KOREASCHOLAR

Sport is a lucrative and universal form of popular culture, transcending international and social boundaries (Andrews & Jackson, 2001) providing sports men and women with increasingly lucrative financial opportunities through involvement in sponsorship and endorsement deals (Colapinto & Benecchi, 2014). Whilst sport celebrities have long been used in marketing communication and sponsorship campaigns to increase levels of consumer interest and attention (Gupta 2009; McCracken 1989; Van der Veen & Song, 2001), what is not well researched, is the role that electronic word-of-mouth communications plays in the transmission of potentially negative effects on consumer attitudes towards the sport celebrity brand image when a transgression occurs. Not only does electronic word-of-mouth communication make the transmission of a transgression immediate and widely disseminated, it also provides numerous opportunities for celebrities themselves to share information about themselves and their lives sometimes resulting in a “too much”, “too soon” and “too often” nexus. With the removal of a social privacy filter common with many of the younger generation, this TMI (too much information) state or increased self-disclosure (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) makes managing the brand image of sport celebrities by their managers and their sponsors an increasingly difficult problem.

• Anne-Marie Sassenberg(University of Southern Queensland, Australia)
• Jane Summers(University of Southern Queensland, Australia)
• Rumman Hassan(University of Southern Queensland, Australia)