Consumer Generated Ads versus Celebrity Generated Ads: Which Is the Best Method to Promote a Brand on Social Media?

Abstract With the evolution of the internet and social media, consumer brand participation is no longer limited to purchasing. Consumers and celebrities now create, publish and share branded photos and messages, which raises some important questions. What impact does the source of the message have on brand evaluation? What effect do these new forms of consumer participation have on brand evaluation? The purpose of this article is to compare the effect of “celebrity generated ads” to “consumer generated ads” on viewer participation. This article includes three separate but intertwined studies. Results from a netnography and an experimentation served as a baseline for the construction of a research model, which was then validated by a sample of 417 internet users using a structural equation model. Results of the two first studies emphasize the relationship between the attractiveness author and the viewer’s evaluation of the advertisement. Respondents rated an author more favorably when it was a celebrity in comparison to when it came from an unknown source. The third study confirms the influence of the author on the advertising’s virality. Our study demonstrates that author attractiveness with celebrity generated ads plays a bigger role on advertising efficiency than homophily. Despite the rapid increase and attention given to consumer generated ads, the use of celebrities in advertising remains relevant.