Journal of Business Research 66 (2013) 941–947

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Journal of Business Research

Celebrity co-branding partners as irrelevant brand information in advertisements☆

Jasmina Ilicic ⁎, Cynthia M. Webster 1

Macquarie University, Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Marketing and Management, Balaclava Road, North Ryde, New South Wales 2109, Australia

☆ The authors thank Mark Gabbott, Marie-Louise Fryhelpful comments and support, significantly improving⁎ Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +61 2 9850 4870/6

E-mail addresses: jasmina.ilicic@mq.edu.au (J. Ilicic)(C.M. Webster).

1 Tel./fax: +61 2 9850 4857/6065.

0148-2963/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Inc. Alldoi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2011.12.014

a b s t r a c t

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 1 June 2011Received in revised form 1 November 2011Accepted 1 December 2011Available online 5 January 2012

Keywords:dilutioncelebrity co-brandingmatch-upjudgmentbeliefs

This study examines the effect of irrelevant information presented in marketing communications by a celeb-rity co-branding partner on consumer judgments of a partner brand. Three experimental conditions manip-ulate the relevancy of information: relevant information, irrelevant information, and relevant plus irrelevantinformation. Findings from this study suggest that when a celebrity co-branding partner does not provide in-formation about the partner brand nor brand benefits, consumer judgments in the ability of the partnerbrand to deliver benefits, their purchase intent and their match-up perceptions become less positive. Con-sumer brand benefit beliefs and purchase intentions show evidence of a dilution effect only when consumersperceive a mismatch between the celebrity and brand and when presented with irrelevant information sup-plied by a celebrity in addition to relevant brand information. Interestingly, not only the relevant celebritycharacteristics associated with the brand but also the irrelevant information provided by the celebrity inthe advertisement influence perceptions of match-up or congruence. Brand managers should ensure a celeb-rity co-branding partner does not provide irrelevant brand information within advertisements to avoid brandbenefit belief, purchase intent and match-up dilution.

© 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Consumers often evaluate brands on whether they are able to de-liver a particular benefit. Aware of this predisposition in consumerbehavior, brandmanagers attempt to highlight specific brand benefitsin their advertisements in order to create competitive points of differ-ence and encourage ease in consumer decision-making. As a result,brand managers create advertisements that contain relevant (diag-nostic) information, useful for consumers in making their judgmentsabout the brand. However, brand managers also endeavor to draw at-tention to their advertisements using means that are not always rele-vant to the brand or the brand's benefits.

The use of celebrity endorsers provides a means by which brandsare able to capture attention, helping the brand stand out from theclutter (Friedman & Friedman, 1979; O'Mahony & Meenaghan,1997/1998). Today consumers recognize celebrities as human brands(Parulekar & Raheja, 2006; Thomson, 2006) since celebrities employbranding techniques such as managing, trademarking and licensingtheir names, launching their own product lines and agreeing to prod-uct endorsements to enhance their perceived value and brand equity(Pappas, 1999; Thomson, 2006; Towle, 2003). Advances in branding

and Nathan Vincent for theirthe quality of the paper.065., cynthia.webster@mq.edu.au

rights reserved.

research identify celebrities as co-branding partners (Seno & Lukas,2007), where “two brands are deliberately paired with one anotherin a marketing context such as in advertisements” (Grossman, 1997:191). Celebrity brand endorsement is a co-branding activity jointlycoordinated by both the brand manager and the manager of thehuman brand (Seno & Lukas, 2007).

In a co-branding situation, either between two product brands orbetween a product and human brand, the separate relevant brand at-tributes tied to each brand come together. Human and productbrands encompass several image attributes, some of which are moreimportant to a consumer in determining preference and purchase be-havior (Alpert, 1971). When celebrities feature in advertisements asco-branding partners, their well-known attributes and image associa-tions may also be important to the product brand endorsed providingrelevant information about both brands and potentially assisting con-sumers when making judgments about their product benefit beliefs,attitudes and purchase intentions. However, celebrity co-brandingpartners arguably provide irrelevant (nondiagnostic) informationthat may in fact impair consumer judgments, when they play purelya peripheral role in the advertisement and provide unrelated brandpartner information, mentioning neither the brand nor brand bene-fits. For example, the relevant information consumers’ associatewith the comedian Jerry Seinfeld may be that he is funny, loves bas-ketball, is Jewish and American. This information, however, may becompletely irrelevant to consumer judgments when the Jerry Seinfeldbrand pairs with another brand such as an Australian financial insti-tution, like the Greater Building Society. In addition, when Jerry Sein-feld features in an advertisement with a brand and does not refer to

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the brand or any of the brand's attributes or benefits, he presumablyis a piece of irrelevant brand information.

