Transcription
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY ON CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT: ADOUBLE- EDGED SWORD1,2Dr.V.N.Bajpai1, Dr. Satish Kumar2Professor, Institute of Technology & Science, Ghaziabad, U P, IndiaABSTRACTThe endorsement can work as a powerbooster for any brand or product. It is a typeof communication in which one personspeaks in the favor of brand, product orservice. People appreciate those who haveinfluence and/ or had already used the brandand words of mouth generated by any suchpersonality (celebrity) act as a final stamp onthe consumers’ decision-making process.Celebrity endorsement has become one of themost powerful ways of promotion. Use offamous celebrities is a popular way toenhance the brand image and thus toincrease sales, followed by almost everycompany. India is a country, which hasalways idolized the stars power of thecelluloid world. At the same time this hasgiven birth to a controversial issue ofwhether it really contributes to the brandbuilding process and thus sales or it is justanother gimmick which does not lead to anyvalue creation except adding on cost, which isultimately passed on to the end users. Hence,it becomes a key issue to investigate whetheradvertisements that endorse celebrities haveany positive impact on people and do theyreally contribute to the additional value forthe end users and company as a whole. Thestudy uses a descriptive research approachand non-probability sampling design(convenience method) for the collection ofdata.Data were collected from 530respondents covering the areas of NCR (NearCapital Region) including Delhi, Ghaziabad,Noida and Greater Noida.Key Words: NCR, Celebrity, EndorsementINTRODUCTION:Signing film personalities and famoussportsperson for product/ service endorsementhas been among top priorities of companies fora long time worldwide. In India, HindustanLever Ltd. can be traced as a pioneer that hasroped in Bollywood stars for the endorsementof their beauty soap brand ‘Lux’ since 1950s.The trend became popular and eventually alarge number of companies have started takingthis route of mass advertising for their products.Now the popular brands of almost everycompany have been leveraging mass appeal ofcelebrities. Now the popular brands of almostevery company have been leveraging massappeal of celebrities. As soon as a new faceascends on the popularity charts, companiesqueue up to have it splashed all over. Thespectacular rise of Sania Mirza, M S Dhoni,Irfan Pathan, Rajya Vardhan Rathod (OlympicGold Medal Winner for India), DeepikaPadukone and now Virat Kohli, Sushant SinghRajpoot, P V Sindhu in endorsements are fewexamples. If the communicator and receiverhave identical needs, goals, interests, andlifestyles, the position advocated by the sourceis better understood and received. That is whyso many commercials choose as their modelsomeone who is “from the target group”. Anexample could be the stereotyped housewife inan advertising film of washing powder whoseaim is to persuade the segment described as“housewife”. This would especially prove trueif the endorser and the category are a naturallifestyle fit like sportspersons and health drink(M S Dhoni - Boost), film stars and beautyproducts (Kareena Kapoor – Lux) or elegantpersonality and formal wear (AmitabhBachchan - Reid & Taylor).ISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201747
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)Endorsement DefinedAn endorsement is a vote of approval forsomething. It is a signature that that sement can include approval that may bedefined as fixing up a celebrity to represent theproduct/ service in a way so as to develop amaximum fit among celebrity, brand andconsumer by featuring in advertisement for thefirm.Celebrity DefinedA widely known person. A celebrity is a personwho is famously recognized in a society.Fame: the state or quality of being widelyhonored and acclaimed. The characteristics ofcelebrity can be summed up as: A celebrity is highly visible-well known. A celebrity is usually recognized for someform of talent, beauty, or material quality. A celebrity is usually recognized for aperformance. A celebrity's image or recognition in themedia may changeGlobalization and power that modern mediahold over the consumers societies havecontributed to the popularity of variouscelebrities.Celebrity endorsers have public images, whichare built from varying aspects of life, like status,class, gender, age, personality, lifestyle,profession & value systems. According toFowles (1996), advertiser's rationale for hiringcelebrities to endorse products is that peopleconsume images of celebrities and advertisers inhope that people will also consume productsassociated with these celebrities. Similarlyevery product has an image. The consumer triesto consume a brand which has the maximum fitwith his/her own personality/image. Thecelebrity endorser fits in between these twointeractions, where he tries to bring the imageof the product closer to the expectation of theconsumer, by transferring some of the culturalmeanings residing in his image to the product.This association among the celebrity (endorser),product and the target consumer is essentiallybased on the theoretical framework of ClassicalConditioning given by Ivan Pavlov.(Source: Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on Overall Brand By Ankur Khera & Rahul Chowdhury,MDI, merC1.E B: Represents the common characteristics(Characteristics Fit) between endorser and brand.2.B C: Represents the common characteristics(Characteristics Fit) between brand and consumer.3.C E: Represents the common characteristics(Characteristics Fit) between consumer andendorser.4.E B C: Represents the optimum characteristicsfit among endorser, brand and consumer, whichcompanies aims to leverage.ISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201748
