Concluding comments
Celebrity endorsements are a multi-million dollar industry and involve a consequent financial
benefit versus risk analysis for business. Marketers and advertisers need to know if sport
celebrities are worth the investment and what impact they have on advertising objectives
and company profitability. This research is a significant step in that direction, replicating a
previous study (Bush et al., 2004) which focused on the influence of celebrity athletes on
teenagers’ consumption-related intentions and behaviours. This study investigates the
influence of celebrity athlete endorsers on young adults between the ages of 17 and 25,
suggesting that celebrity athletes may be viable and influential spokespersons for this
market segment
The impact and extent of sports celebrity influence still has a number of dimensions for which
marketers and advertisers have limited information. Numerous researchers have previously
identified that endorser-product relationships and endorser-audience relationships play a
major role in how effectively the endorsement message influences the audience (Schaefer
and Keillor, 1997; Jones and Schumann, 2000; Charbonneau and Garland, 2005; Tingchi Liu
et al., 2007). This study does not consider the impact of celebrity athletes’ on different types
of product and brand purchases. It might be that sport celebrities have a greater influence
on purchase intentions and behaviours of young people for sports-related products than
other products, or for highly conspicuous products. Moreover, further research should be
conducted among more diverse and larger samples of young adults to advance the findings
of this study.
Despite its limitations, this study provides a valuable replication and supports a number of
findings by previous researchers. Moreover, this study adds weight to the validity and
reliability of measures used to identify the influence of celebrity athletes and their impact on
purchase intentions and behaviours.