endorsers, many with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, and some featuring on the covers of leading women’s magazines and on primetime TV shows. These SMIs have turned vlogging into a lucrative career, and a significant portion of their social media content includes celebrity endorsements – through paid advertorials, brand ambassador roles, or the inclusion of gifted PR products or experiences. Our YTBC study of 12 SMIs with a high number of followers, and a history of both celebrity endorsements and of YouTube uploads, revealed five recurring celebrity endorsement transgressions, with a range of consequences for both the SMIs and the brands, affecting the SMI’s credibility, how the brand is perceived and the purchase intentions of the community members to varying degrees. UNDERHAND ENDORSEMENTS These are endorsements made in a secretive or dishonest manner, with the SMI not disclosing its nature to the community. Community members would often cite UK regulations to justify their views, but their expectations often went beyond legal requirements, expecting SMIs to operate to their standards, not just within regulatory boundaries. OVER-ENDORSEMENT This is when the community sees the SMI as having amoral responsibility to ensure themajority of their content is organic (not featuring endorsements), thus continuing to provide unbiased reviews and comment. One SMI saw her credibility brought into question for posting too many endorsements. One community member said: “I feel like you have lost so much of that originality to brands taking over and you selling something video after video.” And another: “It makes us question which products you genuinely like.” In other media, whether a celebrity actually uses a product they promote is seen as relatively unimportant, here it is an important consideration. OVER-EMPHASIS SMIs have a moral responsibility to provide valuable content for the community and to ensure endorsements do not detract from audience enjoyment. Overly-scripted or staged endorsements, or videos where the endorsed product is the sole focus are quickly identified as transgressions. OVER-SATURATION When brands partner withmultiple SMIs, commissioning them to post similar endorsements in quick succession. OVER-INDULGENCE Communitymembersaccept that SMIs need toengage inendorsements, but they expect themtobe for products they genuinelyuseand like.When theyareseen ashaving receivedexcessive incentives, they risk theperceptionof bias. UK regulations mean the scale of gifts is more easily seen, and the allexpenses paid trips and PR packages – such as cosmetics brand Benefit flying SMIs to a luxury Maldives resort to launch a newmascara, and Nars taking them to Ibiza and Bora Bora for product launches – jeopardise SMIs’ perceived objectivity and credibility. Communitymembers engage in both situational attribution – reducing the responsibility of the SMI for breaches, instead placing blame on the endorsing brand – and dispositional attribution – blaming transgressions on the celebrity’s personality, character or disposition. While some transgressions – underhand endorsement, overendorsement – are blamed on the SMI, others are put squarely at the feet of the brand – over-emphasis, oversaturation, over-indulgence. If it is the former, the community often clarify their expectations in a polite, friendly manner – supporting the SMI and their content at the same time – and suggest the breaches were the result of a mistake or a misunderstanding of expectations. Repeatedbreaches lead toSMIs being brandedas ‘sly’, ‘greedy’, ‘dishonest’ and ‘inauthentic’, with communitymembers often saying theywill avoid the endorsements andonlywatchorganic content. This can still affect thebrand, as theSMI’s credibility is called intoquestion. For over-emphasis, over-saturation and over-indulgence, brands were often held responsible. Be it that theywereportrayedas having toohigh a level of control over videos (over-emphasis), or that the repetitionof their promotions is sees as ‘overkill’, with SMIs among the victims (over saturation), community userswereput off. Brands are not community members, but they are considered culpable for transgressions, even if the SMI is not, with the community often more forgiving of SMIs seen as being forced into transgressions. Consequences include brand fatigue, negative sentiment building towards the brand, or community members avoiding and not buying their products. NO EASY SOLUTIONS Sowhat canSMIs andbrands do toavoid these issues? Moreeffective communicationduring the planning stages – considering theeffects ofmultipleendorsements in a short time for bothparties, allowing theSMImore creative control, clearlydisclosing endorsements – and studying community expectations can lead tomore favourable reception toendorsements. Not all of this is easy, but it could help avoid the very audience you are trying to engage with from turning against you. Dr Hayley Cocker is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Marketing. The paper Social Media Influencers & Transgressive Celebrity Endorsement in Consumption Community Contexts, coauthored with Dr Rebecca Mardon and Professor Kate Daunt, of Cardiff University, is published in the European Journal of Marketing. h.cocker@lancaster.ac.uk FIFTY FOUR DEGREES | 9
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