Influence of empathy for advertising models on purchase intention: Comparison between celebrity models and unknown models

Abstract

Primarily originating from characters (models) in a story, empathy is essential for enhancing the effectiveness of marketing communications with the condition that concept-based realism is practiced. However, previous literature primarily considered celebrities when investigating the relationship between models and products in marketing communications. Remarkably, extant literature does not include examples of unknown models that focus on empathy in product usage scenes, as depicted in marketing communications, or their effects. Therefore, this study considers consumers’ observations of product usage scenes, focusing on personal computers (PCs) and smartphones (SPs) in Japan. The research question is how empathy—or consumers’ belief that the model uses the products in the same way they do in their daily lives—positively affects purchase intentions. The Japanese have a strong social culture that emphasizes empathy; therefore, it is thought that the above effects would be easy to evaluate. The effects of empathy were examined in the context of both celebrity and unknown models and the results demonstrated that empathy positively affected purchase intention in both. However, the effect was higher for celebrity models. These findings suggest the importance of determining and using a model for marketing communications, whether celebrity or not, based on a clear product concept.