Although the role of a celebrity, like Jerry Seinfeld, may be simplyto grab attention, consumers may in fact use information about thecelebrity's image and transfer the meanings that reside within the ce-lebrity onto the endorsed brand (McCracken, 1989). Consumers alsomay use the information associated with the product brand andtransfer these associations onto the celebrity endorser. Celebrity en-dorsements are mutually beneficial partnerships between the celebri-ty and the endorsed brand, as both individually require themanagement of their image attributes and have the potential to ex-change their image with other brands (McCracken, 1989). As a result,consumers may create their belief in the consistency of the celebrityin providing information about the product brand and brand benefits.Brand managers at times strategically place a celebrity with a productbrand, whereby the image of the celebrity is consistent with that ofthe endorsed brand (Kamins, 1990: Kamins & Gupta, 1994; Till &Busler, 1998, 2000; Till, Stanley, & Priluck, 2008) providing con-sumers with ostensibly coherent information about the brand. For ex-ample, Madonna's eccentric and mischievous, yet classic and chicimage matches that of the Versace brand, highlighting consistentbrand partner information. On the other hand, Nicole Kidman's gen-tle, sophisticated and classy style is not obviously consistent withthat of Nintendo's young, fun and cool image, therefore, providingconsumers with inconsistent information. Research suggests thatconsistent celebrity information, referred to as a match-up in the ce-lebrity endorsement literature, results in a positive effect on consum-er attitudes towards the products and brands with which they appearand the advertisements in which they feature (Kamins, 1990: Kamins& Gupta, 1994; Till & Busler, 1998, 2000; Till et al., 2008).

2. Literature review

2.1. Celebrity information and match-up hypothesis

In the celebrity endorsement literature a match-up occurs when“highly relevant characteristics of the spokesperson are consistentwith highly relevant attributes of the brand” (Misra & Beatty, 1990:160). A spokesperson is effective when a fit exists between the endor-ser's brand attribute associations and the endorsed brand's attributeassociations (e.g. Kamins, 1990: Kamins & Gupta, 1994; Till &Busler, 1998; Till et al., 2008), just as a co-branding partnership is ef-fective if consumers perceive a fit between the similarity of the im-ages of the two brands (Dickinson & Heath, 2006; Simonin & Ruth,1998). Research identifies that an endorser is more consistent and,therefore, congruent when they are an expert in the associated prod-uct category (Lynch & Schuler, 1994) or when they are attractive andendorse an attractiveness-related product, such as cosmetics(Kamins, 1990). Kamins (1990) shows that an attractive celebrity(Tom Selleck) endorsing an attractiveness-related product (luxurycar) results in increased spokesperson credibility (expertise andtrustworthiness) and attitude towards the advertisement, thanwhen they endorse an attractiveness-unrelated product (computer).Importantly, Kamins (1990) finds no effect of celebrity-brand attrac-tiveness match-up on brand attitude or purchase intention. An incon-gruent endorser, however, results in negative consumer brandevaluations (Kamins & Gupta, 1994). Till and Busler's (1998) studyidentifies celebrity expertise as more important than physical attrac-tiveness for matching a brand with an appropriate endorser. Theyfind a match-up effect on expertise, where matching an athlete withan energy bar positively influences brand attitudes and purchaseintentions.

The match-up hypothesis focuses on two distinct concepts: con-gruence and relevance. Miniard, Bhatla, Lord, Dickinson, and Unnava(1991: 105) argue that judgments of relevance depend on whethera “stimulus conveys issue-pertinent information” and judgments of

