ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take an opportunity to thank all the people who helped me in

collecting necessary information and making of the report. I am grateful to all

of them for their time, energy and wisdom.

Getting a project ready requires the work and effort of many people. I would

like all those who have contributed in completing this project. First of all, I

would like to send my sincere thanks to SUNNY VAT 69 for her helpful hand

in the completion of my project.

NAME: VIRAJ S WADKAR

DATE:

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

Contents

1) Executive Summary……………………………………………………………4

2) Introduction to the Topic…………………………………………………..5

a .Purpose Of Marketing Promotion…………………………………….9

b. Pros and Cons of Celebrity Endorsement………………………..21-22

3) Company Profile…………………………………………………………..32

4) Research Methodology …………………………………………………..47

a. Primary Data

b.Secondary Data

5) Analysis and Interpretation……………………………………………….48

6) Conclusion and Recommendation………………………………………65

a. Questionnaire………………………………………………………….66
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………69
a. Books
b. Magazines
c. Internet
i. Sites……………………………………………………………..70

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

It is a known fact that the best endorsements achieve an eclectic balance between
the product (brand) and the celebrity. Giving a brand a 'face' is more than just a
marketing strategy to increase sales or gain market share, it is a decision that can
change the future of the brand forever.
Choice of the celebrity, hence, is of utmost importance and is usually done based on
many different parameters - appeal, looks, popularity or even just a fantasy figure to
endorse a brand.
In today's highly competitive markets, big brands are at logger-heads when it comes
to products, each having a similar product to that of a rival. Where does one brand
gain that quintessential advantage - advertising, service, promise of trust, or even
the all important price factors? Advertising seems to be the best platform where
brands prefer to compete on - right from hiring the best advertising agencies to
getting the biggest celebrities. What would be the formula to success then? Well, a
good creative agency, a large enough promotional budget and a huge star to
endorse your brand would definitely ensure in the minds of a brand management
team a feeling of security, success and a triumph over the competitors brand.
The general belief among advertisers is that brand communication messages
delivered by celebrities and famous personalities generate a higher appeal, attention
and recall than those executed by non-celebrities. The quick message-reach and
impact are all too essential in today's highly competitive environment.
The different models applied by brands to achieve the full potential of such
endorsements, highlight the need for a convergence between the theoretical and
pragmatic approaches of brand building and effective advertising. The importance of
a celebrity-brand match and the various roles played by them as brand-associates
show the momentum this strategy has gained in the last decade or so. We put
forward certain ideas like 'positioning by association', 'diminishing celebrity utility' and
the Multiplier Effect which show the triangular relationship between the brand, the
consumer and the celebrity.

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION TO THE TOPIC

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Celebrities have always been the easiest way for a new product launch (consumer
goods) and will remain to do so in the near future on account of their mass appeal
and a world full of star stuck loyal fans. But the impact on the brand is much greater
than just an advertisement showing a celebrity.

We have seen that the correct choice of a celebrity can surely increase sales but
when it comes to long term loyalty and impact on the brand. The effect is yet
somewhat debatable. In the end, the product must deliver for the customer, no
matter who endorses the product, if the customer does not see himself getting value
from his purchase, he will not buy it. But yes, celebrities over time can influence the
loyalty and make a person friendlier to a brand. Brand and celebrities are here to
stay for a long time and in this age of slick advertising and mass media and
unthinkable budgets, celebrities are having a field day charging huge amounts and
making more money than their mainstream professions. But then do they really care
about the brand? Or is it just the money? But the bottom line, celebrity endorsements
are here to stay.

Let us accept one thing - the world of advertising and brand building does not believe
in the Laissez-Faire principle. Unless you reach out to the customer, make him think
and nudge him that little bit, you will fall short of your targets and that is a cardinal
sin, given the competition. The brand managers work on an extremely sleek,
thought-controlling process which may be propounded as the Multiplier Effect. They
are smart, pragmatic people and know very well that Mr. Singh, sitting in his cosy
home in Delhi and watching his favourite action hero driving the brand new LX car
model, would not walk up to the car showroom next day and book one for himself.
They offer simple feelers like concept and lifestyle to him, which are inherent to the
product advertisement, with or without the celebrity endorsement.

