Celebrity Brands Lift Stores When the Star, Product, and Shelf Fit

Celebrity brands have gone mainstream. Products fronted by actors, athletes, and musicians now sit on the shelves of major retailers. A new study by three McCoy College of Business marketing professors asks what the retailer gets out of the arrangement.

The authors are Vishag A. Badrinarayanan, Enrique P. Becerra, and Jeremy J. Sierra, all Professors of Marketing at Texas State University. The paper appears in the Journal of Product & Brand Management.

Three kinds of fit

The study builds on the brand resonance model. That framework describes how brands earn loyalty in stages, from awareness to meaning to attachment. The authors propose that a celebrity brand helps a retailer only when three kinds of fit line up. First, the celebrity has to fit the product category. Second, the celebrity has to fit the store. Third, the celebrity brand has to fit the store’s assortment, meaning the other brands on its shelves.

The authors call this triadic fit. The idea is that a mismatch on any one of the three can undercut the partnership.

The study

The researchers ran two surveys. Study 1 tested the direct effects with 154 undergraduate students. Study 2 repeated the test with 433 adult shoppers. It added a comparison between consumers who worship celebrities and those who do not. Celebrity worship is a measured trait, not an insult. It captures how strongly a person admires and follows famous people.

Both studies used consistent partial least squares structural equation modeling, a statistical method for testing chains of relationships among survey measures. The second study also used bootstrap multigroup analysis to compare the two consumer segments.

What the researchers found

All three types of fit raised store attractiveness. When shoppers saw the celebrity as fitting the category, the store, and the assortment, they rated the store as more appealing.

Store attractiveness then carried through to store equity, the value shoppers attach to the store’s name, and from there to store loyalty. The chain runs in sequence: fit builds attractiveness, attractiveness builds equity, and equity builds loyalty.

The second study showed that the three fit effects are not the same for everyone. Their strength differed between celebrity worshippers and non-worshippers. The abstract does not spell out which fit mattered more for which group, but the difference itself is the point. A retailer’s customer mix will change how much a celebrity partnership pays off.

What it means for retailers and celebrity brands

For retailers, the practical test before signing a celebrity brand has three parts. Does this person make sense in this category? Does this person make sense in our store? Does this brand sit well next to what we already carry? A yes on all three is what the study links to gains in attractiveness, equity, and loyalty.

For managers of celebrity brands, the same test works in reverse when choosing retail partners. Fit with the store and its assortment is part of the value the brand brings. A poor fit can waste the celebrity’s pull.

Both sides should also know their audience. Shoppers who follow celebrities closely respond differently from those who do not. Segmenting by that trait, rather than assuming a single effect, is the more careful approach when forecasting what a partnership will return.

This summary is based on the paper’s abstract. The full article reports the data, methods, and detailed results.

What it means for managers

• Screen celebrity brands on three fits before signing: celebrity to product category, celebrity to store, and celebrity brand to the store's assortment.
• Fit pays off in sequence. It raises store attractiveness, which builds store equity, which builds store loyalty.
• Shoppers who idolize celebrities respond differently from those who do not. Segment by that trait when forecasting the return on a partnership.

Badrinarayanan, V. A., Becerra, E. P., & Sierra, J. J. (2026). Star power on the shelf: The spillover effects of celebrity brand-retailer relationships on consumer evaluations of retailers. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 1-16. 10.1108/JPBM-10-2025-6420