any product where celebrity endorsement is not used india

Today almost all major brands which play in the business to consumer space are endorsed by either sports stars or movie stars. I have no doubt in my mind that endorsements help in brand recall and help in positioning for a particular product. But of late there have been many challenges with celebrity endorsements; I would like to list some that come to my mind. 1. One star too many brands- Lets look at the Indian cricket captain Mahinder Singh Dhoni. He endorses close to 16 brands. So if a prospect is to name the top brands Dhoni is associated with I guess e would stop with 5-6. Just does this simple exercise close your eyes and try to recall the brands. I tried it I got Orient, TVS, Aircel, Pepsi, Mak, Blank Blank Blank. I cant recall beyond that. 2. One product too many stars- Pepsi is a good example which has Ranbir Kapoor, MS Dhoni, and a host of other celebrities endorsing it. Similarly Coke has national as well as regional endorsements. 3. Long association of a brand with a star- Sachin Tendulkar used to endorse Pepsi, and then he shifted to Coke but I still associate Sachin with Pepsi. Some associations are hard to break. So these are just some of the reasons there can be many more. Also some brands never use celebrities. A good example is New Balance. The athletic shoe company does not believe in celebrity endorsement, but was a favorite with the great Steve Jobs. Even Coke does not use celebrities outside of India. But I would like to listen to your views on this topic, what do you think? Do endorsements work? If yes then why? And if no then why not? Yes I mean there are two sides to it, endorsements can work wonders especially in low involvement products, but the product might have sold by itself.

Maria Luisa Bedoya Quezada, Jefa de Lnea - MKT at Agrovet Market S.A. 6 months ago

Do celebrity endorsements help it products Document Transcript

1. Cover StorySell?Can TheyCelebrities seemto be peddlingeverything,from innerwear tohardware, but canthey make you partwith your moolahwhen it comes to a PCor a mobile? airports: people go in a tizzy whenever there is a cricketer or a Bollywood star around. To state that Indians are star-T struck would by no means be an exaggeration. We are an he air was laden with nervous excitement at obsessed nation, keeping a tab on what our stars do, what Ballroom 1, Taj Lands End in Mumbai. It was they eat, what they use an unusual sweaty February afternoon and yet Little surprise then that celebrities know their power the room was full of journalists and the rest. and use them smartly too and the game is known as ce-The press invite promised premiere of Compaq Presarios lebrity endorsements. The trend caught on in the latelatest blockbuster starring Indias biggest superstar. The eighties or so, when television truly arrived in India. Itcorporate communications people would not reveal any- was then that advertisers started using celebrities (namelything else, preferring to keep that you will be shocked and film stars) to increase awareness for their products. Andbewildered kind of smug expression on their faces. The just after the Indian cricket team trounced West Indies atevent started, HP Indias head honcho spoke briefly about Lords by 43 runs to pick up the Prudential Cup in 1983,the achievements and emphasized how historic the day advertisers knew they had 11 more people to peddle theirwas. The music and lights at the back went berserk for a products. Thus, Kapil Dev was signed up for a host of ad-brief while and out of the prop emerged Shahrukh Khan, vertisements ranging from BSA SLR bicycles to Palmolivethe reigning Bollywood star, in a black leather jacket. shaving cream (Palmolive da jawaab nahin) and so were A hush descended upon the gathering, with the flash- his other teammates.bulbs bursting ever so rapidly. Shahrukh muttered a fewwords on Compaq and its affordable PCs for the Indian mar- A Heady Concoctionket. Posed for a few more photo-ops, answered a few ques- Over the years, celebrity advertisements as a trend gainedtions and zoomed away presumably to his posh villa next solid ground and evolved into celebrity endorsements.door, leaving the gathering much content and overawed. The difference between the two, endorsement and adver- This is the effect celebrities have on Indian audiences. tisement, is minor but significant. By endorsing a prod-Even sane and serious individuals are known to swoon in uct, the celebrity not only appears in the adverts (like inthe presence of celebrities. The effect is most evident at advertisements) but also becomes a brand ambassador36 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication 2. endorsing 35 different products. The result is there for all to see, says Deepak Advani, senior VP and chief marketing officer, Lenovo. Lenovo was one of the first few IT companies in India to use ce- lebrities in a big way. Meanwhile, HP also seems to be pretty happy with the response to the Shahrukh adverts. Shahrukh is the right choice as his popularity cuts across gender, age, ge- ographies. He is a technology buff, and a content Compaq user. The association helped us to leverage his popularity among the masses to educate on the proposition of empowering people with their PCs, of sorts. He or she is mentions Shuchi Sarkar, head (Marketing), Personal Sys- supposed to know

