INTRODUCTION Today 'Celebrity Endorsement' has attracted immense debate on whether it really contributes to the brand building process

or whether it is just another lazy tool to make the brand more visible in the minds of the consumers. Although it has been observed that the presence of a well-known personality helps in solving the problem of over-communication that is becoming more prominent these days, there are few undesirable impacts of this practice on the brand. In the Nigerian telecommunication industry, competition is at its peak as people have various telecommunication networks to choose from. Thus, each telecommunication service provider strives to retain existing customers and attract new ones. To achieve this purpose, all the tools of marketing communication are employed one of which is Celebrity Endorsement. Celebrity endorsement is expensive. Yet the companies are willing to pay for the powerful endorsement embedded in the celebrities whose name, face and/or voice recognition can draw considerable attention of millions of consumers. Agrawal and Kamakura (1995) estimate that approximately 20% of all advertisements use some form of celebrity endorsement to inform and persuade The theories like 'Source Credibility Theory, Source Attractiveness Theory and Meaning Transfer Theory' provide a basis on which the methodology of celebrity endorsement works and also explains how the process of the celebrity endorsement influences the minds customers of one of Nigerian biggest Telecommunication service providers, Glo Nigeria. It invests huge amounts of money as advertising expenditure for hiring celebrities who they refer to as Glo ambassadors to endorse their network. However there lies uncertainty with respect to the returns that the company might be able to garner for the brand. BACKGROUND OF STUDY When Nigeria gained independent in 1960, there were about 18,000 functional analogue telephone lines for an estimated population of 45 million, which was translated to a teledensity ratio of 0.04 telephones per 1000 people. During the prolonged years of military rule there was very little by way of investment in telecommunications and other sectors did not fare any better. According to the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC), Nigerias teledendisty is a far cry from the African average of 1.67. Even the NCC

admitted that Nigeria then, had a very limited telephone network for several years with an estimated 16 million citizens waiting for Nigeria Telecommunication Ltd. (NITEL) lines. All that changed in the year 2001. According to Ajala (2005, pg4) August 2011 was indeed a pivotal month in the history of telecommunication in Nigeria. That was when the first Global System of Mobile (GSM) Communication call was made under a democratic government. Econet, now called Airtel blazed the trail by connecting the first Nigerian subscriber and closely followed by MTN a day later. And Globacom was launched in 2002. These events heralded the dawn of a new era in GSM technology which completely changed the face of communication and doing business in Nigeria. Since it launched in 2002, and started its operations in August 2003, Globacom has grown to be one of the biggest telecommunication companies in Nigeria, It is the only Telecommunication company amongst the top 4 GSM providers, to be have originated from Nigeria. Not only is Globacom a proudly Nigerian company, it has successfully been targeted as the pace setter (based on innovations) of the telecommunications industry in Nigeria (Ochai, 2009 ). It was the first mobile phone service provider to offer per second billing in Nigeria. This gave Globacom a great competitive advantage, has other mobile operators were only offering per minute billing (Ochai, 2009). It also paved the way in some innovations plans like Glo Profit Max Plus, Me 2 U, Text 2 email, Glo Mobile Internet etc. This innovations were in no doubt targeted at getting all larger share of the market in this case, are the subscribers. A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF GLOBACOM NIGERIA Globacom was launched in 2002 by Nigerian business tycoon / billionaire Dr Mike Adenuga, who is already successfully in the oil industry, with Conoil plc and the banking industry with Equatorial Trust bank (ETB). It started operations in August 2003 by offering both per second and per minute billing Glo mobile or Glo is one of the most subscribed to networks in Nigeria. In its first year of operation, it had one million subscribers in over 87 towns in Nigeria. Glo has an estimate of over 25 million subscribers (June 2009) and it is a 100 percent Nigerian owned company. It has a reputation as one of the fastest growing multi-national carrier in the world and the vision for Glo is to be the biggest and best carrier in Africa.

Globacom has over 300 roaming partners in 170 countries worldwide and these include all major commercial hubs such as UK, USA, France, Germany, UAE, Belgium, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, India and China. The telecom company has the reputation of being the pioneer in prepaid roaming and GPRS roaming services in Nigeria. 2 TYPES OF ENDORSERS An endorser is a person, character or organization that speaks or appears in an ad in support of the advertiser or its claim. The terms endorser includes the terms spokesperson or model. Endorsers can be grouped into three broad classes: 1. Experts. 2. Celebrities 3. Lay endorsers.

Experts In January 1956, Procter and Gamble launched Crest toothpaste with the theme of cavity prevention. Despite heavy advertising over four and a half years, Crest achieved only a 12 per cent market share versus Colgate's 35 percent. Colgate had been the leading brand of toothpaste in the US market for many decades. Then in August 1960, crest won an endorsement by the American Dental Association as the only toothpaste that prevented dental cavities and one of only three means of fighting dental cavities. A massive advertising campaign announcing that endorsement catapulted crest into the leadership of the toothpaste market, a position it still retains.

Experts are individuals or organization that the target population perceives as having substantial knowledge in a particular area. Typically experts are chosen because of the knowledge they have accumulated through experience, training or study.

Various organizations such as the Indian Medical Association, the Indian Dental Association, will certify the quality of products, sometimes through awarding seals of approval. A seal of approval is a logo of the certifying organization that appears on the products package or ad and states that the certifying organization vouches for the merits of the product. In some cases the organizations are paid by the manufacture of the products, while in other cases the endorsement is made in the public interest.

