Who is the Celebrity Endorser

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Who is the Celebrity Endorser? Cultural Foundations of the Endorsement ProcessAuthor(s): Grant McCrackenSource: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Dec., 1989), pp. 310-321Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2489512

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h o s t h Celebrity Endorser ulturalFoundations o t h ndorsement ProcessGRANT McCRACKEN*

This article offers a new approach to celebrity endorsement. Previous explanations,especially the source credibility and source attractiveness models are criticized,and an alternative meaning transfer model is proposed. According to this model,celebrities' effectiveness as endorsers stems fromthe culturalmeanings withwhichthey are endowed. The model shows how meanings pass from celebrity to productand from product to consumer. The implicationsof this model for our understand-ing of the consumer society are considered. Research avenues suggested by themodel are also discussed.

T he celebrity endorseris a ubiquitous feature ofmodern marketing. The actor Robert Young,the quarterbackJim McMahon, the dancer MikhailBaryshnikov, the CEOLee lacocco, the singer Whit-ney Houston, the test pilot Chuck Yeager, and thepolitician Tip O'Neill have all lent name and imageto recent campaigns.Unfortunately, the popularityofthis communicationsstrategyhas not earned it exten-sive 'study.Nor has it inspired especiallyilluminatingtheoretical accounts. As a result, the receivedwisdomon celebrity endorsement is modest and imperfect,andexistingmodels fail to captureseveral of the mostinteresting and centralcharacteristicsof the endorse-ment process.This investigation of endorsement addressesthesedeficits from a cultural perspective.The argumentisthat the endorsement process depends upon the sym-bolic properties of the celebrity endorser. Using ameaning transfer perspective, these propertiesareshownto residein the celebrityand to move from ce-lebrityto consumergood and from good to consumer.This perspective s then used to address controversialissues concerning the consumer society. Finally, re-searchopportunitiesarereviewed.For present purposes, the celebrity endorser is de-fined as any individualwho enjoys public recognitionand who usesthis recognitionon behalf of a consumergood by appearingwith it in an advertisement. We

will refine this definition later, but for the moment itis deliberatelybroadto encompass not only the usual

movie and television stars, but also individuals fromthe world of sport, politics, business,art, and the mili-tary. The term celebrity s alsomeant in this articleto encompass a variety of endorsements, includingthose in the explicit mode ( I endorsethis product ),the implicit mode ( I use this product ), the imper-ative mode ( You should use this product ), and thecopresent mode (i.e., in which the celebrity merelyappears with the product). Moreover, it includes arange of endorsement roles, suchas casesin which thecelebrityis also an expert (e.g., Bobby Unser recom-mending motor oil), is associatedwith the manufac-turer n some long termcapacity(e.g., Pat Summerallfor TrueValue Hardware),or has no special knowl-edge of, or association with, the product in question(cf. Friedman, Termini, and Washington 1977). Thisdefinition is designed deliberately to exclude thetypical consumer endorser (Friedman and Fried-man 1979). The model presented in this article ap-plies to all these variations but the last.

THE LITERATURETwo models, the source credibility and the sourceattractivenessmodels, inform researchand reflectionon the topic of celebrityendorsement. Both werede-vised originallyfor the study of communications andhave been applied only latterly to the endorsementprocess. Both are designed to determine the condi-tions under which the messagesender or sourceis per-suasive.The source credibility model rests on researchinsocial psychology (Hovland and Weiss 1951-1952;Hovland, Janis,and Kelley 1953). The Hovland ver-sion of the model contends that a message dependsfor its effectiveness on the expertness and trust-worthiness of the source (Hovland et al. 1953, p. 20;cf. Dholakia andSternthal1977;Sternthal,Dholakia,

*GrantMcCracken s Associate Professor,Department of Con-sumer Studies, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, CanadaNIG 2W1. He wishesto thank Peter Bennett, TaraCurtis,Bill Fris-bee, Ron Goldman, Monty Sommers, Vic Roth, Donna Woolcott,and Rami Zwich as well as the anonymous JCR reviewers or theirvery useful comments on earlierversionsof this article.310

? JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCHo Vol. 16* December 1989