about tems Group, Hewlett-Packard India. the product and is often seen at different company events. Endorsements Peaks and Pitfalls are pretty common for white goods (like consumer Using a celebrity is like treading a fine line, as there aredurables) or the FMCG sector, as the products require a a variety of things one needs to assess before going in forhigher brand recall. Thus a Coco Cola needed Hritik to such endorsements. Do celebrity endorsements makecounter Pepsis Shahrukh. sense for IT products? They do make sense. If it is an But an IT product company like HP signing on a ce- Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan or Hritik Roshan, itlebrity is indeed a surprise. The dynamics of the industry surely makes sense, as they are known to be quite discern-are quite different; a person would buy a laptop based on ing in nature. Take Aamir Khan for that matter, who istwo main criteria, cost and configuration. Hence, debates quite a clever guy, you could put him on a forum with awere plenty on whether Shahrukh would help Compaq. bunch of industrialists and he will hold his own againstSome even suggested that the movewas a defensive one, in response to a Celebrity endorsements doChinese companys push into Indian make sense for IT products.market. If it is an Amitabh Bachchan,Quite a Saif Choice Shahrukh Khan or HritikIn 2005 a relatively unknown com- Roshan, it surely makes sense,pany from China, Lenovo, created abuzz across the world by buying out as they are known to be quiteIBMs PC division for $1.25 bn. Suddiscerning in nature. Thesedenly it was in the big league, and yet guys are very savvy in terms ofit was not widely known. While in theWestern markets the transition haphardware, computers, IT, etcpened quite steadily, the story in India Prahlad Kakkar, CEO, Genesiswas a wee bit different. Thanks to thedumping of products by Chinese companies; the made in them. These guys are very savvy in terms of hardware,China tag reads cheap and unreliable in India. computers, IT, etc. In fact Amitabh Bachchan is a known To counter this impression in India, Lenovo decided collector of sophisticated toys, they enamor him to theto enlist the services of Saif Ali Khan. After quite many extent that if you give him a new gizmo, he will sit with ityears, Saif had found his foothold in the Indian film in- for hours to figure out how it works, says adman Prahladdustry and was finally in the reckoning for the big league. Kakkar, CEO, Genesis. He has been associated with ce-Also, he had a much cleaner image in comparison to his lebrities for a long time with ads like Pepsi, et al.peers. Lenovo snapped him on, with sister Soha Ali Khan, A celebrity does not guarantee success. The main issueand splashed them all over town. is the idea. I think Lenovo has done a fine job in bringing The association with Saif is great. He has a healthy im- the idea out and there is not much dependence on Saif.age and, more importantly, is choosy about endorsing prod- He is a part of the whole story and not merely peddling aucts. We did not want to associate with a celebrity who was product. Take for instance the face recognition commerDATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication February 15, 2007 | 37 3. Cover StoryWhat the Gurus sayPrahlad Kakkar Piyush PandeyOn celebrity endorsements On IT and celebrityObviously, it works. Otherwise they would not be used as Celebrity and computers are quite a credible match, as everyoneregularly. Though, let me tell you, that a great majority of uses a computer. The important issue is the idea.advertisements are not celebrity driven, I have a feeling thatnot more than 10-12% are actually celebrity driven and the Big money at stake If you are paying that kind of money, you should be working veryrest are your everyday ads. Now look at the power of celebrity hard on it. It is like having a bad movie script and signing onendorsements, the

