Influence of Entertainers on Athletes and Employees

Introduction

Entertainers, especially sports celebrities, have become the primary spectacles of the
media culture today. Most people, including athletes and employees, look upon sports celebrities
as role models and use their opinions to decide on brands and other activities. Today, advertisers
pay sports celebrities and entertainers vast amounts of dollars to endorse their products (Bush et
al., 2004). The main issue associated with such endorsements is that they may not meet the needs
of the athletes and employees perfectly. Notably, sports celebrities and entertainers may have a
bad influence on the behavior of athletes and employees. Therefore, an assessment of the
influence of entertainers on athletes and employers to ensure that it does not negatively affect
their behaviors is necessary. This paper discusses the influence of entertainers on athletes and
employees.

Literature Review

According to Bush et al. (2004), entertainers significantly influence consumer
socialization, a practice by which youths acquire abilities and attitudes that help them make
better decisions as consumers. Consumer socialization primarily stresses the bases of influence
that help transmit standards, inspirations, and behaviors to an individual. Notably, socialization
agents, such as mass media and television viewing, significantly affect the consumption
decisions of athletes and employees. A current study investigating the impact of role models on
the self-perceptions of youths revealed that entertainers often act as role models to young
athletes, who are motivated to adopt their lifestyle patterns (Bush et al., 2004). Numerous
behavioral intentions that athletes may exhibit, primarily because of the ideas they obtain from
entertainers, exist today. It is worth noting that entertainers may influence the view of athletes on

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certain brands by explaining their benefits, which may make customers switch from one brand to
another. Additionally, athletes tend to listen to credible entertainers because they believe they are
always right (Düsenberg et al., 2016). According to the source credibility model, consumers are
often influenced when they trust the entertainer who relays the information about a particular
brand, resulting in positive attitudes and more behavioral compliance.

Research Question

1. What is the effect of entertainers on the behaviors of athletes and employees regarding
   brand selection?

Theoretical Framework

Numerous variables can help understand the topic. One of the categories of the variables
used in research is dependent variables. Categorically, complaining behavior is one of the
dependent variables. In the case where the entertainer complains about particular products,
athletes and employees can be influenced to switch to other products and complain to external
agencies about the problems they experience with the services of a company (Bush et al., 2004).
Additionally, brand loyalty is the other dependent variable, significantly influenced by
entertainers. It is vital to acknowledge that entertainment can affect consumer socialization,
making employees and athletes develop positive attitudes toward specific products even if the
prices increase. The other category of variables is independent variables, which mainly address
the credibility of the entertainer. Notably, the independent variables included expertise,
attractiveness, and trustworthiness.
Operationalization of variables in research is crucial because it helps define variables into
measurable factors. It is vital to acknowledge that the operationalization of variables helps set
down exact definitions of each variable, thus increasing the quality of the results and improving

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the robustness of the design (Kwiatkowska & Pouw, 2016). Notably, the variables in the research
question can be operationalized using numerous techniques. Regarding dependent variables,
entertainer influence was operationalized using the Rich role model scale. It is worth noting that
the scale asks how the favorite model of an athlete influences his behavior in general.
Specifically, the Rich role model scale determines the level of agreement of the athlete to the
statements made by the entertainer. Also, the intentions and behaviors of athletes were measured
with a purchase intention scale, which is a 12-item scale (Düsenberg et al., 2016). Notably, the
scale is anchored on a 7-point strongly disagree to agree on continuum strongly. The independent
variables were operationalized with the use of a source credibility scale.

Hypotheses

Hypothesis 1: The greater the credibility of the entertainer, the greater the influence in endorsing
brands for athletes and employees. If the entertainer is more attractive to the athletes, his
endorsement of particular brands is likely to be taken seriously by consumers.
Hypothesis 2: The entertainer’s influence is positively related to brand loyalty.
It is vital to acknowledge that most athletes are often attracted to products advertised by
entertainers because they act as their role models.
Hypothesis 3: Entertainers do not affect the job satisfaction of employees.

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References

Bush, A. J., Martin, C. A., & Bush, V. D. (2004). Sports celebrity influence on the behavioral
intentions of Generation Y. Journal of Advertising Research, 44(1), 108–118.
https://doi.org/10.1017/s0021849904040206
Düsenberg, N., Almeida, V., & Amorim, J. (2016). The influence of sports celebrity credibility
on purchase intention: The Moderating Effect of Gender and Consumer Sports-
Involvement. Brazilian Business Review, 1–21.
https://doi.org/10.15728/edicaoesp.2016.1
Kwiatkowska, M., & Pouw, F. (2016). The role of conceptualization and operationalization in
the use of secondary data. In 2016 Annual Conference of the North American Fuzzy
Information Processing Society (NAFIPS) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.