Celebrity endorsement on social networks sites: Impact of his/her credibility and congruence with the endorsed product, on the consumer’s information adoption and dissemination

Abstract

This study aims at examining the impact of celebrities’ credibility and congruence with the endorsed product on the consumers’ information adoption and dissemination on Social Networks Sites (SNS). Two different and spontaneous celebrities’ endorsements were considered. The first is more cause-related and concerned the celebrity Hend Sabry, a well-known actress, who endorsed on Facebook the national campaign “Zourou Tounes” (“visit Tunisia”), in order to promote the tourist destination Tunisia after the terrorist attack at the Bardo National Museum (18th of March, 2015). The second is more product/brandrelated and involved the celebrity Dorra Zarrouk, a notorious actress, who endorsed on Instagram the chocolate product of a well-known brand. 168 Tunisian Internet users participated to the online survey after visiting the Facebook post of each endorsement. The findings revealed differences in the effect of celebrity’s credibility on consumers’ information adoption and dissemination. In particular, for Hend Sabry’s endorsement, only the celebrity’s expertise dimension of credibility has an effect on the adoption of the information spread about the destination Tunisia by the followers. For Dorra Zarrouk’s endorsement, only the celebrity’s reliability dimension of credibility plays an important role in the consumers’ adoption and dissemination of online information. The results show also that the perceived congruence between the celebrity and the product positively influences the information adoption and its dissemination by consumers.