Advertising & Celebrity Advertisement Research Paper

The leading positions of social media in the modern sphere of advertising could not be underestimated. The informational technologies continue to develop with great speed, leading to the situation, when human’s perception of the surrounding world is constantly changing. In addition the communication ways are also serious impacted and altered. During the last couple of decades more and more public corporate companies transformed their advertising efforts and moved them to the sphere of social media. Thus social media was turned into a significant communication tool for both the companies and their consumers. Young generations of consumers are not attracted by the passive marketing campaigns, they are used to dynamic world and they became active users of Internet. They are used to make their choices themselves and they search the needed goods on the basis of their concrete criteria. Taking into consideration all these factors, it is clear that celebrity endorsements became an integral part of modern advertising campaigns, as they help to transform the marketing messages into more complex ones. A lot of modern companies tend to choose celebrities as the transmitters of their unique information to their customers. A product endorsement means involvement of a celebrity or a professional, who would provide his or her approval for the value of the products and thus would recommend it for the customers as a good choice. Usually the celebrities claim this exactly this or that product made their lives better and easier. Sometimes the images of the celebrities are printed just on the products in order to attract attention of the consumers and build positive associations with the products on the basis of created visual connection. Product endorsement related to a variety of aspects in advertising, aimed at development of brand’s awareness and increase of sale volumes. The basic idea of product endorsement is simple – all people would like to use the same products, which were already chosen by celebrities, as they also want to be successful in their lives and become prominent and wealthy. Consumers are convinced that they will manage to do so that is why they purchase the same products. At the same time it is necessary to underline that celebrity endorsement could not be seen as absolute guarantee of the product’s success.

The paper will be devoted to detailed considerations of the potential advantages and disadvantages of celebrity endorsements and the ways of perceptions of their images by younger generations of consumers in relation to the ability of social media to form the public opinions.

In fact celebrity endorsements are able to manifest favorable as well as adverse effects for the brands and companies, which are associated with them. Generally the main reason of involvement of celebrities is based upon the assumption that celebrities could delivery the advertising messages with higher degree of appeal, attracting more attention to the concrete product or service, creating the memorability of the messages. Along with these positive aspects, it is not possible to ignore the financial risks for the companies, as sometimes using a celebrity is turned into a risk in case this celebrity is not logically associated with the product. In the history of advertising celebrities played different roles for general public recognition and anonymity. Consumers do pay attention to the facts that certain products are claimed to be chosen by celebrities, this fact adds credibility and seems convincing that those products are of better quality in comparison to the other. Usually this happens thanks to adding of the public person’s charisma. Celebrities are able to create mass appeal and credibility. “A picture of the celebrity using the product or service is enough to send a strong message across diverse groups and locations, transcending all kinds of barriers. Sports-persons and movie stars have popular appeal. Even a good brand needs a catalyst to achieve its due market share. And that little fillip from an endorsement can help instant recall that translates into sales.” (Sridevi, 2014).  

In reality the history of celebrity branding is relatively long, as already in the 1760s royal endorsements were applied in the form of celebrity branding with the aim of promoting of the products. One of the first companies, used celebrity endorsements in the 1760s was Josiah Wedgwood and Sons for promoting of their pottery and chinaware. They wanted to increase the value of their company and their products. In 1875-1900 the companies issued special cards with photos of celebrities with their products. These cards were passed to the consumers in order to make them interested in purchasing the products. Cigarette brands were the leaders of involving of celebrities into their advertising campaigns. One of the companies started to distribute baseball player cards together with their packets of cigarettes and people started to purchase more cigarettes in order to collect all the cards. Other celebrity endorsers were athletes, later these were movie stars. Development of color television brought innovative approaches in marketing and advertising along with celebrities endorsement. One of the brightest examples was the involvement of Michel Jordan by Nike. Nike used the status and fame of the great basketball player in order to make their brand recognized in the whole world. As soon as more and more celebrities were involved into advertising campaigns, they started to ask for higher salaries, as the competition was really tough. As a result the costs of celebrity endorsement increased. In the 1900s the companies preferred to change their advertising strategies and started to organize conferences with their celebrities, making them spokesmen of their companies.