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)LITERATURE REVIEW:As per a research by Mooij (1994) andHofstede (1984), Global marketing faces manycultural roadblocks such as time, space,language, relationships, power, risk, masculinity,feminity. Celebrities help in entering newmarkets by breaking such roadblocks. Acelebrity having a universal appeal or acelebrity of the target country can act as asource of recognition by the market.Agrawal and Kamakura(1995) in theirresearch on “The impact of celebrityendorsement contracts on firm profitability”found that the economic worth of celebrityendorsers justifies the large costs they incur.The findings of the research suggests that theimpact of these endorsements on stock returnsis positive, which suggests that celebrityendorsement contracts are generally viewed as afruitful investment. They further stated thatendorsersmakeadvertisementsmorebelievable, enhance the recognition of a brandname, create a positive attitude towards thebrand name and create a unique and distinctpersonality for the brandThe findings of research by Bandyopadhyay,Kindra and Sharp (2001) proves that childrenfeel validated in their choice of product when acelebrity endorses it and the impact on childrenbecomes even more if the endorsement is doneby their favorite characters.According to Kambitsis et al. (2002) today theuse of celebrity in advertising strategies isbecoming more and more sophisticated andcomplicated. As a large numbers of short-livedcelebrities are emerging on a daily basis. Hence,it becomes very important to investigatewhether such endorsement advertisements haveany socio-ethical implications.Sabunwala Zohra (Nov., 2013) in the researchpaper “Impact of Celebrity Brand Endorsementon Brand Image and Product Purchases- Astudy for Pune region of India” concluded thatCelebrity Endorsements significantly impactsBrand Differentiation. Most of the beverageuser associate themselves with the brand andestablishescongruencebetweentheirpersonality and that of brand’s. They establish alinkage between their lifestyle and that of brandwhich prompts them to go for a particular brandirrespective of price, availability or any otherfactor. Various industry researches have alsoendorsed the findings that celebrities do createbrand differentiation. Another major conclusionthat was drawn from the study is that CelebrityEndorsement significantly impact Brand Image.Kasana Jyoti and Chaudhary Naveen ((2014), intheir research paper on Impact of CelebrityEndorsement on Consumer Buying Behaviour:A Descriptive Study concluded that despite thepotential benefits derived from celebrityendorsements, they increase a marketer‘s riskmanifolds and should be treated with fullattention and aptitude. They suggested thatbrand should be cautious when employingcelebrities to ensure promise believability anddelivery of the intended effect. They alsopointed out the growing importance of mythicalcharacters as celebrities.Randhawa Anmol and Khan Javed Ahmed(2014) in their research paper on “Impact ofCelebrity Endorsement on Consumer BuyingBehaviour” found that Celebrity endorsementenhances product information and createsawareness among consumers. It helps them torecall the brands of the endorsed products.Celebrity Endorsed Ads persuade customers topurchase products rather than non celebrityendorsed Ads, Comic character Ads, ExecutiveAds and Fiction Ads. He also concluded that agood number of respondents believe thatcelebrities are not using those products whichthey themselves endorse and most of therespondents believe that frequent changes incelebrity for advertising the product reduce thepurchasing decision of customers.The present study has been built upon the issuesemerged from the above studies carried out atdifferent point of time by the above mentionedresearchers. In subsequent sections of this studyan empirical investigation has been done tomeet the purpose.OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY:1.Tostudyifcelebrityendorsements have any positiveor negative impacts on consumerdecision making.2.To study the influence ofcelebrity endorsement acrossgender (male and female).3.To study whether brands benefitfrom celebrity endorsement.ISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201749
