Today, people experience fan–star relationships similar to real human relationships with various celebrities through mass media, such as television and the Internet (Albert, Ambroise, & Valette-Florence, 2017). Humans have a fundamental desire to create a social network and interact with others. As a way to relieve unsatisfied psychological deficits in everyday human relationships, individuals experience constant and routine substitute socialization with specific stars through participation in mass media or fan communities. People expect these parasocial interactions to help them overcome psychological instability and compensate for their emotional deficiencies (Lewis, 2002). More importantly, people feel emotional ties to a specific star, empathize with the star’s situation, become enthusiastic or frustrated with the content produced by the star, and feel happy in the media content consumption process (Albert et al., 2017). That is, people’s consumption behaviors of star brands might be a process of expanding the pursuit of pleasure, which leads to enjoyment, joy, and aesthetic experience through the consumption of media contents.

Many studies have been conducted to examine the relationship between brands and consumers from the perspective of social psychology (e.g., Paul & Bhakar, 2018; Wang, Kao, & Ngamsiriudom, 2017). More specifically, these prior researchers have focused primarily on the influence of consumers’ perceived product attributes on brand attitudes to explore brand–consumer relationships (Anwar, Gulzar, Sohail, & Akram, 2011; Liu, Mizerski, & Soh, 2012). However, criticism has been raised that the attitude of consumers to a particular brand does not sufficiently reflect the emotional bond between consumers and brands (Baek & Ju, 2019). Given the fact that brand attitudes have a limitation in explaining the relationships between these anthropomorphic brands and consumers, recently, brand passion, which is an emotional experience resulting from brand–consumer interactions, has attracted the attention of researchers as a crucial factor in building and strengthening brand loyalty in brand–consumer relationship studies (Batra, Ahuvia, & Bagozzi, 2012; Garg, Mukherjee, Biswas, & Kataria, 2016; Gilal, Zhang, Gilal, & Gilal, 2018). Brand passion enhances customer loyalty by increasing consumer intimacy and enthusiasm for the brand and willingness to pay premium prices (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Garg et al., 2016). Previous researchers who investigated brand–consumer relationships have introduced factors such as brand trust (Albert, Merunka, & Valette-Florence, 2008), brand identification (Albert et al., 2017; Bergkvist & Bech-Larsen, 2010), and brand experience (Batra et al., 2012) as the antecedents of brand passion.

In addition, celebrity endorsements are understood to be a promotion technique for the advertising of consumer products, which is performed by individuals who enjoy public recognition (McCracken, 1989). In the extant research, the findings show that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements depends on the endorser’s physical attractiveness and expertise, both of which positively affect consumer behavioral outcomes, such as brand image, attitude, recall, and actual buying behavior (Amos, Holmes, & Strutton, 2008; Paul & Bhakar, 2018; Wang et al., 2017). Collectively, the existing literature seems to suggest that endorsement source credibility, that is, whether or not consumers perceive the source as attractive and as having expertise, can be a key factor influencing the outcomes of brand–consumer relationships.

Despite the insights into brand–consumer relationships provided in prior studies, there is a scarcity of research on the effect of athlete endorsers’ credibility in eliciting and enhancing brand passion and brand loyalty. Thus, our objective in the present study was to examine the effects of an athlete endorser’s attractiveness and expertise on brand passion and loyalty among sporting goods consumers.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development

Athlete Endorsement and Brand Passion

According to the triangular theory of love, passion is a subelement of love and serves as a motive attribute that strengthens the relationship of love through romantic emotions and physical attraction (Sternberg, 1986). Passion is a motivating factor that builds a relationship between two individuals and appears as a so-called hot component, which leads to actions, such as physical attraction, romance, and partner adoration and idealization (Djikic & Oatley, 2004). Similarly, in a consumption context, brand passion refers to a psychological construct consisting of consumer’s excitement, infatuation, and obsession for a brand (Albert et al., 2017). Brand passion is the consumers’ strong feeling, which implies their willingness to form a close relationship with the brand, and their psychological arousal from possessing or consuming the brand. For consumers, brand passion acts as a motive for buying or owning a particular brand, which they miss if it is unavailable (Albert et al., 2017). Regardless of the significance of a product, brand passion that can lead to a longing for the brand by motivating consumers to own or use it is an essential element in transforming it into a respected brand.

