Impact of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising

My sport is your sport’s punishment.”

-Nike

To be in ‘vogue’ has to mean something. It’s an endorsement. It’s a validation.”

-Anna Wintour

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has an ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals, and to imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

-Caroline Kennedy

What is Celebrity Endorsement

Organizations customarily avail the benefits of people who possess some or other form of celebrity popularity and status to assist as an ambassador for their brand. Majority of the celebrities or famous people that the organization hires to endorse their product or brand are very influential people, they could be movie or television stars or athletes, etc.

Conjointly whenever any organization proffers to endorse their product or brand via a famous figure, the main motive is to expose and extend the brand and gain customer trust through the trust common people have in their ideal celebrity.

Read: Advertising Research

In the language of marketers, celebrity endorsement is proffered to as “a form of brand or advertising campaign that involves a well-known person using their fame to help promote a product, a brand or a service”.

Celebrity Endorsement is impelled by virtue of the following motives:

Instant brand awareness and recall
Celebrity values define and refresh the brand image
Celebrity adds new dimensions to the brand image
Instant credibility or aspiration, PR coverage
Lack of Ideas
Convincing clients

The earliest example of Celebrity Endorsement-Pepsi-Cola

Since its birth in 1902, Pepsi-Cola has come a long way in the food and beverages industry. The company has had hundreds of stars to promote their products.

In the initial stages of hitting the charts in 1984, Pepsi-Cola’s new generation campaign advertised the brimming entertainer of the time Michael Jackson. He and his “Billie Jean” starred in a series of commercials that incorporated the business and the entertainment world in a way that nobody ever imagined.
All along the 80’s, many stars loaned their charisma to Pepsi counting too many pop music icons like Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Glen Frey, and Gloria Estefan. Also, including sportsmen like Joe Montana and Dan Marino.
Again, the first woman for the vice-presidential candidate in the U.S. Geraldine Ferraro endorsed the brand by starring in the diet Pepsi ad.
The teen star, Michael J. Fox got the brand to a whole new level.
By the 90s, the legend in the music industry, Ray Charles joined the endorsing team of the company and the basketball superstar Shaquille O’Neal endorsed the product by the tagline, “Be Young, Have Fun, Drink Pepsi”.
Furthermore, Pepsi kept grabbing the customers as the celebrities like Britney Spears, Shakira, Beyonce, Knowles and Halle Berry kept grabbing customers’ hearts.

Read: Importance of Direct Marketing

Types of Celebrity Endorsement

Testimonial: The celebrity acts as a spokesperson for the brand. For example, Amitabh Bachchan for Gujarat Tourism.
Imported: The celebrity performs a role known to the audience. For example, Kareena Kapoor Khan for Lux.
Invented: The celebrity plays a new, original role. For example, Vidhya Balan for Chhote Kadam.
Observer: The celebrity assumes the role of an observer commenting on the brand. For example, Kareena Kapoor Khan for Kurkure Desi Beats.
Harnessed: The celebrity’s image is integrated with the ad’s storyline. For example, Salman Khan for Revital.

Celebrity Endorsement & Consumer Behavior

It is very simple psychology, people watch celebrities on television all the time; they make it such an image that they know them personally. That effect is such that, if the customer is a fan of the endorsing celebrity, they tend to offer even more for the product or service that the celebrity is endorsing; like a piece of advice from a trustworthy friend.

When companies have celebrities asseverating for their products and services, brands can amplify their awareness, gain customer trust with the trust the customer puts into the celebrity and gain familiarity with the customers’ mind. Subliminally, it is established in the back of people’s mind that if they buy a product that their favorite star is endorsing, it will acquiesce them to imitate the celebrity’s desired traits or attract similar people into their lives. It would indirectly incorporate them with the star’s skills, knowledge, and abilities associated with the product.

Big companies have the leverage of social media too; they take complete benefit of the stars’ social media communities. Social media, being very popular with the young demographics helps in engaging and connecting with the celebrities they follow. For instance, Kim Kardashian or Justin Bieber can be paid $20000 for a single 140-characters tweet.

Read: Types of Advertising Agencies

Celebrity Endorsement & Advertising Effectiveness

Celebrity endorsement in an advertisement is the homage of the use of advertisements, a technique that inhibits and incorporates the eminently convincing and amiable source endorsing the product. The use of celebrities for the promotion of the products has been evidently used in the last couple of decades.

Organizations have been using the benefits and the fame and the power of attached with television characters and influential people to gain and retain the consumers.

By doing so, the value of the celebrity gets transferred to the value of the product and the consumer finds himself getting even more attached to the product. This further helps in creating an image that can be easily referred by the consumers. By doing so, or happening so, the credibility increases as the celebrity get connected with the product or brand.

Celebrity endorsement if used effectively, makes the brand stand out, galvanizes brand recall and facilitates instant awareness thus the right choice of celebrity to use must be done by the marketers.

Celebrity appearance, knowledge, liking, and credibility of the celebrity are also highly correlated with advertising believability.

Effect of Celebrity Endorsement on Brand Image

Learning from the example of Nike; the brand is well known in almost all parts of the world, especially being ranked the 16^th most valuable brand by the annual Forbes ranking of The World’s Most Valuable Brands, for the exponential brand value of $29.6 billion. Even with the merger of Adidas and Reebok, Nike remains to be the market leader and one of the many reasons for its success is its consistent use of the celebrities for endorsing the products.

In fact, the best collaboration of all times was between Nike and Michael Jordon. The endorsement and the collaboration were so highly successful that Nike and Michael Jordon launched a brand new product line called Air Jordon in the line of sports shoes.

Read: Behavioral Job Interview Questions

Advantages of Celebrity Endorsement

Influencing consumer decision
Helps an advertisement to stand out from the clutter
Helps in rejuvenating the stagnant brand
Helps in building brand awareness
Helps connecting to the customers quickly and emotionally.
Helps in recovering the company’s image
Establishment of credibility
Ensured attention
Associative benefits
Demographic connect
Psychographic connect
A higher degree of recall

Disadvantages of Celebrity Endorsement

Change in the celebrity’s image easily affects the brand image
Overexposure of celebrities
Multiple endorsements
Inconsistency in the professional popularity of the celebrity
The vampire effect
Multi-brand endorsement by the same celebrity leads to overexposure

Celebrity Endorsement: Do’s and Don’ts

Consistency and long-term commitment
Three prerequisites to selecting celebrities (positive image in the society, attractive, necessary knowledge)
Celebrity-brand match
Constant monitoring
Selecting unique endorsers
Timing
Brand over endorser
Celebrity endorsement is just a channel
Celebrity ROI
Trademark and legal contracts