مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد اثر سلبریتی بر آگاهی، تصویر و وفاداری برند – الزویر 2018

This study assessed whether a celebrity writer endorsement affects festival brand equity and attachment to a festival destination. Subjects were non-residents who attended a local literary festival. Among celebrity attributes, expertise was revealed to be most related to brand equity and destination attachment. Additionally, loyalty to the festival was found to affect attachment to the festival destination, while festival brand awareness had a positive impact on festival brand loyalty. Results provide theoretical implications related to how celebrity endorsements influence destination brand, and festival community attachment. The results of this study also have practical implications related to how festival organizers can more efficiently promote visitation to the host destination. It is also believed results significantly contribute to understanding the efficacy of endorsements in an event context.

Introduction

Successful festivals contribute to the local economy and create job opportunities. The revenue from hosting festivals can overflow to neighboring regions and across an entire country (Kim, Han, & Chon, 2008; Kim, Prideaux, & Chon, 2010). More specifically, festivals can generate a range of non-market benefits, including positive images of the host community, community pride, and enhancement of the community’s quality of life (Kim & Morrison, 2005). Festivals may also help to preserve local heritage resources through the income they generate (Prentice & Andersen, 2003). Therefore, local festivals/events have been suggested as tools to enhance local brand values and images (Jago, Chalip, Brown, Mules, & Ali, 2003; Manthiou, Kang, & Schrier, 2014). This study interweaves multiple concepts including literary festival tourism, celebrity, brand equity, and destination attachment. The literary festival examined in this study is held annually in a small mountain town. The event features a variety of literary presentations in memory of a famous author, and the venue offers a good opportunity for visitors to enjoy countryside scenery and agricultural tourism activities. For example, festivals related to William Shakespeare are globally prominent. His birth town, Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK, is inundated with literary tourists attending poetry or literary festivals as well as visiting his birthplace. These local festivals have been found to: be educational, inspire imaginations, motivate literary activities, and communicate with contemporary writers. Beyond festivals in his birth town, numerous Shakespeare-related festivals have been hosted by local governments and educational institutions in other British regions, Commonwealth countries, and the US (Geigner, 2015; Shevtsova, 2014). This study focuses on the ‘Hyo-seok Literary Festival’ in Bongpyung, Korea, which is dedicated to the writer Hyo-seok Lee (1907–1942), a literary genius who died young. Since the festival is situated in Hyoseok’s mountainous highlands (altitude 800 m), non-locals are unlikely to visit without a special reason. Since 1999, the Hyo-seok Literary Festival has been held for 10 days in September, when buckwheat flowers cover the village and countryside. This arts festival is held both in honor of the writer and to promote the village’s agricultural products. In 2014, the festival attracted 743,823 people, motivated mainly by interest in Hyo-seok Lee and the attraction of the pastoral region (Hyo-seok Lee Literary Festival Association, 2015). Since the area is very isolated (surrounded by mountains), it was not well known to Koreans beyond the festival. Even though the importance to understand literary festivals from a tourism attraction development perspective has been addressed (Driscoll, 2015; Robertson & Yeoman, 2014; Weber, 2015), few studies have examined either the role of brand equity or celebrity endorsement in festival tourism.