perception today is that 90% of all ads are Amitabh Bachchan. As no Mr Bachchan can really save you ifcelebrity driven though it is quite the opposite. That means your script is really bad. So all depends on how good is the matchthat the only ads that one remembers are the ones that have between the brand and the celebrity and what is the best balancecelebrities in them. Thus, celebrity endorsements do work, between the brand, the celebrity and the idea.otherwise people would not be paying that kind of money to acelebrity, the difference is too huge. Celebrity endorsements do Celebrity endorsements in Indiapay otherwise businesses would not shell out so much money Lot of celebrities are used in America, ditto for South East Asia. Itfor them. is like this, if you have a good idea, who would not want a good actor? But yet again, let me emphasize on the need for a goodCelebrity towering over the brand script otherwise nobody benefitsneither the brand nor theThere is a danger in that aspect also, the celebrity is so big that celebrity. When a celebrity gets accolades for those lovely ads,it completely vampires the product. That is a creative solution, take the case of Abhishek Bachchan for Motorola, then you feel it isif your creative is weak then the celebrity will tower over and a win-win situation for every one.if the creative is strong then he or she becomes part of thewhole presentation. You cannot be lazy just because you have acelebrity, in fact one has to work all the more harder to justify the mar and Yuvraj Singh quite well to sell X-Box 360. Thepresence as the brand needs to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and product instantly caught on the fancy of the Indian users.not five steps behind. Mobility Warscial that is running now, it is a very straight benefit of how While IT companies might be new entrant in the celebritya computer recognizes you. As I said earlier, it all depends endorsements game, mobile companies, both operatorson the idea that you have, says Piyush Pandey, executive and OEMs, have been cavorting celebrities for sometimechairman and national creative director, O&M. He is re- now. Airtel has extensively used celebrities in the past andnowned for the Fevicol and Cadbury campaigns. continues to do so. The company used both Shahrukh and But adman Alyque Padamsee warns about selecting Sachin to spread the word about its products. Hutch wasthe right celebrity, as it can be quite crucial to the message relatively slow on the celebrity front, letting its pug talkthat is spread. The important thing is to choose the right about the benefits. Even then, Hutch has employed thecelebrity for the right product. Using tech savvy celebri- Indian cricket captain, Rahul Dravid, for endorsements. Itties like Shahrukh and Saif for computers is a good choice. used Dravid for the launch of its voice services and specialBut it would not be really advisable to enlist Sachin Ten- brand promotions like World Cup Jao etc.dulkar to promote a computer brand, as his persona does Tata Indicom has also decided to woo the Indian aunot really match with the product, he says. dience in a big way through the Bollywood couple, Ajay Finally, there must be a need for a celebrity. For in- Devgan and Kajol. In the past the company had signedstance, product launches suit well with celebrity style enon Saurav Ganguly and Irfan Pathan, but since both ofdorsements. In this regards, Microsoft used Akshay Ku- them went through a slump, the company simply dumped38 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication 4. Cover Storythem for the Devgans. In fact, at the launch of Tata Indi-coms online store, Daryl Green, CEO, Tata Teleservices, Alyque Padamseewas unusually joyful in the company of Kajol, stating that On celebrity endorsementshe was grateful to the couple for endorsing the products. Celebrity endorsements work in India.The brand association