With the use of the celebrity, this effect is shrewdly magnified so as to allow the
consumer to equate the personality and the brand together. Hence, whenever the
consumer is watching the several images of her favorite actress alone, it conjures up
multiple impressions of her sipping the XY brand of coffee, each time.

The brand's ultimate goal is to be at the top of her choice bracket and it achieves this
goal by being omnipresent in her memory through related celebrity imagery. Does it

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justify the obscene amounts of money paid to these celebrities? For firms with
annual turnovers in excess of Rs. 1000 crores, an endorsement deal of Rs. 5-6
crores for such a response would indeed be a smart deal. In a Synovate/Blackstone
Market Facts Survey in India in late 2003, almost 47% respondents affirmed celebrity
influence on their purchase behaviour. That's a lot of people influenced by celebrity
endorsement! Talking about successful switchovers by celebrities among
competitive brands, Aamir Khan had a 78% top brand recall with Coke. But such
transitions are rare and involve a lot of hard work behind the scenes to dab any
leftover effects of the celebrity's previous liaison with the competitor.

While speaking of celebrities, we should be very clear as to who this term connotes
to and the powers they carry. Fido Dido for 7-UP, the Amul Girl or Tony the Tiger for
Kellogg's Frosted Flakes are as much a celebrity as any breathing face. They reach
their target consumer, they move the product, and they carry the brand. That's what
counts. Of course, the gestation period is higher in the case of such creatives, but in
the event of a hit, the comparative risks are minimized. After all, they cannot get
drunk, attract a controversy or commit a crime, as long as the management wants. In
short, they are 'safe floaters' vis-à-vis their unpredictable human counterparts.

Undoubtedly, there are many advocates for the clamp down upon the
commercialization of consumer emotions and money-making attitude of endorsers.
But the celebrities have circumvented these allegations by appearing in non-
commercial advertisements. When AishwaryaRai appeals to the nation to donate
their eyes while she personally pledges them, she strikes a chord with millions of
viewers. ShabanaAzmi inspires a sense of tremendous awe and respect while being
shown as visiting HIV patients.

This reverence is what is later harnessed by the brands in the commercial angle.
You grow in stature with the person. No matter how much we raise a hue and cry
over one celebrity being all over the place and marketing just about everything, it still
works for most of us.

Indeed, the premise that celebrity advertising has the power to propel a brand and
drive the sales can be argued. The Pareto Principle is widely debated and the 80-20
rule does not have many takers in the advertising industry. That, "20% of advertising

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creates 80% of demand or sales", may or may not be true. In either case it does not
help. The word remains that for a scintillating endorsement, you need much more
than a glowing face and aesthetic advertising. You should back it up with your
operational and communication skills.

Using a celebrity in advertising is no panacea and the success of this process

depends on several factors as discussed above. The careful selection of celebrity,
matching the target segment and brand values, should be inherently stressed upon.
The advertisers can use the Q Score, developed by a U.S. based marketing
research agency, which considers two factors - awareness and likeability, while
evaluating the celebrity. Another important factor is the flexibility with which the
companies can go in for hedging the risks associated in hiring a celebrity. They
choose personalities from various fields or even appealing to various consumer
perceptions, so that they can minimize the damage in cases of negative publicity due
to any celebrity mistake. The cola brands spread their endorsements across a wide
'variety' of celebrities such that even if one falls, the others are still holding the fort.

Marketing Promotion, a key ingredient in marketing campaigns, consists of a diverse

collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to stimulate quicker or
greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the trade.1
Whereas advertising offers a reason to buy, Marketing Promotion offers an incentive
to buy. Marketing Promotion includes tools for consumer promotion (samples,
coupons, cash refund offers, process off, premiums, prizes, patronage rewards, free
trials, warranties, tie-in promotions, cross-promotions, point-of-purchase displays,
and demonstrations); trade promotion (prices off, advertising and display allowances,
and free goods); and sales force promotions (trade shows and conventions, contest
for sales reps, and specialty advertising). These tools are used by most
organizations, including non-profit organizations. Churches, for example, often
sponsor bingo games, theatre parties, testimonial dinners and raffles.
A decade ago, the advertising to sales-promotion ratio was about 60:40.
Today, in many consumer packaged-good companies, Marketing Promotion
accounts for 65 to 75 percent of the combined budged. Marketing Promotion
expenditures have been increasing as a percentage of combined budget expenditure
annually for the last two decades. Several factors contribute to this rapid growth,

