The Celebrity Capital Life Cycle: A Framework for Future Research Directions on Celebrity Endorsement

This article introduces the celebrity capital life cycle as a structuring framework for the literature on celebrity endorsement. This framework comprises four stages: acquisition, consolidation, abrupt downfall/slow decline, and redemption/resurgence. The celebrity capital life cycle framework accounts for the ups and downs of celebrities' career journey through fluctuations in their celebrity capital (i.e., accumulated media visibility; Driessens 2013). We provide first a brief overview of the literature highlighting relevant research gaps, followed by an exposition of the conceptual underpinnings of the celebrity capital life cycle. We then develop future research directions for each stage of the celebrity capital life cycle that address the existing knowledge gaps.