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An investigation of celebrity brand Celebritybrand hate
hate influence in the arts
marketing sector of Ghana
Iddrisu Mohammed 215
Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship,
University of Ghana Business School, College of Humanities, University of Ghana, Received 16 August 2021
Revised 16 January 2022
Accra, Ghana, and 23 September 2022
Alexander Preko, Leeford Edem Kojo Ameyibor, Mawuli Feglo and Accepted 23 September 2022
George Cudjoe Agbemabiese
Department of Marketing, University of Professional Studies, Accra, 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
studieswith 618 hip-life music (HLM) listeners in Ghana (Study 15 340 face-to-face participants; study 25 278
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 imagemanagers 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.
Keywords Celebrity brand hate, Negative past experience, Symbolic incongruity, Ideological incompatibility,
Celebrity brand avoidance, Negative word-of-mouth, Arts marketing sector, Ghana
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Celebrity brand hate (CBH) is a phenomenon that has its roots from social cognitive cues
where adorable public figures are significantly judged instantly based on their public
appearance, utterances, actions and inactions (Finsterwalder et al., 2017). In recent times,
brand hate (BH) (Curina et al., 2021; Husnain et al., 2021; Islam et al., 2019; Rodrigues et al.,
2020) has gained much attention from researchers in a bid to understand signals sent to the
public. Hegner et al. (2017) utilized the concept to measure BH within products. Also, studies
have called for the extension of the concept from general product (Hegner et al., 2017), and
service literature (Curina et al., 2020; Hashim and Kasana, 2019), to another context,
including the arts sector. This present study set out to identify whether negative past
experience (NPE), ideological incompatibility and symbolic incongruity predicts CBH, and to Arts and the Market
determine the outcomes of music CBH among young music listeners. Largely, investigation Vol. 12 No. 3, 2022
pp. 215-230
of this nature has consequences for policy, marketing and research in the arts marketing © Emerald Publishing Limited
2056-4945
industry. DOI 10.1108/AAM-08-2021-0039
AAM The motivation for this study is presented in three ways. First, hip-life music (HLM) is
12,3 regarded as one of the main popular music genres in Ghana (Bonsu and Adepong, 2019).
However, this form of music has not received much needed academic interest (Sowah, 2017;
Quainoo, 2014), creating an evident gap in literature. A study in this neglected area provides
detailed understanding of what HLM can offer to Ghana and beyond. Second, the music
industry is among the fast-growing sectors in Ghana, which has generated a total receipt of
over $20 million to the economy in 2018 and expected to increase to $34 million in 2023.
216 Thirdly, this study responds to calls to extend the concept of BH from general product
perspective (Curina et al., 2020; Hashim and Kasana, 2019; Hegner et al., 2017) to other
functional areas ofmarketing including CBH in the arts literature, which has been overlooked
in earlier studies.
We make three principal contributions to the literature. First, our study provides new
insight into the existing arts marketing literature on BH by showing that NPE, ideological
incompatibility and symbolic incongruity are considered as antecedents of CBH among
music fans. Our second contribution relates to the validation of the concept of BH in the arts
context by comparing the path coefficients of Hegner et al. (2017) model to our model 2. The
findings reveal that BH has the strongest effects on negative word-of-mouth (NWoM) for
products in Hegner et al.’s (2017) model, whereas in our model, BH strongly impacts on brand
retaliation for celebrities (i.e. people). Indeed, the contribution from this paper is the argument
that consumers (music fans) may retaliate to the celebrity brand based on the negative which
is translated from dislike for celebrities’ music and performances, to speaking and writing
negatively about them on various social media platforms. Theoretically, this supports the
self-congruity theory (SCT) that allows customers to compare their impression of a brand
image to their own self-concept, helping in explaining HLM fans in context. Thirdly, we
introduced and tested two additional constructs: private complaint and brand switching
(Curina et al., 2020; Fetscherin, 2019), which is evidenced by the significant results obtained in
our study to extend the understanding of the concept of BH for celebrities, which has been
understudied in CBH literature.
