Do job-relevance and severity of celebrity athlete’s transgression matter?

Abstract

Utilization of celebrity athletes as endorsers for firms has one of the most prevalent marketing strategies since there are many possible positive effects of celebrity athletes on firms such as increasing brand awareness, enhancing company image, promotion of products, and so on. However, endorsement marketing can also be risky for firms when celebrity athletes were involved in negative behaviors. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of celebrity athlete’s scandal on attitudes toward the athlete, his team, the endorsed brand, and purchase intent for the brand according to its severity and job relevance. Based on the manipulation process of job relevance and severity of transgression, four different types of transgression scenarios were made through a series of pretests: (1) job relevance and high severity, (2) job relevance and low severity, (3) job irrelevance and high severity, and (4) job irrelevance and low severity. A total of 225 usable survey questionnaires (170 males, 55 females) were collected from a major national university in the southern part of South Korea. Data were analyzed through a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), t-test, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results of the first MANOVA indicated that there was a significant univariate main effect of job relevance on attitude toward team. More specifically, the more the athlete’s transgression is related to job performance, the less favorable toward the team he belongs. Results of the second MANOVA indicated that there was a significant univariate main effect of severity on attitude toward athlete. Specifically, the more severe the transgression, the less favorable toward the transgressed athlete. The findings provide some implications on how to successfully develop appropriate risk management strategies when dealing with athlete’s transgression.