is examined by looking at what happens to your brand when you miss the point on social media. Little is known about the personal branding of celebrities, therefore this research takes the existing literature on product branding into account in order to work to new insights.
In order to answer above-mentioned research question, this research covers the following sub-questions:
- What does the management of a celebrity entail?
- What is the influence of the extent to which social media is used on the celebrity personal brand?
- How authentic is the celebrity personal brand?
- How do people respond to negative social media communication?
- To what extent do the perception of management and authenticity influence the way negative social media communication is perceived?
- How does negative social media communication affect the attitude towards the celebrity?
- What is the influence of the attribution of a negative message by a celebrity on the attitude towards the celebrity by the consumer?
Delimitations
The previously mentioned examples are captured from social media channels Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This research focuses solely on these social media channels. Other social media channels will not be incorporated, although all social media accounts have different purposes, and could therefore have different consequences.
Furthermore, a limitation is that the phenomenon is personal branding, but the focus is on personal branding for celebrities. As product brands are more extensively researched than personal brands, this research has a particular focus on personal brands. The researcher assumes that the social media message has a greater influence on a personal brand than a product brand, as people tend to identify themselves with others. Therefore, it is interesting to examine the celebrity personal brand, and look at current cases of celebrity personal brands perception on consumers.
Third, in the pre-test that is performed for the study is very long with a lot of repetition, which can cause a lack of attention to the end of the pre-test, and therefore cause bias in the results. Finally, this research is not a guide on how to use social media for your celebrity personal brand. This research only indicates how consumers respond to social media and the way it is managed.
Contributions
This research makes a theoretical and managerial contribution to the existing literature on personal branding.
Theoretical contribution
This research provides new insights into the personal branding of celebrities on the use of social media. There is little research in the field of personal branding, combined with social media, when looking at celebrities in particular. Personal branding and social media are both relatively new concepts, and are not discussed thoroughly. Therefore, this research contributes to this particular area of research.
This research also provides more insight in the usage of the existing product branding literature in the field of personal branding. The brand building tools and brand image literature are applied to the personal branding knowledge.
This research also adds to the knowledge on management styles and tools that might influence the way celebrities are perceived, and to what extent you have to be perceived as being managed.
Managerial contribution
Social media is seen as a great deal in personal branding, therefore it is important to manage your social media feed properly. This research indicates that it is not just a manner of managing your brand, but also the extent to which your brand is managed perfectly or is perceived that way. What if it goes wrong, will that harm your brand more if you have a perfect managed brand, from a commercial perspective? This is an indication of whether celebrities should or should not have a perfect social media feed. Another debate is on whether celebrities should hire someone to manage their feed professionally or should they only give people the idea that the social media account is perfectly managed by someone. A documentary by Tim den Besten and Thijs Meuwese (2015) about Yolanthe Cabau van Kasbergen-Sneijder shows that people find it annoying that Yolanthe tries to appear to be perfect, while they perceive her as fake. The whole documentary shows the frustration people have about her, which implies that perfection of a social media account or perfection of the celebrity does not always imply as perfection to your followers. For her, it could be better to not manage her feed so perfect, but in a more sincere manner. This research is interesting for both celebrities and the management of celebrities, as they decide on the way social media communication is managed.
Structure
The structure of this research is the following. In the first chapters a theoretical background is given. In chapter one, the concepts of personal branding are addressed, by discussing what the difference to product branding is and what the current factors are that need to be taken into account. The management of a personal brand, what are the traits of such a brand and which tools are used when managing a personal brand, are also incorporated in this chapter. In chapter two, one of the tools that is examined is explained in detail, namely social media. Chapter three elaborates on the management of social media. In chapter four, the conceptual framework and hypotheses are presented, which indicate how the research is carried out. In chapter five, the methodology of this research is explained. In chapter six, the results are presented. Chapter seven discusses the results of the performed study one. In chapter eight a second study is introduced, after which in chapter nine and ten, the methodology and results will be discussed. The discussion of the second study is introduced in chapter eleven. Chapter twelve discusses the overall research, concluding remarks and implications.
1. Personal branding
As indicated in the introduction, personal branding is a new phenomenon in the field of branding, which has not been examined thoroughly. The expectation is that personal branding can be compared to product branding. From that perspective celebrities are perceived as personal brands. In this chapter the phenomenon personal branding, compared to product branding is discussed, with special attention to celebrity personal branding.
1.1. Compared to product branding
The last decade branding is becoming very important as firms found out that brands are one of their most valuable intangible assets (Keller & Lehmann, 2006). Aaker (1996, as cited in Chen, 2013) considers a brand to be a product, an organization, a person, and a symbol. Brands reflect the experience consumers have with them. Therefore, this corresponds to personal branding, as the brand reflects the experiences consumers have with the person, the celebrity in this case.