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CELEBRITY ENDORSER: CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS 311and Leavitt 1978). Expertness is defined as the per-ceived ability of the source to make valid assertions.Trustworthiness is defined as the perceived willing-ness of the source to make valid assertions. TheHov-land model holds that sources exhibiting expertnessand trustworthinessare credible and, to this extent,persuasive.The source attractivenessmodel also rests on socialpsychological research. The McGuire (1985) modelcontends that a messagedepends for its effectivenesschiefly on the familiarity, likability, and/orsimilarity of the source (McGuire 1985, p. 264;cf.Baker and Churchill 1977; Debevec and Kernan1984; Friedman, Santeramo, and Traina 1978; Jo-seph 1982;Kahle and Homer 1985). Familiarity s de-fined as knowledge of the source through exposure,likability as affection for the source as a result ofthesource'sphysical appearanceandbehavior,and simi-larity as a supposed resemblancebetween the sourceand receiver of the message. The McGuire modelholds that sourceswho are known to, liked by, and/or similarto the consumer are attractiveand, to thisextent, persuasive.The source models (as we shall call the source credi-bility and source attractivenessmodels together)havebeen confirmedby research. The Hovland model hasbeen validated by several parties (Atkin and Block1983; Kamen, Azhari,and Kragh 1975;Klebba andUnger 1983; cf. Finn 1980, p. 779). The McGuiremodel also demonstrated its value (Friedman andFriedman 1979), andit appearssafeto saythat celeb-rities owe some of their effectiveness as marketingde-vices to their credibility and attractiveness. Thesource models are, to this extent, a necessary partofour understandingof the endorsement process. But,theydo notcaptureeverythingat issue in the endorse-ment process. Indeed, there is reason to think thesemodels cannot explain endorsement's most funda-mental features. The evidence for this skepticism iseverywhere.The research tself is littered withpuzzlesand peculiaritiesthe sourcemodels cannot explain.For instance, the research by the Friedmans pro-duced results that are not consistent with the sourcemodels. They found that some product categorieswereincompatiblewith celebrity categories (e.g., thatMary TylerMoore served asa poor celebrityendorserfor vacuumcleaners).Butthe source models make nosuch provision. For the models' purposes, as long asthe credibilityand attractivenessconditions are satis-fied, any celebrityshould serveas a persuasivesourceforany advertisingmessage. Accordingto the model,the persuasivenessof the celebrity has everythingtodo with the celebrity and nothing to do with theproduct.Kamen, Azhari, and Kragh (1975, p. 18) suggestthat the spokespersonacts as a kind of core aroundwhich the substantive messages are positioned. Inthis capacity,the spokespersonhelps

trigger he past associations with the sponsor and stim-ulate the rememberingof past messages. He would in-tegratenew messageswith the old so as to build a unify-ing, coherent, sustained, and consistent image of thebrand.This position implies that the celebrity serves theendorsement process by taking on meanings that thencarry from ad to ad, and that the celebrity is capablesomehow of serving as a site in which meanings co-here. Plainly, neither possibility is consistent with ei-ther source model. Afterall, these modelsmake asser-tions only about the credibility and attractiveness ofthe message sender and none about the endorser'srole as a message medium or the continuity of themessage from ad to ad. In the language of Kuhn(1962), the paradigm is beginning to accumulateanomalies. Scholars have been compelled either toabandonortransformthe source models.But if the internal evidence for skepticism is strong,the external grounds are even stronger. The scholarlyand professional literature is littered with data thatcannot be explained by the source models. There aremysteries everywhere. Bill Cosby failed as an en-dorser for E.F. Hutton despite his evident success forKodak and Coca Cola. John Houseman failed as anendorser for McDonald's despite his effective workfor Smith Barney (Marshall 1987). GeorgeC. Scottproved, mysteriously, to be the wrong choice for Re-nault, as did Ringo Starr for Sun Country Classicwine coolers (Motavalli 1988). The source models, asthe present guardian of current endorsement prac-tice, did not forewarnadvertisingpractitionersof theinappropriatenessof these celebrity choices. Nor canthey, as the received academic wisdom on the en-dorsement process, help us understand what wentwrong. The source models have not served as a practi-cal or theoreticalguideto celebrityendorsement.Consider,forinstance, the exampleof JohnWayneas a celebrity endorser for the pain reliever Datril.Wayne had nothing to do with theproduct,and salesof the analgesic languished.. . . (It was a) classic .mismatch between star and product (Kaikati 1987,p. 6). This is offered as a kind of explanationof whatwent wrongin the Datril case. But what does it meanto saythat the celebrity hadnothing to do with theproduct? What mismatch between celebrity andproduct is being asserted here? The source models donot tell us. They cannot explain whyJohnWayne and

Datril wereincompatible.Schudson's treatment of James Garner as a celeb-rity endorser is germane. Schudson (1984, p. 212)suggeststhat thereis something mysteriousabout theadvertisements n which Garnerappears.Garner does not play himself, the person, nor does heplay a particular fictive character. Instead, he playswhat I would call the generalizedJames Garnerrole,the type forwhichJames Garner s alwayscast-hand-some, gentle, bumbling, endearing,a combination of


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312 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCHBret Maverick from Maverick and Jim Rockfordfrom TheRockfordFiles.

