Essay: Celebrity endorsement

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

India is a country where people love to live in dreams. They worship celebrities. Celebrities may be cricket stars like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahindra Singh Dhoni or film stars like Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, and Shah Rukh Khan etc. They are treated as God. Marketers use this very proposition so as to influence their target customers, maybe existing or potential ones. For this they rope in these celebrities and give them whopping amount of money. They believe that by doing this they can associate their products with their target customers. This is called celebrity endorsement.

This project will deal with the basic role of celebrity endorsement for effective promotion of a product. We will try to answers like:

1. Is celebrity advertising affective?
2. What are the benefits of celebrity advertising?/li>
   

3. What are the fears associated with celebrity endorsements?

Apart from answering the above questions we will also deal with issues like:

1. Awareness and celebrity performance.
2. Concept of celebrity appeal.
3. Endorser attributes like attractiveness and credibility.

The project also tries to find out the reason why any brand or product uses celebrities for the promotion or advertising purposes. What exactly to look for while choosing any celebrity before endorsement and the similarity to look for i.e. the product and celebrity image mapping.

The first stage also deals with the precautions or checks to be taken care while choosing a celebrity, the consumer behavior or reactions in regards with celebrities and consumer behavior dimensions which will tell the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer behavior.

OBJECTIVES:

1. The objective is to find out as to how a celebrity impacts the consumer’s consumption pattern, thus, changing his brand preference.
2. To find out whether customers relate the attributes of the brand with the celebrity.
3. To find out whether the endorsed products are trusted more by the customers or not.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

• The scope of the study was the Jalandhar region.
• The research is a primary research and it includes the customers of all age groups.
• The research will help the marketers in knowing the impact of celebrity endorsement.
• With the increase in competition, it becomes necessary to branded companies to know the influence of celebrities on consumer purchase pattern and their impact on the upcoming trends so as to develop new future strategy.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:

It is a way to systematically solve the research problem; it may be understood as a science of study how research is done scientifically. Thus research methodology is not only concerned with research methods but also consider the methods used in the conduct of research study and explain why particular methods or techniques are used and others are not, so that research results are capable of being evaluated either by researchers or by others the research methodology used in conducting the survey is:

• The first objective of the research was to interact with the consumers of every age group and different categories like children, women, men, high income group, low income group etc.
• Then find out the impact of celebrity marketing on their buying behavior.
• In research instruments questionnaires have been used to measure the behavior of consumers.
• Secondary data would be collected from books, journals and websites.

Sample design:

Sample design used by me comprises of Probability Sampling. In this, I would use Random Sampling.

Sample size: 100

Research design: Exploratory Research Design

FINDINGS:

• According to consumer’s perception the advertising helps in enhancing the sale of the products as the advertisements are usually very attractive, but according to consumers the celebrities at times help in enhancing the sales.
• 45% of consumer’s perception is that companies can sell their products without celebrities. Consumers also feel that the cost of celebrity endorsement is added to the price of the product.
• Almost 50% of the consumers agree that ups and downs in the career of the celebrities affect the brands endorsed by them.
• Consumers sometimes trust the brand endorsed by the celebrity and the celebrities which attract the consumers the most are:

1. Sportspersons
2. Film actors
3. T.V. artists

• It has been seen that the consumers sometimes feel that celebrities sometimes do give misleading statements through the ads they do.
• The preferences which are most for consumers to select the product are:

1. Attractive packaging
2. Celebrity endorsed
3. Quality
4. Price

INTRODUCTION

In India from late 1970’s and early 1980’s the new trend in advertising started. Earlier the advertisement industry in India was on a low scale and traditionally, ads used to be through a print medium, radio, television and billboards. But due to the change in time, the people have become more brand and quality conscious and therefore, the celebrities were started being roped in by the companies for endorsing their brands. Hindi film and TV stars as well as sportspersons like: Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings), Ravi Shastri and Vivian Richards (Vimal), Persis Khambhata and Kapil Dev (Palmolive Shaving Cream) were roped in to endorse prominent brands.

The amount of money spent on advertising worldwide is staggering. This much is spent on advertising primarily to:

1. Inform the consumers about the goods and services that they offer to the market.
2. To persuade consumers to purchase their products, and,
3. To remind consumers about the product’s availability.

The information found in ads can be divided into 2 categories:

1. DIRECT INFORMATION: It is factual and usually includes such things as features, prices, locations, where to make the product purchase etc.
2. INDIRECT INFORMATION: It is obtained by he consumer who makes inferences based on his or her perception.

The amount and value of indirect information t the consumer as well as the ad’s ability to persuade, is often based on who is presenting the information. It is for that reason that advertisers will use properly matched and positively viewed endorsers in the ads.

