Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsers’ Participation in Marketing and Communication Strategies–Model Questionnaire

Abstract

The Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsers’ Participation in Marketing and Communication Strategies—Model Questionnaire (Borges-Tiago et al., 2023) is a comprehensive psychometric and structural measurement instrument engineered to quantify the psychosocial mechanisms, perceptual antecedents, and behavioral consequences that govern consumer-influencer-brand interactions in digital communication environments. Developed within the context of contemporary digital marketing and social media ecosystems, the instrument investigates how different tiers of social media influencers (e.g., mega-influencers versus macro-influencers) affect consumers’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral brand schemas. The measurement model synthesizes and adapts established psychometric scales from seminal marketing and consumer psychology literature, including source credibility models (Ohanian, 1990), brand signaling frameworks (Erdem & Swait, 2004), brand alliance models (Simonin & Ruth, 1998), customer engagement scales, and multi-dimensional consumer-based brand equity matrices.

The instrument operationalizes six primary constructs across multiple nested sub-dimensions: Brand Familiarity, Endorser Credibility (comprising Attractiveness, Expertise, and Trustworthiness), Brand Credibility (comprising Expertise and Trustworthiness), Involvement with the Endorser, Customer Brand Engagement (comprising Cognitive Processing, Affection, and Activation), and Consumer-Based Brand Equity (comprising Brand Awareness, Brand Associations, Perceived Quality, and Brand Loyalty). Originally administered as a 35-item questionnaire utilizing a standardized 7-point Likert scale, the measure underwent structural equation modeling via Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM). Psychometric evaluation established strong internal consistency across dimensions, with Cronbach’s alpha, Dijkstra-Henseler’s rho_A, and Composite Reliability coefficients consistently exceeding the conventional 0.70 benchmark. Although select dimensions exhibited an Average Variance Extracted (AVE) below 0.50, their composite reliability exceeded 0.60, establishing acceptable convergent validity under established methodological conventions (Hair et al., 2019). Discriminant validity was confirmed via cross-loading criteria (Hajli, 2014), and global model fit yielded a Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) of approximately 0.10, demonstrating the instrument’s structural robustness for empirical research in consumer psychology, social media influence, and strategic communications.

Keywords

Brand Credibility, Brand Equity, Brand Familiarity, Celebrity Endorsement, Consumer Behavior, Customer Brand Engagement, Digital Marketing, Endorser Credibility, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling, Social Media Influencers, Source Credibility Theory, Strategic Communication

Authors

The measurement model and questionnaire were conceptualized, operationalized, and empirically validated by a team of researchers specializing in digital marketing, consumer behavior, and communication strategies:

• Maria Teresa Borges-Tiago, Ph.D.
  Affiliation: University of the Azores, School of Business and Economics, Business Department, Ponta Delgada, Portugal.
  Correspondence Address: Rua da Mãe de Deus, 9501-801 Ponta Delgada, Portugal.
  Email: [email protected]
• Joanna Santiago, Ph.D.
  Affiliation: ISEG – Lisbon School of Economics & Management, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal.
  Email: [email protected]
• Flavio Tiago, Ph.D.
  Affiliation: University of the Azores, School of Business and Economics, Business Department, Ponta Delgada, Portugal.
  Email: [email protected]

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsers’ Participation in Marketing and Communication Strategies—Model Questionnaire is to provide an empirically validated, theoretically integrated measurement system designed to investigate the structural dynamics of social media endorser campaigns. Historically, celebrity endorsement literature focused primarily on traditional broadcast media (e.g., television, print, and billboard advertising) featuring mainstream actors, athletes, or public figures. However, the rapid proliferation of the social media ecosystem introduced decentralized opinion leaders—specifically mega-influencers (individuals with massive, broad audiences) and macro-influencers (content creators with substantial but often more targeted, category-specific followings). This shift generated a critical need for standardized psychometric instruments capable of mapping the psychological pathways through which endorser attributes convert into brand-related perceptual and behavioral capital.

From a theoretical perspective, this instrument addresses the complex interplay between source characteristics and downstream consumer outcomes. It is designed to capture not only how consumers perceive the endorser (in terms of perceived expertise, physical/interpersonal attractiveness, and trustworthiness) and the prior knowledge they hold regarding the brand (brand familiarity), but also how these antecedents cultivate consumer engagement, alter brand credibility perceptions, and ultimately consolidate into consumer-based brand equity. It unpacks the relational dynamics between consumers and endorsers by measuring personal involvement with the influencer, treating the endorser not merely as an advertising vehicle, but as a relational focal point within digital communities.