This thoughtful observationspells real trouble forthe sourcemodels. Ifthe celebrityendorserrepresentsnot himselfbut his stage persona,the issues of expert-nessandtrustworthinesscan hardlyapply.Afterall, ithardlymakessenseto impute credibilityto a fictionalcharacter.But even if we forcethe issue andinsistthatfictional characters can, somehow, be credible,Schudson'sobservationtells us this is a special, role-specificcredibility.It is no longer a simple matterofthe willingnessand abilityto makevalid assertions.The issue of source attractivenessis problematicalin a differentway. Accordingto Schudson'saccount,Garner'sattractivenessconsists in the endearing,gentle, and bumbling qualities of his stageper-sona. We must add to this perhapsthe most salienttraitof Garner'sstagepersona,his claim to beingtheforemost representative of a particular category ofAmericanmale. As a prototypeof the category,Gar-ner is a memberof the largerpantheon of actorsthathelps define this gender category in America (e.g.,James Stewart,John Wayne, Cary Grant, SylvesterStallone).When we observe Garnerfrom this point of view,we see thathis attractivenessdependsnot on his qual-ities as a person or even on his qualities as a famousperson,but on the qualitieshe has createdin his stagepersona.For communications purposes,the celebrityis a composite of his fictional roles. This means thatwhen consumers respond to Garner's attractive-ness, they are, n fact,responding o a very particularset of meanings. They are identifying with a bundleof symbolicpropertiescreatedfor, and by, Garner nthe television programs Maverick and The Rock-fordFiles.This is not identification in the ordinarysense.The source models do not capture and illuminatewhat is going on here. Audience response to JamesGarner s more complicated and interestingthan thesource models allow. Garneris persuasiveas a com-municator not only because he is attractive, butalso because he is made up of certain meanings theconsumer finds compelling and useful. Garner suc-ceeds as an endorserforMazdabecausehe representsa bundle of meanings about maturity, American-ness, confidence, masculinity, intelligence, and goodhumor.It is here that we begin to uncover the real insuffi-ciency of the sourcemodels as an accountof celebrityendorsement. The source attractiveness model cantell us that consumerswill identify with Garner,butit cannot tell us why-nor can it contend with themeanings contained in Garner's persona. Still moreimportant,the model does not allowus to makesenseof the meanings contained in a celebrity endorseronce they are determined.The source model can tell

us only that a celebrityis attractive,not what attrac-tive is.The implications of this insufficiencyarepowerful.First,the sourcemodelsdo not allow usto understandthe appeal of any particularcelebrity. This makes itimpossible to understandwhy a celebritylike Garnershould be persuasive for some products but not forothers. The source models prevent us from identify-ing the matches and mismatches. We are left unableto assess how Garner's mage interactswith differentproductsand creativethemes.Second, the source models will never allow us todiscriminate between celebrities in any useful way.Certainlythey allow us to say that James Garneris,perhaps, more credible than Alan Alda. But it doesnot allow us to say how Garnerand Alda differfroma symbolic or communications point of view. Thesourcemodels mighttell us only that MichaelJ. Fox,Tony Danza, and Don Johnson differin their degreeof attractiveness. This is problematical because weunderstand that their differences go much deeperthan this. Hypothetically, the source models mighttell us thatCybilShepherd,Bea Arthur,andJoan Col-lins are equally credible. But we know this samenessmasks profound and thoroughgoing differences. Inshort, the source models tell us about degrees of at-tractiveness and credibility when what we need toknow about is kinds of attractivenessandcredibility.Both the internal and external evidence containanomalies that demonstrate the insufficiency of thesource models. If we are to understandthe endorse-ment process, we must build better, more sophisti-cated models. We especiallymust come to termswiththe meanings contained in the celebrity and give anaccount of how these meanings serve the endorse-mentprocess.Theremainderof the articleis designedto suggestsuch an account.

CULTURAL MEANING AND THECELEBRITY ENDORSERThe effectivenessof the endorserdepends, in part,--upon the meanings he or she brings to the endorse-ment process. The number and varietyof the mean-ings contained in celebrities are very large. Distinc-tions of status, class, gender, and age, as well as per-sonality and lifestyle types, are represented in thepool of available celebrities, puttingan extraordinar-ily various and subtle pallet of meanings at the dis-posal of the marketing system.For example,class andstatus arerepresentedbythelikes of PeterJenningsandJohn Forsytheaspatricianmen and CatherineDeneuve and AudreyHepburnasregal women. The distinction of new wealth is con-tained in genteel versionssuch as PierceBrosnan andDiane Sawyeror in more graspingversions such asLarry Hagman and Joan Collins. The upper middleclass is represented by Tim Matheson and Shelley


