A New Look at Celebrity Endorsements in Politics: Investigating the Impact of Scandalous Celebrity Endorsers and Politicians’ Best Responses

Abstract

When a celebrity receives negative news coverage, his or her endorsements of politicians can pose negative consequences for the politicians. We investigated such negative consequences with the help of two experimental studies. In Study 1 (celebrity involved in tax scandal), we manipulated whether an endorsement was initiated by a politician or a celebrity (i.e., controllability) in a 2 × 2 between-subject experiment. We also manipulated politicians’ responses (i.e., no response vs. response). Study 2 was a conceptual replication of the first experiment (celebrity involved in a real estate scandal). Results of Study 1 revealed that politicians are perceived to be more in control of self-initiated endorsements than other-initiated ones. Perceived controllability, in turn, influenced feelings of anger and pity, eventually affecting voting intentions. For self-initiated endorsements, no response appears to be the best reaction. By contrast, public response is advised when the endorsement was initiated by another entity. Results were replicated in Study 2. However, particular responses of a political candidate revealed no influences in connection with a real estate scandal. We explain our findings by applying the theory of planned behavior, attribution theory, and situational crisis communication theory.