In applied research and corporate communication contexts, the instrument serves multiple diagnostic functions:

• Influencer Selection and Vetting: Enabling marketing practitioners to quantify whether a proposed endorser exhibits sufficient credibility, attractiveness, and consumer involvement within a specified target demographic before capital allocation.
• Comparative Strategic Evaluation: Facilitating direct empirical comparisons between different endorser categories (e.g., micro vs. macro vs. mega-influencers) to determine which source profile yields superior cognitive processing, affection, and brand equity for specific market segments.
• Longitudinal Campaign Diagnostics: Serving as a pre- and post-test measurement tool to monitor shifts in brand familiarity, perceived brand quality, and consumer brand loyalty across dynamic digital communication campaigns.
• Structural Equation Modeling Testing: Providing a psychometrically scrutinized set of manifest indicators suited for variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) within consumer research.

Psychological Construct

The model conceptualizes endorser-brand-consumer interactions through a multi-tiered, multi-construct architecture. Each primary construct reflects specific cognitive, affective, or conative dimensions established within psychometric and consumer psychology literature.

1. Brand Familiarity

Brand Familiarity represents the accumulated cognitive schema and direct or indirect experience a consumer maintains regarding a specific brand entity (Alba & Hutchinson, 1987). In this instrument, familiarity serves as a vital baseline antecedent, reflecting how recognizable, well-known, and established the brand is in the respondent’s mental network prior to or throughout the endorser interaction.

2. Endorser Credibility

Rooted in Source Credibility Theory (Hovland et al., 1953; Ohanian, 1990), Endorser Credibility is operationalized as a tri-dimensional latent construct representing the recipient’s evaluation of the source’s positive characteristics:

• Attractiveness: The degree to which the endorser is perceived as visually appealing, elegant, charming, or socially engaging. This dimension taps into physical and social attraction mechanisms that facilitate immediate positive affective orientation.
• Expertise: The perceived extent of knowledge, technical capability, competence, and authoritative experience the endorser possesses regarding the promoted product category.
• Trustworthiness: The consumer’s confidence in the endorser’s honesty, integrity, dependability, and objective authenticity when delivering promotional narratives.

3. Brand Credibility

Adapted from information economics and signaling frameworks (Erdem & Swait, 2004), Brand Credibility captures the believability of product information contained within a brand’s signals. It represents the cumulative perception that a company has both the capability and the honesty to continuously deliver on its promises. The construct is evaluated across two distinct sub-dimensions:

• Brand Expertise: The perceived technological, manufacturing, or service capability of the firm to execute its product claims reliably.
• Brand Trustworthiness: The perceived willingness of the brand not to exploit consumer vulnerabilities and to maintain ethical, dependable consumer relationships.

4. Involvement with the Endorser

This construct reflects the psychological relevance, personal connection, and cognitive-emotional absorption a follower experiences in relation to the social media influencer. Moving beyond passive viewership, it measures how centrally the endorser figures in the consumer’s media consumption habits, social identification processes, and parasocial relationship formations.

5. Customer Brand Engagement

Operating as a key mediating consequence of the endorsement, Customer Brand Engagement is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional psychological state resulting from interactive brand experiences (Hollebeek et al., 2014):

• Cognitive Processing: The level of brand-related cognitive elaboration, mental activity, and concentration stimulated by endorser interactions.
• Affection: The degree of positive brand-related emotional warmth, pride, and enthusiasm felt during consumer-brand-endorser touchpoints.
• Activation: The behavioral energy, effort, and time allocation expended by the consumer in interacting with the brand as promoted by the endorser.

6. Consumer-Based Brand Equity

Representing the terminal strategic outcome in the model, Brand Equity evaluates the differential value added to a product or service via the brand name (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993). The construct is operationalized through four core facets:

• Brand Awareness: The ease with which consumers recall and recognize the brand across various stimulus environments.
• Brand Associations: The cognitive imagery, symbolic nodes, and mental representations linked to the brand in memory.
• Perceived Quality: The subjective assessment of overall product superiority, craftsmanship, and operational excellence relative to alternatives.
• Brand Loyalty: The intentional and behavioral commitment to consistently repurchase or advocate for the brand over time.

Theoretical Framework

The construction and validation of the model rest upon the confluence of four theoretical frameworks in communication studies, economic psychology, and consumer research.

Source Credibility and Source Attractiveness Theories

Originating from the pioneering persuasion research of Carl Hovland and colleagues (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953) and later formalized psychometrically by Roobina Ohanian (1990), Source Credibility Theory posits that the efficacy of a persuasive message is primarily mediated by the recipient’s perception of the communicator’s expertise and trustworthiness. Concurrently, Source Attractiveness Models (McGuire, 1985) demonstrate that social prestige, physical appearance, and perceived similarity induce persuasion through identification processes, wherein consumers adopt attitudes or behaviors modeled by attractive sources to establish a satisfying self-defining relationship. Borges-Tiago et al. (2023) embed these principles into social media ecosystems, proposing that influencer communication acts as an amplified credibility transfer system where followers cultivate digital parasocial intimacy.