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particularly in the consumer markets.2 Promotion is now more accepted by the top
management as an effective sales tool; more product managers are qualified to use
sales-promotion tools; and product managers are under pressure to increase current
sales. In addition, the number of brands has increased; competitors use promotions
frequently; many brands are seen as similar; consumers are more price-oriented; the
trade has demanded more deals from the manufacturers; and the advertising
efficiency has declined because of rising costs, media clutter, and legal restraints.
The rapid growth of sales-promotion media has created clutter similar to the
advertising clutter. Manufacturers have to find ways to rise above the clutter-for
instance, by offering larger coupon-redemption values or using more dramatic point-
of purchase displays and demonstrations.

Purposes of Marketing Promotion

Sales-promotion tools vary in their specific objectives. A free sample stimulates
consumer trial, whereas a free management-advisory service aims at cementing
long-term relationship with a retailer.
Sellers use incentive-type promotion to attract new triers, to reward loyal customers,
and to increase the repurchase rates of the occasional users. Marketing Promotion
often attracts brand switchers, who are primarily looking for low price, good value, or
premiums. Marketing Promotions are unlikely to turn them into loyal users. Marketing
Promotions used in markets of high brand similarity produce a high sales response
in the short term but little permanent gain in the market share. In markets of high
dissimilarity, Marketing Promotion can alter market shares permanently.
Farris and Quelch cite a number of Marketing Promotion benefits flowing to
manufacturers and consumers.3 Marketing Promotion enable manufacturers to
adjust to short-term variations in supply and demand. They enable manufacturers to
test how high a list price they can charge, because they can always discount it. They
induce the customers to try new products instead of never straying from current
ones. They lead to more varied retail formats, such as every-day-low-price store and
the promotional-pricing store. They promote greater consumer awareness of prices.
They permit manufacturers to sell more than they would sell at list price. They help
the manufacturer adapt programs to different consumer segments. Consumer

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themselves enjoy some satisfaction from being smart shoppers when they take
advantage of price specials.
Today many marketing managers first estimate what they need to spend in trade
promotion, then what they need to spend in consumer promotion. Whatever is left
they will budget for advertising. There is danger, however, in letting advertising take
a back seat, because advertising typically acts to build brand loyalty. The question of
whether or not Marketing Promotion weakens brand loyalty is subject to different
interpretations. Marketing Promotion, with its incessant prices off, coupons, deals
and premiums, may devalue the product offering in the buyers’ minds. Buyers learn
that the list price is largely a fiction. However, before jumping to any conclusion, we
need to distinguish between price promotions and added-value promotions.
However, usually, when a brand is price promoted too often, the consumer begins to
devalue it and buy it mainly when it goes on sale. So there is risk in putting a well-
known brand leader on promotion over 30 percent of time.() Dominant brands offer
deals frequently, because most deals only subsidize current users. Brown’s study of
2,500 instant-coffee buyers concluded that:
 Marketing Promotions yield faster and more measurable responses in sales
than advertising does.
 Marketing Promotions do not tend to yield new, long term buyers in mature
markets because they attract mainly deal-prone consumers who switch
among brands as deals become available.
 Loyal brand buyers tend not to change their buying patterns as a result of
competitive promotion.
 Advertising appears to be capable of deepening brand loyalty.4

There is also evidence that price promotions do not build permanent total category
volume. Small share competitors find it advantageous to use Marketing Promotion,
because they cannot afford to match the market leaders’ large advertising budgets;
nor can they obtain shelf-space without offering trade allowances or stimulate
consumer trials without offering incentives. Price competition is used by small brand
seeking to enlarge its share, but it is less effective for category leader whose growth
lies in expanding the entire category.5 The upshot is that many consumer packaged
goods companies feels that they are forced to use more Marketing Promotions than

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they wish. They blame the heavy use of Marketing Promotion for decreasing brand
loyalty; increasing consumer price-sensitivity; brand quality image dilution, and a
focus on short-run-marketing planning.

