Celebrity endorsement negative publicity: Explaining consumers’ reactions to the decision to drop or stay with the offensive celebrity endorser

The scope of this project is to explore consumers’ reactions toward the brand to celebrity endorsement negative publicity. According to Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), as the brand has low responsibility for the crisis, it should drop the celebrity endorser involved in the negative publicity to limit the spillover negative effects to the brand. However, recent examples show that the brand sometimes decide to stay with the celebrity endorser and this strategy reveals as successful. This project aims to explore consumers’ reactions to both strategies (i.e., leave the celebrity endorser vs. stay with the celebrity endorser) by analysing actual behaviours of consumers through a content analysis on social media data referring to a recent scandal involving Johnny Depp as celebrity endorser and two important brands (i.e., Disney – who dropped the celebrity endorser – Christian Dior – who stand with the celebrity endorser). This study wants to provide evidence on motivations for the success or the failure of the brand strategy response to a brand crisis caused by the negative publicity of the celebrity endorser.