appropriateness (or congruence) rest on “perceptions of what isdeemed proper” or suitable. The literature to date on match-up focus-es primarily on celebrity relevance in terms of the celebrity posses-sing characteristics pertinent to the endorsed brand. However, thecelebrity in an advertisement may also convey relevant informationwhen they mention the brand and the brand's benefits. In otherwords, a celebrity not only provides consumers with relevant brandinformation when they convey characteristics pertinent to thebrand but also when they mention information relevant to the en-dorsed brand. For example, although the fun characteristic of JerrySeinfeld is relevant to the fun and laid back positioning of the GreaterBuilding Society, Seinfeld may also provide consumers with relevantbrand partner information when he features in an advertisement forthe Greater and mentions details or features about the Greaterbrand. As such, consumers perceive an endorser or human co-brandto be more congruent when they not only communicate relevantbrand information through a) possessing characteristics pertinent tothe partner brand, but also when they b) provide relevant informa-tion concerning the brand and the brand's benefits. In effect, if co-branding partners are an appropriate or good fit based on their rele-vant brand attributes, then their perceived match-up leads to positiveconsumer perceptions and purchase intent. Conversely, if co-branding partners are a bad fit then their perceived mismatch leadsto more negative (weaker) consumer perceptions and purchaseintentions.

Research in social judgment focuses on individuals’ assessmentsor evaluative judgments of particular people based on the informa-tion they receive about those people. This theoretical perspective isparticularly appropriate for investigating consumers’ evaluations ofco-branding partners based on the information they receive fromthe celebrity co-brand, in particular, the effect of the use of a combi-nation of relevant and irrelevant information when making brandjudgments.

2.2. Irrelevant information: social judgment dilution effects

Studies in social and non-social judgment show that although in-dividuals are aware of irrelevant information (information not ger-mane to the issue) they still use this information in makingjudgments (Troutman & Shanteau, 1977). For example, although aconsumer is aware that a celebrity endorser, who does not mentionany brand benefits, does not provide information relevant to abrand delivering a particular benefit, they may use the informationconveyed by the celebrity's image attributes as information in makinga judgment about whether the brand is able to deliver the benefit.Several studies suggest that irrelevant information causes a dilutioneffect (Kemmelmeier, 2004; Nisbett, Zukier, & Lemley, 1981;Troutman & Shanteau, 1977; Zukier, 1982), whereby an individual'suse of irrelevant information when in combination with relevant in-formation causes their judgments to become less extreme.

The premise underlying the dilution effect is that judgments madefrom a combination of diagnostic and nondiagnostic information (rel-evant and irrelevant information) tend to be less extreme than judg-ments based on diagnostic or relevant information alone (Nisbett etal., 1981). Nondiagnostic, uninformative or irrelevant informationpresented alone results in more extreme predictions than when incombination with relevant information (Tetlock & Boettinger, 1989).According to the dilution effect, the irrelevant brand information pro-vided by a celebrity co-branding partner in combination with rele-vant brand information may cause consumer evaluations of thepartner brand to become either less positive or more positive(depending on consumer judgments of the relevant informationalone). In effect, the use of irrelevant information causes consumerjudgments to regress towards the midpoint of the scale.

Social judgment studies manipulate the presence of irrelevant in-formation between subjects and ask these subjects to make

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judgments regarding a stereotypic trait of a target person(Kemmelmeier, 2004; Nisbett et al., 1981; Peters & Rothbart, 2000;Tetlock & Boettinger, 1989; Zukier, 1982). In their study, Zukier andJennings (1983) ask subjects to act as jurors in the trial of a man ac-cused of murdering his aunt. Results show subjects in the combinedrelevant and irrelevant information condition (i.e. those who re-ceive both relevant information implying the man's guilt and irrele-vant information that has no implication for the defendant's guilt)are less likely to believe the suspect committed the murder thanare subjects in the relevant information condition only. In anotherstudy, Nisbett et al. (1981) ask subjects to make predictions aboutthe behavior of a target individual's tolerance of electric shock in apsychological experiment. Although individuals judge an engineer(relevant information) more likely to handle a great deal of electricshock, individuals judge a Catholic engineer with a grade point av-erage (GPA) of 3.1 whose mother is a housewife (irrelevant infor-mation), likely to handle only a moderate amount of shock.Kemmelmeier (2004) invites undergraduate students to predictthe likelihood that a target person is a child abuser. Findings showsubjects unable to disregard irrelevant information in making judg-ments, even when they inform the researcher that the informationis not useful in making their judgment.

