The Effect of Celebrity Endorsements on Brand and Team Related Intentions – A Study in the Indian Context

Purpose –The paper proposes and tests a conceptual framework to establish the link between celebrity endorsement and brand and team related intentions.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology used for the paper is Structural Equation Modeling.Findings – Celebrity's credibility impacts the attitude towards the team and the sponsors. The overlap of the consumer with the celebrity also affected their attitudes towards the team and the brand. Research limitations/implications – This study is limited to the context of India and a national level tournament only. Further the respondents were also concentrated only to one region of the country. This study does not test the effect of athlete endorsement on brand and team attitude which is done by various researchers in the arena of sports marketing. Practical implications – The managers of the team and the sponsors should focus on using those celebrities to endorse their products who are high on credibility, as credibility of the celebrity has a direct link between the brands and the attitude towards the team Originality/value – Most studies have focused on athlete endorsement in sports marketing and this is the first study of its kind which focuses on the effect of celebrity endorsement on the brand and attitude towards the team