Human Brands

Investigating Antecedents to Consumers’ Strong Attachments to Celebrities

Bibliographic Data

ID23316616
AuthorsMatthew Thomson (0000-0002-4298-2706, Queen's School of Business, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume70
Issue3
Pages104-119
Publication date2006-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Marketing (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2429 • E-ISSN: 1547-7185
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1509/jmkg.70.3.104
OpenAlexW2128068758
LanguageEN
Citations received130
References cited44

This article explores recent advances in self-determination research to address why consumers develop strong attachments to “human brands,” a term that refers to any well-known persona who is the subject of marketing communications efforts. Study 1 uses a survey that is analyzed with structural equation modeling. Study 2 is qualitative and offers corroborating evidence for the proposed theoretical model. Study 3 extends the model with a more naturalistic sample and tests several alternative hypotheses using hierarchical regression. The results suggest that when a human brand enhances a person's feelings of autonomy and relatedness and does not suppress feelings of competence, the person is likely to become more strongly attached to it. This article documents that strong attachments are predictive of satisfied, trusting, and committed relationships and proposes that attachment strength may be a parsimonious proxy for consumer–brand relationship strength. The results imply that benefits would accrue to organizations such as entertainment firms and political parties that establish direct and routine interaction between human brands and consumers, that human brands to which consumers are attached offer significant potential as endorsers, and that organizations should address how to make the human brands they manage more authentic.

Advertising · Autonomy · Business · Competence (human resources) · Entertainment · Feeling · Normative · Normative social influence · Persona · Political science · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification · Customer Service Quality and Loyalty · Digital Marketing and Social Media · Marketing · Psychology · Social Psychology

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