The Role of Celebrity Adoration in The Effect of Symbolic Consumption to Purchase Intention: A Research on Tween Consumers

Abstract

In a rapidly changing world, consumers are now concerned not only with the functional features of the products, but also with their symbolic features. This situation causes the importance of symbolic meanings of products to increase gradually. Another important issue at this point of consumption is that marketers begin to focus on younger consumers, young and children, that they see as an important market. As the adult consumers of today's children and the future, the audience's intention to purchase and the factors affecting this intention are among the topics that should be investigated, while a large gap is observed in the literature. The purpose of the study is to determine the effect of symbolic consumption and purchase intention of 10-14 age group consumers who are expressed as tweens and to determine whether celebrity adoration influence this effect. Within the scope of the research, the data obtained from 10-14 age group children living in Çanakkale were analyzed and the model was tested. As a result of the analyzes, a significant and positive effect was found between symbolic consumption and purchase intention. It was also found that celebrity adoration mediated the effect of symbolic consumption and purchase intention.