Literature review
Self-congruity theory
This theory is characterized as providing in-depth understanding of the self-concept of
consumer behavior. Self-congruity, in other words, is a psychological process and result in
which customers compare their impression of a brand image to their own self-concept
(Sirgy, 1986, 2018). Naturally, self-concept is described as the combination of a person’s
ideas and feelings about himself as an object (Rosenberg, 1979). In the SCT, actual and
ideal image were the two main underpinning constructs that explained consumer
behavior. Studies (Kesse et al., 2021; Zhang, 2021) streamlined the term by addressing the
product context, whereby consumers may reinforce their ideas by purchasing brands that
are highly congruent with their notion of self (Zhang, 2021), and may hate brands that are
extremely incongruent (Hegner et al., 2017). This study contextualized self-congruity as a
mismatch between consumer actual self which represents symbolic incongruity and ideal
self which is ideological incompatibility, and NPE as an antecedent of BH within the
CBH literature. Despite this theory’s applicability in measuring these constructs (Islam
et al., 2019; Pinto and Brand~ao, 2020), its applicability within the arts market literature
remains limited. Therefore, this study assumed that NPE, symbolic-incongruity and
ideological incompatibility can be primary antecedents of CBH. Importantly, this
contextualization of self-congruity advances the on-going discussions on how music
listeners perceived celebrities in the entertainment context. Hence, it is worth researching
this neglected field.
Brand hate conceptualization Celebrity
Within the psychological scholarship, hate has been groundedwithin two perspectives which brand hate
comprise singular or multiple emotional instruments (see: Fehr and Russel, 1984; Sternberg,
2003; Yadav and Chakrabarti, 2022). It is elucidated as the compounded emotions of
dissatisfaction and bad experience which churn into anger, retaliation, NWoM and avoidance
(Bryson and Atwal, 2018; Curina et al., 2020; Hegner et al., 2017). Using data from the Persian
context, Shabahang et al. (2021) found that low source credibility and belief in a just world
is likely to predispose audiences to hate a celebrity. Rifon et al.’s (2016) study on do not 217
hate me [. . .] evidenced that character, attitude towards celebrity and physical attractiveness
have a significant impact on celebrity trustworthiness. We operationalized the concept of
CBH as a fan’s negative emotional reaction of disappointment, dislike, anger and revulsion
towards brands that have essentially failed to meet their expectations, and sometimes
rendered them worse than expected. Hence, we applied the concept within the art industry
based on Hegner et al.’s (2017) determinants of BH, specifically, on celebrities, to investigate
the determinants of CBH and the possible outcomes of fans’ behavior. The antecedents and
outcomes of CBH as applied to the arts marketing industry measure fans’ NPE, symbolic
incongruity and ideological incompatibility in predicting hate for the celebrity brand. In
previous studies, it was observed that not only does the predictors discussed above predict
BH, but it forms the basis for CBH to predict outcomes such as NWoM and brand boycotts
(see: Hegner et al., 2017; Kucuk, 2019). The arts industry provides a new contextual challenge
for conceptualizing the SCT with CBH antecedents and outcomes, and it would be
interesting to see the direction of consumers’ behavior outcomes. The study further provided
insightful understanding with additional outcomes, such as private complaints, and brand
switching.
Hypotheses development
Negative past experience. Within the product brand literature, NPE relates to a previous
encounter with the product that failed to meet its basic functional requirements (Joshi and
Yadav, 2021). We contextualized the NPE as previous negative encounters with the
celebrity’s music, merchandise and a transgressive behavior which is a mismatch of the fans’
image.Within the arts market, the effect of NPE on fans’ reaction towards the brand has been
argued to vary within different cultural contexts due to the typology of social comparison
status (S€a€aksj€arvi et al., 2016). Scholars have called for more attention to the phenomenon of
NPE within varying cultural contexts to establish convergence or divergence of evidence
within the arts (Rodrigues et al., 2020; Yu et al., 2018), and testabilitywith outcome such as BH,
which has received little academic recognition. Despite existing empirical literature
establishing the outcomes (i.e. BH) with products (Husnain et al., 2021; Zarantonello et al.,
2018), BH still remains limited within the arts literature. Therefore, this study
hypothesized that:
H1. NPE significantly leads to CBH.
Ideological incompatibility. This construct is characterized with contextual issues and wrong
doing that consumers believed are not compatible with their beliefs (Nguyen, 2021). That is,
the views of the consumer are not aligned with the beliefs of the brand; of which is related to
“moral misconduct, deceptive communication or inconsistencies of values by the brand”
(Hegner et al., 2017, p. 15). We contextualized ideological incompatibility as the beliefs,
attitudes and values of fans that are not reflective of the artist. This goes beyond individual
fan’s self-image by including societal and moral values. Banerjee and Goel (2020) have
established that consumers hate a brand that is corporately irresponsible based on non-
alignment of ethical values, legal and societal concerns. Previous studies have proven a
AAM positive impact of ideological incompatibility and BH in extant BH literature (Brand~ao and
12,3 Popoli, 2022; Bryson et al., 2021; Curina et al., 2021; Lopez, 2021) albeit not in the arts
marketing literature. Therefore, we hypothesized that:
H2. Ideological incompatibility significantly leads to CBH.
