CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS AFFECT CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR

Celebrity Endorsements Affect Consumer Behaviour: Hospitality Sector

Table of Content

1.0LITERATURE REVIEW1

1.1Overview of the Themes1

1.2Introduction1

1.3Trustworthiness4

1.4Expertise5

1.5Match of image and values6

1.6Genuine support6

1.7Reference group7

1.8Conclusion9

1.9References List10

Celebrity Endorsements Affect Consumer Behaviour

LITERATURE REVIEW

Overview of the Themes

Promotional clutter makes it extremely dif?cult for and brand image can be signi?cantly bolstered. Conversely, selecting an inappropriate celebrity endorser severely reduces sales and brand reputation. This research study collected data from a convenience sample of 213 adults in the USA and found that trustworthiness, (Cai et.al 2004:197) expertise, and genuine support are important characteristics for an effective celebrity endorser to possess. Further, the ?ndings con?rm that a match between the celebrity's and company's image and values and the celebrity being perceived by the buyer as part of his/her reference group are also statistically signi?cant characteristics of an effective endorser.

Introduction

Hospitality ?rms are ?nding it increasingly challenging to penetrate marketplace clutter to gain consumer awareness. This dif?culty stems from the fact that primetime television is 24 per cent promotional content, consumer magazines are composed of 50 per cent advertising, and newspapers contain as much as 64 per cent advertising. (McCracken et.al 2003:21)

The average consumer is saturated daily with increasing numbers of promotional messages. For example, consumers were exposed to approximately 3600 sales messages per day in 1996, an increase from 1500 in 1984.2 The limited hospitality ?rms to capture the attention of prospective buyers with sales messages. One way ?rms attempt to penetrate clutter is by utilizing an effective celebrity endorser. When the proper celebrity endorser is selected to represent a ?rm, sales cognitive capacity of a consumer makes it impossible to comprehend such large numbers of sales messages.3-4 One method of breaking through this promotional clutter is to use an effective celebrity endorser in advertisements. (Neal, Pascale 2007: 41)

Research suggests that successful celebrity endorsements can contribute to higher advertisement ratings and product evaluations. Evidence also suggests that celebrity endorsements can have a substantial impact on ?nancial returns for the ?rms that use them.6 Endorsers are more effective when consumers believe that celebrities are motivated by a genuine liking of the product rather than by endorsement earnings. Using a celebrity endorser can, however, be a double-edged sword. Selecting an inappropriate celebrity can have a negative impact on immediate sales as well as a lasting blemish on brand image. For example, according to the ?ndings of a 'Celebrity In?uence Study' recently conducted in the U.S. by market research ?rm NPD Group, famous Americans Donald Trump, (Kamins et.al 2000:86) Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Kobe Bryant can actually make consumers want to buy less of the products that they are endorsing. Therefore, the key question is: what factors determine whether a celebrity endorser is a promotional asset or a liability? Several empirical studies have analyzed variables that contribute to an endorser's effectiveness,9-11 but this study departs from existing research in two ways. (Loudon 2001: 41)

First, our research tests a more comprehensive set of variables than previous celebrity endorser studies; and second, in the literature review, our article speci?cally relates each ...