Introduction One of the most effective ways through which products are marketed to prospective buyers is through endorsements, where a trusted third party touts the merits of the product to the target audience with a view of getting them to buy the product. According to Dean and Biswas (2001), there are three types of endorsements which include celebrity endorsements, expert endorsements, and typical consumer endorsements.McCracken (1989, p.
310) has defined a celebrity endorser as “any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement” (Biswas, Biswas, and Das, 2006). According to Money, Shimp and Sakano (2006), the explosion in information technology and popular media has led to a huge increase in the concept of celebrity endorsements with the number of global advertisements featuring celebrities rising from 10% to 17% between 1994 and 2004 and from 10% to 25% in the US alone within the same period.Kamins, Brand, Hoeke and Moe (1989) state that while only 15% of TV ads in the US in 1978 featured celebrities, the number had shot up to over 20% by 1978 and has been rising ever since. b) Implications of using people as brands According to Biswas, Biswas, and Das (2006), consumers also hold certain preconceived perceptions about the celebrity, and when this celebrity represents the brand the perceptions are transferred to the brand. One way that this transference has been described is through the associative learning theory or ALT.
This holds that the memory is made up of nodes which are interconnected through associative links.Celebrities and brands occupy the nodes in the memory of the target audience, and are linked together over time through the process of endorsement. Since the endorsement process repeatedly associates the two, the meanings and feelings associated with the celebrity get transferred to the brand (Biswas, Biswas and Das, 2006). This then implies that for the celebrity endorsement to be successful, the target audience must hold favorable preconceptions about the celebrity and that any negative information about the celebrity has the potential of adversely affecting the brand.Money, Shimp and Sakano (2006) give the example of Mike Tyson, OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson as celebrities who adversely affected the brands they endorsed as a result of negative information about them breaking into the public domain.
Other examples include the 33% decline in NBA apparel sales as a result of the rape trial of Kobe Bryant and Carmelo Anthony’s gang music that “intimidated witness against testifying in drug cases” (Money, Shimp, and Sakano, 2006, p. 115).The reason for this is that negative information about celebrities receives greater attention and interest than highly positive information about them. Additionally, it is more easily remembered, analyzed more, and also better encoded than positive information.
It has also been found that even though positive information can help undo some of the harm caused by negative information, it is almost impossible to restore the celebrity endorser’s image after his reputation has been damaged (Money, Shimp, and Sakano, 2006).Since it is almost impossible to control or filter the type, timing, or amount of information about celebrities that breaks out in the public domain, firms using celebrity endorsers can only at best take immediate damage control measures when negative information about the celebrity becomes public. This can be done for example by withdrawing the celebrity from endorsing the product as McDonalds and Nutella did with Kobe Bryant or through positive PR aimed at undoing the potential damage.However, other researchers have asserted that when they endorse the products, celebrities merely act as “a peripheral cue” (Biswas, Biswas, and Das, 2006).
Biswas, Biswas, and Das (2006) state that unlike expert endorsements where the consumers go through the process of internalization, for celebrity endorsements the consumer go through the process of identification. This means that when celebrity endorsements are used, consumers will attempt to create for themselves or maintain the image associated with the celebrity.On the other hand, when expert endorsements are used the consumer will be convinced to try out the brand on the basis of its ability to satisfy the need, which derives from the authority status associated with the expert (Biswas, Biswas and Das, 2006). Kamins, Brand, Hoeke, and Moe (1989, p. 9) have used the terms ‘normative social influence” and “informational social influence” to describe the different forms of influence deriving from the use of celebrity endorsements on the one hand and expert endorsements on the other.According to these researchers, “"informational social influence," refers to "influence to accept information obtained from another as evidence about reality.
" The second, "normative social influence," refers to the influence to conform to another person or group” (Kamins, Brand, Hoeke, and Moe, 1989, p. 9). The implication for this is that celebrity endorsement will be ideal for some types of products and not others, which also goes for expert endorsements.In general, expert endorsements should be used for high-involvement products (which require internalization) while celebrity endorsements should be used for low involvement products (which require identification).
Unlike low involvement products which tend to be less technologically oriented, involving low levels of information search, relatively cheaper, less durable, and therefore associated with low risk levels; high involvement products are more durable, relatively expensive, technologically oriented, involve extensive information search, and are associated with high levels of risk(Biswas, Biswas and Das, 2006).According to Kamins, Brand, Hoeke, and Moe (1989), celebrity endorsements are also highly effective with products which have high levels of social and psychological risk while expert endorsements will be much more effective for products with high levels of financial, performance, and physical risks. The other implication arising from the use of people as brands relates to whether the information being used is two-sided or one-sided.According to Kamins, Brand, Hoeke, and Moe (1989), two-sided communication is where the advertisement both emphasizes the positive attributes of the product while discounting or limiting the less-important or negative attributes. One-sided communication on the other hand only stresses the positive aspects.
Where the communication both stresses the positive aspects of the product and tries to refute any negative claims about it, this has been referred to as two-sided refutational communication (Kamins, Brand, Hoeke, and Moe, 1989).While two-sided non-refutational communication has been found to be more effective than both one-sided and two-sided refutational communication in enhancing the believability and credibility of an advertisement, Kamins, Brand, Hoeke and Moe (1989) have established that such communication rarely influences the attitudes, goals or product ratings. However, the researchers have also found such communication appeals to be very effective when used with celebrity endorsements.This then implies that celebrity endorsement ads need to make use of two-sided non-refutational communication to achieve more success (Kamins, Brand, Hoeke and Moe, 1989). One model that has been widely used to explain the effectiveness of advertising is the Lavidge-Steiner hierarchy of effects model which has six stages (awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction and purchase).