Athlete endorsement refers to an agreement between an athlete with public recognition and an organization to use the athlete to promote the organization (Bergkvist & Zhou, 2016). Sports stars, in general, are favored and appreciated by the public, and their daily lives are of interest to fans. Fans build a lasting relationship with celebrities such as sports stars through mass media or fan community involvement as a way to address unsatisfied psychological deficiencies in everyday human relationships (Lewis, 2002). In such a process, fans are likely to feel emotional ties to star athletes, to empathize with the athletes’ situations, and are enthusiastic about the media content produced by the sports stars (Albert et al., 2017). Likewise, from a brand marketing perspective, an athlete who enjoys public recognition is a mobile advertisement and can be the most effective marketing medium for brands when the endorser–brand association is perceived by consumers (Carlson & Donavan, 2008). Consumers tend to buy goods used by famous athletes because they believe that athletes with public recognition endorse quality products and consumers respond favorably by purchasing the products without complex information search processes (Carlson & Donavan, 2008; Paul & Bhakar, 2018). More importantly, because of the modern mass media environment, the impact of athlete endorsements on promoting particular brands is even greater than previously. Star athletes advertise services and products and are paid simply to post about the brand on social media (Brison, Byon, & Baker, 2016).

When consumers feel connected with an athlete, brands benefit from the brand–athlete association. Specifically, consumers are attracted to sports stars with high credibility and form emotional bonds with the athletes (Basil, 1996). An athlete endorser’s credibility perceived by consumers comes from attractiveness, which refers to the weight, height, and beauty of the face and/or whole body, and to expertise, which means the extent to which endorsers have knowledge, abilities, and experience in their sport (Erdem & Swait, 2004; Magnini, Honeycutt, & Cross, 2008). Both the attractiveness and expertise of sports stars are the major factors influencing the creation of a favorable attitude by consumers toward the star athletes (Albert et al., 2017; Carlson & Donavan, 2008). The expertise and attractiveness of a star athlete are the desirable sources of information that affect message persuasion and that can be applied to the consumers’ response to athlete-endorsed brands (Brison et al., 2016). Consumers build positive attitudes and repeated purchase intentions for athlete-endorsed brands because they often consider star athletes as a symbolic aspirational reference group and adopt their attitudes and behaviors to keep consistency with such a group (Brison et al., 2016; Carlson & Donavan, 2008). Thus, showing a positive attitude toward, and purchasing, a product endorsed by a star athlete are symbolic means of sports fans’ demonstrating a desire to be part of their reference group and to be identified with the athlete endorser (Carlson & Donavan, 2008).

Brand Passion and Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty refers to the tendency of consumers to continue to repurchase the same brand and to become loyal with a deep commitment toward a favorite brand despite the marketing efforts of competitors aiming for brand switching (Oliver, 1993). Researchers have linked brand loyalty to a number of antecedents, such as brand image, brand attitude, and consumer satisfaction (Paul & Bhakar, 2018; Saeed et al., 2013). More importantly, the feelings of affection for and attachment to a particular brand lead to paying premium prices and to using word-of-mouth to encourage other consumers to repurchase the brand products and services and recommend them to others (Reichheld, 1993). That is, when consumers are committed and emotionally connected to a brand, they become less sensitive to rising prices and are likely to buy the same brand repeatedly, and the chance of their switching to another brand is low (Gilal et al., 2018; Hemsley-Brown & Alnawas, 2016). In this regard, in recent research on brand–consumer relationships the findings have revealed that brand passion plays a significant role in increasing the frequency of word-of-mouth and willingness to pay a price premium, and in enhancing brand loyalty (Gilal et al., 2018; Hemsley-Brown & Alnawas, 2016). For example, Sarkar, Ponnam, and Murthy (2012) reported that brand love, which includes brand intimacy and brand passion, is affected by consumer romanticism and is positively associated with purchase intention and word-of-mouth. Moreover, Cheon and Kim (2011) found that brand intimacy, passion, and immersion influence brand love and, in turn, brand love affects brand loyalty and word-of-mouth. Thus, based on these previous studies, we proposed the following hypotheses (see Figure 1 for the research model):
Hypothesis 1: Athlete endorser attractiveness will positively affect brand passion among sporting goods consumers.
Hypothesis 2: Athlete endorser expertise will positively affect brand passion among sporting goods consumers.
Hypothesis 3: Brand passion will positively affect brand loyalty among sporting goods consumers.
Hypothesis 4: Brand passion will have a positive mediating role in the relationship of athlete endorser attractiveness with brand loyalty, and in the relationship of endorser expertise with brand loyalty among sporting goods consumers.

