• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.559-575
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• 2021

The popularity of K-pop, the development of diverse media and communications, and rapid globalization are increasing consumers' attachment to celebrities. These celebrities, called "Human brand", have a growing impact on consumers. However, research on idol celebrities has been conducted mainly on teenagers. Furthermore, there are limits to the studies on consumers' attachment to idol celebrities who do not advertise specific products and intention to purchase products which are not advertised but related to the idol human brand. Therefore, this study has been conducted on 301 out of 400 adult women in their twenties to forties in Korea to examine the relationship between the characteristics of the idol human brand, attachment to the idol human brand, desire to imitate the idol human brand, desire to identify with the idol human brand and its fandom community, and the effect on purchase intention. For the statistical analysis, SPSS and AMOS were used. The study found that the characteristics of the idol human brand which are trust, professionality, social attractiveness, and physical attractiveness positively influenced attachment to the idol human brand. The attachment to the idol human brand positively affected the imitation desire toward the idol human brand, and the identification desire with the idol human brand, and to identify with its fandom community. Additionally, the desire to imitate and to identify with the idol human brand and its fandom community positively affected the intention. Furthermore, the relationships between all variables were found to have a significant mediating effect.

• Journal of Korea Entertainment Industry Association
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.1-14
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• 2020

This study was initiated by the interest in identifying what the characteristics of BTS' preference is in the expanded K-Pop market. For this study, a survey was conducted to Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Korea where BTS is popular. The results of this study show that Vietnam and Thailand have the most positive perceptions of most of the BTS preferences, and the factors affecting the highest quality were analyzed by the differentiating sense of BTS. BTS' preference is an independent variable consisting of five factors: singers and music, a discriminative sense, global communication, meditative lyrics and Korean sentiment. And it has been shown to have a statistically significant influence on both the fandom star and the fan community at a high level. In particular, the Identification desire for fandom star shows that the discriminative sense and meditative lyrics affect the positive at a high level. Also, the identification desire for the fan community's found that the attraction of singers and music affects the highest level of affection. This study was extended to Southeast Asian and Korean fans through a wide range of survey participants, and it is meaningful that a new perspective on the BTS preference was available. Nonetheless, Failure to take into account the various variables that may affect the fandom effect and the intent to purchase, and the lack of a survey of fans in the U.S. and Europe, which has more fans worldwide, could be a limitation of the study.