The Meaning Transfer Process in Celebrity Endorsements: A Quantitative Exploration

Celebrity endorsement is an established marketing practice and the share of celebrity ads out of total ads aired is around 25–30 % (Choi et al. 2005) in the west and as high as 50 % in the east (Saxena 2008). Celebrity endorsement has been researched since the last three decades but still there are confounding results. The fact remains that endorsement is costly affair for the marketer and there are risks of brand image dilution and financial loss among others. Thus, comprehensive model to explain celebrity endorsements would benefit academicians and practitioners alike. The present study thus builds and empirically validates a conceptual model of celebrity endorsements based on the relatively less researched ‘Meaning Transfer Model’ (MTM) of McCracken (1989).