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CELEBRITY ENDORSER: CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS 313Long, the middle class by John Ritter and ChristieBrinkley, and the lower middle class by PatrickSwayzeand Suzanne Somers.Culturalcategoriesof genderand age arealso repre-sented in the celebrity endorser. One extreme repre-sentation ofmaleness is establishedby the likes of Syl-vester Stallone,the other by the likes of Dick Cavett.Ranging between them are Hulk Hogan, ArnoldSchwarzenegger,Brian Bozworth, Fred Dryer, TonyDanza, Stacey Keach, Paul Newman, Patrick Duffy,Timothy Hutton, Bob Newhart, Tony Randall, andJeremy Brett. For women, Loni Anderson and Si-gourneyWeaverrepresent he extremes of the contin-uum of their gender. Ranging between them areCheryl Ladd, Victoria Principal, Cheryl Tiegs, PamDawber, KateJackson,and Jane Seymour. Agecate-gories range from the militantly youthful Pee WeeHerman to the prematurely ancient Danny DeVito,or from the callow youth represented n JudgeRein-hold to the wisdom gained by age in E.G. Marshall.These age categoriesare subject to change, as GaryColemanandAngela Lansburyhave recentlydemon-strated.In addition to thesedemographiccategories, thece-lebrity world also contains a range of personalitytypes. The curmudgeon is represented by EdwardAsner, the rake by John Larroquette, he irritable n-competent by John Cleese, the bewildered alien byBronsonPinchet, the good hearted dimwit by WoodyHarrelson,the irrepressibly mpudent by Tracey Ul-mann, the indiscriminately jolly by Ed McMahon,the irascibleby David Letterman,the blandly agree-ableby Gary Collins, and so on.The celebrity world also offers a range of lifestyletypes. The quintessential yuppie is perhaps Ed Olinof Thirtysomething. The stereotypic young profes-sional woman was once Mary Tyler Moore and isnow, perhaps, Pam Dawber. The perfect Dad wasonce Robert Young and now may be Michael Grossor Bill Cosby. The perfect princess is representedbyDelta Burke of Designing Women, the workingclass hero by CarrollO'Connor, the man of wisdomandexperienceby David Brinkleyor CharlesKerault.Here, too, the range and depth of representationisextensive.This review oversimplifies celebrity meanings.Even the most heavily stereotyped celebrity repre-sents not a single meaning,but an interconnectedsetof meanings. Cher offers a useful case in point. It ispossibleto locate heron allthe dimensions noted. Sheis low to middle class in her status meaning, locatedtowardthe hot end of the gendercontinuum, andclearly youthfulin attitudeif not age.The personalityis extrovertedand outspoken, the lifestyle open, free-wheeling,and alternative. But, plainly, none of thesedimensions by itself captures the meanings withwhich Cher is charged or, more importantly, the es-sentialconfigurationof meaningsshebringsto the en-

dorsement process. For this, it is necessaryto charac-terize the whole person. Cher is hip, risk taking, indi-vidualistic, sensual, sexual, expressive, irreverent,and liberated. It is this larger package of meaningsplaying off one another that defines Cher. Thesemeanings enter into the endorsement process whenCher speaks, for instance, for Baly-Matrix healthclubs or her own perfume.These, then, are some of the meanings contained inthe celebrityworld. They are reviewedhere in a cur-sory, undocumented way. An exact assessment ofthese meanings awaits empirical study and theoreti-cal development. But enough has been said to indi-cate that the celebrityworld is something richerandmore complicated than a collection of merely credi-ble or attractive ndividuals.It is, I would argue, precisely the meanings of thecelebrity that makes him or her so useful to the en-dorsement process. For an endorsement succeedswhen an association is fashioned between the culturalmeaningsof the celebrity world,on the one hand, andthe endorsedproduct, on the other. Not all endorse-ments succeed in this transfer.Indeed, some are toounsophisticatedeven to undertake t. But the best en-dorsements take their power and their efficacy pre-cisely fromthis:the successful transferof meaning.For example, James Garner's endorsement ofMazda succeeds when a transfer takes place betweenhis persona and the Mazdaline. It succeeds when thequalities of maturity, Americanness, confidence,good humor, anda certain kindof malenessare madethe qualities of the Mazda vehicle. The endorsementsucceeds, in other words, when the propertiesof theman aremade the propertiesof the car.MEANING TRANSFER: THEGENERAL PROCESS

Celebrityendorsementis, in fact, a specialinstanceof a more general processof meaningtransfer.I havedescribed this general process elsewherein some de-tail (McCracken 1986, 1988) and review it onlybrieflyhere. Accordingto this model, there is a con-ventional path forthe movement of culturalmeaningin consumer societies. Meaning begins as somethingresident in the culturally constituted world (Mc-Cracken 1988, pp. 72-73), in the physical and socialworld constituted by the categories and principlesofthe prevailingculture. Meaning then moves to con-sumer goods and finally to the life of the consumer.Several instruments facilitate this transfer. Themovement of meanings from the culturally consti-tuted world to consumer goods is accomplished byadvertisingand the fashion system. The movementof meanings from consumer goods to the individualconsumer is accomplished throughthe efforts of theconsumer. Thus does meaning circulate in the con-sumersociety.