Major decisions in Marketing Promotions

In using Marketing Promotion, a company must establish its objectives, select the
tools, develop the program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and
evaluate the results.

Establishing the objectives

Marketing Promotion objectives are derived from broader promotion objectives,
which are derived from more basic marketing objectives developed for the product.
For consumers, objectives include encouraging purchase of larger-sized units,
building trial among non-users, and attracting switchers away from competitors’
brands. For retailers, objectives include persuading retailers to carry new items and
higher levels of inventory, encouraging stocking of related items, offsetting
competitive promotions, building brand loyalty, and gaining entry into new retail
outlets. For the sales force, objectives include encouraging support of a new product
6
or model, encouraging more prospecting, and stimulating off-season sales. See
“Marketing Memo: Marketing Promotions as brand builders.”)

Marketing Memo: Marketing Promotions as brand builders

Building brand awareness is a long-term process. What a brand does today predicts what it
will do tomorrow. Sales promotions are short term and temporary. Here are some of the tips
on how to make a sale promotion an effective brand-building tool.
 Make sure the promotion is justified: A new store opening, a company
anniversary, and other kinds of celebrations are all good reasons for
running a promotion
 Tie the promotion to brand’s image: Birth dates and anniversaries are good
 Look at every both for the sales job it can do and as a communication
tool: A promotion is one of a brand’s many voices; it can help build brand
awareness if it says the right things

Source: Adapted from Jacques Chevron, “Branding and Promotion: Uneasy

combination.” Brand week, September 14, 1998, p.24
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Selecting Consumer-promotion tools
The promotion planner should take into account the type of the market, Marketing
Promotion objectives, competitive conditions, and each tool’s cost effectiveness.
The main consumer promotion tools are summarized in the following table. We can
distinguish between manufacturer promotions and retailer promotions. Marketing
Promotions are most effective when used together with advertising. In one study, a
price promotion alone produced 15 percent increase in sales volume. When
combined with feature advertising, sales volume increased 19 percent; when
combined with feature advertising and a point-of-purchase display, sales volume
increased 24 percent.

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Major Consumer promotion tools:

Samples: Offer of a free amount of a product or service delivered door to door, sent in
the mail, picked up in a store, attached to another product, or featured in an
advertising offer.

Coupons: Certificates entitling the bearer to a stated saving on the purchase of a

specific product; mailed, enclosed in other products or attached to them, or inserted in
the magazine and newspaper ads.

Cash Refund Offers (rebates): Provide a price reduction after purchase rather than at
retail shop; consumer sends a specified “proof of purchase” to the manufacturer who
“refunds” part of the purchase price by mail.

Price Packs (cents-off deals): Offers to consumer savings off the regular price of a

product, flagged on the label or package. A reduce price pack is a single package sold at

the reduce price (such as two for the price of one). A banded pack is two related

products banded together (such as a toothbrush and toothpaste)

Premiums (gifts): Merchandise offered at a relatively low cost or free as an incentive to

purchase a particular product. A with-pack premium accompanies the product inside or
on the package. A free in-the-mail premium is mailed to the consumers who send a proof
of purchase. A self-liquidating premium is sold below its normal retail price to
consumers who request it.

Frequency Programs: Programs rewarding the consumers whose frequency and intensity
in purchasing the company’s products and services is higher.

Prizes (Contests, sweepstakes, games): Prizes are offers of the chance to win cash,
trips, or merchandise as a result of purchasing something. A contest calls consumers to
submit an entry to be examined by panel of judges who will select the best entries. A
sweepstake asks consumers to submit their names in a drawing. A game presents the
consumers with something every time they buy to help them win prizes.

Patronage awards: Values in cash or in other forms that are proportional to patronage
of a certain vendor or group of vendors.

Free Trials: Inviting prospective purchasers to try the product without cost in the hope
that they will buy.

Product Warranties: Explicit or implicit promises by sellers that the product will
perform as specified or that the seller will fix it or refund the customer’s money during a
specified period.

Tie-in promotions: Two or more brands or companies team up on coupons, refunds, and
contests to increase the pulling power

Cross-promotions: Using one brand to advertise another noncompeting brand.

