Fame, fit, and influence

: how celebrity endorsement shapes purchase intentions across generations and genders

Abstract

This thesis investigates how celebrity endorsement attributes, namely “familiarity” and “congruence” affect consumers' purchase intention in the luxury fragrance industry, hereby focusing on the moderation of generation (Z & Y) and gender. Drawing on the Source Credibility Theory (Hovland & Weiss, 1951) and the Match-Up construct by Kamis (1990), it was hypothesized that both familiarity and product endorser congruence would positively influence purchase intention. The research seeks to answer the following questions: “What type of celebrity endorsement has the most impact on the purchase intention of each generation?”, “Does generation moderate the impact of celebrity endorsement on purchase intention?”, ”Does gender moderate the relationship between celebrity endorsement and purchase intention?” Therefore, a mixed-methods approach, combining a qualitative focus group and a between-subjects online survey with 283 participants, was applied. The findings revealed that, against the theoretical framework, gender and generation do not significantly moderate the purchase intent in this study, which may be caused by overlapping identity norms or media habits of the sample size. It, however, confirmed that high familiarity and high congruence significantly increased purchase intention, which validates prior research. For luxury brands, it suggests a thoughtful emphasis on congruence, emotional alignment, and cross-generational appeal over broad demographics. It underscores the need for a diversified celebrity strategy, including both traditional and social media influencers, to eliminate the financial risk of this marketing approach.

Date of Award	23 Jun 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Paulo Romeiro (Supervisor)