Credibility and consumer-based brand equity: A multidimensional ‘between-within’ perspective in low involvement settings

This study adopts a multidimensional ‘between-within’ perspective of credibility to investigate the impact of celebrity credibility on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) and the mediating role of brand credibility in this relationship, with each construct conceptualized and operationalized as multidimensional. To do so, this study surveys 338 young consumers of carbonated soft drinks, a low involvement setting, and analyzes the data using covariance-based structural equation modeling with a bias-corrected bootstrap. The results show that celebrity credibility improves CBBE mainly through a direct route, with brand credibility carrying a smaller yet significant indirect share of the effect, a pattern of complementary partial mediation that the elaboration likelihood model predicts for low involvement consumption. These findings extend theory by showing that celebrity credibility operates mainly directly in this low involvement setting, which, read against evidence from high involvement settings, points to involvement as a boundary condition on when the effect runs directly and when it runs through the brand. Given that the direct route carried most of the effect while brand credibility carried a smaller significant share, managers in low involvement settings are best served by leading with a credible endorser and sustaining brand credibility as a supporting signal.