has been a resounding success, The important thing is to choose thehe said. Meanwhile, Kajol could not even recall the Tata right celebrity for the right product. UsingIndicom phone that she used, it is a nice black one, she tech savvy celebrities like Shahrukh andstated. Reliance is another company that has used celebri- Saif is a good choice. But it would not be really advisable to say use Sachinties extensively: first it was Virender Sehwag and now it Tendulkar to promote a computer product, as his persona does notis Mahendra Singh Dhoni. Though it was not really re- really match with the product. There must be a kind of bonhomienowned for the creative aspect in its campaigns. between the product and the celebrity. On the OEM front a resurgent Motorola signed on Ab-hishek Bachchan to reach the youth. Somehow the cam- Challenges The challenges can be quite daunting as one needs to pay attentionpaign does not seem to have been much of a success, as to the idea and not get carried away with the celebrity, and this isthey are back to using creative without celebrities. Nokia where many falter.and Sony, meanwhile, seem to be fairly reluctant to usea celebrity to promote their brand. The small players are Big money at stakealso using celebrities, albeit the not so shining ones. Take Celebrities come at a price. The choice of a celebrity is dependentthe case of Fly Telecom, it used Malaika Arora-Khan for on the business needs. Are you launching a product, or is it a branding exercise? It is important to weigh the cost of using alaunching their product. And therein lies another celebrity vis--vis the expected returns. lesson: aim big. It is no use really spending money on aEven sane and serious individuals are not-so-happening celebrity.known to swoon in the presence ofcelebrities. To state that Indians are Global Choice Internationally, celebrity endorsements is a big ball game.star-struck would by no means be an Take the case of Tiger Woods, he became the highest paidexaggeration. We are an obsessed athlete in terms of endorsements when he signed a five- year, $100 mn deal with Nike. According to reports his nation, keeping a tab on what current relationship with Accenture is not as much, but our stars do, what they significant in monetary terms. Accenture has been us- eat, what they use ing these international commercials quite successfully in different geographies like India. Canon has signed up tennis ace Maria Sharapova for promotion of the40 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication 5. Cover StoryA celebrity does notguarantee success.The main issue isthe idea. He (Saif) isa part of the wholestory and not merelypeddling a product.Take for instance the face recognitioncommercial that is running now(Lenovo), it is a very straight benefit ofhow a computer recognizes you.Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and national creative director, O&MPowershot range of cameras and these commercials canbe viewed in India as well. Meanwhile HP is using the hip-hop star Jay-Z for theircomputer is personal again campaign. Lenovo has tiedup with Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho for advertisingcampaigns for China and South East Asia. Abhishek Bachchan might be the Indian face of Mo-torola; internationally, the company has celebrityspokespersons like rock star Bono (U2), and soccerplayer David Beckam. Some years back, T-Mobilehad signed up Catherine Zeta-Jones for a $20 mn Even sane and serious individuals arespokesperson deal, making her one of the highest paid known to swoon in the presence ofcelebrity. In terms of money, IBM had reportedly spent celebrities. To state that Indians are$40 mn in an ad campaign involving MASH (televisionseries) actors a few years back. Thus, using celebrities for star-struck would by no means be anendorsements is a very much global trend. exaggeration. We are an obsessed nation,

