Abstract

Celebrity endorsement advertising is a prevailing advertising technique. Every year, the advertising industry spends billions of dollars on celebrity endorsements ads. Over the years, theory and practice have proved that the use of superstars and celebrities in advertising globally does generate a lot of attention and publicity from the public. Globally, firms invest significant amount of money in juxtaposing brands and organizations with endorser qualities such as attractiveness, likeability and trustworthiness. They trust that these qualities operate in a transferable way and will generate desirable purchase outcomes. Research does indicate that the use of celebrities in advertisements can have a positive influence on the credibility, message recall, memory and likeability of the advertisements. The study is an attempt to understand if the impact of celebrities on brand necessarily leads to brand preference followed by a tangible purchase intention. The study seeks to understand what is it about the celebrity endorser that has an impact upon the consumer leading to a change in his attitude and/or behavior. It is essentially a study to understand the behavioral dynamics of the Indian consumer with respect to celebrity endorsement advertisements. The study makes use of the following variables: trustworthiness, attractiveness and expertise leading to brand preference and purchase intention. The study attempts to understand to what extent the said variables, individually or in combination, influence the outcome. Data was collected from consumers belonging to pre-defined age segments and income brackets in India. Regression analysis used to check relationship between the dependent and multiple independent variables. The relationship between the dependant and each of the independent variable was determined taking the coefficient correlation into consideration. The aim is to determine the effect of trustworthiness, expertise, attractiveness and combined effect of all three of celebrity endorser on purchase intention.