The Meaning Transfer Model

Grant McCracken’s (1989) Meaning Transfer Model serves as an essential conceptual bridge explaining how cultural meanings embedded within a cultural figure are projected onto commercial entities. According to McCracken, celebrity endorsers possess a unique constellation of cultural meanings, lifestyle connotations, and personality tropes developed through their public personas. When an endorser pairs with a brand, these cultural nuances are transferred from the person to the product during the initial phase of the advertising interaction. In the subsequent phase, consumers consume the product to capture, internalize, and project those transferred cultural meanings into their own self-concepts. The questionnaire captures this transfer by measuring the structural path connecting endorser perceptions directly to brand perceptions and consumer brand engagement.

Signaling Theory and Information Economics

Under conditions of asymmetric information, consumers experience uncertainty regarding the true quality and performance of products. Erdem and Swait (1998, 2004) conceptualized brand credibility through the lens of Signaling Theory, proposing that a brand functions as a continuous market signal. If the signal is credible—characterized by both firm expertise and trustworthiness—it reduces consumer risk perception, lowers information search costs, and escalates perceived value. In the Borges-Tiago et al. model, the endorser’s personal credibility operates as an extrinsic signal reinforcing or altering the brand’s own signaling credibility, thereby impacting the consumer’s cognitive processing and overall risk evaluation.

Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) Models

The overarching strategic structure of the model culminates in David Aaker’s (1991) and Kevin Lane Keller’s (1993) Brand Equity paradigms. Keller’s associative network memory model posits that brand knowledge consists of a brand node in memory with a variety of associated cognitive links. Effective marketing communications build brand equity by establishing high brand awareness, strong and unique brand associations, favorable quality judgments, and enduring brand loyalty. The questionnaire provides an empirical pipeline documenting how modern digital endorsers successfully alter the density, strength, and valence of these associative brand networks.

Validity

The psychometric validity of the Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsers’ Participation in Marketing and Communication Strategies—Model Questionnaire was empirically established through an online study conducted in Portugal, utilizing variance-based Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in accordance with the methodological protocols specified by Hair et al. (2019).

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity demonstrates the degree to which a set of manifest indicators represents the same underlying theoretical construct. In PLS-SEM, this is traditionally established through factor loadings and the Average Variance Extracted (AVE), with a standard recommended threshold of AVE ≥ 0.50. In the validation study of this instrument, the majority of latent constructs exhibited robust convergent validity exceeding the 0.50 AVE criterion. However, two specific dimensions yielded AVE values falling moderately below the 0.50 cutoff. Following psychometric conventions outlined by Hair et al. (2019) and Fornell and Larcker (1981), when the Average Variance Extracted is less than 0.50, but the Composite Reliability (CR) of the construct exceeds 0.60, the convergent validity of the construct is deemed psychometrically acceptable because the shared variance explained by the latent construct remains structurally reliable across the composite indicators.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity ensures that each latent dimension within the measurement system is empirically distinct from other constructs in the model. This was verified through the cross-loadings criterion following the guidelines established by Hajli (2014) and Hair et al. (2019). The analysis demonstrated that each manifest indicator loaded substantially higher on its assigned theoretical construct than on any other latent construct within the structural matrix. There was no problematic indicator cross-loading across adjacent constructs (such as Endorser Trustworthiness versus Brand Trustworthiness), confirming that respondents clearly distinguished endorser characteristics from brand characteristics and engagement outcomes.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

The structural paths within the estimated model demonstrated strong nomological validity, as hypothesized relational vectors aligned with theoretical predictions derived from Source Credibility and Consumer Engagement frameworks. Specifically, endorser credibility and involvement significantly predicted dimensions of customer brand engagement, which in turn exhibited strong predictive utility in explaining variance across the sub-dimensions of consumer-based brand equity.

Reliability

Reliability evaluations were executed utilizing multiple metrics of internal consistency to ensure that measurement error was systematically constrained across all latent subscales. The authors reported three complementary internal consistency metrics:

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): The traditional lower-bound estimate of internal consistency reliability.
• Dijkstra-Henseler’s rho_A: A modern, robust consistency parameter that serves as an optimal intermediate index between Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability in PLS-SEM contexts.
• Composite Reliability (CR): A measure of internal consistency that accounts for the varying factor loadings of individual manifest indicators rather than assuming equal weighting (tau-equivalence).