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:The present research is descriptive in nature asit aims at describing if celebrity endorsementshave any positive impact on the consumers andtheir decision making process.Hypotheses:In order to ensure effective analysis andunderstanding of data collected for the purposeof this study, the following null hypotheseshave been formulated:Ho 1. Celebrity endorsements have no specificpositive impacts on consumer buying decisionmakingHo 2.There is no significant differencebetween male and female consumers withrespect positive impacts of endorsementadvertising.Sampling Design:Sampling Unit- The sample unit of thestudy is entire national capital region (NCR),Ghaziabad, Noida and Greater Noida. Bothrural and urban areas are being covered for thepurpose.Sample size – Because of the time andfinancial constraints a sample has been drawnas a representative of the universe. Sample sizeis 530.The sample consist of both male andfemale (365 male and 165 female) from therural as well as its urban counterpart of theselected areas of NCR, Ghaziabad, Noida andGreater Noida.Data Collection Instrument – A wellstructured questionnaire consisting five pointLikert’s scale ranging from “Strongly agree” to“Strongly disagree” has been used to measurethe response to each statement (items).Cronbach’s Alpha scale has been used as ameasure of reliability. Its value is estimated as0.778, which indicates high level of scalereliability.Tools of Data Analysis - t-test has beenused to study the association between variousvariables as well as to study the associationbetween quantitative and qualitative variables.SPSS has been used for analysis purpose.Data Analysis and interpretation:1. Gender Distribution of Respondents (Male/ Female)Gender Distribution ofRespondents (Male/ Female)Gender Distribution of Respondents(Male/ Female)Percentage The above illustration represents the genderdistribution status of respondents in terms oftheir belongingness to male or female groups.68.83% respondents fall under male groupwhereas only 31.13% respondents are therepresentative of female counterpart. In this,male representatives are roughly more thandouble than that of female representatives.Analysis and Interpretation: IIIn this section, the data obtained throughquestionnaire have been analyzed. Thequestionnaire consists of 12 statementsFemalepertaining to positive impacts of endorsementadvertising. Following tables present analysis ofdata pertaining to these 12 statements. The table1 presents mean scores of all statements acrossmale and female respondents and overall meanscore. The table 2 shows comparison of meanswith the help of t-test. For each of thesedimensions, t-test has been used to assesswhether there exists significant difference in themean value of opinions between male andfemale respondents.ISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201750
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)TABLE-I : Gender wise as well as overall mean scoreS. No StatementsMean ScoreMale1Use of celebrity makes an advertisement3.64interesting.2Advertisement featuring celebrities are3.84instantly recognized.3Use of celebrity makes an advertisement3.96memorable for a long time4Advertisements endorsed by celebrities3.83motivate people to buy the product.5Use of celebrity in advertisements3.98increases brand ve endorsers is more appealing.7Advertisement casting female endorsers is3.61more appealing.8Celebrities contribute a lot to build up the3.44credibility of an advertisement.9Consumers tend to be more positive aboutthe product/ service when it is endorsed3.76by a matching celebrity.10Fan Effect” plays an important role in3.77purchase decision.11Celebrities contribute to the improved3.72image of the company.12Use of celebrities in advertisementsrelated to social issues can be more4.32effective and helpful.Mean ScoreFemaleOverallMean 2Table-II: Independent Samples TestIndependent Samples TestLevene's Testfor Equality oft-test for Equality of MeansVariancesStatementsSig.MeanFSig.tdf(2-tailed) DifferenceUse of celebrity makes an0.000 0.984-0.7955280.427-0.080advertisement interesting.-0.784 306.0960.434-0.080Advertisementfeaturing5.440 0.020-2.1335280.033-0.177celebritiesare instantly-2.217 348.4790.027-0.177recognized.Use of celebrity makes an1.219 0.270-2.7835280.006-0.230advertisement memorable for-2.990 378.9770.003-0.230a long timeAdvertisements endorsed by0.001 0.9751.5215280.1290.139celebrities motivate people to1.598 357.9910.1110.139buy the product.Useofcelebrityin1.252 3 369.8310.2710.081brand recall.ISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201751
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH orsers is more appealing.Advertisement having femaleendorsers is more appealing.0.0500.0360.849Celebrities contribute a lot tobuild up the credibility of anadvertisement.Consumers tend to be morepositive about the product/service when it is endorsedby a matching celebrity."Fan Effect" plays animportant role in purchasedecision.Celebrities contribute to theimproved image of thecompany.Useofcelebritiesinadvertisements related tosocial issues can be moreeffective and 0390.0720.241Interpretation:1.It has been observed from the table 1that overall agreement for the statement“Useofcelebritymakesanadvertisement interesting” is on thehigher side. When we look at theanalysis of statement across male andfemale respondents, no significantdifference could be observed betweenmean