When looking at brands, it is important to build and manage the perception of your brand, especially when looking at awareness, image and loyalty. Brand awareness, image, and loyalty are antecedents of brand equity, whilst brand equity is about the power that resides in the mind of the consumers (Keller, 2001).
When putting this in a personal perspective as done by McNally and Speak (2004, p. 29): “your brand is a perception or emotion maintained by somebody other than you, which describes the total experience of having a relationship with you”.
Personal brand equity consists of the intangible value of each individual, relationships that they have built, and the tangible value they deliver (Vitberg, 2010). This is seen from a personal brand in a company, but this could also apply to the celebrity as a personal brand. From the field of product branding the Customer Based Brand Equity model exists, which is about building, measuring and managing brand equity (Keller, 2001). The four steps, according to Keller (2001), are (i) defining the identity of the brand, (ii) establish the brand meaning in the mind of the customers, (iii) elicit the customer responses to the brand identity and meaning, and finally, (iv) create a loyal relationship. At first, the different elements of the model by Vitberg (2010) and Keller (2001) seem different, however both acknowledge the importance of the identity. Which shows the intangible value, the relationships that have to be built, and finally, the brand meaning which is seen as the tangible value a personal brand can deliver. When elaborating on the CBBE model, the brand identity, brand meaning, brand responses, and brand relationships could be linked to personal branding. For brand identity,
two criteria apply, namely deep and broad brand awareness. The depth of brand awareness indicates how easy consumers recognize or recall the brand. The breadth is about which range of situations of purchase and consumption the brand comes to mind in (Keller, 2001). This brand awareness is important for personal brands, as you want people to be aware of your personal brand. The brand meaning is created by a brand image, consisting of performance and imagery. This brand image can be more symbolic or functional, or both (Keller, 2001). For celebrities however it could be the case that performance is not necessary in order to build brand equity, whereas the symbolic meaning with its personality matters more in order to build brand equity. This could differ from product branding compared to personal branding. Brand responses exist of judgements in terms of quality, credibility, consideration and superiority, and feelings in terms of warmth, fun, excitement, security, social approval, self-respect (Keller, 2001). This is not just about whether these responses exist, but also how positive they are in the mind of the consumer (Keller, 2001). The feelings of the brand response are different to apply to personal brands compared to the judgements. Judgements can be pure judging the celebrity on its talent or performance, while you have built a much stronger bond with the celebrity and you can easily tie feelings to them. Finally, the brand relationships are all about the relationship and level of personal identification (Keller, 2001).
In product branding it is implied that people relate to brands similarly to how they relate to people (Fourneir, 2009 cited in Kervyn, Fiske, & Malone, 2012). Kervyn, Fiske and Malone (2012) pose the Stereotype Content Model, which distributes brands along the axes of competence and warmth. When combining the two elements, the categories are popular brands, paternalized brands, troubled brands, and envied brands.
Managing of a ‘normal’ brand and a personal brand sometimes therefore also can be seen equal, as also indicated before, but there is also a difference. With personal branding it is important to create a clear and consistent image of your personal brand, to be perceived as authentic (Labrecque et al., 2011), and everything you do has to fit your personal brand. In contrast, for product branding, according to Keller and Lehmann (2006), brands are built upon products, which indicates that it is possible to adapt your brand to the product you have. This implies that product brands could be able to change their brand according to their product portfolio. Whereas, as a personal brand if you choose to endorse a certain product or even just act as a different personality, you can be perceived as being less authentic.
1.2. Personal branding in the digital era
Personal branding in the social media world is a rapidly growing trend (Chen, 2013). Social media is a relatively cheap and efficient way for people in general to promote themselves (Karaduman, 2013), but it is also used by celebrities as broadcast to their fans (Yan, 2011). It allows open communication through real world boundaries. Everyone leaves a digital footprint, however some of that information is out of control of the person itself (Labrecque et al., 2011). This is because of the web 2.0. Web 2.0 is the platform behind social media, the technological foundation and how the software developers and end-users make use of the World Wide Web (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). In web 2.0, you have to deal with third party websites, such as social media sites.
There are different types of social media channels. Facebook is a social media site where you can create your own profile, with which you can involve in activities and let people know what is on your mind (Smith et al., 2012). Twitter is a social media site where tweets, which are small messages with a maximum of 140 characters, are published. According to Smith et al. (2012), Twitter is most commonly used for sharing information, opinions or complaints. Instagram is a social media site where pictures are shared and other people who share pictures are followed (Infospace, 2011).
A lot of people are active on social media and share their stories. Actually, more than two billion people are active on social media nowadays (Kemp, 2014). Everything that is online about you is part of your personal brand and everyone can work with social media, as no technological barriers exist. Labrecque et al. (2011) state that if you do not brand yourself, someone else will.