We need to understand the following terms in order to understand the relationship between the celebrity, brand and the consumer behavior:

BRAND- A LAYMAN PERSPECTIVE:

Brand is the proprietary visual, cultural, rational and emotional image that can be associated with a company or the product. Few examples will explain the meaning better i.e. AMUL- Utterly Butterly delicious, COKE- Thanda matlab Coca Cola, PEPSI- Yeh dil maange more, KURKURE- Masti bole to Kurkure, and DAEWOO ka India. These examples convey one message that when people watch advertisements, a connection is being created between the people and the product thus resulting in an experience of buying. People feel that by using the brand, they will portray certain traits or characteristics that otherwise they do not have. This generates a certain level of emotional affiliation and a sense of fulfillment. It is this emotional relationship with the brands that make them so powerful.

Advertisements enforce what exactly the brand stands for and what to expect by its consumption and above all what factors, features and attributes make it better from competition. Advertisements along with other marketing efforts generate expectations and feelings in a customer and force them to think when they see or hear the brand name. This thinking process and emotional bonding gets more mature and relevant when a celebrity endorses the brand. The subjective intangible feelings of a customer become objective and tangible in the form of celebrity and the level of expectations will rise. The customer will start to perceive himself in the reference frame of the celebrity after the brand or the advertised product has been purchased or consumed by him.

CELEBRITY:

Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition and mostly they are the experts of their respective fields having wider influence in public life and societal domain. Attributes like attractiveness, extraordinary life style or special skills, larger than life image and demigod status can be associated with them.

It is safe to deduce that within a corresponding social group celebrities generally differ from the social norms and enjoy high degree of public awareness.

Celebrities appear in public in different ways. To start with, they appear in public when fulfilling their professional commitments e.g. Mahindra Singh Dhoni, who played cricket in front of an audience in Twenty- Twenty world cup. The celebrities also appear in public by attending special events e.g. the movie award nights, special screening and world premieres of movies or for social causes. These celebrities have universal presence and appeal, they are present everywhere, in news, fashion shows and magazines, tabloids and above all advertisements.

CELEBRITY AND A BRAND:

Star power in India can be gauged by the successful endorsements done by Shah Rukh Khan (Pepsi, Hyundai Santro, Sun Feast and Navratan etc.), Amitabh Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Hrithik Roshan and the others. The inevitable question is, if and how the lively interest of the public in the rich and famous can be efficiently and effectively used by companies to promote their brands and consequently to increase their sales revenues.

This fact can be brought out by using certain examples i.e. Mr. Amitabh Bachchan promoting Cadbury Chocolates after the fiasco of infestation when the image of Cadbury India went very low in the eyes of the people. Soon the company found a perfect fit and a reliable celebrity to transmit the correct message and help regenerating the lost trust. The fit between the product and celebrity is evident as Mr. Amitabh Bachchan and Cadbury chocolates, both, have tasted troubled times and still they stand tall and the love and trust they both share with the people all across India. This is a live example of how a celebrity brought certain attributes to a product like chocolate.

Actor Shah Rukh Khan has also endorsed diversified products. His endorsement basket is ranging from Hyundai Santro to Sun feast biscuits on one hand and from Compaq computers to Videocon electronics on the other.

According to advertising research companies both the actors are doing well and the ad spent on both by the companies is increasing at the phenomenal rate, so does their basket of endorsements. These actors bring reliability and trust in the brand and above all, they help in increasing the sales revenues.

Celebrity endorsements are powerful, has become evident from the above two examples but why is it so? This power is offered by the following elements, which also creates a ‘Top of the Mind Position’.

• Instant awareness, knowledge about the brand and easy recall.
• Values and image of the brand is defined, highlighted and refreshed by the celebrity.
• The celebrity adds new edge and dimension to the brand.
• Credibility, trust, association, aspiration and connectivity to the brand.
• Belief in efficiency and new appearance that will result in at least trial usage.

IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ON THE BRAND

Many researchers have tried to determine and study the effects exhibited by a celebrity. Celebrity endorsements:

1. Create and help in retaining attention of the targeted audience: Attention grabbing is the first in making an impression in the present world of remote controls and multiple channels where the audience has a lot of control. Celebrities provide an easy entry into the audience’s mind by rising above the clutter of images flooding the user’s sensory realm and capturing their attention.

2. Achieves high brand recall in an environment with multitude of products: Long term association is developed between the celebrities and the different brands and the pair gets registered in the memory as a strong stimulus. This produces high recall for the product associated with a celebrity. Also, sometimes for mass products (e.g. biscuits, soaps) the brand becomes synonymous with the celebrity itself.