Symbolic incongruity. Symbolic incongruity has been operationalized in the BH literature, as
“any concept that does not truly represent itself, and not in sync with consumers’ image”
218 (Hashim and Kasana, 2019, p. 231). That is, consumers do not only buy to satisfy their needs
and wants but own the entire offering of product/service as their representation (Atwal et al.,
2020), which drives their social pattern for a particular brand (Islam et al., 2019). Islam et al.
(2019) found symbolic incongruity as a worthy predictor of BH in the food and restaurant
brands. Hegner et al. (2017) characterized symbolic incongruity as the undesired image of the
brand to the consumer. In this study, symbolic incongruity has been contextualized as the
undesired image of the celebrity brand that is inconsistent with the fan’s self-image or
personality. Earlier studies (Balikçioglu and Kiyak, 2019; Zhang and Laroche, 2021) have
considered symbolic incongruity in understanding the concept of BH. For instance, Banerjee
and Goel (2020) indicated that symbolic incongruity increases BH within the political
context. However, the testability of symbolic incongruity within the arts marketing
literature remains understudied, specifically with celebrity brands. Therefore, we
hypothesized that:
H3. Symbolic incongruity significantly leads to CBH.
Celebrity brand avoidance (CBA). Celebrity brand avoidance (CBA) is one of the outcomes of
BH (Curina et al., 2020; Fetscherin, 2019), which is defined as the refusal to be connectedwith a
brand (Hegner et al., 2017), and “being a more passive action towards a brand” (Pinto and
Brand~ao, 2020). Further, brand avoidance is described as a phenomenon where consumers
passively turn their backs on brands or show indifferent behavior towards brands (Bryson
et al., 2021). The nexus between BH and brand avoidance is clearly established in the extant
BH literature. Previous studies empirically validate the ability of BH in generating brand
avoidance as an outcome across various industries (see: Banerjee and Goe, 2020).
Nevertheless, explaining the underlying mechanism within the arts marketing literature
has been overlooked. We contextualized CBA as fans’ disengagement or keeping away from
listening and not involving in the celebrity’s activities. That is, once fans reach the point of
CBH, it becomes difficult to revert to any form of love towards the brand and therefore this
strong negative emotion would instigate a complete stay away from the celebrity brand.
Therefore, we hypothesized that:
H4. CBH significantly leads to CBA.
Online negative word of mouth (NWoM). Literature has grounded that BH depicts NWoM
such as complaining, both privately and publicly (Fetscherin, 2019), which finds expression on
both online and offline NWoM (Curina et al., 2020). This can be done through (1) negatively
writing or sharing social media posts online or offline; or (2) complaining to friends and
relatives. Since, “the speed at which NWoMdiffuses through social media, as well as the sheer
extent of the negativity is shocking” (Pfeffer et al., 2014, p.117). Based on these assumptions,
we have operationalized NWoM as any negative social media post (videos, texts) about the
celebrity. Literature established that, “negative opinions about products are formed by and
propagated via thousands of peoplewithin hours” (Pfeffer et al., 2014, p.118). CB could build on
this to behave “transgressively” for fans to attack them, and share their negative stories. This
sometimes causes traffic on the celebrity’s social media pages, which can be an enabler for
them to be known within the industry. Extant studies (Curina et al., 2020; Hegner et al., 2017)
showed the influence of BH on NWoM on product brands but largely the concept has been Celebrity
overlooked within the arts industry. Thus, we hypothesized that: brand hate
H5. CBH significantly leads to NWoM.
Brand retaliation, private complaining, brand switching and CBH. Brand retaliation is defined
as hurting the brand in order to compensate for a loss (Hegner et al., 2017). The main goal of
brand retaliation is to get equity. This demonstrates the severe and deliberate harmful
activity aimed at the brand (Fetscherin, 2019). We contextualized brand retaliation as 219
vengeful behavior of a fan targeted at the celebrity brand. Celebrities create stunts through
“transgressional” behaviors in order to get mileage and currency. However, transgressions
sometimes hurt fans, which could result in the fans taking vengeance, as the behavior is
considered a typical act of betrayal. Furthermore, private complaining can also be referred to
as NWoM. That is, telling friends and families about the negatively perceived brand, while
speaking of it, of course, this is the contextualization of Fetscherin (2019). However, we
extended the contextualization of private complaints as legal action that is taken by a fan
against a celebrity for his transgressional behavior before the proper authorities for
investigations and actions to be taken. Action-taking is by individual fans rather than the
police. For example, fans have taken actions against celebrities due to their negative
behaviors. However, this has not been empirically tested in context. Thus, there is scarcity of
research that tested the contextualization of this study. In addition, brand switching behavior
which also takes the direct form of retaliation is defined aswhere customers switch to another
brand due to BH. In the arts industry, switch behavior of fans could largely decrease future
mileage and currency of the celebrity. We contextualized brand switching as the shift of fans
from one celebrity brand to another. Though BH impacts brand switching in literature
(Husnain et al., 2021; Kesse et al., 2021), however, the issues of BH and fan switching have been
overlooked in the art marketing literature. To address these limitations, the study
hypothesized that:
H6. CBH significantly leads to brand retaliation.