Despite some research in the marketing literature on brand dilu-tion (Loken & Roedder John, 1993; Pullig, Simmons, & Netemeyer,2006; Roedder John, Loken, & Joiner, 1998; Simonin & Ruth, 1998),the examination of dilution effects in marketing to date focuses pure-ly on a weakening effect of consumer judgments and not on dilutionin terms of less extreme judgments. Research in marketing using dilu-tion theory from the social and non-social judgment literature isscarce, with only two studies investigating the impact of irrelevant in-formation on consumer brand judgments (Gierl & Grossman, 2008;Meyvis & Janiszewski, 2002).

2.3. Dilution effect in marketing

Meyvis and Janiszewski (2002) examine the social and non-socialjudgment theoretical perspectives in explaining consumers’ beliefs ina product's ability to deliver a desired benefit. Results of their studyshow that the addition of irrelevant information to relevant benefitinformation dilutes consumers’ beliefs in the product's ability to de-liver the benefit, whereby consumer benefit beliefs become less pos-itive. In another study, Gierl and Grossman (2008) examine consumerdilution effects in a celebrity endorsement context with multipleproduct endorsements. Subjects view an initial endorsement of abrand (A) that encompasses diagnostic information of a specific tar-get attribute. They then view non-diagnostic information in terms ofadditional brand endorsements (B and C) that do not encompassthe target attribute. Their results show strong support for the occur-rence of a dilution effect in only one case. Consumers’ evaluations ofBrand A (which contains the target attribute) decreases when the ce-lebrity is seen to endorse other brands that do not encompass the tar-get attribute of Brand A.

Although Meyvis and Janiszewski (2002) explore dilution effectsin a product judgment context, they do not examine irrelevant infor-mation deliberately provided to consumers by brand managersthrough celebrity co-branding partners. Gierl and Grossman (2008)attempt to fill this research gap by exploring dilution in a celebrityendorsement context, however, their study specifically exploreswhether a dilution effect occurs in terms of consumer evaluationsof a target attribute when a celebrity is seen endorsing multiplebrands. What is unknown, however, is whether consumer judgmentsabout a brand and the brand's benefits dilute when consumers viewan advertisement that features both a brand providing relevant brandand brand benefit information and a celebrity who provides irrele-vant brand information by neither mentioning the brand or anybrand benefits.

Applying the social and non-social judgment results to the celeb-rity co-branding context suggests that consumers will use irrelevantinformation provided by a celebrity co-branding partner in formingtheir judgments about a brand partner and the brand's benefits, re-gardless of whether consumers perceive the celebrity to match ormismatch the brand. H1: Consumers report less positive beliefs inthe ability of a brand to deliver a benefit when exposed to a combina-tion of both relevant brand information and irrelevant brand informa-tion supplied by a celebrity co-branding partner, compared to whenonly exposed to relevant brand information. H2: Consumers displayless positive attitudes towards the advertisement and purchase inten-tions when exposed to a combination of both relevant brand informa-tion and irrelevant brand information supplied by a celebrity co-branding partner, compared to when only exposed to relevantbrand information. H3: Consumers exhibit less positive beliefs inthe perceived match-up between the celebrity and brand when ex-posed to a combination of both relevant brand information and irrel-evant brand information supplied by a celebrity co-branding partner,compared to when only exposed to relevant brand information. H4:Consumers demonstrate less positive judgments when exposed to acombination of both relevant brand information and irrelevantbrand information supplied by a celebrity co-branding partner per-ceived as a mismatch, compared to when only exposed to relevantbrand information.

3. Method

A research company recruited subjects from regional areas withinAustralia to evaluate their perceptions and purchase intentions forthe Greater Building Society, a financial institution. Seven hundredand ninety-four subjects examine one of three conditions: 1) irrele-vant information only featuring the celebrity Jerry Seinfeld with nomention of the Greater Building Society brand nor any brand benefits,2) relevant information only featuring a Greater customer only stat-ing the brand benefits of high interest rate on savings and implyingthe benefit of customer satisfaction and 3) the combined relevantplus irrelevant information featuring a combination of the celebrityJerry Seinfeld and the Greater brand customer. Of the 794 subjectsrecruited, 45.6% are male and 54.4% are female. Subjects are predom-inantly between 25–34 and 35–44 years of age (37.5% and 36.7%, re-spectively). Two hundred and seventy-two subjects examine theirrelevant condition, 266 the relevant condition and 256 the com-bined relevant plus irrelevant information condition. A median splitcategorizes subjects as either perceiving a match-up or a mismatchbetween the celebrity and the brand. Of those subjects who perceivea mismatch between the celebrity and brand, 134 belong to the irrel-evant condition, 111 to the relevant plus irrelevant condition and 139to the relevant only condition. Of those subjects who perceive amatch between the celebrity and brand, 138 belong to the irrelevantcondition, 145 to the relevant plus irrelevant condition and 127 to therelevant only condition.

