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Does message content matter in negative publicity? A study with young athletes emulating pros

Yalim Özdinç (Whitireia Community Polytechnic, Auckland, New Zealand)
Özlem Özdinç (Whitireia Community Polytechnic, Auckland, New Zealand)

Young Consumers

ISSN: 1747-3616

Article publication date: 17 August 2015

533

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine changes in the strength of attachment to role models (strong, weak) and in the levels of commitment to the brands endorsed by role models (high, moderate, low) by exposing young athletes emulating sport stars to celebrity-engendered negative messages (CeNM).

Design/methodology/approach

Two studies were conducted with footballers ranging in age from 13 to 18 years. Study 1 explored emulated football stars, attachment strength and commitment levels (n = 1,425). Study 2 exposed purposively selected 853 young footballers to four types of CeNM by content (social attribute, moral conduct, game performance, physical condition). A combination of non-/parametric t-tests was run for the paired comparisons of before–after exposure to CeNM.

Findings

All CeNM contents weakened the ties to emulated football stars across the entire sample. Similarly, commitment to endorsed brands was diminished in all three categories after exposure to CeNM. When further examined, it appeared that the message about sport stars’ bad health did not affect the highly and moderately committed subjects. Overall, not just CeNM comprising personality-related topics (e.g. illicit affair, unfair play) but also those covering uncontrollable (e.g. injuries) and transient issues (e.g. penalty-kick misses) damaged young people’s attachment to their celebrity role models and tarnished, to a great extent, their evaluations of the brands the role models endorse.

Originality/value

Besides echoing the common tendency that attachment to celebrity role models is strong among the youth, findings also indicate that young people, unlike adults, react naively to CeNM.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contribution of Andrew Lockett, Library and Information Manager at the Auckland Campus of Whitireia Community Polytechnic, made to this piece of work.

Citation

Özdinç, Y. and Özdinç, Ö. (2015), "Does message content matter in negative publicity? A study with young athletes emulating pros", Young Consumers, Vol. 16 No. 3, pp. 332-347. https://doi.org/10.1108/YC-09-2014-00479

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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