The moderating role of celebrtiy-product match-up on the effectof identification on attitude towards advertising and purchaseintention

Celebrity endorsement is one of the most benefited strategies in marketing communications. Celebrity selection is of great importance in terms of the financial and non-financial gains and losses the celebrity might likely to cause in the short or long run. Models to be used during celebrity selection like source characteristics - credibility, attractiveness and the match between the product and the celebrity have long been empirically put forward. An alternative approach, meaning transfer is one of the latest models saying why to choose rather than simply saying whom to choose. In this study, based upon this approach, the role of identification with the celebrity has been investigated in terms of its effect on the attitude towards the ad and purchase intention and tested in two distinct data-The United States of America and Turkey. Findings indicate that American and Turkish consumers' wishful identification positively affect the attitude towards the ad while only American consumers' similarity identification with the celebrity results in purchase intention. The moderator role of match-up level also reveals discrepancy in two data both: high match-up condition in Turkish data results in increase on the effect of identification on attitude towards the ad and purchase intention by not affecting the statistical significance. On the other hand, American data does not indicate a systematic increase or decrease in high-low match-up conditions while converting statistically significant paths-wishful identification to purchase intention and similarity identification to purchase intention- to nonsignificant. Age has also been found to be another significant factor in these effects: the US older adults indicate higher wishful identification than younger ones while Turkish younger individuals only indicate significantly higher wishful identification.