Social media changes consumer behavior, consumers are more and more demanding (Cleeren, Van Heerde & Dekimpe, 2013), and are more demanding from the celebrities themselves.
There are also some risks of online presence: with whom do you connect, what do you communicate about, and how do you maintain momentum (Dutta, 2010)? These risks should be taken into account when looking at your online presence. It is for instance important to be authentic on social media, and consistent, as what you say cannot be erased from the web.
1.3. Celebrity personal branding
The amount of celebrities and their influence is something that cannot be denied. The exposure of celebrities is even growing, as is their influence (Moulard et al., 2015). Thomson
(2006, p. 105) state that “celebrities can be considered brands because they can be professionally managed and because they have additional associations and features of a brand”. For the celebrity brands the personal branding rules also imply. People feel that they personally know celebrities, and have an illusion of intimacy (Choi & Rifon, 2007). This links to McNally and Speak (2002, p. 29), who say that: “your brand is a perception or emotion maintained by somebody other than you, which describes the total experience of having a relationship with you”. When placing the personal brand in the digital era, and their growing influence, the management of the celebrity as a personal brand is a necessary point of attention.
Different research is conducted on celebrity endorsement, in which celebrities are linked to brands so that their popularity and symbolic meaning is transferred to that specific brand or product (Choi & Rifon, 2007). Celebrity endorsement is a popular advertising technique. Sometimes the qualities of celebrities do not fit the brand. For this reason, companies examine on beforehand whether the celebrity will fit their product, their brand and the campaign (Erdogan, 2010). Celebrity attractiveness, credibility, product-celebrity match, message, product type, level of involvement, number of endorsements by celebrities, target receiver characteristics, and overall meanings are a few of the moderators when looking at whether a celebrity should be used for endorsement (Erdogan, 2010).
When looking at the factors, which are taken into account when picking a celebrity for endorsement, this actually describes the celebrity. The brand equity of a celebrity is taken into account, what relationship does he or she has with her brand, what image and awareness they have. If people are more willing to engage with celebrities, they can be part of a community such as the Beliebers. Beliebers are fans of Justin Bieber, who feel they have a personal bond with Justin Bieber, and therefore engage with him on social media with #Belieber (Twitter, 2015) and they organise meetings. This is not only an example of brand resonance, when looking at personal branding, but also an example of a brand community. A brand community is a special non-geographically bound community, based on a set of social relations among admirers of a brand (Muniz Jr & O’guinn, 2001 p: 412). The admirers of a brand can also be the admirers of a personal brand. Celebrities, personal brands, can also be judged by consumers on the warmth they feel with the celebrity and the extent they see them as competent. Also, this implies that from this perspective celebrities are seen as personal brands.
1.4. Management of personal brands
The perception of the personal brand by people has to be built and managed. According to Arruda (2005, cited in Shepherd, 2010) a personal brand should: extract, express and exude. It is important as a personal brand to be build according to a few steps: first, it should look at their unique, distinguishable attributes. Second, they make a personal brand statement, and third they create a strategy. The success of a personal brand lies in self-packaging (Lair, Sullivan & Cheney, 2005), which is about the creation of a total identity. However, it is not about who you are as a person, but it is about the perception people have of you as a person, and the projection of your personality and abilities (Lair et al., 2005).
Important when managing the personal brand, is looking at the different traits of personal brands; authenticity, distinguishable, and notable (Lair et al., 2005). As a brand you want to be different, better, and authentic (Gander, 2014). However, everything, both the intangible as the tangible attributes, do affect the way we are perceived (Holloway, 2013 cited in Gander, 2014).
The points as mentioned by Lair et al. (2005) are also brought up by McNally and Speak (2002), who say that you should refine your personal brand, thrive on authenticity, be consistent, built relationships, and evaluate the people in your life.
According to Ulrich and Smallwood (2007) you should follow five steps for building your personal brand. You should determine the results you want to achieve next year, decide what you wish to be known for, define your identity, construct your statement and test it, and finally, make the identity real.
As celebrities, most of the time, become familiar because of a talent of an action they then have to start thinking of all the different steps, because of what do they want to be famous. But there are also people who might look at it strategically and start transforming themselves in a celebrity.
A thread in this literature is that all celebrities as personal brands need to fit some characteristics in order to gain success. There are different traits; authenticity, distinguishable, and notable, which all have to be kept in mind when managing a celebrity brand as you want your celebrity brand to be perceived that way. The characteristics are explained more thoroughly below.
