CELEBRITIES ENDORSEMENT AN INTRODUCTION

Transcription

1 CELEBRITIES ENDORSEMENT AN INTRODUCTION AHMAD FARAZ MBA (Finance and Marketing) Icfai University, Dehradoon INC Ranchi- (Batch ) Abstract Today almost every Consumer product has been endorsed by the celebrities. Celebrity endorser is use in marketing as a tool for building the global brand image and for marketing the product. Endorsement is a kind channel of communication of the Products and services where celebrities play the role of brand spokesperson and certify the brand. This thing also uses in India by many companies in interesting way for promoting its product and services. Celebrity endorsement is very costly affair for the company because large amount is required on hiring the celebrity or celebrities (in case of multiple celebrities endorsement).company spend billion of dollars on celebrity endorsement as they believe that they are the effective spoke people for the brand (Katyal, 2008) There are lots of benefit with celebrity endorsement such as it create brand image, increase the sale etc but it also allied with some risk which I will later discuss in this articles. In the word of McCrakan (1989) One of the main reasons for using celebrity endowment is to create better image for the product or brand by transferring symbolic meaning from the celebrity to the product or brand. Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 239

2 Introduction Today almost every Consumer product has been endorsed by the celebrities. Celebrity endorser is use in marketing as a tool for building the global brand image and for marketing the product. Endorsement is a kind channel of communication of the Products and services where celebrities play the role of brand spokesperson and certify the brand. This thing also uses in India by many companies in interesting way for promoting its product and services. Celebrity endorsement is very costly affair for the company because large amount is required on hiring the celebrity or celebrities (in case of multiple celebrities endorsement).company spend billion of dollars on celebrity endorsement as they believe that they are the effective spoke people for the brand (Katyal, 2008) There are lots of benefit with celebrity endorsement such as it create brand image, increase the sale etc but it also allied with some risk which I will later discuss in this articles. In the word of McCrakan (1989) One of the main reasons for using celebrity endowment is to create better image for the product or brand by transferring symbolic meaning from the celebrity to the product or brand. Celebrity: According to McCracken (1989), celebrity endorser is a person who enjoys recognition in the public and who can use this recognition for promoting the products or brands through advertisement. Similarly according to many academic researchers also, celebrity endorser is a person who is known to the certain groups of people not because of the product he or she endorses but due to the achievements in the areas other than that. So celebrity endorsers are those persons who can uses his/her name and fame to advertise a product which has no direct effect on his previous recognition. They are famous because they are mostly experts in their respective fields and having wider influence in public life. Celebrity endorsement is use as a marketing strategy like many others for example, directs marketing, sales promotions, onspot advertising etc. but it is more popular tools for the company because it can give a brand a touch of glamour. It can be figure out that within a corresponding social group celebrities generally differ from the social norm and enjoy high degree of public awareness. (joshi and aholia 2008). According to Dr Khetri Puja, 2006, Celebrities appear in public by fulfilling their professional commitments like Mahendra Singh Dhoni for example, appeared by playing cricket, Sharukh khan appear through acting or giving successful movie to the Bollywood. They are successful athlete, actors/actress, pop stars, singer, businessmen or politician etc. Actors/actress and athletes are mostly use for advertisement purpose in celebrity endorsement. According to one finding by economic times in Feb 2010 Indian celebrities fall into three categories. One category of celebrities are those who can endorse any decent brand if they get right price for their endorsement. Sharuk khan, shahid kapoor, Amitab bachan etc, brandfit concept not bother them as brand manager force fit their image to match their product Other set of celebrities are like Amir Khan, John Abraham, Ranbir kapoor who usually work with those brand which match with their image. The Third categories Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 240