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314 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCHAdvertising serves as an instrument of meaningtransfer n a deceptively simple manner. The transferprocess beginswhen the advertiser dentifies the cul-turalmeanings ntendedfor the product(i.e., the typeof gender, status,age, lifestyle, time, and place mean-ings). Or, more technically,the advertiserdetermineswhich of the categories and principles of culturepertain (McCracken 1988, pp. 73-77). In the lan-guage of current advertisingpractice, the advertiserdecides what he or shewishes the productto say.Once this choice hasbeen made, the advertisersur-veys the culturallyconstituted world for the objects,persons, and contexts that already contain and givevoice to these mednings. These elements enable theadvertiser o bringthe selected cultural meaningsintothe advertisement n visible,concrete form.However,the advertiser must portray the elements and theproduct with consummatecare and skill. This care isnecessary for two reasons. First, elements comechargedwith more meanings than are wantedfor theproduct so the advertisermust evoke some, but notall, of the meaningsof the elements. Second, elementsand productmust be presented n such a waythat thesimilarity between them suggestsitself irresistiblytothe viewer. This precisecombination of eleme&ntsndproduct set the stage for the transferof meaning fromthe productto the consumer. Impreciseor unsophis-ticatedcombinationsdiscourage t.Note that there is no necessary or motivated rela-tionship between the meaningsand the product. It isnot the case that chocolates canbe given only certainmeaningswhiletennis racquetscan begiven only oth-ers. Any product can carry virtually any meaning.Certainly,goods lend themselves to particularmean-ings (e.g., chocolates and social sentiment), but ad-vertising is such a powerful mechanism of meaningtransfer that virtually any product can be made totakevirtually any meaning.This propertyof meaningtransfer s still another reasonfor taking special carein the selection of certainmeanings. The transferpro-cess must be carefullycontrolled.Which meanings are chosenfor the product will de-pend on the marketing planand the sophisticationofclient, account executive, research group, and cre-ativeteam.Howwell meaningsarerepresented n andmanipulatedby the advertisementwill dependin par-ticularon the creative directorandhis orher staff.Butthe final act of meaning transferis performedby the

consumer,who mustglimpsein a moment of recogni-tion an essentialsimilaritybetween the elements andthe productin the ad. The consumersuddenly seesthat the cultural meanings contained in the people,objects, and contexts of the advertisement are alsocontained in the product. Well-crafted advertise-ments enable this essentially metaphoric transfer-ence. Badlycrafted advertisementsdo not.Once meanings have been moved into goods, theymust also be moved into consumers. Consumers

must takepossessionof these meanings and put themto workin the construction of their notions of the selfandthe world.They must craft andshape these mean-ings to fulfill the strategies of meaning manipulationwith which they have constructed their lives. Con-sumersare constantly finding gender, class, age,life-style, time, and place meanings in their possessions,and using these meanings to fashion aspects of theself. They are constantly taking possession of culturalprinciples in consumer goods that help define andfashion the home, the family,and otheraspects of theworld in which they live. Consumers turn to theirgoods not only as bundles of utility with which toserve functions and satisfy needs, but also as bundlesof meaning with which to fashion who they are andthe world in which they live (Belk 1988). When thisis done, the movement of meaning is complete. Themeaning that began in the culturally constitutedworld has finally come to rest in the life and experi-ence of the consumer. The cultural circuit is com-plete.Thus, in general terms, do culture and consump-tion interact to create asystemof meaning movementin contemporary societies. I have given just one ac-count of this process (McCracken 1986, 1988).Read-ers may wish to consult otheraccounts of this mean-ing process (Adams 1973; Holman 1980; Levy 1959,1981; Mick 1986;Prown 1980; Stern 1988; Wallen-dorf and Arnould 1988), how it is used (Ames 1982;Appadurai 1986; Belk 1988; Csikszentmihalyi andRochberg-Halton 1981; Solomon 1983), how it en-ters into the marketing system (Douglas and Isher-wood 1978; Gottdiener 1985; Hirschman and Hol-brook 1981),andhow it mightbestbe studied(Prown1982; Sherry 1989;Umiker-Sebeok andLevy 1987).MEANING TRANSFER: THECELEBRITY ENDORSER'SCONTRIBUTION