3.1. Measures

Subjects evaluated on 7-point likert scales the extent to whichthey believe the Greater Building Society does or does not deliverthe benefit of a high interest rate on savings accounts and customersatisfaction. Adapted items fromMeyvis and Janiszewski (2002) mea-sures brand benefit beliefs. Mitchell and Olson's (1981) 5-point se-mantic differential scales bad/good, dislike/like, not irritating/irritating and uninteresting/interesting measures Attitude towardsthe Advertisement. Measures for Purchase Intent are one item fromMitchell and Olson (1981) of consideration to purchase the brandand one item from Choi (2002), examining the extent to which sub-jects would inquire about the brand. Till and Busler's (2000) threeitem 7-point scale, does not belong with/belongs with, does not go

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together/goes together, does not fit together/fits together, measuresmatch-up between the image of the brand and the image of the celeb-rity co-branding partner.

3.2. Procedure

Subjects first view one of three advertisements. In the irrelevantinformation condition, subjects view Jerry Seinfeld in an advertise-ment for the Greater making no reference to the Greater brand orany Greater brand benefit. Instead, Jerry makes a joke about icecream. In the relevant information condition, subjects see an adver-tisement that features a Greater customer enthusiastically discussingher positive experience with the Greater brand highlighting her satis-faction and clearly stating the brand benefit of high interest on sav-ings. Jerry Seinfeld does not feature in the advertisement. In thecombined relevant plus irrelevant information condition, subjectsview the entire advertisement that combines the Greater customerdiscussing the brand and brand benefit and Jerry Seinfeld jokingabout ice cream. The advertisements for each condition feature theGreater Building Society's brand logo at the end. Once subjects viewtheir allocated advertisement, they evaluate the Greater brandbased on the advertisement they just viewed. Firstly, subjects assessthe extent to which they believe the Greater brand delivers the ben-efits of high interest on savings and customer satisfaction, followedby their attitude towards the advertisement and purchase intentionsfor the Greater Building Society. Finally, subjects evaluate the degreeto which they believe the image of Jerry Seinfeld matches that of theGreater Building Society's image.

4. Results

Table 1 presents univariate statistics for belief in the ability of thebrand to deliver the benefits, attitude towards the ad, purchase inten-tion and match-up for the three conditions. The statistics are also bro-ken down by perceptions of match and mismatch. Beliefs in thebenefits and purchase intent are highest in the relevant condition fol-lowed by the combined relevant plus irrelevant condition, with the ir-relevant condition receiving the lowest scores. In each conditionconsistently higher scores occur when subjects see Jerry Seinfeld asa good match with the Greater Building Society.

Separate one-way between subjects ANOVAs compare the effectof the three information conditions overall and by perceptions ofmatch and mismatch on subjects’ benefit beliefs, ad attitude, pur-chase intention and perceptions of match-up. Brand benefit beliefs

Table 1Means and Standard Deviations by Experimental Condition.

Condition Match Mismatch Overall

Irrelevant OnlyHigh Interest on Savings Benefit 4.2 (1.43) 3.2 (1.56) 3.7 (1.57)Customer Satisfaction Benefit 4.8 (1.39) 3.5 (1.75) 4.1 (1.71)Attitude towards the Ad 3.9 (.80) 2.1 (.96) 3.1 (1.27)Purchase Intention 5.0 (1.56) 4.1 (1.73) 4.6 (1.66)Match-up 5.2 (1.09) 1.7 (.88) 3.5 (2.01)

Irrelevant and RelevantHigh Interest on Savings Benefit 5.3 (1.39) 4.2 (1.47) 4.9 (1.52)Customer Satisfaction Benefit 5.3 (1.33) 4.2 (1.51) 4.8 (1.50)Attitude towards the Ad 4.3 (.69) 2.7 (1.00) 3.6 (1.16)Purchase Intention 5.2 (1.44) 3.9 (1.73) 4.7 (1.66)Match-up 5.4 (1.08) 1.9 (.95) 3.9 (2.04)

