Impact of advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness on attitude and purchase intent: a study on Indian youth

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to develop a framework to investigate the mediating role of attitude toward advertising for the relationship between the exogenous constructs – advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness, and an endogenous construct purchase intent.Design/methodology/approachThis paper has proposed a conceptual model based on the previous relevant studies and conducted a survey of 223 youth respondents from India. Further, structural equation model with the help of AMOS software was used to test the relationship among the proposed constructs.FindingsThis paper has considered advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness as exogenous constructs, attitude toward advertising as a mediating construct and purchase intent as an endogenous construct. The results revealed that advertising puffery influenced purchase intent and attitude toward advertising inversely, whereas celebrity trustworthiness positively influenced both purchase intent and attitude toward advertising. Additionally, attitude toward advertising was found to be a significant predictor of the purchase intent. Moreover, attitude toward advertising is found to have significant partial mediation between the constructs, celebrity trustworthiness and purchase intent.Practical implicationThis paper is useful for the marketers of soft drinks and other low-involvement products in India to understand the perceptions of the youth toward advertising with puffery content and celebrity endorser.Originality/valueThis study is a unique attempt to build a framework involving a combination of advertising puffery and celebrity trustworthiness to analyze the mediating effect of attitude toward advertising on the purchase Intent.