1.4.1. Authenticity
“Strong brands thrive on authenticity” (McNally & Speak, 2002 p. 29). The authenticity of a celebrity is the extent to which they behave according to their true self (Moulard, Garrity &
Rice, 2015). Consumers use authenticity to make authentic statements about their selves, but also to avoid inauthentic brands and to not be associated with those (Moulard et al., 2015). The authenticity of a celebrity depends on how rarity and stability are perceived. Rarity exists of talent, discretion and originality, while stability consists of consistency, candidness, and morality (Moulard et al., 2015). It is important to make a distinction in how authentic you want to be. Celebrities cannot be classified as the same as the average person, which could add to their appeal (Meyers, 2005). A celebrity can still be famous if he or she is inauthentic, but if they would be authentic, they would gain much more success. Famous people can hire someone to manage their social media feed, but when people find out afterwards after committing to someone that celebrities are being managed, people will perceive them as inauthentic (Ctplante, 2014). It is even the case that if a social media message has spelling or grammar errors, the celebrity is being perceived as more authentic (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). Inauthenticity does not imply that people are less famous, but they can be seen as less sincere, and therefore will not become more successful. This implies the importance of the authenticity of the celebrity.
1.4.2. Distinguishable
It is important for a brand to have unique attributes, in order to be distinguishable. This is also necessary for celebrities (Lair et al., 2005). When combining this with authenticity, you have to be rare and do something new, otherwise the celebrity does not stand out from the crowd and is perceived to be inauthentic.
1.4.3. Notable
A celebrity should ask him or herself: what is remarkable and notable about me? This also corresponds to rarity when looking to authenticity, as you want to be unique as a brand, otherwise you will just blend in with the rest.
1.5. Tools
“Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, incite, and remind consumers – directly or indirectly – about the brands they sell” (Keller, 2001 p. 819). In this digital era, social media is a relatively cheap and efficient way for brands to manage themselves (Karaduman, 2013). Social media allows people to present themselves online (Labrecque et al., 2011) and to connect with others. Consumers use it to share
forces brands to be transparent and to communicate with their customers (Yan, 2011). In addition to the four Ps, product, place, price, and promotion, social media has become an important element of the promotion mix (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Social media can become a pitfall, but, when used correctly, also a good way to let your brand speak (Yan, 2011). Companies want to manage what people see when they follow their brand (Gensler et al., 2013). Therefore, companies are managing their social media in a professional manner. This could also be the case for the celebrity as a personal brand.
As indicated earlier, personal branding is in the middle of the digital era. According to Keller and Lehmann (2003) the value of a brand resides with customers. They argue that there are three multipliers that moderate the transfer between the marketing program and the three stages, namely the program quality multiplier, the marketplace conditions multiplier, and the investor sentiment multiplier. Social media can be embedded in the different parts of these stages. At first, the marketing program exists of marketing communication, employee selection, training and support. Social media can be seen as a part of marketing communication from a direct and interactive marketing perspective. The multipliers can be influenced by the way social media is used. In program quality multiplier, social media can be used to explain the meaning of the campaign, and to keep repeating the message. Finally, the customer mindset can also be influenced by the engagement with the celebrity via social media.
Although there are different tools, social media is one of the most important tools regarding the technological era the world is in now. Social media offers chances to interact with consumers, and to build a community. The usage, but also the downside of social media, is discussed in the next chapter.
2. Social media as tool for personal brands
Social media is an important tool when looking at the management of personal brands and is the ongoing trend from the last few years. Currently, Facebook has 1,490 million users, while Twitter has 316 million users, and Instagram has 300 million users (Statista.com, 2015). There are 1.79 billion social media users worldwide (Statista.com, 2015). These numbers indicate how big and important social media really is.
This new trend evolved from Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is the platform behind social media, the technological foundation and how the software developers and end-users make use of the World Wide Web (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). User generated content is seen as how people make use of Social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). According to Blackshaw & Nazzaro (2004, p. 2 cited in Mangold & Faulds, 2009) “social media consist of different sources of online information created and used by consumers in order to inform each other about products, services, personalities and other issues”.
2.1. The usage of social media
Social media is taking over, also when looking at traditional sources, such as radio, television etcetera (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
There are different types of social media, and also different ways of using it. As indicated by Kaplan & Haenlein (2010), the different types of user-generated content are: collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual social worlds. Collaborative projects are social media in which people can decide on which information is displayed. This could either be a Wikipedia page, on which anyone can add, remove or change something, or social bookmarking on which the content can be rated by people (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Blogs are the personal webpages of social media (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Social networking sites are a type of personal profiles on which people can invite their own friends, add information etcetera (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Virtual game worlds are games where it is possible to create your personal avatar and interact in a three-dimensional environment (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Virtual social worlds can be compared to virtual game worlds, except that in this environment only the physical laws exist (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Although Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) indicate different types of social media, there is one common element, all are social media that facilitate the socialization of content (Malita, 2011). The social media promote collaboration,
social media as part of your promotion mix. Brands can interact with their consumer, and consumers can communicate with each other. This hybrid element, as indicated by Kaplan and Haenlein (2010), shows that consumers have a large amount of control on whether some news is displayed on the social media.