The Federal Trade Commission (1980) defined the process of endorsement in the following way: “Any advertising message (including verbal statements, demonstrations, or depictions of the name, signature, likeness or other identifying personal characteristics of an individual or the name or seal of an organization) which message consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or expertise of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser. The party whose opinions, beliefs, findings, or expertise the message appears to reflect will be called the endorser and may be an individual, group or institution.” Celebrity endorsers are those individuals, who are known to the general public for their achievements in various areas, not including the area of the advertised products. This category usually includes actors, singers, animal personifications, for example the Energizer Bunny. In other words these are the individuals, known to the public in various ways. A person, who managed to reach certain level of popularity in certain sphere, has the chance to use the consequent popularity in order to advertise a service or a product, which has actually no direct relation to his or her sphere of activity. Some researchers prefer to classify the endorsers into three basic categories: experts, celebrities and lay endorsers. Experts are those individuals, who are positively perceived by the target audience, as they are belied to have substantial experience and knowledge in the concrete sphere. The sources of this knowledge could be their training or studies. Celebrities are the individuals, well –known to the public in different spheres of life. Lay endorsers could be either real or fictitious. “They are (initially at least) unknown individuals or characters, which are selected to closely resemble the target segment, enabling the target segment to identify with the endorser and the message. The anonymous voice- over in video and audio advertisements is often that of a lay endorser.” (Sridevi, 2014).

In case an organization is not able to find a good option of a celebrity for advertising and supporting of their brand image, they still can create their own celebrity endorser or a spokesperson. The spokespersons are divided into two types: those, who are real and those, who are acting out the role or imaginary role. Created spokespersons have certain advantages as they are easier to control and they are definitely less costly in comparison to celebrities and in addition there is a chance to work out a better correspondence between this endorser and the product. “The endorser’s longevity will be for as long as the method is successful for the organization, whereas “real” celebrities have limited longevity. The same created spokesperson can be used indefinitely and adapted to changing circumstances.” (Zhou, Whitla, 2013, p. 1019). There is an opportunity to create lifelong links between created endorsers and the products. At the same time there is a serious disadvantage, related to using a created endorser, as it could be effective only under the condition of the already created awareness of the organization and high preliminary advertising spend. In case an organization has just been created and there is a need to establish short-term memorable link, it is advisable to involve celebrities. The companies have a serious task to decide and to measure the degree of worthiness of a celebrity. A company could choose either of the two ways here. The first one is called conversion path analytics, this is a method, used by manufacturers and retailers in the frames of the direct-to-customer sales channel. There is a link between a celebrity and a product established with the help of e-commerce website. The second path is called Social reach analytics and it is applied by brands and retailers, which create their mass media promotion without establishing of direct links for purchase actions.