The first two stages (awareness and knowledge) are referred to as the cognition stage, with the next two (liking and preference) being referred to as the affective stage.Conviction and purchase are referred to as the conative stage (Barry and Howard, 1990). According to Dean and Biwas (2001), celebrity endorsements are highly effective during the early stages of the hierarchy of effects model (specifically in the awareness, knowledge and liking stages). In the latter stages (preference, conviction and purchase), expert endorsements would be more effective. Additionally, where heuristic processing of information is needed (especially during the cognition stages), Dean and Biwas (2001) assert that celebrity endorsements are highly effective than expert endorsements.This therefore means that celebrity endorsements should only be used for the early stages of the buyer purchase decision making process or in the cognition stage when heuristic information processing is likely to be used.
The other critical element central to the success of the advertisement is that the celebrity endorser has to be trustworthy. According to Dean and Biswas (2001), consumers may be biased against the brand being promoted by the endorser, driven by the belief that the endorser is only promoting the product because he is being highly paid to do so an not because he believes in it.Dean and Biswas give the example of Frank Sinatra, whose endorsement of Chrysler led to a huge upsurge in sales only after it was revealed to the public that he was only earning $1. 00 annually for his endorsement.
Earlier on, they had attributed personal gain as his main aim of endorsing the product (Dean and Biswas, 2001). Use of endorsements therefore means that firms should present evidence that personal gain of the endorser is not the main motivation of the ads.Darnell and Sparks (2007) identify three closely-linked elements that are central to celebrity endorsement, including: a high degree of accomplishment by the celebrity, appreciation of these achievements by the target audience, and the leveraging of this recognition to achieve mileage for the firm or its brands. Therefore, the marketer has to ascertain how the celebrity is positioned in the consumer’s mind and how this positioning can be used to positively advance the brand. Daniel and Sparks (2007) also cite other theoretical models that try to explain the concept of brand endorsement.
According to the match-up hypothesis, there should be a corresponding fit between the endorser and the product for the endorsement to be effective. For example, celebrities that possess high levels of attractiveness would be very effective endorsing products related to attraction. For example, supermodels would be very effective endorsing beauty products while a sports celebrity would be very effective promoting athletic or sports equipment. From an attribution perspective, it would convey the message that the endorser is endorsing the product because it has helped him / her attain the present levels of achievement.
Finally, firms using endorsement to promote their products also have to keep in mind the ethics of endorsement. Use of celebrities or experts to promote brands for example may amount to misleading advertisements. For example, the use of Joe Montana (a Super Bowl star) in an advertising campaign carried out by the Franklin Group implied that the celebrity’s wealth was as a result of his fund investments (when in actual fact most of his wealth derived from his football career and the many endorsement deals he had). Such advertisements may cause consumers to act based on false impressions created and are clearly unethical (Mangan, 1994).
Advantages and disadvantages experienced by the companies and celebrities: Celebrity advertisements are associated both with numerous advantages and disadvantages for both the company and the celebrity. According to Biswas, Biswas and Das (2006), celebrity endorsements not only result in high brand recognition but is also associated with exceedingly high levels of message recall According to Kamins, Brand, Hoeke and Moe (1989), with the level of competitiveness among businesses having hit fever pitch levels, there is palpable communication clutter and it has become a challenge to make a firm’s message to attract attention or stand out.By virtue of their high levels of visibility, Kamins, Brand, Hoeke and Moe (1989) assert that celebrities help attract attention to the firm’s message. According to Darnell and Sparks (2007), celebrity endorsement is also advantageous to companies because it allows the companies to reach consumers in many other parts of the world, especially when the celebrities have cross-cultural appeal.
According to Dean and Biswas (2001), celebrity endorsement is also beneficial in reducing risk (mainly psychological and social) during the buyer decision making process.Mathur, Mathur and Rangan (1997) have carried out studies on the impact of endorsement advertising and find that it bears a lot of advantages for the firms, which include the fact that it helps to change attitudes especially concerning low-involvement products, it increases the believability of the advertisements, leads to the creation of distinct brand personalities, and also positively affects the attitudes towards the brand (Mathur, Mathur and Rangan, 1997). Mathur, Mathur and Rangan (1997) also state that celebrity endorsements significantly help enhance positive investor evaluation towards a company.They report that for example, after reports broke out that Michael Jordan was anticipating returning to major league baseball in 1995, the stock value of firms whose brands he had been endorsing shot up by more than $1 billion. In markets that have reached the maturity stage of the life cycle, the authors state that celebrity endorsements help firms create value by taking away from competitors.
This can also be inferred from the case study where Beckham has become one of the wealthiest footballers in the world thanks to his endorsement deals (Mathur, Mathur and Rangan, 1997).According to Daniel and Sparks (2007), celebrity endorsements also help firms to get to hard-to-reach market segments such as the Generation Y in the US. This is especially the case for the celebrities that are associated with values such as heroism, attractiveness, trust, and style. For the celebrity endorsers, the main advantage is that they reap huge financial benefits.
According to Mathur, Mathur and Rangan (1997) for example, Michael Jordan was reported to be earning more than $32 million annually from endorsement deals alone as far back as the early nineties.