Point-of-purchase (POP) Displays and Demonstrations: POP displays and

demonstrations take place at the point-of-purchase or sale

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~ 13 ~
Selecting trade-promotion tools
Manufacturers use a number of trade promotion tools. Surprisingly a higher
percentage of promotion pie is devoted to trade promotion tools (46.9 percent) than
to consumer promotion (27.9 percent), with media advertising capturing remaining
25.2 percent. Manufacturers use award money to the trade
1. To persuade the wholesaler or retailer to carry the brand;
2. Persuade the retailer or wholesaler to carry more units than the normal
amount;
3. To induce the retailers to promote the brand by featuring, display, and price
reductions and;
4. To stimulate retailers and their sales clerks to push the product.
The growing power of large retailers has increased their ability to demand trade
promotion at the cost of consumer promotion and advertising.8The different trade
promotions are

Price off (off-invoice or off list): A straight discount off the list price on each
case purchased during a stated time period.
Allowance: An amount offered in return for the retailer’s agreeing to feature
the manufacturer’s products in some way. An advertising allowance
compensates the retailers for advertising the manufacturer’s product. A display
allowance compensates them for carrying a special product display

Free Goods: Offers of extra cases of merchandise to intermediaries who buy a certain
quantity or who feature a certain flavor or size

Source: For more information, see Betsy Spethman, Trade Promotion Redefined,
Brandweek, March 13, 1995, pp. 25-32
Selecting Business- and sales-force-promotion tools
Companies spend billions of dollars on business-and sales-force-promotion tools as
shown in the table. These tools are used to gather business leads, impress and
reward customers, and motivate the sales force to greater effort. Companies typically
develop budgets for each business-promotion tool that remain fairly constant from
year to year.

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Trade Shows and Conventions: Industry associations organize annual trade
sows and conventions. Business marketers may spend as much as 35 percent of
their annual promotion budget on trade shows

Sales Contests: A sales contest aims at including the sales force or dealers to
increase their sales over a stated period, with prizes (money, trips, gifts or
points) going to those who succeed

Specialty Advertising: Specialty advertising consists of useful, low cost items

bearing the company’s name and address, and sometimes an advertising
message that salespeople give to prospects and customers. Common items are
ballpoint pens, key chains, flashlights, tote bags, and memo pads.

In terms of the future, celebrity endorsements are here to stay. Their ability to cut
across the classes, caste barriers and apprehensions are simply too important to be
sidelined. They have been time-tested and delivered results repeatedly, given good
hands. One could continue to wonder if these celebrity-hawkers are worth the money
and the tantrums, but in a world of brand clutter and product muddle, celebrities
seem to hit the nail on the head, more often than not. And to be honest, let's look
around ourselves, why only Jane, we all in a little appreciation of those stars aren’t
gazing back at us! Although past research documents a general tendency for
consumers to believe in the purity of the motives of celebrity endorsers, it is likely
that this tendency varies substantially both across consumers and across endorsers.
For example, Tripp showed that celebrities who endorse several products are viewed
as less credible endorsers than those who endorse only a single product. also
demonstrated that celebrities who are blamed for negative events (e.g. accidents)
can have detrimental effects on the products they endorse. In short, the
effectiveness of a celebrity endorser is dynamic, dependent on the celebrity, the
product, and perhaps even societal conditions at the time and place where the
advertisement is shown. As such, it could be fruitful to abandon the use of traditional
measures of the celebrity endorser's trustworthiness or credibility in general in favor
of directly measuring the degree to which individuals evaluate the celebrity as liking
the endorsed product after viewing the advertisement. Such evaluations fit under a
class of judgment that has been referred to as “correspondent inferences”
Correspondent inferences more generally refer to any judgment in which observers