There are not that many researchers, who pay adequate attention to the negative information, caused by the facts of participation of celebrities in advertising of certain brands. At the same time it is possible to treat negative information from different positions. For example in some cases celebrities waste their credibility potential, when they participate in advertising of too many diverse products. As a result the advertising campaigns with them start to lose their trustworthiness, as the consumers are overloaded by different information, received from them.  Celebrities, linked to positive information, have definitely greater chances for reaching their target audience. To the same extent their negative information integrates into association with this celebrity and reduced the degree of trustworthiness. Taking into consideration the fact that celebrity endorsement does not always work for benefits of the company, the companies, especially at their initial stages, are to consider all pros and cons of having a high profile personality for development and supporting of their products or services. Managers of the companies should be ready to meet certain potential risks. First of all endorsers are just people and this means that there is never a guarantee that they will not make any mistakes and the worst thing is that endorsers make their mistakes in front of the public. In case there is a scandal, related to a celebrity, the company is in a difficult situation, as it is not clear, whether it is rational to support the celebrity, or rather break the relations with this celebrity and to what extent would their advertising results be impact by that scandal. “An analysis of 60 real cases of endorsement scandals confirmed one thing: the consequences for companies can be huge and if a firm wants to minimize the negative impact of a scandal on its market value, its reaction should be to abstain from issuing a press release or a statement to the media.” (Zhou, Whitla, 2013, p. 1019). One more serious risk is the fact celebrities could become less popular or they could decide to change their image and both situations would lead to negative outcomes for the endorsed brand. Sometimes consumers are skeptical about the fact of celebrity’s using of the advertised product in reality. Often the cost of endorsing of a product by a celebrity is very high and some companies are not able to afford it. Finally the fact that an individual managed to become famous in some sphere does not mean that he or she could be well linked to a concrete brand and the consumers would be rather negatively impacted in case they feel that this connection is missing. Some of the companies make the same mistake, they use celebrity endorsements as a way to support their products and to increase sales, ignoring however the real quality of the product or services. This could not be treated as something more, than a part of the strategy of a company and the major focus should be still made upon the product, its development and quality. Endorsements are auxiliary means, but they are not magic.

The concept of credibility is without any doubts related to the practice of celebrity endorsement. Celebrity is meaningful for the consumer’s perception of the truth of the presented information. “It is a multi-dimensional concept that serves as a means for the receiver of the information to rate the source or transmitter of the communication in relation to the information. This rating correlates with the willingness of the receiver to attribute truth and substance to the information” (Hovland et al. 1953, p. 636). On this basis the term “source credibility” was formulated. It is mostly used for describing of the positive characteristics of communicator, which would consequently have impact upon the receiver’s perception of the message. Endorser credibility is connected to the expertise or trustworthiness, associated with the endorser for the consumers. Consumers should be convinced that the endorser is competent enough and thus able to provide only correct information about the products and is able to conduct adequate analysis and evaluation of the products and brands in general. Source credibility is related to the positive characteristics of an endorser, which would lead towards accepting positively of his messages by the consumers. “Studies on source credibility report that information from credible sources is perceived to be more valid and is more persuasive than other information, thus positively influencing beliefs, opinions, attitudes, and/or behaviors through a process called “internalization” (Chung,  Cho, 2017, p. 486). The results are great in case a consumer starts accepting of the endorser’s advertising claims as her or his own.  Source credibility consists of expertise and trustworthiness. Expertise involves relevant knowledge, skills and experience, possessed by the source in relation to the topic of endorsement. Trustworthiness relates to credibility, honesty and integrity. (Chung,  Cho, 2017, p. 487). “Expertise involves an endorser’s knowledge, skills, and performance; it is evident to and readily acknowledged by consumers. For example, John Travolta’s endorsement of Qantas (an Australian airline) is considered to have exploited source expertise—his expert knowledge and experience as a commercial pilot and owner of an airplane.” (Chung,  Cho, 2017, p. 486). Those celebrities, who have high degree of expertise, are much more convincing for their audience. Trustworthiness is more difficult to secure, as it is important to obtain the needed amount of information about the concrete endorser.