Celebrity endorsement plays a crucial part in themeaningtransferprocess ust described.Asthe Figureshows, the meaning that begins in the dramaticrolesof the celebrity comes, in Stage 1, to residein the ce-lebrities themselves. In Stage 2, this meaningis trans-ferred when the celebrity enters into an advertise-ment with a product.Some of the meaningsof the ce-lebrity are now the meanings of the product. In thefinal stage, the meaning moves from the product tothe consumer. Celebrity endorsement makes a veryparticularcontribution to each of these threestages.Stage 1

Endorsement gives the ad access to a special cate-goryof personfrom the culturallyconstituted world.It makes availableindividuals chargedwith detailedand powerful meanings. Celebrities are, in this re-


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CELEBRITY ENDORSER: CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS 315FIGURE

MEANINGMOVEMENTAND THEENDORSEMENTPROCESSCulture Endorsement Consumption

objectsopersons celebrity ceert rdc product SIconsumercontext

role12

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

Key: = pathof meaning movement

D] = stage of meaning movement

spect, verydifferentfrom the anonymous models (oranonymous actors) who are normally used to bringmeanings to the ad. Celebritiesdeliver meanings ofextrasubtlety,depth, and power.The- contrast between celebrities and models isworth developing. It is clear enough that advertise-ments can undertake meaning transfer without theaid of celebrities.Anonymous actors and models arechargedwith meaning,and, obviously,they areavail-able at a fractionof the cost. Indeed, for most adver-tising purposes,the meaningsthat can be importedthroughan anonymousmodel are perfectlysufficient.The question, then, is why celebritiesshould be usedfor an ad. How does the celebrity add value to themeaning transfer process?What special powers andpropertiesdoes the celebrity bring to the advertise-ment, to the product,and, ultimately, the consumer?Anonymous models offer demographic informa-tion, such as distinctions of gender, age, and status,but these useful meanings are relatively impreciseand blunt. Celebrities offer all these meanings withspecial precision. Furthermore, celebrities offer arange of personality and lifestyle meanings that themodel cannot provide. Finally, celebrities offercon-figurationsof meaning thatmodels canneverpossess.No mere model could bringto Baly-Matrixthe prop-erties that Cher delivers, nor could any model havesummoned the impatient, time-tested integrityJohnHouseman gave the Smith Barney line We makemoney the old-fashioned way, we earn it. Only aman playingHouseman'sroles in the way Housemanplayedthem could empowerthe sloganas Housemandid. Celebrities have particular configurations ofmeaningsthatcannot be found elsewhere.

In addition, celebrities are more powerful mediathan anonymous models and actors.Even when theydeliver meanings that can be found elsewhere, theydeliver them more powerfully. Celebritiesevoke themeaningsin their persona with greatervividness andclarity.Models and actors are,after all, merely bor-rowing or acting out the meaningsthey bringto thead. The celebrity, however, speakswith meanings oflong acquaintance.Celebrities own theirmeaningsbecause they have createdthem on the public stageby dint of intense and repeatedperformance.AudreyHepburn delivers elegance much more vividlythan even the most elegant model. She does so be-cause she has enacted and absorbedthis elegance byperforming t on stageand screen.Celebritiesdrawthese powerfulmeaningsfromtherolesthey assumein theirtelevision, movie, military,athletic, and other careers. Indeed, these careersactvery much like large ads, as Stage 1 of the Figureshows. Each new dramatic role brings the celebrityinto contactwith a rangeof objects,persons,and con-texts. Out of these objects, persons, and contexts aretransferredmeaningsthat then residein the celebrity.When the celebritybringsthese meaningsinto an ad,they are, in a sense, merely passing along meaningswith which they have been chargedby anothermean-ing transferprocess. Or, to put this anotherway, themeaning that the celebrity endorsement gives to theproduct was generated in distant movie perfor-mances, political campaigns, or athletic achieve-ments.Interestingly,celebrities appearlargelyunawareoftheir part in the meaning transferprocess. Nowhereis this betterillustratedthanin theirconcernfortype-