H7. CBH significantly leads to private complaining.
H8. CBH hate significantly leads to brand switching.
Methodology
Research settings, sampling and instrumentation
We used a cross-sectional survey with a targeted sample of youth HLM listeners, aged
15–35 years, and who hate a celebrity brand, as the inclusion criteria for participation in the
study. Ghana is an interesting case to study because of a number of reasons. First, Ghanawas
among the early African countries that have embraced HLM emerging from Jamaican reggae
andAmerican hip-hop in the early 1990s (Bonsu andAdepong, 2019). Second, Ghana’s hip-life
has decolonized and Africanized music which is gaining popularity in and outside the
continent (Boateng, 2009). Third, in 2017, one of Ghana’s hip-life musicians, Sarkodie, was
ranked in the Top 10 Most Bankable African Artists by Forbes African (Nikoi, 2020).
Remarkedly, HLMwas chosen due to themessages that it delivers to the youth. Hip-life songs
often draw on key themes that usually teach the youth moral behaviors. For example, the
music warns the male youth to focus on their future career. While the female youth are
advised to dress decently in public places.
We used a two-stage survey: Study 1 focuses on face-to-face participants (see: Figure 1),
while study 2 concentrates on online participants, using the SurveyMonkey app (see:
Figure 3). In study 1, we used the convenience sampling method to sample 340 participants
from different universities, assembled for Youth Summer Camping (July, 2019)
AAM
12,3
220
Figure 1.
Tested conceptual
model I with two
outcome variables
(sports, musical entertainment) in one of the public universities in Ghana. The sample sizes
adopted were justified, following Hair et al.’s (2010) suggestion onminimum proposed sample
size determination of 100 for SEM. In study 2, we used the purposive sampling method to
identify organized youth bodies such as old students’ associations, hometown associations,
and the convenience approach was used to obtain 278 valid sample size. We used adapted
scales rated on a five-point scale that have been validated in previous studies (see: and
Table 2).
Demographics of the participants
Of these demographics, female accounted for 57%, single (59%) and (43%) listen to hip-life
four and more times a week for the face-to-face participants, while for the online participants,
the males recorded 53%, single (71%) and 57% listen to hip-life four and more times in a
week.We usedmultiple response questions in assessing the celebrities that the youth hate. In
Table 1, the result shows the three most hated celebrities. It was observed that Shatta Wale
was considered as the most hated celebrity. This could be attributed to the celebrity
displaying behaviors that fans assumed were immoral, and contrary to the values of the
Ghanaian culture to gain currency. Remarkably, the descriptive findings of the averages and
standard deviation are presented in Table 3. In all, the average of averages of the CBH
variables recorded 2.44 suggesting CBH in context.
Data analysis
STATA14, with SEMapproachwas used to estimate themodel fitness. Earlier, we conducted
the normality test and found that all items of the constructs were above 0.05, indicating no
deviation from normality (Brown, 2006). Commonmethod bias (CMB) was tested through the
simultaneous loading of all the items in a PCAproducing a total variance of 27.2% (<50%), an
acceptable maximum threshold of the total variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). This signified
that there was no possibility of CMB.
Factor analysis
Furthermore, a two-stage principal axis factorial (PAF) approach of exploratory factor
analysis with varimax rotation method was utilized (Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO 5 0.787;
Bartlett’s test of sphericity x2 ¼ 2; 377:43; Sig: < 0:001Þ to identify the underlying factor
structure of the adapted constructs. In the first PAF, the 24 items for the face-to-face
Celebrity
Face to face Online
Celebrities N Percent (%) N Percent (%) brand hate
Stonebwouy 18 2.4 15 2.3
Shatta Wale 78 10.5 (1st) 76 11.8 (1st)
Samini 18 2.4 15 2.3
Sarkodie 29 3.9 24 3.7
King Ayisoba 41 5.5 35 5.4 221
Fancy Gadam 53 7.1 64 9.9 (3rd)
Maccasio 64 8.6 (2nd) 45 7.0
Edem 29 3.9 24 3.7
Atongo 28 3.8 25 3.9
Obrafour 14 1.9 13 2.0
Patapaa 22 3.0 20 3.1
MzVee 21 2.8 20 3.1
Efya 16 2.2 15 2.3
Wiyaala 58 7.8 (3rd) 39 6.0
Kuami Eugene 34 4.6 31 4.8
KiDi 18 2.4 16 2.5
Fella Makafui 54 7.3 47 7.3
Medikal 47 6.3 39 6.0
Strongman 30 4.0 66 10.2 (2nd)
Kwadwo Nkansah (Lil Win) 25 3.4 23 3.6
Others 46 6.2 40 6.2 Table 1.
