I have now received two re-reviews of your submission. As you will see, the evaluations are positive and we are now approaching a final Stage 1 recommendation. In this round, the reviewers offer some valuable suggestions for further clarifying and refining a number of conceptual and methodological aspects of the study. Provided you are able to respond comprehensively to these points in a revision and response, I anticipate being able to award Stage 1 in-principle acceptance without further review.

I have now received four timely and constructive evaluations of your Stage 1 submission. The reviews approach your manuscript from a number of different angles and also include a non-specialist review (MV) which I find can often be helpful for identifying areas where the structure and clarity of the presentation can be improved.

​​​In reading the reviews you will notice some headline issues to address, including clarification of hypotheses, specific areas of terminology, rationale for the proposed extensions, conditions for excluding data, and analysis plans. Reviewers SS and MV also raise questions about the justification and value of the replication, which I want to address directly. SS in particular notes: "While replication is important for ensuring the accuracy and generalizability of findings,  but I feel that not all studies are equally worthy of this effort. The relative lack of continued research in this specific area of celebrity contagion suggests that its theoretical and practical significance may not justify the resources required for replication.”

This is perfectly valid opinion that reviewers are welcome to comment on, but I want to note that that judgments about the importance (or novelty) of the research question, over and above the scientific validity for the question, fall outside the scope of the Stage 1 evaluation criteria at PCI RR. MV raises the same point in a slighty different way, noting: "I think the justification of the RR can be improved. Pages 10-11 merely say that the contagion effect is important in the literature. But this doesn’t feel like a good reason to repeat the study."

Again, PCI RR does not consider judgements of replication value when evaluating RRs so there is no requirement to address this issue. That said, I think the fact that two reviewers bring up this issue provides an opportunity for you to maximise the eventual impact of your work by highlighting the rationale for the replication and why it matters. MV makes a number of related points where the clarity of communication - while sufficient for a specialist audience - could be enhanced to improve general readability.

I hope you find these reviews helpful and look forward to receiving your revised manscript in due course.

As you will be aware, we are now in the July-August shutdown period. During this time, authors are generally unable to submit new or revised submissions. However, given the relatively straightforward revisions required in your case, as well as the time-critical nature of Stage 1 review, I am going to give you the opportunity to resubmit despite the shutdown. If you resubmit prior to 2 September, you won't be able to do this the usual way. Instead, please email us (at contact@rr.peercommunityin.org) with the following:

• A response to the reviewers (attached to the email as a PDF)
• The URL to a completely clean version of the revised manuscript on the OSF
• The URL to a tracked-changes version of the revised manuscript on the OSF

In the subject line of the email please state the submission number (#) and title. We will then submit the revision on your behalf.