3 Are related to those small celebrioties who donot have any positioning and are interchangeable (Zahir Khan, Irafan Khan etc) Celebrity Endorsement: According to Dr Puja (2006), celebrities play four type of role for the company in order to promote the products. These role are 1) Testimonial where celebrity personally used a product or services. Amir Khan, for instance testifying the Coka cola as it is the part of his consumption basket. 2) Endorsement, in endorsement celebrities lend their name to advertisement for product or brand though they might not be expert. 3) Actor, sometime celebrities perform the role of character because of which they are famous like in the ad of Nirma, Swati Tiwari of Prerna fame (character of Kasuati Zindagi ki) play a role of housewife And 4) Spokesperson, when a celebrities endorses a brand in TV or print advertisement for the long period of time then they become a Spokesperson. These spokesperson is also benefited at the time of brand crisis for example when coke face brand crisis, Amir Khan play a vital role to regain the brand as a spokesperson can influence the people. According to (Saurbh Katyal 2008) Celebrity endorsements can be used by the company because of the following motives: To refresh the image of the brand. Celebrities give new scope to the image of the brand. To spread the ideas. Immediate credibility or also with the motive for public relation exposure. To convince the audience. For Brand Awareness & Recall. Maas appeal Many research articles have been published on the advantages of celebrity endorsement which explain and proved the above point in different manner. Apart from the above, researcher believed that celebrity endorsement also increase the sales of the product and it also work beneficial at the time of brand crisis. Multiple celebrity endorsement: It is very common in advertisement that a brand or product is endorsed by a single celebrity endorsement for a long period of time. But now most marketers believed in multiplies celebrity endorsement, in other words, use of two or more celebrity in an advertising campaign. Pepsi and coke for example use this technique. (Hsu and Macdonald 2002) Umm (2008) divide celebrity endorsement according to the number of products endorsed (single product vs. multiple products) or number of celebrities doing the endorsement (single celebrity vs. multiple celebrities). He defines Single product endorsement refers to an endorsement by a celebrity for one product or one brand. In single product endorsements celebrity endorses one brand and not other brands or products. But in today advertisement scenario single celebrity is very rare most of the company believed in multiple celebrity endorsement Multiple celebrity endorsement refers to the use of two or more celebrities in an advertising campaign (um 2008). According to him there are two sub-types of multiple celebrity Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 241

4 endorsement based on how a celebrity or celebrities are featured in ads: one is when two or more celebrities come simultaneously for a brand or product in same ad (e.g. Pepsi ads); second is when different celebrities endorse the same product or brand in a series of advertisement campaigns overtime. It is a common advertising practice for a brand or product to be associated with various celebrities over a long period of time. Pepsi and coke are good example. To promote there products and enhance its brand image Pepsi and cock both have been using different celebrities for different advertising campaigns. Many academic researchers suggested that "multiple celebrity endorsement advertising may help the advertiser build a sense of consensus, avoid audience boredom and appeal to multiple audiences. In India many products are advertised by second type of multiple celebrities endorsement i.e. different celebrities endorsed the same product or brand. The main purposes behind this to target different set of audience who speckled in terms of beliefs, ethnicity, states, culture, language, dialects, norms and values. This table shows the brand which is endorsed by different star to target different set of customer: Brand National brand ambassador (or for northern belt) Regional or South India brand ambassador Fair and Handsome Shahrukh Khan Surya Pepsi Ranbir Kapoor Ram Charan Tej, previously Pawan Kalyan Kurkure Juhi Chawla Simran Navratna Oil Amitabh Bachchan Suriya, Mahesh Babu Tata Indicom Kajol Trisha Fanta (previous campaign) Rani Mukherjee Trisha Perk (previous campaign) Preity Zinta Trisha Idea Cellular Abhishek Bachchan Siddharth ThumsUp Akshay Kumar Mahesh Babu, previously Chiranjeevi Vivel Shampoo Hrithik Roshan Trisha 7Up Mallika Sherawat (previously) Allu Arjun Reference: On the basis of empirical finding Macdonald and Hsu 2002 concluded that an advertiser multiple celebrity endorsement may help in reducing the audience boredom and it also helps to appeal multiple audiences. They further suggested that marketers will have to manage carefully the fit between the endorsed product and celebrities. Marketer should carefully manage the endorser in order to effectively appeal audience without confusing them about the product or brand image. Umm (2008) found in his research that multiple product endorsements received a higher ad and brand evaluation as well as a higher purchase intention than a single product endorsement., multiple product endorsements do not cause any negative feelings toward the celebrity who endorses more than two product (or brands) at the same time. But according to some researcher multiple celebrity endorsement some time (if not manage well) causes overexposure and overuse. Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 242