3. Transfer of qualities associated with the celebrity to the product: [As per the Mc Cracken’s Model of Meaning Movement from Celebrities to Consumer, 1989.]- The company achieves this by aligning the brand and itself with the endorser thus transferring celebrity’s image onto the brand and improving its perceived image.

This process of transfer usually involves 3 stages:

• Formation of celebrity image by repeated performance and act.
• Transfer of the meaning from celebrity to product.
• Finally, transfer of the meaning form the product from the product to the consumer.

4. Perceived as entertaining: Celebrities focusing on entertainment and humor have managed to significantly impact low involvement products through a peripheral approach, they have got across important messages without attempting to do it.

5. Portrays trustworthiness due to lack of apparent interest: By being unbiased representatives in this campaign, they add trust to their appeals.

Some situations where a celebrity can make critical contributions to a brand:

• If the company image is tarnished and it’s trying to turn around the perception about its brands. The recent Cadbury’s worm controversy and the pesticide contents in Coca Cola are the ideal examples where a celebrity’s (Amitabh Bachchan and Amir Khan respectively.) presence reinforced the credibility of the brand.
• As per a research by Mooij (1994) and Hofstede (1984), Global marketing faces many cultural roadblocks such as time, space, language, relationships, power, risk, masculinity, feminity etc. Celebrities help in entering new markets by breaking such roadblocks. A celebrity having a universal appeal or a celebrity of the target country can act as a source of recognition by the market.

UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer behavior is the study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy and why they buy. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, sociopsychology, anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision-making process, both individually and in groups. It studies the characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics, psychographics and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people’s wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in general.

The organizations and firms are able to improve their product offerings and marketing strategies when they are aware and have the knowledge about the consumer behavior. Following are the important issues that have significant influence on consumer’s psyche and their ability to take decisions:

• The psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his/her environment (e.g. culture, family, signs, media);
• The behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing decisions;
• Limitations in consumer knowledge or information processing abilities influence decisions and marketing outcome;
• How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between the products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the consumer; and
• How the marketers can reach the consumers more effectively by improving their marketing campaigns and strategies.
• Their religion, age, culture, income, informal group and reference group.
• Understanding these issues helps us to adapt our strategies by taking the consumer into consideration.

CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS:

The given process is very complicated though on first sight it doesn’t look so. Process starts with problem recognition/with an unsatisfied need, something that a consumer would like to have or purchase in order to attain satisfaction. This need can be psychological, attitudinal or physiological but yes it should have the capacity to be fulfilled by consuming a particular product or service.

To satisfy the given need what all are the components that should be taken into consideration and how we can maximize that satisfaction is the next stage. In this stage, we will cover ability to purchase, level of involvement, people whose opinion will count and other relevant details that will help us in optimizing satisfaction.

Based on information search, we will generate various alternatives i.e. which brand/product is affordable for me, where will it be available comfortably and above all, in comparison to other brands or products, how better or economical it is.

Evaluation stage will look like cost benefit analysis and based upon maximum value or utility per rupee spent, we will decide or shortlist the product or brand. This is the decision and confirmation stage where the consumer prepares himself for the purchase of a particular brand and gives preference to one and only one over and above the others.

Next is the purchase when the consumer will finally got to the market and look for the brand or the product, physically verify it and purchase it.

Last is the post purchase evaluation in which the customer wants to justify his consumption or purchase decision. He tries to find out whether his purchase decision was right or not. Companies make a lot of effort to tackle this situation successfully and they want the customer to be satisfied with their product.

This stage may result into 3 situations:

1. SATISFACTION, where the customer is satisfied as he got the expected results but this doesn’t necessitate the repeat purchase by the consumer.
2. DISSONANCE, where the consumer is not satisfied as he got less utility or less than expected result from the consumption or product performance.
3. DELIGHT, where the consumer gets more than expected satisfaction and utility and this will assure the repeat purchase and creation of brand loyalty.

POST PURCHASE EVALUATION OUTCOMES:

TRADITIONAL FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER DECISION MAKING:

There are several factors that affect the consumer’s decision to purchase a brand and a product. These factors though at times are not very much visible but they make an impact and affect the sales of a product or brand up to a great extent. Some of the factors are listed below in the table.

IMPACT OF A BRAND ON CONSUMER PURCHASE DECISION:

Research studies have proven that known products and names are sold more than unknown ones. Therefore, a brand or an optimally exposed brand will find more recognition and buyers in the market in comparison to the completely unknown or unexposed brand. Recognition of a brand and its significance along with the traditional factors plays a very significant role in consumer decision making process.

More or less every consumer has a brand preference and given the affordability and societal norms, each buyer would like to buy and consume one of the highly acceptable, recognizable and reputed brands.

CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS:

The above given model explains the important role that a brand plays in three different stages of consumer’s purchase decision making. A consumer starts collecting data or information about his favorite brand, he keeps his favorite as one of the alternatives and evaluates his selected brand against all the available options and on finding it suitable or best among all options based upon a qualitative or quantitative evaluation, he will ultimately purchase the selected or favorite brand.

IMPACT OF BRAND AND OTHER FACTORS ON CONSUMER’S PURCHASE DECISION:

The above diagram explains how various traditional factors along with brand preference interact during purchase decision process and finally results into a consumer’s final product choice or ultimate purchase.

CELEBRITY AND A BRAND:

Surveys suggest that compared to any other types of endorsers, famous people achieve a higher degree of attention and recall. They increase awareness of a company’s advertising as well as help in retention of message in the psyche of the audience. They can also help the company in reducing their expenditure on media and other forms of publicity. An example will bring more clarity, when S. Kumars, a known textile brand entered into readymade garments business, used Hrithik Roshan, the hottest advertising icon then, for their launch advertising for TAMARIND, now one of the premium readymade garments’ brands. They reckoned that they have spent 40-50% less on media due to sheer star like Hrithik. The Ad recall was as high as 70% and the campaign can be termed as a great success.

Celebrities also create positive feelings towards brands, connect user to brand and are perceived by the consumers as more entertaining.

Using celebrity in advertising or for any other type of communication for brand building is likely to positively affect the consumers’ brand preference, brand attitude, brand association and purchase intentions. To ensure positive results, however, it is critical for advertisers to have a clear understanding of consumer’s reactions and reinforcement of celebrity endorsement. The impact of celebrity endorsement on any brand as well as on consumer’s purchase decision is very critical.

IS CELEBRTIY ENDORSEMENT ALWAYS THE BEST METHOD TO PROMOTE A BRAND?

In many cases, the Companies do not prefer the use of a celebrity to promote a product; instead they go ahead with a spokesperson which has been specially created for the product by the company. The following are the advantages of such a strategy:

1. SINGLE UTILIZATION OF CREATED ENDORSERS: Such spokespersons are exclusive for a brand and hence avoiding any brand conflict.
2. CONTROL: The Companies have a control over the created spokesperson as it has been specially built for the brand and also by keeping the target audience in mind, and hence, it can be ensured of a consistent image.
3. FOCUS MORE ON BRAND AND ITS FEATURES: In non-celebrity advertisements, the main focus is on the brand and its characteristics while in celebrity advertisements, the focus usually shifts to the celebrity’s features and their aura and hence the carrying across of the main message by the medium fails.
4. ASSOCIATION OVER A LONG TIME PERIOD: The spokesperson creates a permanent image by a long and steady association.

Examples of such endorsements are: Fido-Dido – 7-Up, ZooZoo- Vodafone.

SOURCE CREDIBILITY:

Central goal of advertising is the convincing of consumers and persuasion to purchase, the ultimate objective, though not openly spoken, is to somehow attract consumers to the market offering of the company, generating positive attitude, reinforce positive association and ultimately to generate sales, may be a trial purchase. At later stages, the sponsor may work towards creating a brand loyalty but generating initial sales or increasing the existing is the primary objective. In this respect, the credibility of an endorser along with advertisement plays an important role in convincing the target audience of the attractiveness of the company’s brand and generates sales. Pursuing a celebrity endorsement strategy enables advertisers to project a credible image in terms of expertise, persuasiveness, trustworthiness objectiveness.

To create effective messages, celebrity advertisers also have to consider the attractiveness of the spokesperson. Source attractiveness refers to the endorser’s physical appearance, personality, likeability and similarity to the receiver, thus to the perceived social value of the source. This behavior goes mainly back to the halo effect, whereby the person who performs well on one dimension e.g. physical attractiveness or top professional performance, social status are assumed to excel on other levels as well i.e. happiness and coolness. This is evident from the use of Fardeen Khan, modern, dynamic, outgoing and smart personality for Provogue; he translates the modernism of the brand well. Titan uses Aamir Khan in his different avatars for communicating to the public that their watches are as reliable and passionate as Aamir Khan is for his films. Both Fardeen and Aamir carry the message well and enhance the credibility of the brand they endorse.

ESTABLISHING A PERFECT MATCH:

Research proves that a spokesperson especially for a service product or organization (ICICI- first Amitabh Bachchan, now Shah Rukh Khan) interacts with the type of brand being advertised. These stars communicate the value of the product and transform an ordinary service into a miracle solution for all the problems of an ordinary customer.

A famous relative to a ‘normal’ spokesperson is more effective for the products which are high in psychological or social risk, involving such elements as good taste, self-image, and opinion of others. Several research studies have examined the congruency between the celebrity endorsers and brands to explain the effectiveness of using famous persons to promote brands.

In India,

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