An investigation of celebrity brand hate influence in the arts marketing sector of Ghana
Date
2023
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Arts and the Market
Abstract
Purpose – This study aimed at investigating negative past experience (NPE), symbolic incongruity and
ideological incompatibility on celebrity brand hate (CBH) within the arts marketing sector.
Design/methodology/approach – Anchored on the self-congruity theory (SCT), the study is based on two
studies with 618 hip-life music (HLM) listeners in Ghana (Study 1 5 340 face-to-face participants; study 2 5 278
online participants), who responded to 20 celebrities they hate. The study validates Hegner et al.’s (2017)
product brand hate (BH) model in the arts sector utilizing the structural equal modeling in testing the research
hypotheses.
Findings – The study found that negative past experience, symbolic incongruity, and ideological
incompatibility significantly influences CBH. Furthermore, CBH significantly influences celebrity brand
avoidance (CBA) and negative word-of-mouth (NWoM), brand retaliation, private complaint and brand
switching. Nevertheless, CBH had no significant influence on CBA in the second study. In all, BH had the
strongest effects on NWoM for products in Hegner et al. (2017) model, whereas in our model BH strongly
impacts on brand retaliation for celebrities (i.e. people).
Practical implications – The study provided evidence to marketing scholars, celebrity image managers and
brand professionals, on critical factors to consider in building and sustaining celebrity brands as viable
currencies for economic leveraging within the arts industry.
Originality/value – Though BH has received academic recognition, little is known about the concept of CBH
and its outcomes in the arts marketing literature
Description
Research Article
Keywords
Celebrity brand hate, Negative past experience, Symbolic incongruity, Ideological incompatibility