keeping a tab on what our stars do, whatMoney and More MoneyCelebrities dont come cheap, even the Indian ones. they eat, what they useAccording to media reports, Shahrukh charges aroundRs 5 crore per annum for brand endorsement, whereasSaif charges around Rs 2 crore. The Lenovo adverts alsofeature Soha Ali Khan, who is believed to charge Rs 35- floating on the Internet: Sehwag ki maa ko bulao,50 lakh for an endorsement deal. Now that Lenovo has Sachin ko Pepsi pilao, Ganguly ko Chawanprash khilao,signed up Saif and Soha again, there must have been a Kaif ko Lays khilao, Dravid ko Castrol pilao, magar Indiarevision in those rates. In fact, now specialist celebrity ko jitao.. (referring to the different endorsement deals ofmanagement companies have emerged that mainly deal the Indian cricketers). In fact, Sehwag ki maa (Sehwagwith managing a celebritys endorsement deals. and his mother) jokes became immensely popular after But does all this money make sense? There is a greasy the Reliance advertisement based on the same theme. Tobaniya sitting behind each company and if he ready to be honest, Sehwag became a butt of ridicule, every timepay so much, then indeed it must be making sense, says he failed. Undoubtedly, Reliance dropping him must haveKakkar in his inimitable style. been quite a relief for him. Quite similarly, the day Reliance signed up IndianDropped Catches wicket keeper Dhoni for an endorsement deal, due to hisOf late, as the fortune of the Indian cricket team was gopoor performance the earlier day, BBC carried a smalling through a downslide, there was this humorous quote news feature, belaboring the performance of Dhoni and42 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication 6. Cover Storystating that if Reliance is as reliable as Dhoni, then godhelp the company. Kodak had also signed up Katrina Kaif for an en-dorsement deal in India, but later on did not renewthe engagement. Katrina was associated for our styl-ish V series digital camera. Our aim was focused to-wards creating the right association with the brandimage of the V series, which was compact, stylishand chic. Katrina fitted that perfectly and hencewe went ahead with this strategy, said Ravi Kara-mcheti, managing director, Kodak India. But hedeclined to state the reasons why the contractwas not renewed.Shifting FortunesTalking about shifting for-tunes in terms of celebrityendorsements, the namesof two Indian cricketersinstantly come tomind, though due todiametrically oppositereasons. First Sachin Of late, as the fortuneTendulkar, his brand of the Indian cricket IBM had enlisted thesale-ability has been on team was going through services of Dia Mirza for emceeingthe wane of late due tohis mediocre performa downslide, there their event, when Sam Palmisano had comeances. Though, Canon was this humorous visiting. Sun Microsystems had also taken on Perizad Zorabian for a dealer event. Compaqhas recently signed up quote floating on the has innovated a product placement strategySachin as a brand am-bassador, but it has been Internet: Sehwag ki on the Kaun Banega Crorepati show. Notat fairly lower value. On maa ko bulao, Sachin ko only is the Lenovo computerji replaced by a Compaq, host Shahrukh frequently requeststhe other hand, the ma- Pepsi pilao, Ganguly ko Compaq daro (brother in Tamil and otherjestic return of SauravGanguly is landing him Chawanprash khilao, Kaif regional languages) to check the answersendorsement deals now. ko Lays khilao, Dravid ko given by the contestants KBC is a new thing we have just done with SRK. WatchHe has recently been Castrol pilao, magar India this space for some more exciting stuff,signed up by TCL. This is a harsh real- ko jitao.. promises Sarkar.ity of celebrity endorse-ments: the performance Selli-brateof a celebrity dictates his market status. A few

years back Coming back to the point where we started from, doescompanies would have paid anything to sign on Sachin, celebrity endorsements work for IT products? It does, butand now quite many are shy of doing so. there is a difference between the kill and the overkill. When Compaq had signed on Shahrukh, he was in theInnovative Trends news for an advert for Lux bathing soaps, wherein he is inIf you thought that glitzy commercials were all that were a bathtub surrounded by a bevy of Indian actresses. Onthere to celebrity endorsements, then you couldnt be being queried about the difference between endorsing Luxmore mistaken. A lot of IT companies use celebrities for a and Compaq, Shahrukh kidded, I cannot sleep in a bath-small stint, without really signing them on. For instance, tub with Compaq. Indeed he cant, but he must be sleepMicrosoft hosted a Bollywood extravaganza, with stars ing quite soundly after signing the deal with Compaq.like Akshay Kumar, Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Shashwat Chaturvedi & Rajneesh Deetc to mark the launch of Vista in India. maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in44 | February 15, 2007 DATAQUEST | dqindia.com | A CyberMedia Publication
http://ries.typepad.com/ries_blog/2007/07/celebrity-endor.html

http://www.satishserial.com/issn0972-9348/finaljournal03.pdf

Article :IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS ON OVERALL BRAND