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CELEBRITY ENDORSER: CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS 317to workable ideas of gender, class, age, personality,and lifestyle,in additionto culturalprinciples of greatnumber and variety. The material world of consumergoods offers a vast inventory of possible selves andthinkable worlds. Consumers are constantly rum-maging here.We knowthatthis finalstageof the transferprocessis complicated and sometimes difficult. It is notenough forthe consumer merely to own an object totake possession of its meanings, or to incorporatethese meaningsinto the self. The meaningsof the ob-ject do not merely lift off the object and enter intothe consumer'sconcept of self and world. Thereis, inother words, no automatic transfer of meaning norany automatic transformation of the self. The con-sumer must claim the meanings and then work withthem.Wehave some general sensethat rituals playan im-portant part in this process. Consumers must claim,exchange,carefor, and use the consumer good to ap-propriate its meanings (Cheal 1988; McCracken1988; Rook 1985). Weknow that they must select andcombine these meaningsin a processof experimenta-tion (Belk 1988;Wallendorf and Arnould 1988). Butthis process is still very much terraincognito from ascholarly point of view. Of all of the topics in the cul-ture and consumerbehaviorportfolio, this one is themost neglected.A culturalunderstandingof celebrityendorsementilluminatesthis little known terrain.Celebritiesplay a role in the final stageof meaningtransferbecausethey have created the self. They havedone so publicly, in the first stage of the meaningtransferprocess, out of bits and pieces of each rolein their careers.All the world has watchedthem takeshape. From darkened theaters, consumers havelooked on as celebrities have selected and combinedthe meanings contained in the objects, people, andevents around them. The self so createdis almost al-ways attractiveand accomplished. Celebrities buildselves well.The constructed self makes the celebrity a kind ofexemplary, inspirational figure to the consumer.Consumers are themselves constantly moving sym-bolic propertiesout of consumergoodsinto their livesto construct aspects of self and world. Not surpris-ingly, they admire individuals who have accom-plished this task andaccomplished it well. Celebritiesare proof that the process works. Celebrities havebeen wherethe consumer is going. Theyhave done inStage 1 what the consumer is now laboring to do inStage3 of the meaningtransferprocess. Or,to putthisanother way, consumers are all laboring to performtheir own Stage 1 construction of the self out of themeanings supplied by previous andpresent roles andthe meanings accessible to them there.But this is more thanjust a formalparallel betweencelebrities andconsumersin Stages 1and 3. The con-sumer does not revere the celebrity merely because

the celebrityhas done whatthe consumerwantsto do,but also because the celebrity actually supplies cer-tain meanings to the consumer. Celebritiescreate aself out of the elements put at their disposal in dra-matical roles, fashioning cultural meanings into apracticableform. When they enter the endorsementprocess, they make these meanings available in mate-rial form to theconsumer.Consumers aregratefulforthese meanings and keen to build a self from them.The celebrity is supplying notjust an exampleof self-creation, but theverystuffwith whichthis difficultactis undertaken.Let us return to the James Garner example oncemore. Consumers have watched James Garner fash-ion what Schudson calls the fictive self out of theobjects, events, and contexts of hisscreen life. Garnerhas given them a dramaticexample of the very act inwhich consumers are themselves engaged. Further-more, Garnerhasput useful andinteresting meaningsat their disposal. He hasgiventhem avivid, well-orga-nized and performable elf. This film persona (andits successor in the television world, Thomas Mag-num) offers a self that is capablebut occasionally in-competent, forthrightbutunassuming, andalmostal-ways the master of his fate (except when conspiredagainstby a comically or otherwise imperfectly ma-levolent force). The Garner self is diverse,balanced,and, most of all, workable.But there is a second, in some ways more interest-ing, way in which celebritiesplay the role of a superconsumer. This occurs whenthe film personaof thecelebrityconsists not merelyin the presentationof aninteresting film persona but actually in the creationof a self that is new and innovative. Most film starsbring to the screen a self, cut whole cloth, from thestandardAmerican personality inventory. But thereare a few who have undertaken amuch moredifficultand creative innovation in which personality ele-ments arecreatedordramaticallyreconfigured.In this highlycreativemode, the celebritybecomesa kind of experimentin self-construction. This makesthe celebrity very powerfulindeed. He or she has be-come an inventor of a new self the consumercan use.A good exampleof such an act of self-invention is thecharacter portrayed by Bruce Willis in the series,Moonlighting. Willis invented a version of male-ness, a way of interacting with others (not the leastof whom was a female superordinate),and a posturetoward the worldthat holds enormous appealforcer-tain consumers. In his creation of David Addison,Willis put useful meaningsat the disposalof the con-sumer.Ina sense,he product-testednotions of the selffora groupof consumers who arethemselvesengagedin an act of experimentation. Consumers perceivethat Willis is workingon a self and is within spittingdistance (ashis screenpersonamight say)of accom-plishingthis self. Consumersengaged n a similarpro-cess aregratefulfor both the example and the point-


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CELEBRITY ENDORSER: CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS 319in circulation. As we begin to render a more sophisti-cated account of how these systems work, we will be-gin to see that North American culture and commerceare more interesting and more sophisticated than itscritics haveguessed.