Relevant OnlyHigh Interest on Savings Benefit 5.2 (1.52) 5.1 (1.43) 5.2 (1.47)Customer Satisfaction Benefit 5.3 (1.42) 5.0 (1.37) 5.1 (1.40)Attitude towards the Ad 3.7 (.78) 3.2 (.83) 3.5 (.81)Purchase Intention 5.2 (1.44) 4.5 (1.75) 4.9 (1.62)Match-up 5.1 (1.12) 1.7 (.89) 3.3 (1.99)

and attitude towards the ad differ significantly across the three condi-tions and perceptions of match-up (see Table 2). Purchase intentionsdiffer significantly between the three conditions only when subjectsperceive a mismatch between the celebrity and brand, and match-up perceptions overall. Table 3 shows the post hoc comparisons be-tween the conditions using the Tukey HSD.

Results for subjects’ beliefs in the brand's ability to deliver benefitsof high interest on savings and customer satisfaction are similar. Sub-jects who perceive a mismatch between Jerry Seinfeld and the Great-er Building Society brand report significant differences between allconditions. Significantly less positive judgements result when rele-vant information is in combination with irrelevant information pro-vided by the celebrity than when relevant information is alone. Theirrelevant only condition receives significantly lower judgmentsthan the other two conditions with scores reflecting more neutraljudgments. Results slightly differ for those subjects who perceive amatch or congruency between Jerry Seinfeld and the Greater BuildingSociety brand. As with the subjects who perceive a mismatch, the ir-relevant condition receives the lowest judgments and differs signifi-cantly from the other two conditions. While judgements for therelevant only and the relevant plus irrelevant combined conditionsare more positive than the irrelevant condition, they do not differ sig-nificantly from one another. As such, findings show only partial sup-port for H1. Apparently, irrelevant brand information provided by acelebrity in addition to relevant brand information significantlybrings about less positive beliefs in the brand's ability to deliver ben-efits of high interest on savings and customer satisfaction for thosewho perceive a mismatch between the celebrity and brand.

These findings suggest that when consumers view an advertise-ment that features relevant brand information in combination witha celebrity co-branding partner, who does not supply consumerswith relevant information about the brand and who also does not en-compass characteristics relevant to the brand, their overall belief inthe ability of the brand to deliver a particular benefit becomes moreneutral.

The post hoc comparisons for attitudes towards the advertisementshow significant differences among all conditions for subjects whoperceive a mismatch as well as for those who perceive a match be-tween the celebrity and brand, however, the patterning for the twogroups differs. For the mismatch group, the irrelevant condition re-ceives the lowest scores and the relevant condition receives the high-est scores. Those subjects who believe Seinfeld is a good match withthe Greater, however, actually tend to report more positive attitudeswhen the celebrity features in combination with the brand and themost negative ad attitudes for the relevant condition featuring no ce-lebrity. These results provide partial support for H2.

Although overall, and for those who perceive a match between thebrand and celebrity, no significant differences exist for purchase in-tentions, those subjects who perceive a mismatch between the celeb-rity and brand report significantly less positive purchase intentions.Subjects’ purchase intentions are less positive when they view a com-bination of irrelevant and relevant brand information, than whenthey view relevant brand information only, again indicating partialsupport for H2 for those who perceive a mismatch between the celeb-rity and brand. Interestingly, no significant differences lie betweenthe relevant and irrelevant information conditions with both result-ing in more positive judgments.

Less positive perceptions of a match-up or congruency betweenthe brand and celebrity occur when irrelevant brand information pre-sented by a celebrity features in combination with relevant brand in-formation than when relevant brand information features alone.Overall, subjects who view a combination of both irrelevant brand in-formation and relevant brand information report significantly lesspositive judgments than in the relevant information only condition,indicating a dilution effect on consumer match-up perceptions andsupport for H3.

Table 2Between-Subjects ANOVA.