Across all evaluated constructs and subscales—including Brand Familiarity, Endorser Attractiveness, Endorser Expertise, Endorser Trustworthiness, Brand Expertise, Brand Trustworthiness, Involvement with the Endorser, Cognitive Processing, Affection, Activation, Brand Awareness, Brand Associations, Perceived Quality, and Brand Loyalty—every metric (Cronbach’s α, rho_A, and Composite Reliability) comfortably exceeded the established psychometric threshold of 0.70. These results confirm exceptional item homogeneity, high inter-item correlation within target dimensions, and minimal measurement error variance across the questionnaire administration.

Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the questionnaire was scrutinized and refined using structural equation modeling with the Partial Least Squares (PLS) algorithm. Rather than relying solely on classical exploratory factor analysis, the authors conducted iterative measurement model evaluations to confirm indicator retention and maximize model parsimony.

Item Purification and PLS Algorithm Runs

During the initial algorithmic specification of the measurement model, individual item factor loadings were assessed against standard retention cutoffs. The iterative item purification process proceeded as follows:

1. In the baseline evaluation of the initial 35-item questionnaire, the item BELoyalty3 (the third indicator of the Brand Loyalty subscale within Brand Equity) failed to meet the necessary psychometric performance criteria and was systematically excised from the measurement pool.
2. A subsequent (second) execution of the Partial Least Squares algorithm revealed that the indicator BELoyalty2 exhibited an outer loading of 0.492. Because this loading fell clearly below the psychometric retention threshold (which generally mandates loadings ≥ 0.708, or at minimum ≥ 0.50 if the broader construct’s convergent validity is supported), BELoyalty2 was excluded to prevent attenuation of construct-level variance.
3. Following the removal of these two underperforming items, the final refined measurement model achieved an optimized 33-item structure demonstrating stable outer loadings across all remaining latent indicators.

Global Model Fit

The overall structural model fit was evaluated using the Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR). In PLS-SEM, SRMR serves as a goodness-of-fit index that quantifies the difference between the observed empirical correlation matrix and the model-implied correlation matrix. The final structural model yielded an SRMR value of approximately 0.10. According to the methodological guidelines outlined by Hair et al. (2019), an SRMR value around or below 0.10 is recognized as representing an adequate and acceptable model fit within variance-based exploratory-confirmatory PLS frameworks, confirming the viability of the specified path configuration.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational specifications of the measurement tool are structured as follows:

• Test Name: Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsers’ Participation in Marketing and Communication Strategies—Model Questionnaire
• Test Type: Original Multi-dimensional Psychometric Inventory / Structured Questionnaire
• Administration Modality: Self-administered electronic survey (computer-assisted web interviewing)
• Target Population: Adult general consumer population (ages 18 and older, with primary validation focusing on young adults aged 18–29 engaged in digital social media ecosystems)
• Language Editions: English and Portuguese
• Item Count:
  • Initial pool: 35 manifest indicators
  • Refined psychometric model: 33 manifest indicators (following purification of Brand Loyalty items)
• Response Format: Standardized 7-point Likert-type rating scale ranging from 1 (“Strongly Disagree”) to 7 (“Strongly Agree”)
• Construct and Subscale Architecture:
  • Brand Familiarity: Unidimensional measure of prior brand knowledge and memory salience.
  • Endorser Credibility: Multi-dimensional construct composed of:
    • Attractiveness
    • Expertise
    • Trustworthiness
  • Brand Credibility: Bi-dimensional construct composed of:
    • Brand Expertise
    • Brand Trustworthiness
  • Involvement with the Endorser: Unidimensional measure of personal relevance, parasocial attachment, and engagement with the content creator.
  • Customer Brand Engagement: Tri-dimensional construct composed of:
    • Cognitive Processing
    • Affection
    • Activation
  • Consumer-Based Brand Equity: Multi-dimensional strategic outcome composed of:
    • Brand Awareness
    • Brand Associations
    • Perceived Quality
    • Brand Loyalty
• Scoring Methodology: Construct and subscale scores are generated by calculating either the unweighted arithmetic mean or variance-weighted latent variable scores (derived from PLS-SEM outer weights/loadings). Higher aggregate scores reflect stronger cognitive familiarity, greater perceived credibility, elevated engagement states, and superior consumer-based brand equity.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Antecedents and Consequences of Endorsers’ Participation in Marketing and Communication Strategies—Model Questionnaire was formally published in 2023 in the Journal of Business Research (Elsevier). The scale is non-commercial and accessible for academic, scientific, and educational research purposes without monetary assessment fees. However, because the operationalized item set adapts proprietary and copyrighted research components published within academic literature, researchers wishing to employ, translate, or adapt the complete questionnaire inventory for empirical investigations must contact the corresponding author, Dr. Maria Teresa Borges-Tiago (University of the Azores, School of Business and Economics, Email: [email protected]), and cite the source publication in all resulting scholarly works.

References

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Items of the Scale