Social media is used by brands in order to be present, to engage with their fans, to help shape their customers’ experiences (Lipsman, Mudd, Rich & Bruich, 2012), and to learn about their audience (Cisnero, 2014). For celebrities, especially, social media allows them to create their own platform (Hsieh, 2015). Consumers perceive social media as more trustworthy compared to corporate communications from brands themselves (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
When giving the consumer the opportunity to provide feedback via a certain social media channel, they feel more engaged (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). As the digital messages are real-time available, visible, omnipresent, and dynamic, they are also perceived as more impactful (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010, cited in Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins & Wiertz, 2013). Under certain circumstances consumer generated brand stories lead to a positive effect for brands (Gensler et al., 2013). However, brands do not only need to listen to the social media stories from consumers, but they can actively influence the social media (Gensler et al., 2013). It cannot be denied that consumers have become producers of social media content themselves, and they are engaged in different categories, for example entertainment (Malita, 2011).
When looking at the brand community research, consumer participation leads to brand loyalty and purchase intentions (Gensler et al., 2013).
2.2. Possible negative consequences of social media
As indicated throughout a lot of literature, social media is very powerful (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010; Mangold & Faulds, 2009). But, this also leads to more negative consequences of social media. As Weber (2010, cited in Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy & Silvestre, 2011) argues, one tweet, blogpost or whatsoever can cause a snowball effect and damage a product or company. Consumers are more and more demanding (O’Brien, 2011 cited in Chen, 2013), and are becoming more egocentric (Chen, 2013). There are also other consequences visible when looking at the behavior of society after the increase of social media usage. According to Jung (2015), cyber-bullying increased, whereas the privacy of everyone decreased. Finally, people’s productivity has decreased. In contrast, social media does lead to a feeling of connection, while that is not there most of the time.
There are some risks of having an online presence: with whom do you connect, what do you communicate about, and how do you maintain momentum (Dutta, 2010)? These risks should be taken into account when looking at your online presence.
With whom you connect refers to whether you should combine private and public friends. This implies that there could be a boundary, but most of the time both will be happening. When accepting everyone, you should take caution of what kind of people want to engage with you (Dutta, 2010). This is in line with Ollier-Malaterre and Rothbard (2015), who state that the lack of social scripts and the invisible audience make that some people forget who will get to see their social media message. For celebrities, this could be difficult, as they might not be able to choose with whom they do and do not want to engage. But most of all, they should not forget that they have such a diverse group of followers when posting certain messages.
What do you communicate about, is about whether you harm the brand by your posts. Some information you should not expose, but you should be authentic and consistent in all different types of media (Dutta, 2010). You should also keep in mind that you lack social control over content (Ollier-Malaterre & Rothbard, 2015), so once you have posted something, it is out of your reach what others do with it. Also when you say something personally to people, this could still end up on social media. In sum, you cannot control all social media messages, which is a risk to all people, and therefore also to celebrities.
How do you maintain momentum refers to how you keep managing progress. Your authenticity, quality and type of resources determine whether you are successful (Dutta, 2010). Managing the progress also appeals to Gu and Ye (2013), who state that it is important as a brand to manage and respond to the customer responses on your brand.
In order to overcome or even prevent those risks, it is important to manage the social media accounts.
Brands, and their marketing managers, have to keep in mind that the majority of information is communicated from consumer to consumer (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Even if you as a brand are not involved in social media, consumers can involve your brand in it (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins & Wiertz, 2013).
Currently, consumers are sharing their negative brand experiences via social media, instead of handling it privately with the brand itself (Gensler et al., 2013; Gu & Ye, 2013; Noort & Willemsen, 2011). Which in effect can cause direct negative information about your
(Pfeffer, Zorbach & Carley, 2013). Even the traditional media, such as newspapers, are using social media to pick up news stories, also called cross-media dynamics (Pfeffer et al., 2013). This means that if you have cause a discussion or negative experience on social media, this also backfires via the traditional media. Besides these factors Pfeffer et al. (2013), mention some other factors on the influence of spreading negative news via social media. In social media you have a lot of network clusters, which means that a lot of consumers are connected with each other. So, if one person is posting a negative message, this will reach a lot of networks and therefore large groups of people. The other factor is the lack of diversity. In a lot of networks there is a lack of diversity, and therefore a filter bubble. If your friends are interested in something, such as a negative message, then you should be interested in it as well, which is the factor echo chambers. Besides this reason, you are also more likely to see certain messages because of the type of network you belong to. Finally, there is a factor, as a combination of the previous mentioned factors, by which people, because of the filter bubble, do not use knowledge for information gathering, while the echo chamber leads to people’s persuasion and affirmation, which can lead to more negative opinions (Pfeffer et al., 2013).
