Effect of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising Activities

Celebrity endorsement advertising has been recognized as a "ubiquitous feature of modern day marketing" (McCracken 1989; Keller 2008). Furthermore, celebrity endorsement activity has been increasing over the past years (Biswas, Hussain & O’Donnell 2009).

From 1984 to 1999, there was a reported eleven-fold increase in sponsorship spending, representing $23.16 billion or 7.0% of the worldwide advertising budget (Meenaghen 2001; Pope, Voges & Brown 2009). Some estimates suggest that one quarter of all commercials screened in the United States include celebrity endorsers (Till & Shimp 1998). Athletes, both amateur and professional, as well as musicians, television and movie stars, and even animated spokescharacters, such as Mickey Mouse, are used to promote and bring awareness to products and services through sponsorship campaigns. The main goal of using celebrities in advertising is to generate publicity and attention to the brand (Biswas, Hussain & O’Donnell 2009) as well as influence consumer perceptions of the brand stemming from their knowledge of the celebrity (Keller 2008). This requires that the celebrity must be well known in order to have the desired effect (Keller 2008). Kaikati (1987) expressed five advantages to employing celebrities to endorse products: drawing attention, crisis management, brand repositioning, global marketing, and boosting sales.

Biswas et al. (2009) found that the reasons for recalling celebrities included, popularity, status symbol, attractiveness and glamour, likeability and recall value or familiarity of the celebrities. The increased awareness and attention resulting from celebrity advertising is thought to combat the challenge of advertising clutter and bring instant credibility and brand recall to consumers. Pope, Voges and Brown (2009) found that sponsorship positively affects an individual’s perception of a brand’s quality and image. Products that may be of inferior quality to their competitors, or have fewer features can benefit from using a high profile celebrity to pitch them to consumers. The target market of campaigns must be considered when selecting spokespeople and whether a celebrity is the best medium to reach them with. Biswas et al. (2009) found that people aged 18-25 have the greatest ability to recall brands as a result of celebrity advertising compared with older age groups. The main reason for this result is that the older age group is looking for greater product information in advertisements, whereas celebrity campaigns focus on the feelings and perception of the consumer.

In addition, the placement of celebrity advertisements in sites like youtube.com or metacafe.com, where most viewers are relatively younger, information rich, and Internet savvy, suggests that celebrity-based advertisements are no longer limited to traditional campaign media (Biswas et al. 2009). This helps overcome the problem that the younger age groups typically change channels during television commercials or use disruptive technologies such as TiVo and DVR to bypass commercials (Biswas et al. 2009). Different cultures react differently to the use of celebrity spokespeople. Developing economies, such as that of India, have vastly different dimensions of culture as outlined by Hofstede (1997). Using Hofstede’s framework, Biswas et al. (2009) suggest that due to a high power-distance relationship within India’s culture, there is a vast gap in lifestyles between consumers and celebrities. Due to the extreme differences in lifestyle between consumers and celebrities, the majority of respondents in the Biswas et al. (2009) research did not believe that celebrities use in advertising campaigns actually use the products they were promoting.

However, there is very high brand recollection between the celebrity and the product. While the future of celebrity spokespeople in India remains promising, recent findings suggest that celebrity spokespeople are not as effective as they once were in developed markets such as the United States (Biswas et al. 2009). Furthermore, the number of products a celebrity endorses negatively influences consumer perceptions of endorser credibility and likeability, as well as the attitude toward the ad (Tripp, Jensen & Carlson 1994). Also, the frequency of exposure of the ad has a negative impact on purchase intention due to over-exposure. Monitoring frequency of use is the most critical success factor in implementing an ad campaign involving sponsorship or celebrity spokespeople (Pope et al. 2009). One successful campaign that overcame these over-exposure challenges was the "Got Milk? – Moustache" campaign, which showcased a different celebrity each month. Hsu and McDonald (2002) found that endorsing a product with multiple celebrities is an effective strategy for appealing to various audiences to which the product is aimed.

The use of multiple-celebrities avoided the problem of over-exposure, while the usage of the product was believable, which led to greater acceptance by consumers. The campaign also received external press as speculation arose as to which celebrity would be featured next. The most successful endorsers were positioned in the upper right quadrant, whereas the least successful endorsers were in the lower-left quadrant.