Social media plays an important role in the world of advertising nowadays; moreover there is an assumption that there are strong associations between social media and source trustworthiness. There is a basic effect of social media upon source credibility and in addition there is an option of mediating it via parasocial relationships. “Evaluation of another’s trustworthiness requires a deeper understanding of his or her personal character, motivation, preferences, goals, and values; such an understanding is gained only by people in deep interpersonal relationships with the person in question.” (Chung,  Cho, 2017, p. 487). Those consumers, who develop parasocial relationships with a celebrity within the environment of celebrity endorsement, have the chance for positive evaluations of their trustworthiness. There are both advantages and disadvantages of celebrity endorsement for advertising campaigns. The advantage of celebrity branding is that consumers become more passionate about the products, as soon as they are aware of the fact that celebrities also made the same choice. When celebrities promote brands or products, they are able to impact the customers, because their positive presentation of the quality and value of the products seems to be unbiased and simple, this fact has a great influence upon increase of sales. “An advantage of celebrity branding is by using social networks, as it is a less cost-effective scheme of assembling and distributing information so that consumers become more aware of the product before purchasing it, as well as having great online consumer reviews will increase sales due to great advertisement is done by the company/brand and the celebrity promoting the product.” (Sridevi, 2014, p. 277). Involvement of a celebrity into an advertising campaign helps to make the advertised products more noticeable to potential customers, as it stands out of the overall media clutter. In addition using of celebrities increases the degree of persuasiveness of the transmitted message about the products, leading consequently to increase of brand recognition. Most of the celebrities are associated with positive qualities, such as for example attractiveness, talent, likeability, trustworthiness. This is the reason, why an advertiser takes the decision to involve celebrities, as they will help to move these positive qualities to the products.

It was already mentioned that celebrity endorsement has a number of disadvantages as well. The term eclipsing was developed in order to describe the situation, when a celebrity overshadows the advertised product by his or her personality. In order to avoid such risks it is important to secure the focus of the attention the product from the very beginning in the frames of the advertising campaign. Overexposure also belongs to the negative effects, as consumers tend to become skeptical about the advertisings with such celebrities, who advertise a lot of various products. The consumers realize that this is done purely for the sake of earning money for advertising and any trustworthiness is lost in this case. Celebrities are perceived as less credible. Celebrities are inclined towards becoming the centers of scandals from time to time. Any kind of scandal could impact negatively the perception of the customers and make them distance from the products, advertised by this celebrity. In addition such scandals might have negative impact upon the whole brand or the company. “One of the largest profile celebrity endorsement scandals of recent history was the infidelity scandal of Tiger Woods in 2009, at the time, Tiger Woods was a brand ambassador for Nike golf apparel and footwear. It has been estimated that Nike lost approximately US$5–12billion due to this scandal.” (Zhou & Whitla, 2013, p. 1013).

Overall, celebrity endorsement has a relatively long history and continues to evolve along with introduction of new communication technologies and development of social media. Involvement of celebrities into advertising campaigns is a great advertising strategy, as long as all the potential risks of celebrity endorsement are considered, predicted and eliminated.

References:

Choi, S. M., & Rifon, N. J. (2012). “It Is a Match: The Impact of Congruence between Celebrity Image and Consumer Ideal Self on Endorsement Effectiveness.” Psychology & Marketing, 29(9), 639–650.

Chung, S., & Cho, H. (2017). “Fostering Parasocial Relationships with Celebrities on Social Media: Implications for Celebrity Endorsement.” Psychology & Marketing, 34(4), 481–495.

FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION .Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in  Advertising (1980). 16 CFR Part 255 Guides

Hovland, Carl., Weiss, Walter. (1953).”The Influence of Source Credibility on Communication Effectiveness”, Public Opinion Quarterly, 15(1), p.635-650.

Huan Chen. (2018). College-Aged Young Consumers’Perceptions of Social Media Marketing: The Story of Instagram. Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising (Routledge), 39(1), 22–36. https://doi.org/10.1080/10641734.2017.1372321

Sridevi, J. (2014). Effectiveness of celebrity advertisement on select FMCG – An Empirical Study. Procedia Economics and Finance. 11: 276–288.

Um, N. H., & Lee, W. N. (2015). “Does culture influence how consumers process negative celebrity information? Impact of culture in evaluation of negative celebrity information.” Asian Journal of Communication, 25(3), 327–347.

Zhou, L., Whitla, P. (2013). “How negative celebrity publicity influences consumer attitudes: The mediating role of moral reputation”. Journal of Business Research. 66 (8): 1013–1020.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

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freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 29, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

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