5 Is celebrity really work? Patel (2009) found in his research that celebrity endorsement helps as attracting the customer and it increase the sales of the product. In his resent study he also found that maximum audience felt that positive characteristics of celebrities were transferred to the product. His research also reveals the truth that celebrity endorsement increases the expectation of the customer. So we can say that celebrity endorsements really working so that s Way Company spend billions of dollars. One reason for the growing popularity of celebrity because product or brand which is endorses by the celebrities often achieve a higher degree of attention and recall from consumers therefore customers are more likely to choose those products and services which endorsed by celebrities than those which is without such endorsements (Agrawal and Kamakura, 1995). Other research also suggested that and celebrity endorsed products have been given more attention by the customer than non celebrity endorsement products. Researchers believe that endorsement of celebrity affects feeling of consumer in general and it could affect the consumer attitude towards the advertisement and brand (Ranjubarian, Momeni, 2010). Celebrity Endorsement helps in attracting customers Celebrity Endorsement increase sales of the products Celebrity Endorsement increase the expectation of the Products High degree of recall and creating Positive image in the mind of the viewers Helps in avoiding audience boredom Theories and modals: In this section, the conception of celebrity endorser, major models on celebrity endorsers, criteria of selecting celebrity endorsers and related studies are reviewed. Discussed below are four major models of the selection of celebrity endorsers. Source credibility model, source attractiveness model, match-up hypothesis and meaning transfer model (MTM) have all been used to provide theoretical background in explaining the effects of celebrity endorsement in advertising. Source effect models emphasize the characteristics of the source or the message sender and whether he or she is credible or attractive. The match-up hypothesis suggests that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement depends on the existence of a fit between the celebrity endorser and the endorsed brand. As opposed to source models and match-up hypothesis, the meaning transfer model by McCracken (1989) explains the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement by assessing the meanings consumers associate with the endorser which is then transferred to the brand. 1) Source credibility Source credibility is defined as a communicator's (celebrity) positive feature that affects the receiver's (audience) acceptance of a message (Ohanian 1990). The source credibility model argued that the effectiveness of a message depends on perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the endorser (Ohanian 1991). These two dimension of sources credibility are - expertise and trustworthiness - emphasize the concept of the source credibility (Ohanian Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 243

6 1990).expertise means ability of the communicators to make valid statement and trustworthiness refers willingness of the communicators to make valid statement trustworthiness include honesty, integrity and believability of communicators. These attributes of trustworthiness are depends on the perception of the receiver or target audience. According to Kelman (1961), credible source's information can influence the audience beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and behavior through a process called internalization. Many researchers believed that information from credible source inclined customer to purchase the products. Many empirical studies observed that effectiveness of using credible spokespersons to enhance the persuasiveness of messages. It is therefore very much important to select the credible spaceperson for products and services but it is very difficult, who is credible and how marketer select the credible candidate. For solving this issue Ohino (1990) developed a scale for measuring celebrity endorsers' perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. In order to get credible stockperson many marketer believes in expert endorsement rather than celebrity endorsement, it means advertisement of brand by an experts. Company selects expert because of their Knowledge and experience in the products and services that is to be promoted. They are more credible since they gather their knowledge through studies, training or experiences. Oral B (tooth brush) uses dentist in his advertisement is a example of expert endorsement. 2) Source Attractiveness Model Source attractiveness is related to physical attributes or feature of endorsers, there are three dimension of source Attractive modal; these are Similarity, Familiarity, and Likeability. Similarity means expected likeness between sources (endorser) and receiver (audience). Familiarity refers to the knowledge or awareness of the product and Likeability means personality (appearance) of the source. The source attractiveness model contends that the effectiveness of a message depends on sources' familiarity, likeability, similarity, to the respondent. (Ohanian 1990). Again Ohanian in 1991 investigated the relationship of attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise to intention to purchase and found that only the perceived expertise of a celebrity was a significant factor in generating more intentions to buy the brand. The author suggests that for celebrity spokespersons to be truly effective, they should be knowledgeable, experienced and qualified to talk about the product. Information from a credible source (e.g. celebrity) can influence beliefs, opinions, attitudes and behaviors of the receiver (audience) through a process called internalizations (Erdogan 1999). Many other authors also claimed that attractiveness may not be the only factor that is effective in the promotion of the product. Other qualities like expertise are equally important in product promotion campaign in the celebrity endorsement. 3.Match-Up Hypothesis The match-up hypothesis suggests that the effectiveness depends on the existence of a 'fit' between the celebrity and the products and brand (Till and Busler 1998). In other words, the degree of consumers' perceived 'fit' between an advertised brand and a celebrity endorser's image plays a significant role in product and ad-based evaluations. The research in match up hypothesis suggested that image of the celebrity should be match with the image of the product. Marketer should search the celebrity that will fit with the product. Appropriateness Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 244