Abstract Today 'Celebrity Endorsement' has become a trend and perceptible as a winning formula for product marketing and brand building. It has been established as one of the trendiest tools of promotion in recent time. It is easy to choose a celebrity but it is tough to establish a strong association between the product and the endorser. Firms invest huge amounts as advertising expenditure for hiring the right celebrity. However there lies uncertainty with respect to the returns that the company might be able to garner for the brand. Consumers perceive the brand as having superior quality because it has been endorsed by a credible source. This makes endorsement as one of the indictors of quality for any brand. Corporate credibility along with endorser

credibility plays a significant role in the attitude of the consumer towards the brand and the advertisement respectively. Successful branding programs are based on the concept of singularity. The objective is to create in the mind of the prospect the perception that there is no other product on the market quite like your product. Objective The objective of this project is to investigate whether celebrity endorsement, act as a source of effective brand management, have impact over the purchasing behavior of customers, evaluate associated factors that contribute to the success or failure of the endorsement and explore what the concept represents in terms of new knowledge. For this I decided to conduct this very research and the objectives of my research are: 1 To do a study and analysis as to why and when brands use celebrities as endorses and what kind of risks are involved? 2 To identify the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumer buying behavior. 3 To study celebrity endorsement as a source of brand-building. Research Hypotheses This research considered following Hypothesis Hypothesis No.1:- To find out whether celebrity endorsement is effective tool to persuade consumers in their buying decision Keyword Celebrity Endorsement, Celebrity Credibility, Brand Personality, Brand Image.

Introduction An Indian family has at least one television set and a consumer is exposed to around 3000 ads per day. Likewise, there are more than hundreds of television channels in India broadcasting over 3 million television commercials each year in India. The media-explosion can thus be easily demonstrated. More over, people forget 80% of the information in just 24 hours! Just imagine the plight of the marketer to make his brand shout over the deafening clutter of all the brands! Some where in the 80s, an Indian marketer found the solution, 'Celebrity Endorsement' for the brand! Since then, Indian advertising has metamorphose hosed into a strategic tool that enhances sales, siphons more profits and helps in the process of brand-building and product promotion. With this evolved a strategy that tried to benefit from the emotional attachment of the admirers or the fans of the celebrities in the form of celebrity endorsement. It does help in creating instant awareness and visibility; but for a cost. This paper tries to look beyond the obvious benefits that might be derived out of celebrity endorsement. It tries to understand the process of consumer psychology and impact of celebrity endorsement on the overall process of brand building. Mechanism and Theories of Celebrity Endorsement Grant McCracken has explained in his Meaning Transfer Theory. The theory explains that a celebrity encodes a unique set of meanings which if well used can be transferred to the endorsed product. Such a transfer takes place in three stages encoding meanings, meaning transfer, meaning capture (Figure 1). I. Encoding Meanings: Each celebrity has a unique set of meanings, which can be listed by age, gender, race, wealth, personality or lifestyle. In this way, the celebrities encode a set of meanings in their image. For example Preity Zinta can be seen as a lively, charming, bubbly, witty and enthusiastic.

II. Meaning Transfer: This stage transfers those meanings to the product. When skillfully portrayed, celebrities can communicate this image more powerfully than lay endorsers. III. Meaning Capture: This assumes that consumers purchase products not merely for their functional value but also for their cultural and symbolic value. The theory says that consumers buy the endorsed product with the intention of capturing some of the desirable meanings with which celebrities have passed on to the product. This is more eminent in lifestyle products like clothes, perfumes, cell phones etc.

Defining a 'Celebrity' Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition by a large share of a certain group of people. Whereas attributes like attractiveness, extraordinary lifestyle or special skills are just examples and specific common characteristics cannot be observed, it can be said that within a corresponding social group, celebrities generally differ from the social norm and enjoy a high degree of public awareness.