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Stated Benefit: High interest rate on savings Overall Between Groups 304.22 2 152.11 65.45 .000Within Groups 1838.29 791 2.32

Mismatch Between Groups 238.52 2 119.26 53.59 .000Within Groups 847.97 381 2.23

Match Between Groups 104.10 2 52.05 24.97 .000Within Groups 848.25 407 2.08

Implied Benefit: Customer Satisfaction Overall Between Groups 138.96 2 69.48 29.07 .000Within Groups 1890.82 791 2.39

Mismatch Between Groups 159.90 2 79.95 33.30 .000Within Groups 914.84 381 2.40

Match Between Groups 21.65 2 10.82 5.71 .004Within Groups 771.75 407 1.90

Attitude towards the Ad Overall Between Groups 39.90 2 19.95 16.38 .000Within Groups 963.55 791 1.22

Mismatch Between Groups 87.42 2 43.71 50.82 .000Within Groups 327.66 381 .86

Match Between Groups 24.75 2 12.37 21.63 .000Within Groups 232.80 407 .57

Purchase Intention Overall Between Groups 10.79 2 5.40 1.90 .150Within Groups 2248.51 791 2.84

Mismatch Between Groups 23.38 2 11.69 3.87 .022Within Groups 1150.87 381 3.02

Match Between Groups 2.94 2 1.47 .67 .513Within Groups 894.14 407 2.20

Match-up Overall Between Groups 37.73 2 18.86 4.65 .010Within Groups 3210.15 791 4.06

Mismatch Between Groups 1.85 2 .93 1.14 .322Within Groups 310.37 381 .81

Match Between Groups 5.00 2 2.50 2.08 .126Within Groups 488.65 407 1.20

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The findings support H4 since in every case a significant differenceexists between the relevant only condition and the combined rele-vant and irrelevant condition for subjects who perceive a mismatchbetween Jerry Seinfeld and the Greater Building Society brand.

5. Discussion and conclusion

Practitioners continually face the difficulty of strategically execut-ing their advertisements in order to draw consumer attention and

Table 3Post Hoc Comparisons: Overall vs. Mismatch vs. Match.

Dependent Variable Conditions

Stated Benefit: High interest rate on savings Overall IrrelevantIrrelevant

Mismatch IrrelevantIrrelevantRelevant

Match IrrelevantIrrelevant

Implied Benefit: Customer Satisfaction Overall IrrelevantIrrelevantRelevant

Mismatch IrrelevantIrrelevantRelevant

Match IrrelevantIrrelevant

Attitude towards the Ad Overall IrrelevantIrrelevant

Mismatch IrrelevantIrrelevantRelevant

Match IrrelevantIrrelevantRelevant

Purchase Intention Mismatch RelevantMatch-up Overall Relevant

influence consumer judgments. Although previous work in celebrityendorsement research focuses on the effectiveness of an endorse-ment based on the match-up of relevant characteristics between thecelebrity and endorsed brand (Kamins, 1990: Kamins & Gupta,1994; Till & Busler, 1998, 2000; Till et al., 2008), findings from thisstudy suggest that the irrelevancy of celebrity information presentedin an advertisement also influences consumer judgments. Resultsidentify that celebrities playing a peripheral role, where they do notprovide information about the brand or brand benefits, affect

Mean Diff. Std. Error Sig.

Relevant+Irrelevant −1.12 .13 .000Relevant −1.43 .13 .000Relevant+Irrelevant −1.01 .19 .000Relevant −1.87 .18 .000Relevant+Irrelevant .86 .19 .000Relevant+Irrelevant −1.11 .17 .000Relevant −1.00 .18 .000Relevant+Irrelevant -.67 .13 .000Relevant -.99 .13 .000Relevant+Irrelevant -.32 .13 .046Relevant+Irrelevant -.74 .20 .001Relevant −1.53 .19 .000Relevant+Irrelevant .79 .20 .000Relevant+Irrelevant -.48 .16 .010Relevant -.49 .17 .010Relevant+Irrelevant -.52 .096 .000Relevant -.40 .095 .000Relevant+Irrelevant -.55 .12 .000Relevant −1.13 .11 .000Relevant+Irrelevant .58 .12 .000Relevant+Irrelevant -.31 .09 .002Relevant .29 .09 .005Relevant+Irrelevant -.60 .09 .000Relevant+Irrelevant .60 .22 .020Relevant+Irrelevant -.52 .18 .009

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consumer judgments in the ability of the partner brand to deliver par-ticular benefits, their intent to purchase and their perceptions of amatch-up or congruency between the celebrity and brand.

