THE IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

The Impact Of Celebrity Endorsements

The impact of celebrity endorsements

The billions of dollars spent per year on celebrity endorsement contracts show that celebrities play an important role for the advertising industry. Nowadays many companies choose to use celebrities as endorsers for their advertising campaigns. Use of superstars in advertising campaigns attracts a lot of attention from the public and the three main questions occurs: when do companies use celebrity endorsers in their advertising; how do companies select the celebrity endorser and how do companies handle the risks of using a celebrity endorser in their advertising. (Zinkmund 2000 78)

Advertising is one of the major factors behind the economic activity of a country as it not only helps to stimulate consumption but also give models for lifestyles and value orientation. Celebrity ads are becoming very common and prominent phenomena in advertising everywhere. Almost 25% of all American ads have celebrities in them and this percentage is more than double? up to 70% in Japan. Celebrity endorser is a person who enjoys recognition by public and who can use this recognition on the behalf of a product by appearing in an advertisement with that product. Similarly celebrity endorser is a person who is known to the public not due to the product he or she endorses but due to the achievements in the areas other than that. So celebrity endorser is a person who uses his fame to advertise a product which has no direct effect on his previous recognition. Celebrity endorsement is one of marketing strategies like many others for instance? direct marketing? sales promotions? on spot advertising etc.

Empirical finding support the fact that celebrities have positive effect on both attitude toward ad and brand (Ohanian? 1990). These results are in favor of celebrity endorsers because they are widely recognized? are perceived to be more credible and produce greater influence on evaluation of brand and its purchase intentions. The credibility components are interconnected with other traits of the celebrity and the image dimension which reflects good qualities e.g. pleasant? wise? educated etc. produce sincere and positive perception of the celebrity in consumer minds. Credibility is the most important criteria in choosing a celebrity endorser by the firm which is followed by familiarity and likeability and at last we have gender? and in credibility expertise is the most important piece which is followed by trustworthiness and than attractiveness. (Pringle 2004 45)

The celebrities that were perceived as having constant media coverage are trusted more than the celebrities who are not in the constant spotlight.

Physical attractiveness of the endorser may be central in context with change in attitude of the customer. The celebrity endorsements based on the attractiveness of the endorser most of the time produces positive effect on consumers. In general attractive endorsers are more effective promoters than unattractive endorsers. The target audience is more familiar to the attractive celebrities and these celebrities are more likable. (Till and Busler 1998 576-586)

Most advertisements use attractive celebrities and the consumers are accustomed ...