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use an individual's behavior (e.g. an endorser saying that she loves Cheerios cereal)
to infer congruent dispositions in that individual (e.g. inferring that the endorser
actually does love Cheerios cereal). We propose that correspondent inferences are a
direct measure of a celebrity's credibility in the specific context of the advertisement,
and thus should predict consumers' attitudes toward the advertised product.H1.
=Correspondent inferences will be positively associated with attitudes toward the
advertised product. Another interesting question in this context is whether
consumers will tend to make correspondent inferences about celebrity endorsers.
Early social psychological work in attribution theory suggests not – a large
endorsement fee should be viewed as a strong incentive toward endorsement
behavior, and thus observers should doubt that endorsements reflect true liking for
the product on the part of the endorser. However, research indicating that celebrities
are especially credible and trustworthy endorsers (e.g. Freiden, 1984) suggests that
consumers might believe celebrities like the product regardless of endorsement fees.
Furthermore, research examining a phenomenon called “correspondence bias”
suggests that observers are biased such that they tend to attribute behavior to
personal characteristics of the individual performing that behavior (e.g. liking for the
product) even when situational factors (e.g. endorsement fees) are sufficient to fully
explain the behavior.

Celebrity attributes that influence endorsement effectiveness

Previous research examining the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements has
focused primarily on personal attributes of the celebrity that enhance his or her
persuasiveness For example, a number of researchers have used models in which
“source credibility”, typically viewed as a function of trustworthiness and expertise, is
the primary factor determining how influential the endorser will be Trustworthiness
refers to the general believability of the endorser, and is thus broader but
conceptually similar to correspondent inferences about the endorser. Expertise
refers to the product knowledge of the endorser and thus to the validity of his or her
claims regarding the product, and is believed to be a factor that increases
persuasiveness above and beyond the effects of trustworthiness.H3.=Perceived
product knowledge of the endorser will be positively associated with attitudes toward
the advertised product.Other researchers have emphasized the importance of
source attractiveness in determining liking for the endorser and thereby increasing

~ 16 ~
endorsement effectiveness To the extent that attractiveness is an important
determinant of endorsement effectiveness, research based on the matchup
hypothesis for a discussion of the matchup hypothesis in relation to endorser
expertise) suggests that its importance is limited by the degree to which
attractiveness “fits” well with the advertised product Thus, for example, physical
attractiveness might be useful when selling cosmetics but not when selling
computers. Furthermore, although source attractiveness research has focused
primarily on physical attractiveness, attractiveness can also be viewed more
generally as a positive attitude toward the endorser. Such positive attitudes might
result from admiration or perceived similarity although effective advertising is more
likely to rely on the admiration component because the influential power of celebrities
is closely connected to their status as role models.

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Figure 1Model predicting attitude toward the advertised product in Experiment 1

~ 18 ~
2. Model predicting attitude toward the advertised product in Experiment

~ 19 ~
The argument for Celebrity Endorsement

Brands have been leveraging celebrity appeal for a long time. Across categories,
whether in products or services, more and more brands are banking on the mass
appeal of celebrities. As soon as a new face ascends the popularity charts,
advertisers queue up to have it splashed all over. Witness the spectacular rise of
SaniaMirza and IrfanPathan in endorsements in a matter of a few months. The
accruement of celebrity endorsements can be justified by the following advantages
that are bestowed on the overall brand:

• Establishment of Credibility: Approval of a brand by a star fosters a sense

of trust for that brand among the target audience- this is especially true in
case of new products. We had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign. At launch,
Shah Rukh Khan endorsed Santro and this ensured that brand awareness
was created in a market, which did not even know the brand.
• Ensured Attention: Celebrities ensure attention of the target group by
breaking the clutter of advertisements and making the ad and the brand more
noticeable.
• PR coverage: is another reason for using celebrities. Managers perceive
celebrities as topical, which create high PR coverage. A good example of
integrated celebrity campaigns is one of the World’s leading pop groups, the
Spice Girls, who have not only appeared in advertisements for Pepsi, but also
in product launching and PR events.
• Time saving: Celebrity is able to build brand credibility in a short period of
time.
• Higher degree of recall: People tend to commensurate the personalities of
the celebrity with the brand thereby increasing the recall value. Golf champion
Tiger Woods has endorsed American Express, Rolex, and Nike. Actress
Catherine Zeta-Jones is used by T-Mobile and Elizabeth Arden. 007 Pierce
Brosnan promotes Omega, BMW, and Noreico.
• Associative Benefit: A celebrity’s preference for a brand gives out a
persuasive message - because the celebrity is benefiting from the brand, the
consumer will also benefit.