Method

Participants and Collection Procedure

We used a convenience sampling method to conduct a survey with golf product consumers who visited one of four golf stores located in the Seoul metropolitan area, South Korea, from May to June 2019. We distributed 180 survey forms. Respondents were given a list of major golf iron brands and were asked to choose a golf iron brand that they wanted to buy (e.g., PING, Titleist, Callaway, Srixon, HONMA, YAMAHA, NIKE, Cleveland, Mizuno). Next, we asked the golf product consumers to complete the survey that would take from 10 to 15 minutes with a set of items on athlete endorser attractiveness and expertise, brand passion, and brand loyalty. Of the 180 golf product consumers sampled, 178 (98.8%) returned fully completed survey forms.

Demographic information for all participants is shown in Table 1.

Instrument

Based on previous studies, we developed a survey consisting of 17 items, of which five (see Table 1) were demographic items. As the items were originally developed in English, a back-translation was performed to ensure translation accuracy (Brislin, 1990). Two bilingual individuals participated in the translation process of the survey items. After the English version was translated into Korean by a Korean speaker who was fluent in English, the other bilingual individual back-translated the Korean version into English. We found no issues relating to the accuracy and clarity between the two versions. All items except demographic characteristics were measured on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

More specifically, we adapted items for athlete endorser attractiveness (three items) and expertise (three items) from the study of Wang et al. (2017). To measure brand passion and brand loyalty, we adapted three items for each from the study of Albert et al. (2008). All 12 items are set out in Table 2. Cronbach’s alphas for athlete endorser attractiveness and expertise, brand passion, and brand loyalty were .81, .76, .81, and .85, respectively, which exceeded the required threshold, as suggested by Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, and Strahan (1999).

Data Analyses

Statistical analyses including descriptive analysis, reliability analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis were performed by utilizing SPSS 23.0 and AMOS 23.0. CFA was performed for all variables to evaluate the hypothesized model fit in terms of the indexes of goodness-of-fit (GFI), comparative fit (CFI), incremental fit (IFI), root mean square residual (RMSR), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). As the values of the CFA are shown to be well above the criteria (χ² = 71.04, df = 48, GFI = .94, CFI = .97, IFI = .97, RMSR = .03, RMSEA = .05), we concluded that the model satisfied the standard for model fit (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010; see Table 2). Additionally, the construct reliability estimates for all four variables ranged from .78 to .92, which verified the internal consistency of all the variables in the study (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).

Discriminant validity of the factors was determined by observing that the values of average variance extracted ranging from .57 to .81 were greater than the square of correlations of two latent constructs (see Table 3). Thus, discriminant validity was verified (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Lastly, SEM was conducted using AMOS 23.0 in order to test the research hypotheses.

Results

We examined the fit of the research model and found that according to the standards as set out by Hair et al. (2010) it was a good fit (χ² = 113.70, df = 50, GFI = .91, CFI = .92, IFI = .92, TLI = .92, RMSR = .05, RMSEA = .08). The path coefficients of the research model were analyzed in order to test the study hypotheses. First, the path coefficient between athlete endorser attractiveness and brand passion was shown to be statistically significant. The path between the athlete endorser expertise and brand passion was also found to be statistically significant. Additionally, brand passion positively affected brand loyalty (see results in Table 4). Consequently, the results supported Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3.

Lastly, we performed an analysis to examine the mediating role of brand passion in the links of athlete endorser attractiveness and expertise with brand loyalty, utilizing bias-corrected bootstrap based on 5,000 resamples (Preacher & Hayes, 2008). As shown in Table 5, brand passion had significantly positive mediating roles in the relationships of both athlete endorser attractiveness and expertise with brand loyalty. These results support Hypothesis 4.

Discussion

The purpose in the present study was to examine the relationships among athlete endorser attractiveness and expertise, brand passion, and brand loyalty of sporting goods consumers. In the study we revealed that both athlete endorser attractiveness and expertise had significant impacts on brand passion among sporting goods consumers. The findings of this study are consistent with those reported in previous studies by Gilal, Paul, Gilal, and Gilal (2020) and Paul and Bhakar (2018) who found that source attractiveness is the most significant predictor of relatedness need satisfaction and brand attitude among consumers, positively affecting their passion for a brand endorsed by a celebrity. This can be so because consumers tend to recognize products endorsed by famous athletes as high quality even when the products are not superior in performance and quality to products of other brands (Paul & Bhakar, 2018). Thus, it is plausible that athlete endorser attractiveness is an important determinant of consumer brand passion because physical attraction is a powerful source to draw consumers’ attention toward advertisements and the content of mass media, and increase the credibility for consumers of an endorsed brand and strengthen their brand passion when they recognize the positive association between the physical attractiveness of the athlete endorser and the brand.