'Celebrity Endorsement' McCracken's (1989) definition of a celebrity endorser is, "any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement (marcoms), is useful, because when celebrities are depicted in marcoms, they bring their own culturally related meanings, thereto, irrespective of the required promotional role. Scope of Celebrity Endorsement Firms have been juxtaposing their brands and themselves with celebrity endorsers (e.g., athletes, actors) in the hope that celebrities may boost effectiveness of their marketing and/or corporate communication attempts for at least a century. Three of humankind's greatest inventions (cinema, radio, and television) have extended the scope of endorsement as an advertising technique. Today, use of celebrities as part of marketing communications strategy is fairly common practice for major firms in supporting corporate or brand imagery. Today, the use of celebrity advertising for companies has become a trend and a perceived winning formula of corporate image building and product marketing (Media, July-August 1997). Celebrity Selection There are various scientific ways in which the right celebrity is selected for the product endorsement; the following figure shows how celebrity is selected for endorsing

Framework to Make Effective Celebrity Endorsement Program

One can gauge the performance of celebrity endorsement marketing program across the various stages of development refer to following figure where attempt had been made to prepare a framework to build a more effective celebrity endorsement program

Celebrity Endorsements Framework The action plan should be able to answer the following key questions: 1 Are the celebrity endorsements programs result driven? 2 How to quantify the value generated by the celebrity endorsements? 3 Are customers able to connect the brand with the celebrity?

The Need for Celebrity Endorsement The appeals of the celebrities almost always attract people and their words are worshipped by a lot of Indian people. The business firms, thus, resort to celebrity endorsement to perk up brand recall and product sales. This has now become a trend and is being perceived as a strategic means of brand building exercise. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (EML) suggests that consumers will scrutinize claims more in important situations (say, life saving drugs) than in unimportant ones. So, for almost similar products like Coke and Pepsi, it makes sense to use endorsement.

Impact of Celebrity Endorsement

The concept of celebrity endorsement has become a rage in India as well, with every company trying to rope in a brand ambassador of sorts for their brands. The increasing number of endorsements throws a valid question to the consumers. Is there a science behind the choice of these endorsers or is it just by the popularity measurement? What are the reasons which lead to impact of celebrity endorsement on brands? Through research and analysis, this paper develops a 14 point model, which can be used as blueprint criteria which can be used by brand managers for selecting celebrities, and capitalizes the celebrity resource through 360 degree brand communication, since our research proposes it as the foundation brick of the impact of celebrity endorsement. Our study reveals that the impact of celebrity endorsement is proportional to the 14 factors discussed in the model. The success of a brand through celebrity endorsement is a cumulative of the following 14 attributes. Greater the score of the below parameters, greater are the chances of getting close to the desired impact.

Research Methodology

Questionnaire based sample analysis was the base of this study. A well framed set of questioned were circulated to the target personnel or some interviews were conducted over telephone, even few of them were face-to-face the research design adopted in the study will be exploratory in nature

Collection of Data: - Data was collected through primary source and secondary source. Sample unit: - Akola City Sample size: - Sample sizes of 50 persons were taken for this research. Sampling Technique: - Random sampling technique was used in this research project. Questionnaires: - A structured questionnaires was formulated and than applied to gather information with the aid to solve the objective of the study. Data Processing: - Data was entered into MS-Excel Sheet and than analyzed by using simple techniques of graphical and tabulation Hypothesis Testing: - Chi-square tests were used to set observed frequencies obtained after experimentation that have supported by hypothesis or theory. The test is known as X2 - test of goodness of fit and is used to test if the deviation between observation (experiment) and theory may be attributed to chance (fluctuations of sampling). 2 also enables us to explain whether or not two attributes are associated or related to each other. To test the goodness of fit: - It helps to test goodness of fit by using null and alternate hypothesis.