Many findings from this study are consistent with a dilution effect(Kemmelmeier, 2004; Nisbett et al., 1981), whereby consumer brandjudgments become less positive when irrelevant information featuresin combination with relevant information, than when relevant infor-mation features alone. The results show support for the occurrenceof a dilution effect on consumer brand benefit beliefs, purchase inten-tions and perceptions of match-up. Importantly, consumer benefit be-liefs and purchase intentions dilute only when consumers perceive amismatch between the celebrity and brand and when they view irrel-evant information supplied by a celebrity in addition to relevant brandinformation. This finding may result from the perceived incongruencebetween the celebrity and brand providing consumers with additionalirrelevant brand information, intensifying the dilution effect.

Consumers who perceive the celebrity to match the brand reportno significant differences in both the stated and implied brand benefitbeliefs and purchase intentions in the relevant information only andcombination of relevant and irrelevant conditions. In this case, theperceived congruence between the celebrity and brand may provideconsumers with relevant brand information, reducing the impact ofthe irrelevant information provided by the celebrity and, therefore,the dilution effect. These results also suggest that although a celebritydoes not provide consumers with relevant information about a brandpartner, consumers may construct the relevancy of the celebrity as aco-branding partner by drawing on the information they have intheir memory about the celebrity's image. As a result, consumerstransfer the meanings tied to the celebrity onto the brand partnerand create their belief in the consistency of the celebrity in providingrelevant information about the brand. Future research should drawon the associative network theory of memory (Anderson, 1983;Collins & Loftus, 1975; Martindale, 1991) in order to identify thebrand image associations tied to both brands and the informationtransferred during the co-branding process.

Subjects’ judgments of congruence become less extreme when ex-posed to a combination of both irrelevant information provided bythe celebrity and relevant brand information. This result suggeststhe relevant celebrity characteristics associated with the brand, andalso the relevant information provided by the celebrity in the adver-tisement affect perceptions of congruence. This finding supports thenotion of irrelevance in celebrity endorsement as comprising of twocomponents: the celebrity not encompassing characteristics perti-nent to the endorsed brand and the celebrity not presenting relevantbrand information by not mentioning the brand and the brand'sbenefits.

Although overall consumer attitude towards the advertisementdoes not become less positive when the irrelevant information pre-sented by the celebrity features with relevant brand information, adattitude significantly weakens when a perceived mismatched celebri-ty is shown in combination with the brand than when the brand fea-tures alone. This result suggests that advertisements should featurean irrelevant and incongruent celebrity in combination with relevantbrand information. Alternatively, attitude towards the ad strengthenswhen the perceived congruent celebrity is shown in combinationwith the brand than when the brand features alone.

A perceived match between the brand and celebrity results in su-perior ad attitudes, even if the celebrity does not provide consumerswith relevant brand information in terms of mentioning the brand.This finding suggests that the irrelevant brand information presentedby the celebrity in the advertisement affects the development of adattitudes.

The results of this study suggest that consumers evaluate brandson the information that a celebrity co-branding partner presents inan advertisement. However, longer advertisement exposure time forthe combined condition can affect consumers’ responses to the

relevant plus irrelevant condition. In addition, the research designdoes not include a control condition against which to compare the ex-perimental conditions. A second study is currently underway to ad-dress these limitations.

This research employs explicit belief and attitude measurementsin which subjects are fully aware that a self-report of their attitudeis being requested. Recent research stresses the core importance ofexploring implicit attitude measures in which respondents are un-aware of what the measure is assessing with the elicitation of auto-matic beliefs (Petty, Fazio, & Brinol, 2009). Future research canattempt to use implicit attitude measures to identify dilution effectsin advertising such as the Implicit Association Test (Greenwald,McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998). Future research also can explore the ef-fect of irrelevant information presented in advertisements for thosewho are familiar versus those who are unfamiliar with both brandsin the co-branding partnership. Consumers who are highly familiarwith both brands have well developed brand schemas that may with-stand irrelevant information, whereas unfamiliar brand schemas maybe susceptible to irrelevant information. As this is the first study toexplore the irrelevancy of information presented by a celebrity co-branding partner in television advertisements, this research can beextended to explore whether these effects are transferable to othermediums, such as print, and other co-branding situations, since theconcept of fit is suitable and the goal of leveraging secondary associ-ations or image attributes also applies.

Role of the funding source

The authors thank Macquarie University and the Greater BuildingSociety for sponsoring this study.

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