Total 743 100.0 645 100.0 Multiple response of
Note(s): The N represents the number of responses for a celebrity celebrity hate brand
participants loaded six factors with total variance of 70.49% (CBH, NPE, CBA, symbolic
incongruity, ideological incompatibility and NWoM). In the second PAF, 12 items for online
participants loaded three factors ((KMO 5 0.821; Bartlett’s test of sphericity
x2 ¼ 2; 023:29; Sig: < 0:001Þ with total variance of 63.6%: brand retaliation, private
complaining and brand switching. The results suggested the adequacy in conducting a factor
analysis (Hair et al., 2010).
Next, the correlation coefficients (Table 3) are not above 0.80, revealing that
multicollinearity was not an issue (Hair et al., 2010). All reliability values in Table 2 were
above the threshold of 0.70 indicating an acceptable level of internal consistency within the
data of the study (Hair et al., 2010). The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)was used to assess
the convergent and discriminant validity of the studied instruments (Bagozzi et al., 1991). The
AVEs in Table 2 were used to check the convergent validity, with the cut-off point of 0.5.
Discriminant validity was also tested to determine the latent instruments distinction from
others. For discriminant validity to be established within the data set, the square of average
variance extracted (AVEs) should be greater than the correlations between the instruments in
a model (Fornell and Larcker, 1981). This can be seen in Table 3.
Measurement and structural models
We reported on the measurement and structural statistics of the interaction model. However,
the face-to-face model was refined through the modification indices by allowing CBH to
correlate with NWoMwhich produced a revisedmodel of better fit index presented inTable 4,
revealing that the measurement model fit the data and had met the cut-off points (Hu and
Bentler, 1999; Steiger, 2007; Barrett, 2007). We produced three models (See: Figure 1–3)
indicating their corresponding beta and R2 values.
AAM
Face-to-face Online
12,3 participants 5 340 participants 5 278
Constructs Loading AVE Alpha CR Loading AVE Alpha CR
Celebrity brand hate (CBH) (Hegner 0.57 0.81 0.90 0.68 0.85
et al., 2017)
I am disgusted by the celebrity 0.76 0.74 0.95
222 brand
I do not tolerate the celebrity brand 0.78 0.72 0.93
and what s/he endorses
The youth would be better without 0.78 0.65 0.94
the celebrity
Am totally angry about the celebrity 0.70 0.62 0.94
brand
Negative past experience (NPE) 0.65 0.82 0.93 0.73 0.88
(Hegner et al., 2017)
The celebrity performance is poor 0.85 0.77 0.95
The celebrity songs are 0.79 0.74 0.94
inconvenience
My hate of the brand is linked to his 0.80 0.72 0.87
bad performance
I am dissatisfied by the celebrity 0.78 0.70 0.85
brand
Symbolic incongruity (SI) (Hegner 0.62 0.72 0.92 0.65 0.82
et al., 2017)
The celebrity brand does not reflect 0.84 0.67 0.88
who I am
The celebrity brand does not fit my 0.74 0.66 0.76
personality
I do not want to be associated with 0.76 0.65 0.84
the celebrity brand
The brand does not represent what I 0.81 0.60 0.83
am
Ideological incompatibility (II) 0.63 0.86 0.92 0.64 0.82
(Hegner et al., 2017)
The celebrity brand acts 0.82 0.80 0.84
irresponsible
The celebrity acts unethical 0.82 0.72 0.83
The celebrity brand violates moral 0.80 0.54 0.86
standards
The celebrity brand does not match 0.73 0.52 0.82
my beliefs and values
Celebrity brand avoidance (CBA) 0.61 0.89 0.94 0.78 0.93
(Hegner et al., 2017)
I do not listen and watch the shows 0.72 0.83 0.78
of the celebrity anymore
I reject all products endorsed by the 0.78 0.81 0.76
celebrity
I do not use products and services 0.81 0.79 0.82
endorsed by the celebrity
I refrain from watching all musical 0.79 0.73 0.81
videos of the celebrity
I avoid all shows endorsed by the 0.77 0.72 0.82
celebrity
Table 2. Negative word-of-mouth (NWoM) 0.52 0.73 0.85 0.74 0.86
Items of the main (Hegner et al., 2017)
constructs for
the study (continued )
Celebrity
Face-to-face Online
participants 5 340 participants 5 278 brand hate
Constructs Loading AVE Alpha CR Loading AVE Alpha CR
I spread negative word of mouth 0.74 0.77 0.75
about the celebrity brand
I degenerate the celebrity brand to 0.74 0.74 0.74
my friends 223
When my friends were looking for 0.70 0.70 0.73
similar music to listen, I told them