The findings of the present study also show that athlete endorser expertise is another important predictor of brand passion among sporting goods consumers. The findings are in line with those of Amos et al. (2008) and Jeng (2016), who reported that the expertise of a celebrity source had a positive impact on consumers’ brand attitude and affective commitment and suggested that when an endorser has knowledge of an endorsed product, the endorsement is more effective in convincing consumers to purchase the product. Albert et al. (2017) also argued that the consumers’ evaluation of products and advertisements became more positive when the image conveyed by celebrity endorsers and the characteristics of the products matched. This means that once consumers perceive a match between the expertise of an athlete endorser (e.g., a professional golfer) and a brand (e.g., a golf iron brand), their evaluations of the brand are likely to be more positive. Thus, the results of our study suggest that sports consumers’ brand passion is likely to be increased or enhanced when star athletes endorse brands that make products for use in their sport.

Moreover, our finding shows that sporting goods consumers’ brand passion is a significant predictor of brand loyalty. This finding is in line with those of Sarkar et al. (2012) and Cheon and Kim (2011) who linked brand passion with brand loyalty, including positive word-of-mouth and repurchase intention. Our result in the current study indicates that brand loyalty is likely to be generated among sporting goods consumers when their brand passion is enhanced. As brand passion derives from the emotional aspect rather than from cognitive function, consumers can be more passionate about a brand than they are about any other entity, or even about close friends or relatives (Ruane & Wallace, 2015). Thus, it is plausible that continual exposure to brands through sports activities and mass media not only reduces uncertainty about those brands but also enhances intimacy, which leads to brand passion and, in turn, to brand loyalty.

Lastly, our findings that athlete endorsement credibility, including athlete attractiveness and expertise perceived by sporting goods consumers, indirectly predicted the consumers’ brand loyalty through brand passion extend the findings of Gilal et al. (2020), who have reported positive links of endorsers’ attractiveness and expertise with relatedness need satisfaction and brand passion among air travelers. Our results indicate that when consumers are exposed to an endorsed brand by attractive star athletes who have the image of an expert in their field, those consumers are likely to build brand loyalty via their strong emotional connection with the brand. It is possible that all human beings have a fundamental psychological need for relatedness, and when the need for relatedness is met, a strong emotional attachment with the related entity develops (Lewis, 2002; Gilal et al., 2020). In particular, if the target of such an emotional association is an athlete with favorable public recognition, the athlete's positive image (e.g., attractiveness, expertise) can transfer to the endorsed brand, creating a strong emotional bond between the consumer and the brand and, in turn, promoting brand loyalty (McCracken, 1989). Collectively, our results revealed that brand passion acts as a significant mediator in the link between athlete endorser credibility and brand loyalty when consumers positively acknowledge the attractiveness and expertise of athlete endorsers.

The findings of this study suggest some practical implications for market practitioners in the sporting goods industry. In this study we revealed that athlete endorser attractiveness is one of the most salient sources for increasing and enhancing brand passion among sports consumers, followed by endorser expertise. This suggests that the physical attractiveness and expertise of an athlete endorser are key factors contributing to enhancing brand passion and, in turn, brand loyalty. Another important finding of this study was that brand passion had a significant impact on brand loyalty among the sporting goods consumers. Consequently, the findings of the present study suggest that brand passion and brand loyalty are likely to be enhanced when an athlete endorser is perceived by sporting goods consumers as attractive and knowledgeable. Marketers in the sporting goods industry are encouraged to invest in attracting athlete endorsers who are physically attractive and knowledgeable. More importantly, when choosing an athlete endorser, marketing practitioners need to consider celebrity–product congruence rather than simply outstanding athletic performance of the potential endorser.

There are several limitations to the current study. The study was conducted with the respondent group of golf product consumers. Thus, we suggest that it would be appropriate to be cautious in generalizing the findings to other consumer segments of the sporting goods market, and also that it would be interesting to replicate the study by considering those other segments. Another limitation of this study is that we could not fully consider other consequences of brand passion, such as word-of-mouth and willingness to pay premium prices. Thus, it could be necessary to include these outcomes of brand passion in future research.

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Kwang-Yong Lee and Woo-Yeul Baek, 154-42, Gwanggyosan-ro, Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea, 16227. Email: Kwang-Yong Lee, [email protected]; Woo-Yeul Baek, [email protected]