KOREASCHOLAR

Celebrity endorsement in advertising constitutes a continuing trend for brands of all value levels. Regarding products originating from the luxury cosmos, resorting to celebrities at first sight seems likewise especially convenient. After all, the glamorous lifestyle of celebrities seems to fit perfectly with luxury goods. However, an old wise saying claims that what is too beautiful to be true cannot be true. Indeed, it seems justified to scrutinize why a luxury brand that bears stardom in itself needs the light of a further star to shine down on it. This controversy forms the starting point of the study at hand. In a first instance, the attitudes of opponents and supporters of celebrity endorsement in luxury marketing are balanced and merged into a model. This contains all aspects a luxury brand should consider concerning its celebrity endorsement policy. Secondly, one-hundred and eighteen luxury brands are analyzed concerning the question whether they employ celebrity endorsement. For all brands for which this applies, the celebrity endorsement policy is assessed based on the aspects included in the model in order to carve out what already works well and where there is still potential for improvement.

• Klaus-Peter Wiedmann(Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany)
• Walter von Mettenheim(Leibniz University of Hannover, Germany)