The impact of death on consumer responses to celebrity endorser misbehavior
研究名人死亡是否改变消费者对其不当行为的归因和品牌态度，发现死亡使消费者更难责备名人，并将部分责备转移给品牌，但仅当不当行为与品牌产品相关时。
Abstract A well‐established stream of research on celebrity misbehavior suggests that negative information may have an adverse effect on an endorsed brand because of its association with a celebrity considered as blameworthy. However, the present research calls into question the generalizability of these results to fatal misbehaviors (i.e., misbehaviors that lead to the celebrity's death). Indeed, after death, a celebrity may gain spiritual meanings, and consumers may find it more difficult to blame a sacred individual. As such, the current article investigates the impact of a celebrity's death on blame attribution and consumer attitudes in the context of celebrity endorser misbehavior. The results of three experiments uncover that death favors a partial blame attribution transfer from the celebrity endorser to the brand, but only when the misbehavior implies a product related to the brand. In addition, the findings reveal a positive effect of death through celebrity sacredness on brand attitude.