There is also a negative consequence for the consumer, as a result of social media, namely information overload (Malita, 2011). How the consumers cope with this can lead to a negative consequence for the celebrity. Consumers are advised to only look at Twitter for a short period of time multiple times a day (Malita, 2011), which could make that the message of the celebrity is missed.
Social media can backfire on celebrities as well. An example of this is Nicolette van Dam, an ambassador for Unicef, who tweeted an image of the Columbian soccer team that was snorting cocaine during the World Championship. Even after apologising, the tweet ended up at the Colombian government, which caused Nicolette van Dam to withdraw from her job as ambassador (Busbee, 2014). Another example is Ten Walls, who posted a homophobic message on his Facebook and after lots of reactions and even an apology from Ten Walls, all his upcoming shows were cancelled (Fact team, 2015).
In this perspective, celebrities have their own social media accounts to promote themselves, to broadcast to their fans (Yan, 2011), and thereby create some buzz. However, the before-mentioned examples indicate that people sometimes do not even realize the negative effects some posts can have (Labrecque et al., 2011). In order to prevent such mistakes, companies are managing what people see when they follow their brand(s) (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins & Wierts, 2013), which could also be a good idea for celebrities. But as mentioned in the previous chapters as well: to what extent does the celebrity wants to
be perceived as managed, what is best for the brand? How you can best manage a social media account will be discussed in the next chapter.
3. Social media management
As indicated earlier, social media is a great tool for personal brands. However, it is important to know how to manage the social media, in order to reach your goals and to be perceived positive by consumers. Not all celebrities’ social media accounts need to be managed by external parties, but all social media accounts need to be managed to some extent (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
There are multiple points of attention before using social media, according to Kaplan & Haenlein (2010). First, you have to choose carefully which application you use. With which application do you reach your target group for instance? Weinberg and Pehlivan (2011) elaborate on this by making a difference in social media when looking at half-life of information and information depth. Twitter for instance is seen as a medium with shallow information, with relatively short half-life, also called a micro-blog (Weinberg & Pehlivan, 2011). On the other hand, Facebook is a social network on which the information is relatively deeper, while the half-life information is still relatively short. According to Weinberg and Pehlivan (2011) many brands use Twitter in order to stay on top-of-mind with consumers. Facebook is seen as a way to get attention and to connect and communicate with consumers. Second, you have to choose whether you use an existing social media application or you build your own. Third, you have to make sure that you activities on social media are aligned. Fourth, you have to integrate your social media into your traditional media usage. Finally, you have to make sure that it is accessible for everyone (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
3.1 Strategies
According to Wilson, Guinan, Parise, and Weinberg (2011) there are four types of social media strategies for companies, which differ on the amount of risk taking and level of results. The “predictive practitioner” is a strategy that is suited for companies that are risk avoiding, in which social media is used in a specific area of the company, such as customer service. The “creative experimenter” takes more risks, as small tests are used to improve certain functions and practices. They use social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter to listen to the thoughts and ideas of customers and employees. The “social media champion” uses large initiatives in order to get predictive results. Finally, the “social media transformer” uses social media in order to interact with external stakeholders, with an aim to get to unexpected improvement.
A lot of companies will go through different roles according to the phase they are in, and the budget available. This can be linked to personal brand management, or even celebrity
management, because if you are getting more famous as a celebrity you want to lower the risk, and as results you want to have your social media to help connecting with your fans and reach out, get in touch with your fans.
Managing of and responding to customer comments has become an important part of the social media strategy (Gu & Ye, 2013), because, as mentioned before, customers are more likely to share negative comments directly on social media, instead of discussing it with the brand itself. When looking at celebrities, it is even easier for people to direct it at social media, as the social media of celebrities cause a sort of intimacy (Marwick & Boyd, 2011). It is argued that for consumers it feels like this is one of the only ways to get in touch with the celebrity (Schmitt, 2014).
When looking at the behavior of the person itself on social media, according to Kaplan & Haenlein (2010), they should be active, be interesting, be humble, be unprofessional, and be honest.
The point of being unprofessional is interesting, as it is mentioned in the article by Kaplan & Haenlein (2010). Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) are mentioning that you want to be unprofessional, because you want to blend in with others, you want to be just as everyone around you. However, as a brand you want to make sure that consumers know that the social media account they are visiting is the verified page of that brand (Winterfeldt, 2012). Yan (2011) on the other hand states that a brand must be genuine. This is pointed at companies with different brands, but can also be seen as important for celebrities. Genuine is something different than unprofessional, but it is both about being personal, and giving people the feeling that they are actually talking to the person of the brand (Yan, 2011), in this case the celebrity.