not to listen or download from the
celebrity brand
Brand retaliation (BR) (Hegner et al., 0.77 0.91
2017)
I deliberately stop listening to the 0.79 0.79
music of the celebrity brand
I have unfollowed the brand on all 0.78 0.78
my social media handle
I intentionally stop buying products 0.77 0.80
and services endorsed by the
celebrity brand
I deliberately deleted all the 0.74 0.81
celebrity music and videos on my
electronic gadgets
Private complaining (PC) 0.63 0.81
(Fetscherin, 2019)
I personally want to lodge a 0.78 0.81
complaint to the police about the
celebrity brand
I personally want to report the 0.73 0.82
celebrity brand to MUSIGA
I personally want to initiate a civil 0.52 0.80
complaint against the celebrity
brand
I personally want to lodge a 0.50 0.82
complaint to the police about the
recent criminal stunt against the
celebrity brand
Brand switching (BS) (Liao et al., 0.62 0.81
2021)
I will prefer other celebrities’ music 0.69 0.88
which sync to my values
I am considering switching to other 0.63 0.84
celebrity brands
I make up to mind to switch to other 0.60 0.86
brand in future
I intend to switch to another brand 0.58 0.82 Table 2.
We compared the coefficients of Figures 1 and 2, and the result revealed that NPE has the
strongest impact on CBH, and CBH also strongly impacts on CBA. While in Figure 2,
symbolic incongruity has the highest impact on CBH, and CBH strongly impacts on brand
retaliation. Furthering, we compared our Figure 2 to Hegner et al.’s (2017) model which
showed that ideological incompatibility has the highest impact on BH for products, whereas
our result revealed that symbolic incongruity has the highest impact on CBH, for people
(celebrities). This is the departure of our study from Hegner et al.’s (2017). Finally, we
compared our Figure 3 to Fetscherin’s (2019) findings, where BH has the highest impact on
AAM
Constructs Mean SD. deviation 1 2 3 4 5 6
12,3
Face-to-face participants
CBH 2.443 1.151 0.756
NPE 2.112 1.133 0.631** 0.815
SI 2.214 1.345 0.544** 0.511** 0.796
II 2.445 1.188 0.587** 0.572** 0.511** 0.794
224 CBA 3.617 1.089 0.554** 0.437** 0.355** 0.532** 0.785
NWoM 2.146 0.970 0.382** 0.301** 0.267** 0.485** 0.396** 0.726
Online participants
CBH 3.032 0.552 0.825
CBA 2.452 1.003 0.599** 0.854
NWoM 2.742 1.203 0.445** 0.479** 0.883
BR 2.411 0.721 0.486** 0.473** 0.500** 0.877
PC 3.020 1.072 0.464** 0.507** 0.497** 0.326** 0.794
Table 3. BS 3.622 1.370 0.430
** 0.408** 0.401** 0.256** 0.410** 0.787
Inter-factor correlation Note(s):All intercorrelation coefficients are significant at
**p≤ 0.01. The bold italics represent the square root
matrix of AVE and the values below the diagonal are the correlations between constructs
brand retaliation among US consumers, while our result on CBH has the strongest impact on
NWoM in the Ghanaian arts industry. In all, we presented a summary of the hypotheses
tested results in Table 4, where inmodel 1; H1 toH5 have been confirmed. Inmodel 2 and 3, H5
to H8 have also been confirmed.
Discussion and conclusion
We examined the antecedents of CBH and its outcomes (brand avoidance and NWoM).
The overall findings substantiate that HLM fans experience BH for their celebrities’ brands.
Empirically, it suggests that fans of HLM may hate their celebrities’ brands based on their
public behavior in terms of what they do or speak, which supports the concept of the SCT
adopted in this research. This finding is regarded as one of the original contributions of this
study to existing artsmarketing literature. In linewith the first findings as presented inmodel
1, NPE, symbolic incongruity and ideological incompatibility contribute to CBH. This
buttresses the fact that fans who have NPE with the celebrity’s music and performances
would feel withdrawn from the celebrity’s brand leading to BH. Similarly, these music
celebrities sometimes represent an idea or an image (symbolic incongruity and ideological
incompatibility) that is not most popular or in sync with fans or as it happens in Ghana, pitch
an image developed through notoriety and exhibited through unacceptable dress codes and
social lifestyles. In context, societal cultural issues such as public decency and modesty are
important to be exhibited by celebrities. According to Nenycz-Thiel and Romaniuk (2011), we
conclude that unhinged expressions of arts contribute to hate.
