Do endorsers contribute to the social standing of brands? Exploring social judgments about celebrities versus influencers

As part of their institutional work, brands mobilize their social standing to signal their value, societal appropriateness, and power to consumers. Drawing on the microfoundations of social judgment, this study describes celebrities and influencers as two distinct categories of brand endorsers in terms of legitimacy, reputation, and status and explores how these consumer judgments affect brand social standing. A mixed-methods approach is used to investigate the structure of endorsers’ social judgments, based on a qualitative study and lexicometric analysis of a 726-consumer panel. The results show that social judgments exhibit contrasting poles of meaning depending on the endorser category. Celebrity endorsers are brand-centered with abstract and symbolic legitimacy, whereas influencer endorsers exhibit concrete and product-centered legitimacy. In terms of reputation and status, celebrity endorsers are perceived as having a positive reputation and high status, while influencers are judged as more nuanced, with reality TV influencers potentially damaging brand image because of reputational stigma. This study extends the literature on advertising endorsement by offering insights into the endorser legitimacy construct as a form of brand-endorser congruency, whose strength and construal level depend on the endorser category. It provides new findings on the social comparison processes involved in brand endorsement and the contamination of negative biases. At the level of brand management, the study clarifies the nature of the complementarity of the two endorser categories and the tensions that their coexistence can engender. From a managerial perspective, the study delineates multi-endorsement brand strategies and the risks associated with influencer partnerships.