scores of opinion expressed bymale and female respondents. The valueof t confirms to our analysis.2.Overall analysis of statement that“Advertisement featuring celebrities areinstantly recognized.” presents thatrespondents have shown reasonablyhigher degree of agreement for thestatement. It is very much clear thatfemale respondents are in moreagreement than their male counterparts.There is a visible difference of opinionbetween male and female respondentsfor the statement. The value of t issignificant at 0.05 level and hasconfirmed our analysis.3.When the statement “Use of celebritymakes an advertisement memorable fora long time” was put to analysis, overallit has been found that agreement levelfor this proposition is very high. It .5.also been found that female respondentsare in more agreement with thisstatement than their male counterparts.There is a visible difference of opinionbetween male and female respondentsfor the statement. The value of t issignificant at 0.05 level and hasconfirmed our analysis.It has been observed from the table 1that overall respondents have exhibited ahigher degree of agreement for thestatement “Advertisements endorsed bycelebrities motivate people to buy theproduct”. But when we look at table 2and compare the mean score of opinionof male and female respondents, wefound that there is no significantdifference of opinion between male andfemale respondents with regard to thisstatement. The value of t has confirmedour analysis.When the statement “Use of celebrity inadvertisements increases brand recall.”was put to analysis, overall it has beenobserved that the general agreementlevel is on the higher side. On furtheranalyzing the statement across male andfemale respondents, no significantdifference could be observed betweenmean scores of opinion expressed byISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201752
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)6.7.8.9.male and female respondents. The valueof t confirms to our analysis.Overall analysis of statement that“Advertisementhavingphysicallyattractive endorsers is more appealing”suggests that general agreement for thisproposition is reasonably high. Thecross gender analysis of this statementdoes not depict any significantdifference of opinion between male andfemale respondents. The t-test confirmsthe same.When we look at the analysis ofstatement“Advertisementcastingfemale endorsers is more appealing”,overall agreement is on the higher side.The cross gender analysis of meanscores shows no significant difference ofopinion male and female respondents forthe proposition. The value of t confirmsto our analysis.The overall analysis of statement“Celebrities contribute a lot to build upthe credibility of an advertisement”presents that there is moderately highdegree of agreement for this statement.The gender wise analysis of mean scoresdoes not demonstrate any significantdifference of opinion between male andfemale respondents. The t-test confirmsthe same.When the statement “Consumers tend tobe more positive about the product/service when it is endorsed by amatching celebrity’ was put to analysis,overall it has been found thatrespondentshaveexhibitedasignificantly higher degree of agreementfor this statement. Further gender wiseanalysis of this statement does notdemonstrate any significant differenceof opinion between male and femalerespondents. The t-test confirms thesame.10.11.12.Conclusions and Recommendations:In the present paper, efforts has been put toanalyse the positive impacts of endorsementadvertising from customers’ perspective. Themajor independent variables used for diagnosisof the opinions of respondents with respect topositive impacts of endorsement advertisementinclude only the cross gender analysis.Overall conclusions of cross tabulation: Theoverall conclusion based on t-test has beenpresented in the following table:Table III: Acceptance/Rejection of null hypothesis.S. No Statements123Use of celebrity makes an advertisementinteresting.Advertisement featuring celebrities areinstantly recognized.Use of celebrity makes an advertisementmemorable for a long timeWhen we look at the analysis ofstatement that "Fan Effect" plays animportant role in purchase decision”overall we observe that the generalagreement level for the statement ismoderately high. No visible differenceof opinion between male and femalerespondents could be observed for thestatement. The t-test has confirmed toour analysis.Overall analysis of statement that“Celebrities contribute to the improvedimage of the company” presents thatthere is moderately higher degree ofagreement for this proposition. Furthermean score wise analysis of data doesnotdemonstrateanysignificantdifference of opinion between male andfemale respondents. The t-test confirmsthe same.When the statement “Use of celebrities inadvertisements related to social issuescan be more effective and helpful” wasput to analysis; overall it has been foundthat agreementlevel for this propositionis extremely high. Further gender wiseanalysis of this statement does notdemonstrate any significant difference ofopinion between male and femalerespondents. The t-test confirms thesame.Acceptance/Rejectionof null hypothesisAcceptedRejectedRejectedISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201753