Similarly, the finding also demonstrated that CBH also leads to outcomes of NWoM and
CBA. In context, consumers of these celebrity products might translate their dislike for
celebrities’ music and performances into speaking and writing negatively about them on
various social media platforms. The phenomenon of NWoM and CBAwhich stems from hate
of the brand is perhaps attributable to some of the stunts pulled on social media, and
sometimes as deliberate publicity stunts, and other times straight out celebrity feuds.
Evidently, the finding of Figure 2 showed the important influence of CBH on NWoM and
brand retaliation. However, CBH has not significantly impacted on CBA using celebrity data
within the arts marketing literature context. This outcome contradicts with the earlier result of
Hegner et al.’s (2017) where BH hate significantly impacted on CBA of products within the
German consumers. Possibly, this could be accounted for due to contextual issues, where
Celebrity
brand hate
225
Table 4.
Hypotheses path
Face-to-face data model 1 Online data model 2 Online data model 3
Hypotheses Path Beta value t-value Path Beta value t-value Path Beta value t-value
H1 NPE → CBH 0.468*** 5.09 NPE CBH 0.125***→ 7.23 NPE CBH 0.321***→ 7.01
H2 SI → CBH 0.224*** 4.98 SI → CBH 0.534*** 7.04 SI → CBH 0.424*** 7.17
H3 II → CBH 0.189** 2.72 II → CBH 0.377** 2.52 II → CBH 0.209*** 6.94
H4 CBH CBA 0.288***→ 6.11 CBH → CBA 0.088 1.61 CBH → CBA 0.174 1.78
H5 CBH → NWoM 0.082** 2.41 CBH → NWoM 0.366** 2.58 CBH → NWoM 0.582* 2.00
H6 CBH → BR 0.454* 1.98 CBH BR 0.293**→ 2.54
H7 CBH → PC 0.016* 1.98
H8 CBH → BS 0.292 1.93
2
Goodness of fit statistics: face to face, data: ðx ¼ 377:303; df ¼ 201; p ¼ 0:002; RMSEA ¼ 0:061; CFI ¼ 0:976; TLI ¼ 0:955; SRMR ¼ 0:001Þ
Goodness of fit statistics: online, data: ð 2x ¼ 230:420; df ¼ 167; p ¼ 0:001; RMSEA ¼ 0:041; CFI ¼ 0:938; TLI ¼ 0:901; SRMR ¼ 0:021Þ
Note(s): * * * p≤ 0:001; * * p≤ 0:01; * p≤ 0:05; italic values represent not significant coefficients
Negative past experience (NPE), celebrity brand hate (CBH), symbolic incongruity (SI), ideological incompatibility (II), celebrity brand avoidance (CBA), negative word-of-
mouth (NWoM), brand retaliation (BR), private complaining (PC), brand switching (BS)
AAM
12,3
226
Figure 2.
Tested conceptual
model II with three
outcome variables
Figure 3.
Tested conceptual
model III with five
outcome variables
celebrity brands might be hated, yet fans would be reluctant to avoid the celebrity music. For
instance, though Shatta Wale brand was indicated as the most hated brand, his music over the
past years has received some appreciable attention within the Ghanaian society. Also, in
Figure 3, the study provided an insight through extending the concept of CBH by proving that
CBH can lead to outcomes such as private complaint and brand switching (Fetscherin, 2019),
which ismissingwithin the outcomes of Hegner et al.’s (2017). For instance, in recent times, some
fans have lodged legal action against celebrities and their transgressional actions, and this could
be among the factors that accounted for this result. Additionally, the findings revealed that BH
leads to brand switching. This is possible as the Ghanaian environment is more inclined to
culture and religious values. Therefore, transgressional stunts which are in sync to these values
might lead the fans to other celebrities that synchronize with their family values and religion.
Interestingly, it has been shown that customers carefully protect their image by avoiding
specific brands (O’Cass and Muller, 2015), just as fans would boycott music produced by the
celebrity. BH can result from the brand not being aligned with the customer’s self-ideology.