FUTURE RESEARCHThe cultural perspective suggests three avenues ofresearch. The first of these is a thorough assessmentof how meanings move in the celebrity world. Weknow thateach role, event, or accomplishmentin thecareerof the celebrity changes the meaningsof the ce-lebrity,but we do not know precisely how this takesplace. We do not know what the precise relationshipis between the role, event, and accomplishment, onthe one hand, and the celebrity,on the other. Nor dowe know how meaning transfers from one to theother. We need a preciseidea of how meaningscometo exist in celebrities.The first avenue of research has a methodologicalcomponent as well. We need an instrument that al-lows us to determine methodologically the meaningsthat adhere n celebrities. Weknowthat the meaningsthat exist in celebrities areextraordinarilynumerousand various, butwe have yet to devise an instrumentthat allows us to detect and survey these meanings.Only some delicate combination of qualitative andquantitative methods will enable us to decipher themeanings of the celebrity worldin the individual andthe aggregate.Once an instrumentis devised, certain crucial em-pirical work can be undertaken. We can determinethe meanings that any individual celebrity bringstothe endorsementprocess,andto surveythe meaningsthat exist in the entire world of endorsement. A ty-pographyof the meanings contained throughoutthecelebrityworlds of sports, politics, business, art, themilitary, television, and Hollywood is possible andwill give us a systematicsense of the meanings at thedisposalof the endorsementsystem and the meaningtransferprocess.The second avenue of research should concentrateon a more precise determination of how advertisingaccomplishesthe transferof meaning from celebrityto product. How do creative directors identify andcatalog the symbolic propertiescontained in the ce-lebrity world? What are the rhetorical and visual de-

vices by which this celebrity meaning is transferredwithin the advertisement? What celebrity meaningsare seen to work best with whatproducts?What is theprocess by which consumers contributeto the mean-ing transferprocess?It is also relevant to ask herehowa celebrity changeshis or her stock of symbolic prop-ertiesby participating n an advertisement.The third avenue of research deals with how con-sumersappropriateand use the meanings that cometo themas aresult of endorsement. How does the con-

sumer takepossessionof this meaning?How does theconsumeruse the meaning of the celebrity in the con-structionof self and world? It may be that some con-sumers routinely canvass the symbolic meanings ofone or severalcelebrities to take advantage of the ex-perimentation taking place here. Do consumers setup long-term relationshipswith a single celebrity andsystematically download all the new meaningsthiscelebrity makes availablethrough new roles and en-dorsements?Do consumers follow a variety ofceleb-rities from whom they draw a variety of meanings?What happens to consumers when celebrities aretransformedby disgraceor new fame? We must beginto chartwhatbecomes of the cultural meaningsafterthey leave the endorsement and enter into the life ofthe consumer.These are all questions that need to be answeredforus to understand heprocessof celebrity endorsementin fine detail. They are the researchopportunitiesthemeaning transferperspective brings to light.The meaning transfer approach casts some doubton the sufficiencyof the source models' explanationof celebrity endorsement. But it does not prevent usfrom asking the questions that have been asked inthistradition. Forinstance, it is still possibleto talk aboutthe issue of credibilityor other questions relevant tosource research.It is still possibleto see that some ce-lebrities are more credible than others and that eachcelebrity is more crediblefor some promotionalpur-pose than others.What the meaning transfer model does is shift theterms of this debate. When weconsidercredibilityinthis new context, we are no longer talkingabout themanner in which celebrities communicate informa-tion, but ratherthe mannerin which they communi-cate meaning (McCracken 1987a). Credibilitynowturns on which meanings celebrities make availableto endorsements and how well they transfer thesemeanings to the product. Examples of this culturalcredibilityare not hard to find. John Houseman wasthe compellingchoice forthe SmithBarneyadvertise-ment. The actor chosen to succeed him, Leo McKern,carries different meanings in a different configura-tion. He is, in a word,less credible. The SmithBarneysloganis changed,and diminished, as a result.The symbolic or cultural perspective (McCracken1987a) allows for a new credibility measure of adifferent sort. There is, for instance, no longer anysinglekindof credibility.A celebritycan be extremelycredible for certain meanings and not at all credibleforothers.Plainly,this aspectof credibilitycannot becapturedbythe theories andinstruments convention-ally used. Indeed,to investigatethe celebrityendorse-ment from the symbolic or cultural point of view, anew set of questions and methodologies must be in-vestigated. CONCLUSIONA new perspective on the process of celebrity en-dorsement has been developed. It has suggestedthat


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320 THE JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCHthe source models with which endorsement is nowunderstood by practitioner and scholar are insuffi-cient. The chief deficitof these models is that they askus to acceptthat it is the attractivenessandcredibilityof the celebrity that make the endorsement work.Useful for certainpurposes,this approachpreventsusfrom seeing that celebritiesare in fact highlyindivid-ualized and complex bundles of cultural meaning. Italso prevents us from seeing that endorsement con-sists in the transferof these meaningsfrom the celeb-rity to the product, and fromthe product to the con-sumer.The meaningtransfermodel presentedhere isintended to demonstrate that the secret of the celeb-rity endorsement is largely cultural in nature, andthat the study of the celebrityand endorsement is im-proved by a cultural perspective.

[ReceivedNovember1988. Revised April 1989.]

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