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 a moral responsibility to ensure the majority 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 with multiple SMIs, commissioning them to post similar endorsements in quick succession. OVER-INDULGENCE Community members accept that SMIs need to engage in endorsements, but they expect them to be for products they genuinely use and like. When they are seen as having received excessive incentives, they risk the perception of 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 new mascara, and Nars taking them to Ibiza and Bora Bora for product launches – jeopardise SMIs’ perceived objectivity and credibility. Community members 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. Repeated breaches lead to SMIs being branded as ‘sly’, ‘greedy’, ‘dishonest’ and ‘inauthentic’, with community members often saying they will avoid the endorsements and only watch organic content. This can still affect the brand, as the SMI’s credibility is called into question. For over-emphasis, over-saturation and over-indulgence, brands were often held responsible. Be it that they were portrayed as having too high a level of control over videos (over-emphasis), or that the repetition of their promotions is sees as ‘overkill’, with SMIs among the victims (over saturation), community users were put 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 So what can SMIs and brands do to avoid these issues? More effective communication during the planning stages – considering the effects of multiple endorsements in a short time for both parties, allowing the SMI more creative control, clearly disclosing endorsements – and studying community expectations can lead to more favourable reception to endorsements. 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 | 15
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