3.2 Consumer behavior
It is important to see when consumers engage with brands on social media. When looking at the levels of consumer engagement regarding consumer online brand-related activity (COBRA), there are three: consuming, contributing, and creating (Gensler et al., 2013). Examples for each level are reading tweets (consuming), post a review about a brand or product (contributing), and make a whole YouTube video about a brand (creating). Consumers contribute and create content mainly because of the entertainment, empowerment, connection with others and expressing their personal identity (Gensler et al., 2013). But
consumers to respond. Besides that, consumers want to get noticed by the firm or the brand when they do engage in brand stories (Gensler et al., 2013).
3.3 Components of social media management
Lately, companies are massively hiring social media managers in order to make use of the co-creation that social media offers (Montalvo, 2011). Montalvo (2011) states that in order to influence and maintain a reputation of a brand or in order to build brand awareness, social media management has to live up to certain demands. In order to build brand awareness it is important to be present and visible on the social media platforms. For the reputation management of the brand, it is important to monitor, identify and reduce risks. This can be done for instance by interacting with the customer, and giving him/her advice.
Montalvo (2011) also indicates that creativity is an important aspect in order to manage a social media account, as it is important to create fun, clever, but also relevant content. Social media strategies, analytics, and collaborating with others requires some degree of creativity.
According to Kietzmann, Herfkens, McCarthy, and Sylvestre (2011) there are seven functional blocks of social media, which show how certain parts of social media can be configured. These seven building blocks are identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. Identity is about what you reveal about your identity in the social media setting. This is not only information, such as name and age, but also subjective information, such as thoughts and feelings (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Privacy is an important factor regarding identity. What are you going to share (Kietzmann et al., 2011) , which is especially important for celebrities andyou have to find the right balance. It is important to not lack content, as this could lead to insufficient branding which could lead to a different consumer perception (Labrecque et al., 2011). Conversations are about the extent to which you communicate with other users. Whether you engage in conversations, and how you engage also adds to your total image. Sharing is the extent to which users exchange, distribute, and receive content (Kietzmann et al., 2011), whether sharing actually leads to a relationship, depends on the social media platform. It is important to look if the message should and can be shared, and whether it is in line with terms of use (Kietzmann et al., 2011), but also with your own image, especially as a celebrity. Presence is about whether users know if other users are accessible. Kietzmann et al., (2011) give the example of celebrities who are able to check in their location, in order to show their fans where they are. This should make them more real, but this should be thought through very carefully as privacy is very
important. This corresponds to security, as many people might try to visit the celebrity on that location. Relationships are about the extent to which users are related to other users. In this case, it is not only important to form a relationship, but also maintain it (Kietzmann et al., 2011). Maintaining a relationship is a part that needs attention from a social media management perspective. Reputation is about to what extent the users can identify with others in the social media setting. This is not only regarding the people, in this case the celebrity, but also to the content (Kietzmann et al., 2011). Content wise it can be measured via the amount of ‘likes’, ‘retweets’ and responses a message gets, which should be reported in the metrics (Neill & Moody, 2015). Finally, groups are about whether users can form communities. One of the reasons for people to join social media communities is the social interaction (Laroche, Habibi, and Richard, 2012). According to Laroche et al., (2012) communities lead to more brand loyalty, which is the biggest advantage for business. Although the authors state it is important for business, it also implies that it is an advantage for celebrities.
Kietzmann et al., (2011) have applied these blocks on firm level perspective, but as can be seen they are also very important from personal branding perspective. The authors state four guidelines for firms to develop strategies for monitoring, understanding, and responding to the social media activities. Cognize, congruity, curate, and chase are the four C’s. Cognize is about recognizing and understanding social media. Congruity is about the fit between the firm and its social media. Curate is about how often you should be involved in social media. Finally, chase is about the chase for information, social media never stops, and you have to be in time in order to respond. As mentioned earlier, these points are all for firms, but this literature can also be used for personal branding, and therefore celebrities. It is especially important to have a fit between the celebrity and social media. This due to the fact that the professional image of the celebrity does not only determine the celebrity as a person, but everything that is publicly available (Meyers, 2009). Because there are so many images of the celebrity, as a consequence of different roles and media outlets, it is important to create a sort of fit between the social media and the celebrity (Meyer, 2009).
3.4 Response to negative social media
There are also risks to the use of social media and it is clear that a mistake is easily made with social media. Coping with this is also a part of social media management. Gensler et al. (2013) state that firms have to accept that there will be mistakes due to loss of control in
necessarily lead to a different attitude towards a brand, but the type of response, or the non- response, to a negative reaction by a consumer does cause dissatisfaction. This from the consumers’ perspective, but it implies that also the reaction to a negative message by the celebrity themselves can impact the attitude.
Little is known about how to respond to a negative message posted by the celebrity itself. In this chapter different studies on responding to negative messages and crisis management are discussed.
When looking at negative social media communication, this can be seen from two different perspectives, namely a negative social media message by a consumer or by a brand.
