An investigation of celebrity brand hate influence in the arts marketing sector of Ghana

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