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• Mitigating a tarnished image: Cadbury India wanted to restore the
consumer's confidence in its chocolate brands following the high-pitch worms
controversy; so the company appointed Amitabh Bachchan for the job. Last
year, when the even more controversial pesticide issue shook up Coca-Cola
and PepsiCo and resulted in much negative press, both soft drink majors put
out high-profile damage control ad films featuring their best and most
expensive celebrities. While Aamir Khan led the Coke fightback as an
ingenious and fastidious Bengali who finally gets convinced of the product's
`purity,' PepsiCo brought Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar together
once again in a television commercial which drew references to the `safety' of
the product indirectly.
• Psychographic Connect: Celebrities are loved and adored by their fans and
advertisers use stars to capitalise on these feelings to sway the fans towards
their brand.
• Demographic Connect: Different stars appeal differently to various
demographic segments (age, gender, class, geography etc.).
• Mass Appeal: Some stars have a universal appeal and therefore prove to be
a good bet to generate interest among the masses.
• Providing testimony: Another benefit of using celebrity endorsers is that s/he
can provide testimony for a product or service, particularly when the product
has contributed to their celebrity. The more familiar an endorser, the more
likely consumers are to buy the endorsed product.
• Rejuvenating a stagnant brand: With the objective of infusing fresh life into
the stagnant chyanwanprash category and staving off competition from
various brands, Dabur India roped in Bachchan for an estimated Rs 8 crore.
• Celebrity endorsement can sometimes compensate for lack of
innovative ideas.

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The argument against Celebrity Endorsement

The celebrity approach has a few serious risks:

1. The reputation of the celebrity may derogate after he/she has endorsed
the product: Pepsi Cola's suffered with three tarnished celebrities - Mike
Tyson, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. Since the behaviour of the celebrities
reflects on the brand, celebrity endorsers may at times become liabilities to
the brands they endorse.

2. The vampire effect: This terminology pertains to the issue of a celebrity

overshadowing the brand. If there is no congruency between the celebrity and
the brand, then the audience will remember the celebrity and not the brand.

~ 22 ~
 Examples are the campaigns of Dawn French—Cable Association and
Leonard Rossiter—Cinzano. Both of these campaigns were aborted due to
celebrities getting in the way of effective communication. Another example
could be the Castrol commercial featuring Rahul Dravid.
3. Inconsistency in the professional popularity of the celebrity: The
celebrity may lose his or her popularity due to some lapse in professional
performances. For example, when Tendulkar went through a prolonged lean
patch recently, the inevitable question that cropped up in corporate circles - is
he actually worth it? The 2003 Cricket World Cup also threw up the Shane
Warne incident, which caught Pepsi off guard. With the Australian cricketer
testing positive for consuming banned substances and his subsequent
withdrawal from the event, bang in the middle of the event, PepsiCo - the
presenting sponsor of the World Cup 2003 - found itself on an uneasy wicket
4. Multi brand endorsements by the same celebrity would lead to
overexposure: The novelty of a celebrity endorsement gets diluted if he does
too many advertisements. This may be termed as commoditisation of
celebrities, who are willing to endorse anything for big bucks. Example, MRF
was among the early sponsors of Tendulkar with its logo emblazoned on his
bat. But now Tendulkar endorses a myriad brands and the novelty of the
Tendulkar-MRF campaign has scaled down.
5. Celebrities endorsing one brand and using another (competitor):
Sainsbury’s encountered a problem with Catherina Zeta Jones, whom the
company used for its recipe advertisements, when she was caught shopping
in Tesco. A similar case happened with Britney Spears who endorsed one
cola brand and was repeatedly caught drinking another brand of cola on tape.
6. Mismatch between the celebrity and the image of the brand: Celebrities
manifest a certain persona for the audience. It is of paramount importance
that there is an egalitarian congruency between the persona of the celebrity
and the image of the brand. Each celebrity portrays a broad range of
meanings, involving a specific personality and lifestyle. Madonna, for
example, is perceived as a tough, intense and modern women associated
with the lower middle class. The personality of Pierce Brosnan is best
characterized as the perfect gentlemen, whereas Jennifer Aniston has the
image of the ‘good girl from next door’.
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Brand, Celebrities & Consumer

Factors Impacting a Brand while being viewed by a Consumer in

Media

The model above shows the various factors that affect a celebrity endorsed brand
while viewed by a consumer in the media (both TV and print). The central idea being
the impact on brand. The three major parts to a brand being shown are: -

 The Product

 Advertisement

 The celebrity endorsing it

It is important is to study the relationship between these factors and how they
together act for or against the brand.

