Using Celebrities’ Voices for Social Causes: An Investigation into how Attachment to Celebrities Impacts Consumers’ Behaviors toward Social Causes: An Abstract

Celebrities have a wide and captive audience, which may be used to effectively raise awareness, impact donations and influence people to volunteer for causes. Celebrities as human brands have the power to impact change in a potentially positive way. The present study is the first to investigate the role of brand attachment in the celebrity as a human brand and social cause context.

An essential goal of charities is to encourage the public to participate in philanthropic activities through both financial donations and volunteer efforts. The massive success of "The Ice Bucket Challenge" in 2014 indicates the importance of celebrities as the message source, with various public figures such as entrepreneurs, athletes, actors, actresses, and singers sharing the message to get engaged and involved in the social cause. This research examined the role of celebrity message sources in philanthropic activity communication. Specifically, this study suggests a model explaining when and why consumers comply with a celebrity’s philanthropic message based on self-verification, self-enhancement, and attachment theories. This study tested a model where an individual’s actual and ideal self-congruities with a celebrity positively affect attachment to the celebrity human brand, which leads to receptivity towards the celebrity-endorsed message and willingness to donate money and time to the cause. This study used cross-sectional data to test the hypotheses. Structural equations modeling (AMOS 26) was used to analyze the responses. Questionnaire items were adopted and adapted from previously-validated scales.

The findings indicated that an individual’s attachment to the celebrity human brand is positively related to their receptivity towards the endorser’s message and willingness to donate money and time. This research integrated identity and brand attachment theories to explain processes through which celebrities influence individuals’ behaviors regarding social causes. The results contribute to the existing bodies of knowledge on celebrity endorsement and cause marketing. Clearly, an individual’s attachment to a celebrity influences receptivity towards social cause messages from the human brand, which positively affects willingness to donate money and time. The results contribute to the existing bodies of knowledge on celebrity endorsement and cause marketing with empirical support for the effect of celebrity endorsement in philanthropic communication.