1. Celebrity endorser as an effective method of persuasion:Preference 23 7 5

Strongly Agree Agree Indifferent

Disagree Strongly Disagree

10 5

Interpretation: - This chart depicts that mostly people agree that Celebrity endorsement is an effective tool of persuasion. 46% of people strongly agree that celebrity endorsement is an effective tool of persuasion and 20% of people disagree that it is one of the tool. HYPOTHESIS TESTING :- Step1: State Hypothesis: Ho: Celebrity endorsement is not an effective tool of persuasion to facilitate customer to go for purchase.. Ha: Celebrity endorsement is an effective tool of persuasion to facilitate customer to go for purchase. Step 2: Set the Rejection criteria:

DF = 5-1 = 4, At alpha .05 and 4 degrees of freedom, the critical value from the chi square distribution table is 9.49 Step 3: Compute the Test Statistics: = (O-E) /E

Preference Strongly Agree Agree Indifferent Disagree Strongly Disagree

Observe d 23 7 5 10 5

Expecte d 10 10 10 10 10

O-E 13 -3 -5 0 -5

(O-E) 169 9 25 0 25

(O-E)/E 16.9 0.9 2.5 0 2.5 = 22.8

Interpretation: As the Chi-square test statistics 22.8 exceeds the critical value of 9.49 hence null hypothesis is rejected and we arrived at the conclusion that the alternative hypothesis is accepted. Hence it can be concluded that celebrity endorsement is an effective tool of persuasion to facilitate customer to go for purchase. Limitation of the study This study is conducted in Akola city. For the purpose of this paper exploratory research was undertaken. A diminutive number of related journal articles were reviewed. This research had a relatively small sample size; there is a need for confirmatory research with a larger

sample testing hypotheses derived from the findings presented in this paper. Another limitation of research is that our findings for non inspirational celebrities are not significant. Another primary limitation is related to the generalization of the research results. Most important generalization issue is related to sample. Conclusion Celebrity endorsements give a brand a touch of glamour and the hope that a famous face will provide added appeal and name recognition in a crowded market. In the battle for the mind, you get the customer excited by showing him a known face, and an effective demand is created. In short it helps increase the recall value of the brand .Successful celebrity/brand partnerships have resulted in significant gains in income for brand owners. This study shows that consumers report higher self-brand connections for brands with images that are consistent with the image of a celebrity that they aspire to be like, particularly in the case when the image of the celebrity and the brand match. It was found that people love to see celebrities endorsing their brands, so the involvement of common man is pretty high with these celebrities. So marketers should use the right celebrity matching with the product. Study also examines how self-brand connections are formed. Celebrity endorsement effects are moderated by brand symbolism, such that brands that communicate something about the user yield stronger effects than brands that do not. This finding is an important demonstration that consumers are motivated by their selfneeds to utilize brand associations derived from celebrity endorsement in a contingent fashion to construct and present their self-identities and lastly in one sentence would like to conclude whether Celebrity endorsement has a positive or a negative impact on the brand still it is a debate and is open to interpretation. But till the time the corporate world continues to foot fancy bills of celebrity endorsers and till consumers continue to be in awe of the stars, the party is not likely to break up.

Reference L. K. Marhur, I. Mathur and N. Rangan (1997) June, "The Wealth Effects Associated with a Celebrity Endorser: The Michael Jordan Phenomena", Journal of Advertising Research Goldsmith, Lafferty and Newell (2000), "The Impact of Corporate Credibility and Celebrity Credibility on Consumer Reaction to Advertisements and Brands" B. Zafer Erdogan, Michael J. Baker and Stephen Tag (2001) June, "Selecting Celebrity Endorsers: The Practitioner's Perspective": www.blonnet.com http://www.justtollywood.com/viewnews.php?id=0000002407 www.indiantelevision.com www.rediff.com article by Country head, O&M India http://economictimes.indiatimes.com www.telegraphindia.com/1100727/jsp/.../story_12729775.jsp www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/.../sb20081114_106175.htm http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2011/06/product-endorsements-andcelebrity-influence/