Endorser attributes, customer experience, and brand advocacy in the Vietnamese personal care market

  • 19 Views
  • 2 Downloads

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
As influencer marketing intensifies within the hyper-competitive personal care industry, selecting the optimal brand endorser ranging from high-profile celebrities to niche social media influencers has become a critical strategy for fostering sustainable consumer loyalty. Grounded in the Source Credibility Model and Match-Up Hypothesis, this study empirically investigates the impact of four key endorser attributes (attractiveness, trustworthiness, popularity, and brand-endorser congruency) on brand advocacy, while examining the mediating mechanism of customer experience. Primary data were collected from April to June 2025 through a mixed-mode survey targeting consumers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City who had recently purchased endorsed personal care products. Using a convenience sampling method across major shopping centers and relevant online beauty communities, the study analyzed 231 valid responses via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings reveal that brand-endorser congruency exerts a direct positive influence on brand advocacy (β = 0.284, p < 0.01). Conversely, attractiveness (β = 0.198, p < 0.01), trustworthiness (β = 0.224, p < 0.001), and popularity (β = 0.173, p < 0.05) impact advocacy solely through the mediation of customer experience. The structural model demonstrates substantial explanatory power, accounting for 61.2% of the variance in brand advocacy. These findings imply that in the Vietnamese market, the strategic alignment between the endorser’s persona and the brand’s image is more decisive for advocacy than fame or physical appeal alone, underscoring the necessity of creating meaningful customer experiences over superficial endorsements to transform passive followers into active brand advocates.

view full abstract hide full abstract
    • Figure 1. Proposed research model
    • Figure 2. Structural model assessment result
    • Table 1. Demographical analysis
    • Table 2. Consistency Reliability and convergent validity
    • Table 3. HTMT
    • Table 4. Structural model result
    • Table 5. Multicollinearity testing
    • Table 6. Effect size (f²)
    • Table 7. Bootstrapping result
    • Table 8. Mediation analysis results
    • Table A1. Attractiveness – A
    • Table A2. Trustworthiness – T
    • Table A3. Endorser-Brand Congruency – EBC
    • Table A4. Popularity – P
    • Table A5. Customer Experience with Endorser – CE
    • Table A6. Brand Advocacy – BA
    • Data curation
      Thuy Duong Pham
    • Formal Analysis
      Thuy Duong Pham
    • Investigation
      Thuy Duong Pham
    • Software
      Thuy Duong Pham, Hai Ninh Nguyen
    • Validation
      Thuy Duong Pham, Huong Thi Lan Le
    • Visualization
      Thuy Duong Pham, Huong Thi Lan Le
    • Writing – original draft
      Thuy Duong Pham, Huong Thi Lan Le, Hai Ninh Nguyen
    • Writing – review & editing
      Thuy Duong Pham, Huong Thi Lan Le, Hai Ninh Nguyen
    • Project administration
      Huong Thi Lan Le, Hai Ninh Nguyen
    • Resources
      Huong Thi Lan Le
    • Supervision
      Huong Thi Lan Le
    • Conceptualization
      Hai Ninh Nguyen
    • Methodology
      Hai Ninh Nguyen