By Madeline Reinsel

The South Korean boy band BTS boasts a fanbase of tens of millions of dedicated listeners, known for their devotion to the group and its social causes. New research from Virginia Commonwealth University researcher Baobao Song, Ph.D., finds that endorsements and advocacy campaigns from BTS and other celebrities could change fans’ advocacy behavior.

“A fan might think, ‘I’m involved in this because my celebrity is advocating for it. I want to see them succeed. I want the fandom to succeed,’” said Song, who studies corporate social responsibility as an assistant professor in VCU’s Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture in the College of Humanities and Sciences. “So that’s why we singled out fandom as the subject for this study, because fans naturally are already attached to the celebrity.”

Song, who herself is a BTS superfan, wanted to find out if celebrity advocacy campaigns can actually cause fans to change their behavior. She focused on BTS because the band’s large, international fanbase, referred to as the BTS ARMY, is known for being extremely engaged with the band and active online — in 2020, ARMY members matched BTS’ $1 million donation to Black Lives Matter within 24 hours, unprompted by the band.

The seven-member musical group also has a history of appealing to their fans in advocacy campaigns. In 2017, BTS worked with UNICEF to launch the “Love Myself” campaign, serving as global ambassadors to combat youth violence and promote self-esteem in young people. In 2021, the musical group addressed the United Nations General Assembly on the global organization’s sustainable development goals.

“What’s unique about BTS fans is that they are highly participative in their content creation,” Song said. “Usually, we see fandoms as content consumers, but BTS fans have a very high interest in producing their own content and connecting with each other.”

Song wanted to assess how the band’s ongoing partnership with the U.N. influences BTS fans’ intentions to engage in sustainability volunteering and advocacy work. Song and the study’s co-author, Minhee Choi, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, first interviewed BTS fans in both the U.S. and South Korea. Then, they recruited Gen Z and millennial adults from the U.S. who self-identified as BTS fans to participate in an online survey.

The survey’s questions centered on the respondents’ general perceptions of celebrity, fandom interactions and fandom advocacy, as well as on their own identification as a member of the BTS ARMY and the BTS ARMY’s participatory culture. The respondents were then presented with information about BTS’ advocacy for the U.N.’s sustainable development goals and asked about their own sustainability intentions.

The 424 survey responses supported the idea that celebrity endorsements shape the behavioral intentions of their fans. That effect was driven by three factors: interdependence between fans and the celebrity, the fans’ individual identification within the fandom, and the fandom’s norms.

And while not all celebrity fandoms are as large and influential as BTS’, other celebrities can still use the power of their fandoms to push their own social goals. The findings could be especially important for organizations hoping to work with celebrities to advance their causes.

However, Song said, brands and organizations should be aware that celebrities need to have a strong personal connection with their fans, like that of BTS and the BTS ARMY, for their advocacy to actually change behavior and intentions.

“How can you maximize the benefits of a celebrity partnership?” Song said. “You may want to understand whether the fans and the celebrity have an interdependence that is strong enough to motivate their fans to follow the celebrity in actual behavior to support your cause.”

Song’s research was funded by the Page Center at Pennsylvania State University’s Bellisario College of Communications.