Background: Nowadays, companies globally utilise various branding strategies to win and build strong brand loyalty. One of the marketing strategies tools that companies utilise since the 21st century is celebrity endorsement. The idea of a celebrity endorser can be defined as a well-known individual who is glorious in the field of a brand's target audience. Celebrity endorser characteristics, including trustworthiness, attractiveness and expertise, are all sub-components of celebrity endorsement credibility that play an essential role in consumers’ minds and are considered as relevant dimensions in this study. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the celebrity endorsers’ characteristics impact on brand loyalty in the context of consumers in Sweden.  Methodology: This study used the deductive approach, quantitative research to conduct the study. Cross-sectional was used to test the developed conceptual model with the three hypotheses. While, non-probability and convenience sampling methods were used on the way to choose the sampling. The data collection was done through the self-completed questionnaires that ran on google survey to various online social media platforms and the total participants was 203 which is a valid number of respondents for the study.  Findings: The expertise of celebrity endorsers positively impacts brand loyalty and it is the most significant one, hypothesis three (H3) is accepted. The trustworthiness of celebrity endorsers positively impacts brand loyalty and it is the second significant one, hypothesis one (H1) is accepted. However, the attractiveness of celebrity endorsers results in no impact on brand loyalty. It showed an insignificant result. Hypothesis two (H2) is rejected.  Conclusion: This study revealed that only the trustworthiness and expertise of celebrity endorsers have a positive impact on brand loyalty in the context of consumers in Sweden. Finally, the findings of this research paper were applied to the research implication. Keywords: Celebrity endorsers’ characteristics;  the trustworthiness of celebrity endorsers; the attractiveness of celebrity endorsers; the expertise of celebrity endorsers; brand loyalty.

TESIS PARA OPTAR POR EL GRADO ACADÉMICO DE MAGÍSTER EN MARKETING / La presente investigación tiene como objetivo conocer los efectos que tiene el uso de endorsers como elementos de marca en los consumidores, analizando, de manera individual y combinada, las variables: Tipo de endorser (estos pueden ser humanos/celebridades o mascotas/personajes de marca), el Origen del endorser (el endorser puede ser de origen nacional/chileno o internacional/global) y el Origen de marca (las marcas pueden ser nacionales/chilenas o internacionales). Estas variables se midieron en base a una escala de confiabilidad y otra de agrado para conocer cuál es el endorser más adecuado para cada caso. Además, se introdujo como covariable la actitud hacia la marca para conocer en qué medida ésta influye en la percepción de los consumidores al asociársele un endorser. Esta investigación se diseñó de manera exploratoria, estructurada con una recolección de datos primarios a través de una encuesta administrada en un período de 2 meses. Se utilizó la técnica de muestreo probabilística, aleatorizada de manera simple y compuesta por personas entre los 18 y 36 años que se encuentran viviendo en Chile. La encuesta consiste de tres partes. La primera parte sirve para conocer la percepción general que las personas tienen sobre los endorsers; la segunda parte, es el experimento, el cual muestra estímulos visuales de distintos tipos de endorsers de manera aleatoria, los cuales deben ser calificados en relación a las escalas de agrado y confiabilidad para luego evaluar la marca de cada endorser mostrado. En tercer y último lugar, se tomaron algunas opiniones en relación a las reacciones y comportamientos de compra generados por efecto del uso de endorsers. Para procesar y transformar los datos, se utilizó un análisis univariante factorial y un análisis ANCOVA. Así, se pudo conocer los efectos significativos individuales de la variable tipo de endorser para la escala agrado y la variable Origen del endorser para la escala de confiabilidad. Además, se conoció que, de manera conjunta, el origen de la marca acentúa dichos efectos para cada caso. De esta manera, en los resultados, se pudo afirmar que la combinación “endorser mascota de origen nacional asociado a una marca internacional” es muy fuerte para potenciar el agrado y la confiabilidad frente a los consumidores, sobre todo para las marcas nacionales; por otro lado, la combinación “endorser humano de origen nacional asociado a una marca internacional” es muy poderosa para generar mayor confiabilidad frente a los consumidores.

Influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement has grown in the past years and has become a vital part of marketing in the fashion industry. This field has been well researched, however a gap in the research is the focus on men and the role brand love has. The purpose of this study has been to enhance the understanding of how brand love influences men’s perception when exposed to influencer marketing and celebrity endorsement on Instagram. Additionally, the aim was to examine if influencer marketing or celebrity endorsement was most appropriate when marketing brands.    The method for this thesis was a qualitative approach by interviewing men in focus groups. The empirical findings were analyzed together with the literature in order to find thematics. The conclusions from the analysis was men do not experience brand love in the same capacity as the literature describes. However their emotional preferences and connections can still influence how they view brands being marketed on Instagram by an influencer or celebrity endorser. Men tend to trust celebrity endorsement more compared to influencer marketing regardless of gender, as they are viewed as more professional aligned with source credibility. However, the empirical findings showed men do not feel a need for male influencers. A reason why brands need to rethink marketing through endorsers.