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The present study examines the role of celebrity credibility in building brand equity and relationship continuity with the help of brand credibility as a mediator. The experience of usage of smartphones is considered as a moderator. A survey is conducted with a total of 376 participants. The model is tested using structural equation modeling. Brand credibility partially mediates the positive relationship of celebrity credibility on brand equity and relationship continuity expectations. A significant difference is found in the case of new users in the case of relationship continuity expectations. The research paper examines the role of celebrity credibility in the case of the Smartphone, which has not been explored previously. The relationship continuity which is usually an important construct in services is tested for a tangible product.

The celebrity credibility scale developed by Singh and Banerjee [Singh, R. P., & Banerjee, N. (2018). A study on exploring the factors influencing celebrity endorsement credibility. Global Business Review, 19(2), 494–509.] which is validated in the Indian context with the addition of some items based on Indian culture and psychometric properties is further tested. The scale items are earlier tested in general terms without any reference to a celebrity. For this study, four major two-wheeler brands in India, which are endorsed by celebrities, are considered. The present study consists of 380 participants. This study tries to explore the influence of celebrity credibility on consumers’ brand attitude and advertisement attitude. Subsequently, the influence of brand attitude and advertisement attitude on consumers’ purchase intention is studied. The study reveals celebrity credibility has a significant influence on consumers’ attitude towards the brand and advertisement, also in the case of purchase intention; both brand attitude and advertisement attitude built on celebrity credibility has positive significant influence. The present study supports the celebrity credibility scale items of Singh and Banerjee (2018). The overall effect of celebrity credibility is positively significant with other constructs; this proves that the scale items are robust and relevant in clarifying celebrity credibility properly.

This study tries to explore the factors contributing to the source credibility of celebrities as brand endorsers and, subsequently, develops a conceptually integrated scale for the same in Indian perspective. To conduct an empirical investigation, a survey is conducted consisting of 432 participants. In this study, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) has been con-ducted. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in three factors or dimensions. All the indicators are strongly loaded into their respective construct. The Cronbach’s alpha, composite factor reliability and variance extracted measure for validity checks are found to be satisfactory. All pairs of inter-construct correlation are found to be positive and significant. The issue of multicollinearity did not bear a serious threat to the data. Common method effect of Harmen’s one-factor post hoc test result indicates that multidimensional three-factor model fits the data well than the one-factor model. These results are also invariant across different demographic profiles, namely, gender, educational qualification and age.