In contemporary advertising, celebrity endorsements have become pervasive, yet their effectiveness in influencing consumer preferences remains under scrutiny. We aim to explore the effect of cognition, affect and behaviour as antecedents to celebrity endorsement effectiveness. We applied source attractiveness theory, source credibility theory, meaning transfer model, match-up hypothesis and cognitive, affective and behavioural (CAB) model for developing our theoretical framework. The findings from our controlled experiment (n = 1,283) challenge the assumption of a universally positive effect of celebrity endorsements. Our results show an asymmetric relationship where behaviour drives consumer preference to purchase, overriding the drag of cognition and affect. Additionally, the results indicate that celebrity endorsements drive immediate sales but contribute towards ad annoyance, irritation and disgust which could act as a second-generation effect to influence managerial decision-making.
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