When the negative message stems from the consumer about the brand, the brand needs to take different points into account. At first, they should be able to filter such stories, so that they have the opportunity to decide whether they want to respond to it. When the brand decides to respond to the negative brand story, they have to make sure that the response fits in terms of content and type, but also when looking at who responses (Gensler et al., 2013).
It is important to handle negative messages in a right way as otherwise it could become a scandal. The chance of a scandal increases when: “the incident is surprising, vivid, emotional, or pertinent to a central attribute of the company or brand” (Tybout & Roehm, 2009 p. 84 cited in Gensler et al., 2013 p. 249). Companies or brands should also acknowledge the problem. According to Benoit (1997) it does not matter whether you are responsible for a negative message, but whether people perceive you as responsible. In the same line of reasoning, it is not about whether the fact was offensive, but whether it is perceived as offensive (Benoit, 1997). Pfeffer et al. (2013) state that before you respond to a message in an upcoming online firestorm, it is important to stay calm and keep acting normal on social media. Normal, in this case, is keep responding on messages as the brand did before the negative message.
After the acknowledgement, the brand should respond to the negative message, and implement this (Gensler et al., 2013). There are four ways of responding: denial, forced compliance, voluntary compliance, and super effort. It depends on the situation which response suits best (Gensler et al., 2013), and also which medium (Schultz, Utz, & Göritz, 2010). Each situation determines which medium is received best. For instance, in really harmful cases people perceive a newspaper item, which is shared via Twitter more than just tweet (Schultz et al., 2010). Besides the situation, the cross-media dynamics has to be taken into account, also when responding. Not only the social media channels have to be used to
respond to a negative message, but also the traditional media that might have picked up the message from the social media (Pfeffer et al., 2013).
It is important to be authentic in talking, being, staying, and defending (Greyser, 2006). Besides, it is important to reduce offensiveness, by strengthening the positive points, minimizing the negative feelings, distinguishing the wrong act from more negative actions, by transcending, and by attacking your accusers (Benoit, 1997).
Commitment of the consumers with the brand influences the extent to which they change behavior after a negative message. People who are less committed, will be more likely to change behavior (Ahluwalia, Burnkrant, & Unnava, 2000).
Section II: Study 1, the influence of valence on attitude towards
the celebrity
4. Conceptual model
In this chapter the conceptual model of study one is presented. The conceptual model introduces the different aspects of this research and how these are measured in order to eventually get insights into the main research question. The question that needs to be addressed is: To what extent does personal brand management via social media communication influence the consumer’s attitude towards the celebrity?
Study one examines whether the perceived valence of the social media messages of a celebrity influence consumer’s attitude towards the celebrity, and whether this can be influenced by the management perception, and therefore maybe perceived authenticity.
Figure 1
Conceptual model regarding the influence of perceived management of the social media account on the attitude towards the celebrity when looking at the perceived valence of social media messages
In this research it is tested whether the perceived management of a celebrity’s social media account influence the consumer’s attitude towards celebrities in a more or less negative manner, compared to a not managed account, after a perceived negative social media message. The different parts of the conceptual model and the hypothesis are explained more thoroughly below. Perceived valence of social media message Perceived management of the social media account
Attitude towards the celebrity H2a & H2b H1 H3a & H3b - + + - -
Management – management of the social media account
As indicated earlier, there are two different degrees in the extent to which a social media account of a celebrity is managed. In this research there is a separation in managed or not managed.
On deciding whether an account is managed, they should be analysed on whether it is looking like it is professionally managed by being focused internationally (posting in English), and if there are professional pictures and movies. Consistency is a driver of management (Dutta, 2010). Besides the implicit signals of a celebrity being managed, some celebrities already indicate themselves that they do not run their social media account alone. Eventually, it is important to see whether it is perceived as managed of not.
Valence – valence of the social media communication
Social media communication is a tool that can be used when managing a personal brand (Labrecque et al., 2011; Karaduman, 2013). However, the content that is sent via social media can be perceived as negative or positive. In this research valence is distributed among three categories: a positive message, a minor negative message, a major negative message.
Negative social media messages are for instance those that people found offensive, misleading, aggressive, or even ones that are not fitting their image of the brand (Kietzmann et al., 2011). A major negative social media message is so negative, that there cannot even be a positive side to it. Positive messages are messages that are in line with a personal brand image, and for instance cheerful, supporting, or honest.
There are different causes for a message to be perceived as negative, it can however have radical consequences. Even if the intentional message is positive, it can be perceived as negative (Knapp, Stafford & Daly, 1986).
Attitude – the attitude towards the celebrity
With attitude by a consumer is meant whether someone has a positive or negative attitude towards a celebrity. The attitude towards the celebrity can be negative or positive.
From these argumentations for the variables, different hypotheses can be derived.
At first, perceived management can be taken into account as an independent variable, which can influence the dependent variable attitude towards the celebrity. Different literature