7 of the match or fit between celebrity and product or brand can give more favorable effect on the consumer. 4.Meaning Transfer Model (MTM) McCracen (1989) claimed that source credibility doesn t allow the comparison between the celebrity and it also not gives the reason that why some celebrity are success in one product endorsement and flop in other product endorsement. According to him effectiveness depends upon the meanings that celebrities bring to the product. Meaning transfer model is based on the concept of meanings which the celebrities have. Celebrities contain a verity of meanings witch involving demographic categories like age, gender, and status and as well as personality and lifestyle types. Meaning transfer model provides insight to explaining the complicated process of celebrity endorsements in advertising. According to McCraken's (1989) meaning transfer follows three stages. First, the meaning associated with a celebrity moves from the endorser to the product or brand. Second, meanings attributed to the celebrity become associated with the brand in the consumer's mind. And lastly, the brand's meaning is acquired by the consumer in the consumption process. The final stage of this model underscores the importance of consumer's role in the process. McCracken (1989) suggests using a meaning transfer perspective; the attributes of the celebrity are understood and move from celebrity to consumer good and from good to consumer. This Figure illustrates McCracken s model of meaning movement from celebrities to consumers. Figure: Meaning Movement and the Endorsement Process. In a nut shell we can say the source models, the match-up hypothesis, and the meaning transfer model provides a theoretical support which explaining the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. These models have plays an important role in developing our understanding about the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 245

8 Negative impacts of Celebrity Endorsement on the brand: It is true that celebrity endowment have many potential benefits. It helps in creating the brand image or it increases the sales but however, there are many risks associated with such endorsers. The brand could fall down just as quickly as it moved up the consumers mind. There are many cases of brands failing in the market place despite famous celebrities endorsing them. The brand or products can be fall down because of any of the following reason:- a) Celebrity overshadows the brand: According to some researcher, sometime celebrity become more famous than the brand in celebrity endorsement this risk generally happen where the celebrity values category benefit and brand values are not closely linked. Here celebrity is remembered to the consumer more than a brand. b) Overuse: Overuse is another possible risk associated with the celebrity endorsement. When a product or brand is endorsed by variety of celebrity might damage the image of the brand. This has been empirical proved by the Tripp in c) Overexposure: when a celebrity endorsed several brand simultaneously, it some time confused the customer and dilute the credibility of the celebrity. Tripp et al (1994) investigated the effects of multiple product endorsement by celebrities on customers' attitudes and intentions. They found that the number of products a celebrity endorses negatively influences consumer perception of the endorser and the advertising itself. d) Negative information: according to till (1998) many companies have been badly affected by the negative publicity of celebrity. Companies whose product is endorsed feel embracement when celebrity involved activities like murder, rape, drug scandal. This erodes the brand image. For new brand this risk is higher in compression to established brand. (e.g tigherwood, Salman Khan) e) Financial risk: Companies hire celebrity on very high cost. Companies give remuneration to the celebrities on the basis of status. Some time companies have profit sharing contracts with the celebrity for long period of time so budget or cost is an important factor for celebrity endorsement. Researcher claims that the endorsers who appear to have the highest potential, generally they are most popular and therefore they are most expensive to hire as endorser. In a situation like this advertiser must decide if the celebrity is worth the investment. f) Performance of athlete celebrity: hiring athlete celebrity is much riskier than hiring actors or actress in the advertisement because consumers judge them on the basis of their performance which is generally not uniform. g) Conflicting image: when celebrities image not match with the brand or product image; it give negative impression in the eyes of the audience. And causes hazardous for the brand endorsed. Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 246