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)456789101112Advertisements endorsed by celebritiesmotivate people to buy the product.Use of celebrity in advertisementsincreases brand recall.Advertisementcastingphysicallyattractive endorsers is more appealing.Advertisement casting female endorsers ismore appealing.Celebrities contribute a lot to build up thecredibility of an advertisement.Consumers tend to be more positive aboutthe product/ service when it is endorsedby a matching celebrity.Fan Effect plays an important role inpurchase decision.Celebrities contribute to the improvedimage of the company.Use of celebrities in advertisementsrelated to social issues can be moreeffective and helpful.Rejected: 02Accepted: 10The analysis presented in the above table shows10 approvals and 2 disapprovals of nullhypotheses which reflects that there is nosignificant difference between male and femalerespondents with respect to impacts ofendorsement advertising in decision making. Itcan be concluded that respondents do notexhibit significant variations when the data isanalysed on the basis of gender. It can besuggested that gender does not constitute animportant factor while determining thedifference among respondents with respect totheir opinion towards the positive impacts ofendorsement advertising.Observations:In the backdrop of all these findings theresearcher seeks to make the followingrecommendations: It has been found that the majority ofrespondents feels that advertisementsfeaturing celebrities are very interesting,instantly recognized and stays in memoryfor a long time. Marketers therefore, aresuggested to go ahead full throttle withtheir endorsed advertisements. Findings reflect that there is no significantdifference in the opinion of male andfemale respondents for most of thestatements. This reflects that as such tedAcceptedAcceptedAcceptedis no need of carving different advertisingstrategy to target male and female groups. It has been found that majority of peopleget motivated by endorsement advertisingto buy the product. Also e, it is suggested that the in orderto influence the consumer behaviour intheirfavour,marketerscanuseendorsement advertising as an effectivetool. It has been found that the majority ofrespondents feel the influence of ‘Faneffect’. Marketers are suggested tocapitalize on Fan effect. Fan effect suggeststhat celebrity endorsers will be moreeffective for brands for which consumershave limited knowledge/facts. Non government organizations, Socialsector or Government sector are alsorecommended to promote various socialideas with the help of endorsementadvertising as it has been reflected by thefindings that celebrities may be of greathelp in advertising for social ideas. Marketers are always in need of a force topush their newly developed products in themarket. As per the findings of the research,celebrity endorsement is that recommendedforce.In a nut shell, it can be concluded that approvalof a brand by a star fosters a sense of trust forISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201754
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CURRENT ENGINEERING AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (IJCESR)that brand and generates the feeling ofbelongingness among the target audience.Celebrities ensure attention of the target groupby breaking the clutter of advertisements andmaking the ad and the brand more noticeable.This holds even truer in case of the BRANDCONSUMER - ENDORSER triad has a perfectfit. In all, the endorsement advertising has beenaccepted as a force by the respondents, whichaffects their purchase decisions, moulds theirbehaviour.References1. Dipankar Ganguly (2010), “A india.com/1100509/jsp/calcutta/story 12428643.jsp2. orsement.asp3. http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID 1834. Belch, G.E., & Belch M.A. (2001).Advertising and Promotion: An IntegratedMarketing Communications Perspective5th edition. New York: McGraw-HillCompanies Inc.5. EndorsementDefined(2000)–http://www.Sticky Marketing.com6. Dr Anna Murdoch (2006), “Creativity inAdvertising”, Website: http://www.esgh.p1/cia/celebrityendorsement.pdf7. Zimmerman, John and Ayoob, Ellen(2005), “The Role of products inConsumer-CelebrityRelationships”,Proceedings of Conference: design andMemory, Product as a promise ofExperience.8. Kaikati,J.G.(1987),“CelebrityAdvertising: A Review and Synthesis”,International Journal of Advertising, 6:2,pp. 93-105.9. Lilly Ellily Elizabeth (2004), “Thechanging nature of celebrity fromentertainer to entrepreneur: Oprah wn.edu/academics/theses10. Rishi Chaudhary and Amit Mittal (2006),“CelebrityEndorsementandTVAdvertisement Believability: A study ofMulti-Brand Endorsement”, Review ofProfessional Management, 4 , pp. 39-46.11. keting/ISSN (PRINT): 2393-8374, (ONLINE): 2394-0697, VOLUME-4, ISSUE-9, 201755
celebrity having a universal appeal or a celebrity of the target country can act as a source of recognition by the market. Agrawal and Kamakura(1995) in their research on "The impact of celebrity endorsement contracts on firm profitability" found that the economic worth of celebrity
