Celebrity Endorsement

Celebrity Endorsement

Introduction

Despite the obvious economic advantage of using relatively unknown personalities as endorsers in advertising campaigns, the choice of celebrities to fulfil that role has become common practice for companies competing in today's cluttered media environment. A recent estimate indicates that around one-quarter of all commercials screened in the United States include celebrity endorsement as an effective marketing strategy (Shimp, 2000). Although celebrity endorsement has a historic presence in Great Britain, the number of celebrity campaigns has increased markedly in recent years. In fact, our findings show that one in five marketing communications campaigns in the United Kingdom feature celebrities.

There are several reasons for such extensive use of celebrities. Because of their high profile, celebrities may help advertisements stand out from surrounding clutter, thus improving their communicative ability (Atkin and Block, 1999; Sherman, 1999). Celebrities may also generate extensive PR leverage for brands. For example, when Revlon launched the "Won't kiss off test" for its Colorstay lipsticks in 1999 with Cindy Crawford kissing reporters, the campaign featured on almost every major news channel and equally widely in the press.

Although research findings are equivocal about the ability of celebrities to generate actual purchase behavior, positive impact on economic returns of sponsoring companies are well-documented (Agrawal and Kamakura, 1999; Mathur, Mathur, and Rangan, 2000). The best example is Michael Jordan and his range of endorsements (e.g., Nike, Coke, Wheaties, McDonald's, Hanes, WorldCom, Oakley, Gatorade). His effect has been calculated to have contributed around $10 billion to the U.S. economy during the 14 years of his NBA career (Fortune, 1999).

As well as promoting established brands, celebrities are used to promulgate new brand images, reposition brands, or introduce new ones. For example, Lucozade, a soft drink brand that had been associated with sick children, was able to achieve a completely new image by association with famous athletes and British soccer players (Erdogan and Kitchen, 1999).

Global marketing communication strategies can be victim in individual countries to cultural "roadblocks," such as time, space, language, relationships, power, risk, masculinity, femininity, and many others (Hofstede, 2000; De Mooij, 1999). Celebrities with worldwide popularity can help companies avoid many of these problems (Kaikati, 1999). Indeed, Advertising Age International (2000) reported that PepsiCo's management attributed its 2 percent global market share increase, in an industry where a 1 percent rise in market share is equivalent to millions of dollars, to the British pop group, Spice Girls.

Despite these potential benefits, there are still many potential hazards in basing a marketing communications campaign on a Celebrity endorser(s). In fact, it has been found that negative information about a celebrity endorser not only influences consumers' perception of the celebrity but also the endorsed product (Klebba and Unger, 2000; Till and Shimp, 1999). This effect was clearly an embarrassment to Hertz, which had utilized O.J. Simpson as their endorser. Although many companies include clauses in celebrity contracts for termination on grounds of moral turpitude and/or take out "death, disablement, and disgrace" insurance to cover the foibles of celebrity endorsement ...