Celebrities India does not have a single legislation, order, rule or judgment that defines a celebrity (not even the 20-odd court decisions where the term celebrity appears).In the absence of a legal definition a celebrity refers to an individual who is known to the public for his or her achievements in areas other than that of the product class endorsed .They are individuals or characters who are known to a large portion of the general population, primarily because of the publicity associated with their lives. This is true for classic forms of celebrities, like actors (e.g., Amitabh Bachchan, ShahRukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee Aamir Khan and Pierce Brosnan), models (e.g., Mallaika Arora, Lisa Ray, Aishwarya Rai, Naomi Campbell etc), sports figures (e.g. Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Sourav Ganguly, Anna Kournikova, Michael Schumacher, Steve Waugh, etc), entertainers (e.g., Cyrus Broacha, Oprah Winfrey, Conan O'Brien), and pop-stars (e.g., Madonna, David Bowie) but also for less obvious groups like businessmen (e.g., Narayan Murthi,Donald Trump, Bill Gates,) or politicians. Celebrities appear in public in different ways and when celebrities act as spokes-people in advertising to promote products and services, it is referred to celebrity endorsement. Lay Endorsers Lay endorsers are unknown individuals or characters that appear in ads, just like Harry, Louise and Libby. They are selected to closely resemble the target

segment, enabling the target segment to identify with the endorser and the message. The three categories of endorsers are not mutually exclusive. Sustained and effective use of lay endorses over time may make them celebrities in their own right. Also some individuals could belong to more than one category depending on the product they endorse. Since sports celebrities frequently endorse sporting goods as well as other products, there may be an especially large overlap in classifying endorsers from the world of sports as experts or celebrities.

1.3 HISTORY OF CELEBRITY ADVERTISING Businesses have been looking to celebrities to sell their products for almost 100 years. As early as 1899, celebrities were hocking off cigars and patent medicines for local businesses. The earliest dated endorsements of products by celebrities may have even happened by accident. Kodas Cigarettes began including baseball cards in their packs of cigars; the baseball cards were intended as gifts to loyal customers. The most famous of these is from 1910 of Honus Wagner, worth well over $500,000 in today's market. As the packaging popularity rose, and people began buying the cigarettes for the cards, advertisers realized the potential of this new phenomenon. In no time, celebrity endorsements began to flood the United States. Up until the early 1930's, athletes were among the biggest celebrity endorsers. They continued to endorse products through trading cards for anything from bread to cigars to patent medicines. But, by 1935, a new trend had begun. Celebrities had actively begun promoting products and businesses. No longer were their endorsements merely that of an image on a card. For the next 15 years, until the inception of TV in the American household, athletes dominated the advertising market.

By 1945, celebrity endorsements saw a switch from athletes to TV & movie personalities. Movie stars, such as Charlie Chaplin, became the mainstream of American advertising. Movie celebrities continued to be the popular choice of product endorsements for the next 40 years. Then, with the rise of color TV in 1965, the TV celebrity saw a surge in popularity over the movie screen celebrity. By 1975, the number of TV spots featuring a celebrity had jumped to one in eight. The celebrity boom had reached such a large hype that a new industry known as "celebrity brokering" formed. These "celebrity brokers" still exist today; they are specialists in matching up advertisers and name performers. The largest such company at the time, Berg-Albert Corp. in Beverly Hills, Calif., billed over $12 billion for about 400 deals alone within the first two years of its formation. On top of brokers, a system for scoring celebrities was also developed. Celebrities were given a Q rating based on their enduring popularity and recognition. Advertisers often consulted the Performer Q score to estimate a Celebritys endorsement potential. Compiled by Marketing Evaluations Inc. in Port Washington, N.Y., the Q value is an annual composite of a celebrity's familiarity and likeability calculated from consumer-panel data. The company gives advertisers access to a list of approximately 1,500 nationally known performers, personalities, and celebrities (but not political figures, fictional characters, deceased persons, or "jet-setters"). The Q scores became the means by which advertisers based their selection of a potential celebrity endorser. The market for celebrity endorsements became so tremendous by 1978, that companies began creating products around celebrities. However, by 1985 the trend of the TV/movie star endorser began to fade. In 1984, Nike discovered the strength and power of advertising in a young, highly talented basketball player hailing fresh from North Carolina. His name was Michael Jordan. For the first time in a long time, an athlete had existed that

personified an image. The image, Nike believed, would push them into the upper echelon of global mega brands. Since Michael Jordan became a superstar in the NBA, advertisers have placed a stronger emphasis on the athlete endorser. In 1989, Coke employed 59 different celebrities. Of those 59 celebrities, 48 were athletes. There was also a flux of sporting goods companies and those products closely associated with sports (i.e. shoes, clothing) that saw a surge in celebrity advertising. Nearly three-quarters of all active/sports products were endorsed by athletes. During the 1980s, cartoon characters also became popular celebrity endorsers. Fred Flintstone was among one of the most popular animated celebrities of the 80s. The trend of athlete endorsements has continued into the next century. Though in recent times, the TV/movie personality has seen resurgence in their popularity as an official endorser of a product. The newest trend to hit the market in the realm of celebrity advertising has been with the public announcement of contracts with celebrities for advertising. Between 1990 and 1997, there were 207 cases of endorsements for which public announcements were held. In the last few years, an even newer trend with respect to celebrity endorsements has begun to gain in popularity. Celebrities characters are beginning to push advertisements in their regular shows and movies through product placement and branded entertainment. For example, in a Friends episode the cast members buy their furniture from Pottery Barn, throughout the entire show promoting the product No matter what the case, celebrity endorsements have proven to be an enduring success. Nearly 20 percent of American network television commercials employed celebrities by 1999. Celebrities flood the advertising scene, whereas today, it is not uncommon to see three well-known celebrities supporting brands in one commercial break alone.