Understanding Celebrity Endorsers in Cross-cultural Contexts: A Content Analysis of South Korean and US Newspaper Advertising

Based largely on McCracken's ‘cultural meaning transfer’ model (1989), which stresses the cultural meanings of celebrity endorsers, this study explores the characteristics that differentiate celebrity-endorser strategies in South Korean newspaper ads from those in US newspaper ads. With Hofstede's cultural typology—uncertainty avoidance and power distance—as a theoretical framework, this study finds that ads in South Korea with a high uncertainty avoidance and a high power distance culture present a higher proportion of celebrity endorsers than those in the US with a low uncertainty avoidance and a low power distance culture. However, US ads have a greater proportion of product-related celebrity endorsers in both high- and low-involvement product ads. The study also provides detailed information on foreign celebrity endorsers presented in international product ads.