Given that this study was deeply rooted on previous research of Fetscherin (2019) that
attested to the importance of understanding private complaints, and brand switching in the
marketing literature. The result of the current study agreed that, private complaint is seen as Celebrity
a passionate expression with emotions of anger from the consumer. Once the celebrity’s brand hate
behavior triggers a negative outcome, consumers are likely to express anger or take legal
action against the celebrity. This implies that individual fans are likely to have similar
lifestyles and values of their celebrities. In caseswhere there ismismatch due to the celebrity’s
negative behavior, fans begin to welcome brand switching behavior. This means that fans’
brand switching begins to occur when they are inspired to accept alternative celebrities.
To conclude, we show that the concept of CBH in the arts industry generates attention and 227
attraction towards the artist out of curiosity. Thismay not in the long term offer a sustainable
brand image of the celebrity’s brand due to its ability to create inconsistencies in the
celebrity’s brand value proposition which the wider consuming public may have difficulties
in relating with. The use of celebrity controversies within the musical industry as a strategy
to gain popularity within contextmight be counterproductive. Henceforward, it is prudent for
celebrity brand managers to study reference group needs and wants, so that the music and
musician as a brand can be marketable to wider categories of fans to prevent symbolic
incongruity, especially when these celebrities are now used as influencers because of their
media currency, which is largely determined by levels of fans’ likability.
Implications
Theoretically, this study applied the SCT (Sirgy, 2018) to explore the negative brand
relationship in two ways. First, the study contextualized self-congruity as the mismatch
behavior to measure CBH in context. Second, actual and ideal self were theorized as symbolic
incongruity and ideological incompatibility to measure CBH. Beyond the conventional service
and product brands, BH has proven to have efficacy in an entertainment industry with
symbolic incongruity, ideological incompatibility and NPE as significant predictors. This new
insight could add to the existing knowledge on CBH influence. Contextually, this research
makes the first attempt to extend the understanding of BH for products to BH for people
(celebrities) in the arts marketing literature. Second, this study has also made conceptual
contributions to the CBH literature by extending the SCTwith NPE as an additional congruent
element which acts as a predictor and five CBH outcomes in an arts industry. This study’s
findings have not only validated the SCT in context, but also proposed theoretical models that
will be relevant for further studies. In addition, the findings of our study, therefore, respond to
calls to support some conceptualization and theorization of BH to other industry sectors in the
literature (Bryson and Atwal, 2018; Hegner et al., 2017). This is evidenced in the explanation of
the mismatch behavior of the SCT to the concept of CBH in context.
From a managerial perspective, these findings present both opportunities and challenges
for handlers andmanagement teams of celebrities. Opportunities such as the preparation and
orientation of celebrities to portray their acts both in private and public in conformitywith the
consumer value system. This can be reinforced with a strong public relations strategy that
promotes the celebrity’s brand as responsible, ethical and decent, to align ideological and
symbolic compatibility and congruency respectively. A strategy such as corporate social
responsibility with the celebrity brand, using the brand for social change/marketing causes
within places such as the ghettos and less privileged communities, would positively enhance
the celebrity’s brand perception through a strong ideological compatibility. Managerial
challenges for managing celebrities stem from the difficulty in managing artist behavior,
which is often unpredictable; hence, the risk of acting in ways not congruent with consumer
values. In minimizing this risk, a number of options are opened up to managers and handlers
of celebrities. For example, constant monitoring and measuring of consumers’ reactions on
social media platforms on their brands offers proactive insights into artist brand level of
congruence. As observed by Casalo et al. (2017), today’s consumers are progressively using
social media sites in getting information about brands and using the same in disseminating
AAM displeasure and dislike for those brands. Practically, for the future endeavors of celebrity in
12,3 the Ghanaian arts sector, authorities of Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA), Ghana Music
Rights Organization (GHAMBRO) including brand professionals should educate or provide
some form of trainings onBH to prevent celebrities acting in negativemanners orwayswhich
could influence their brand negatively.
228 Limitation and direction for future research
Like all research studies, this study has limitations. The generalization of the study is limited
to the youth; hence, the study should be replicated with a larger and more geographically
diverse sample. Again, the youth demographics (such as age, ethnicity, educational
background and regional affiliation) were not considered as factors that influence BH. Future
studies should consider the demographics in other geographical settings tomeasure the effect
of the determinants of BH and its outcomes. Again, future research should consider the
introduction of mediators or moderators (e.g. brand inauthenticity, willingness to punish
brand, negative brand engagement), which allows for direct and indirect effect into the
proposed model of this study to improve the understanding of BH in context. Also, future
research could enhance the understanding of the concept by determining whether the
familiarity, attitude of celebrities and brand revenge contribute to CBH.
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Corresponding author
Iddrisu Mohammed can be contacted at: imohammed031@st.ug.edu.gh, middrissu5@gmail.com
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