Jin, S. V. (2018). “Celebrity 2.0 and beyond!” Effects of Facebook profile sources on social networking advertising Ellen Thornton

From Digital Culture & Society

Jin, S. V. (2018). “Celebrity 2.0 and beyond!” Effects of Facebook profile sources on social networking advertising. Computers In Human Behavior, 79154-168. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2017.10.033. Retrieved from https://journals.scholarsportal.info/pdf/07475632/v79icomplete/154_2abeofpsosna.xml

Ellen Thornton

In today’s society, popular culture is filled with celebrities that people are intrigued by and want to know about. From movie stars to singers to models, celebrities are constantly followed and their fans want to know what they are doing, where they go and who they talk to. With the addition of social media, it is now even easier for fans to connect with and follow their favourite celebrities, as they use it as a tool for communication. Celebrities also use their social media accounts as a platform to advertise their products or endorsements of other companies, in the hopes of reaching their audience and profiting from it.

Jin’s (2018) article analyzes the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements and advertising through 2 different experiments. The first analyzes Paris Hilton and how she promotes her own personal brand, while the second studies Ryan Gosling promoting his films, both through their Facebook pages. The goal of the studies was to analyze the differences between self-endorsement and other-endorsement. Self-endorsement is described as the celebrity endorsing products and advertising them on their own Facebook page, while other-endorsement means that an individual’s friend on Facebook is advertising and endorsing the celebrity’s products on their own page. Through the use of social identity theory and warranting theory as the theoretical framework for the studies, the author asked participants to either look at either the celebrity’s Facebook page or the page of a regular person and judge the veracity of the endorsement, as well as whether they trust the post and if they would be interested in purchasing the product. The results of both experiments concluded that participants that were shown advertisements through the regular person’s Facebook page were found to be more trustworthy and more genuine. In addition, participants in the experiments showed a closer parasocial interaction with the celebrity endorser when advertisements were found on an ordinary Facebook user’s page, as the product was purchased and used by a neutral third-party consumer.

The biggest strength of this article is that it conducted 2 studies using two different types of celebrities. Through the use of multiple studies, the author collected holistic data that resulted in a well-rounded conclusion. For example, the Paris Hilton experiment was almost exclusively targeted towards a female audience as her endorsed products included perfume, handbags, and accessories. To balance this out, the Ryan Gosling experiment targeted both men and women as his films are more gender-neutral. Another example is that the first experiment did not compare a celebrity’s presence on social media versus no presence. When this extra comparison was made in the second study, it proved that a celebrity’s Facebook presence had a positive effect on participants’ attitudes towards the celebrity compared to seeing the advertisements on a different platform or in a different medium. Therefore, having conducted more than one experiment allowed the author to include as many variables as possible, to get the most detailed results.

While the article focused on two studies, the article has some areas that could be studied and improved upon in the future. The first example is that the studies looked at more traditional celebrities that were famous without the help of social media. In both cases, these celebrities have followers because their fans already know who they are. In today’s society, there are new types of celebrities that became famous because of their online presence. Celebrities like Instagram models and YouTubers have amassed their own large followings and are now considered to be celebrities in their own right. For future studies, it will be interesting to compare endorsements from traditional celebrities and new online celebrities and how people interact with them and whether the type of celebrity plays a role in how much a product is trusted. Another area that the studies was lacking was in the type of endorsements that were shown to participants. Both Paris Hilton and Ryan Gosling’s advertisements were explicit endorsements, meaning the celebrity helped to create the product, which is why consumers should purchase them. However, celebrities can endorse products in different ways, such as an implicit endorsement; meaning they use the product, so others should too, or a co-present endorsement, meaning a celebrity merely appears with the product. Analyzing the different types of endorsements may show if people engage with these advertisements differently, and if one is more effective than another.

In conclusion, the combination of high-profile celebrities and large social media platforms can be used as a powerful marketing and advertising strategy. Celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Ryan Gosling have the ability to engage with their fans in a way that was not possible before, and their pre-established influence can help sell products for wither their own brand or for others. As social media becomes more and more integrated in people’s everyday lives, these marketing strategies will continue to be essential in the success of a product or service being advertised to potential consumers, as well as keeping their current clientele.