9 Conclusion: As we have discussed that Celebrity endorsement is a popular marketing technique which is adapted around the world. According to McCracken 1989, one of the main reasons for using celebrity endorsement is to create better image in the mind of the audience/ consumer for the product or brand by transferring symbolic meaning from the celebrity to the product or brand. Celebrities have different lifestyle and personality meaning which customer associated with the products. On the other hand match up hypothesis theory suggested that effectiveness of celebrity endorsement depend upon the fit between celebrity and product. Every Company likes to hire celebrities who have credibility in the market, who have attractiveness (Similarity, Familiarity, and Likeability) but with low risk. But this kind of celebrity is very difficult to find. Popular and likable Celebrity generally charges more money than those who are not much popular, and also they endorses multiple brand/product which causes the risk like Overuse and Overexposure.To find an appropriate celebrity, the marketer not only consider the celebrity s credibility, physical attractiveness and, but also be aware of the risk. In order to reduce the risk which is associated with athlete and actors/actress in endorsement of brand, company can go for expert endorsement. Experts are also a kind of celebrity and such experts are more credible in particular area. References: Agrawal, J and KamaKura, W.A. (1995), The Economic worth of Celebrity Endorsers: an Event Study Analysis, Journal of Marketing, Vol.59, No. 3, pp Bailey A A and Klaus N (2008), Celebrity Endorsements: An Examination of Gender and Consumers Attitudes American journal of business, Vol 23, No 2 Debevec, K., Lyler, E., (1986). The Influence of Spokesperson in Altering a Product s Gender Image: Implications for Advertising Effectiveness, Journal of Advertising, 15, Erdogan, B. Z. (1999), Celebrity endorsement: a literature review, Journal of Marketing Management, Vol. 15, Iss. 4, pp Joshi V, Ahluwalia S (2008), The Impact of Celebrity Endorsements on Consumer Brand Preferences Kamins, M. A. (1990), An investigation into the 'Match-Up' hypothesis in celebrity advertising: when beauty may be only skin deep, Journal of Advertising, Vol. 19, Iss.1, pg Katyal S (2008), Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on a Brand chillibreeze writer Mcdonand and Hsu (2002), An examination on multiple celebrity endorsers in advertising journal of product and brand management Vol 11 no 1 Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 247

10 MCCRACKEN, G. (1989) Who Is the Celebrity Endorser? Cultural Foundation of the Endorsement Process Journal of Consumer Research 16 (3), OHANIAN, R Construction and Validation of a Scale to Measure Celebrity Endorser's Perceived Expertise, Trustworthiness and Attractiveness. Journal of Advertising 19 (3), OHANIAN, R The Impact of Celebrity Spokesperson's Perceived Image on Consumers' Intention to Purchase. Journal of Advertising Research, 31 February/March) Puja K (2006), Celebrity Endorsement: A Strategic Promotion Perspective Indian Media Studies Journal Vol.1 No.1 Ranjbarian B, Shekarchizade Z and Momani Z (2010), Celebrity Endorser Influence on attitude Toward Advertisements and brand European Journal Of social Science Vol.13 No.3 TILL, B. D., AND M. BUSLER (1998), Matching Products with Endorsers: Attractiveness versus Expertise Journal of Consumer Marketing 15 (6), Till B D (1996), Negative publicity and endorsed brand: the moderating effect of straight and timing of negative publicity American academy of advertising Till B D (1998), Endorser in advertising: the case of negative celebrity information journal of marketing. Tripp C, Jenson T D & Carson L (1994) the effect of multiple product endorsement by celebrities on consumer attitude and intension, journal of consumer research Um NH (2008), Exploring the Effects of Single vs. Multiple Products and Multiple Celebrity Endorsements Journal of Management and Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2, (Fall 2008) Zimmerman J, Parameswaran L, and Kurapati K (2002), Celebrity Recommender Philips Research and Philips Design OTHER 1) Celebrity management is still evolving in India, ET, 3 FEB 2010 ( 2) Celebrity endorsements in South India the next Big thing ( *** Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 248