Personifying a brand through the use of a spokesperson is a strategy that some companies use to humanize their brands. Three of the ways that such personification is accomplished in advertising is by ads featuring celebrities, “regular people” (such as everyday consumers or persons employed by the brand), and company founders or CEOs as spokespeople. Using a sampling of representative print ads as stimuli, this exploratory qualitative research probed consumer thinking and perceptions regarding these various approaches to brand personification. It was found that celebrities could magically transport consumers to an idealized place, provided there was congruence between the celebrity and the brand. Ordinary people as spokespeople, when genuinely perceived as “one of us,” could be particularly effective in humanizing a brand and eliciting empathy. Famous CEOs and company founders were revered by many respondents who viewed them as aspirational models: they are ordinary people with an extraordinary story. The implications and limitations of the research were discussed, and some directions for future research were provided.

Purpose This paper aims to clarify the persuasion mechanism of chief executive officers (CEOs) and employees as endorsers of brand advertising and helps discern consumer attitudes toward internal endorsement. Design/methodology/approach The exploratory character of the present research required a qualitative approach combining focus groups and face-to-face interviews considered as both meaningful and complementary. Findings The findings suggest that while the celebrity endorsement ensures familiarity and likability, internal endorsement supports credibility and congruity with an important role of storytelling. Moreover, employee endorsements induce an internalization process based on the real-self, while the endorser CEO induces admiration grounded in the ideal self. More fundamentally, the study reveals how the internal endorsement modifies the meaning transfer model and involves a process of meaning translation, which affects the corporate brand image rather than the product brand image. Originality/value The present paper reveals that CEOs and employees can be strong levers for gilding the corporate brand image compared to the celebrities who enhance the product brand image. Moreover, the authors show that the CEO is a character who can be admired without the threat of upward comparison at the opposite of celebrities. Finally, this research highlights the specific role of employees bringing authenticity because of their anchorage in real life.

No abstract

A partir du travail d’ethnopsychiatrie de Georges Devereux, nous étudions le rôle du contre-transfert psychanalytique dans les méthodologies qualitatives. Le contre-transfert désigne les effets du terrain qui s’exercent sur le chercheur, en particulier leurs réactions émotionnelles engendrées par la confrontation avec le terrain. Alors que le chercheur est généralement tenté de neutraliser ou refouler ses émotions par souci d’objectivité, nous montrons dans cette fenêtre sur que le choix d’une démarche réflexive qui prend en compte le contre-transfert permet d’enrichir la compréhension des phénomènes étudiés. Nous formulons un ensemble de recommandations pour prendre en compte le contre-transfert dans les recherches interprétatives en marketing.