What makes consumers have neutral or negative responses to celebrity endorsement on social media? A mixed methods study based on Chinese luxury fashion market since Covid-19

Liru Jiang*, Enshang Shang, Ni Zeng, Gianpaolo Vignali, Stephen Doyle

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to conferenceAbstractpeer-review

Abstract

Since Covid-19, Chinese consumers have shown some new negative attitudes to celebrities on social media (Nanfengchuang, 2020; China Daily, 2021). Moreover, Chinese government tended to limit the development of ‘fan economy’ through social media by proposing new policies (China Daily, 2021; BBC News, 2021). However, there is limited celebrity endorsement research based on the emerging features of Chinese social media environment after Covid-19. Especially, the reasons of why certain celebrity endorsement information on social media leads to non-positive consumer response, either the celebrity endorsement information has no influence on consumers / the consumers have no feeling toward the celebrity endorsement information; or the celebrity endorsement information even has negative influences on some consumers. Therefore, this research aims to explore these reasons in the luxury fashion brand context. Researches about online celebrity/influencer marketing usually study the positive marketing results (Ki et al., 2020) and consumers’ purchase intention (Meng et al., 2021). Although Tafesse and Wood (2021) study the relationship between influencers’ content and consumers’ engagement behaviour (both negative and positive), they did not study the reasons, especially for non-positive influences. By using a mixed research method, this study collects top 3 negative comments from 200 posts including celebrities on Chinese social media by content analysis, then explores why fashion consumers find certain celebrity endorsement on social media non-positive in China after Covid-19 through semi-structured interviews to 30 Chinese females (aged from 18 to 26). Both studies are targeted on luxury fashion brand market. Thus, by exploring Chinese luxury fashion consumers’ non-positive attitudes to celebrity endorsement on social media after Covid-19, we academically contribute to social media marketing regarding to celebrity endorsement. In addition, this research practically helps luxury fashion brands to make celebrity endorsement strategies wisely, since neutral and negative responses can both lead to ineffective marketing results.
Original languageEnglish
Number of pages5
Publication statusPublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes
Event28th Recent Advances in Retailing and Consumer Science Conference - Grand Hotel Dino, Baveno, Italy
Duration: 12 Jul 202115 Jul 2021
https://amarapsig.org/?p=125

Conference

Conference28th Recent Advances in Retailing and Consumer Science Conference
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityBaveno
Period12/07/2115/07/21
Internet address

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