The product is important, of course, it may fulfill a need, want or a desire. Quality is
quintessential and, hence, nowadays it is understood the product is of highest

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quality. So what next? The advertisement is important as a good product could see
an early exit if the advertisement is handled badly, and otherwise, a mediocre
product which is tastefully handled goes a long way. Lastly, the celebrity in the
advertisement, recall, trust, familiarity are some of the reasons that they are used.
Now consider the interactions of these individual factors. The best of superstars can
be doing the advertisement but if the product is far from the image the star has, the
whole advertisement is a waste. Imagine an Amitabh doing an advertisement for ad
for youth apparel. Well, exceptions can be there but then again it depends on the
way it is done. Believability is of vital importance, the TVS Victor advertisement
shows us the bike being compared to the bat of Sachin and the strokes he plays.
(Classically executed advertisement with the bike and Sachin coming out as
winners). The relationship between a product and its advertisement again can be
either dependant or none. In that case, a shock value makes people remember the
brand better and, hence, a possible long term loyalty.

Selection of Celebrity

Anyone who is famous may be the right celebrity. However, the appropriateness of
the celebrity largely depends on the product or service. Most advertisers insist that
their celebrity spokespeople have charisma and current popularity. That is why we
see more movie and television stars, athletes, real-life heroes, and musicians acting
as brand ambassadors in the market.

~ 25 ~
The choice of celebrity is critical for the success of the advertisement. The celebrity
should have high recognition, high positive affect, and the image of the celebrity
must match with that of the product. For this reason, famous sportsmen are used to
endorse sporting goods: Michael Jordan & Nike, Tiger Woods and Nike, David
Beckham endorses Adidas, etc. While it is totally inappropriate for movie stars to
endorse a sports products.

Celebrity endorsements must be used judiciously. If the celebrity is too famous or too
popular, then the celebrity will overpower the product - i.e., people will remember
seeing only the celebrity and forget the product. This happened when Britney Spears
came in a Pepsi Commercial in 2001. Britney Spears was at the height of her
popularity - viewers saw the advertisement to see Britney Spears and forgot all about
Pepsi. In India, Hollywood actress Dimple Kapadia in a sexy swim wear was used in
a Cinthol soap advertisement - People remember seeing the actress - but the soap
was forgotten.

The cost benefit analysis of using celebrity in marketing communications is bit tricky.
But the general belief is that using celebrity is a lot cheaper in building a brand. For
example, S.Kumar’s built the brand "Reed & Taylor’s" as a premier suiting material
by having AmitabBachan in its advertisements. To achieve the same without a
celebrity would have taken longer time & more money. In a span of less than two
years after launch, the brand Reed & Taylor’s" has become the second largest seller
of cloth for men’s suits in India.

Selection of the right celebrity is crucial. The needs of the brand—rather than the
fame of the celebrity—should be the primary criteria when selecting a celebrity
spokesperson. The celebrity's physical attractiveness, values, and credibility also
matter tremendously. However, it would be suicidal to forget about the target
audience.

Types of Celebrity Endorsements

Celebrity branding has many aspects. A slight change in the type of branding used
can result in either a great success or a dismal failure. Celebrity branding falls into
five general categories:

• Testimonial: The celebrity acts as a spokesperson for the brand.

~ 26 ~
 • Imported: The celebrity performs a role known to the audience.

• Invented: The celebrity plays a new, original role.

• Observer: The celebrity assumes the role of an observer commenting on the

brand.

• Harnessed: The celebrity's image is integrated with the ad's storyline.

Facts over the Years

• Approximately 60-70% of all television commercials feature famous people.

• AishwaryaRai had once endorsed 'Fuji-Film' camera rolls. The company made
an agreement with her to endorse their camera rolls. But, Aishwarya's magic
did not work there and they had to terminate the contract.
• Amitabh Bachchan (AB) was seen endorsing Maruti's Versa Car. The AB
factor worked wonders as far as generating curiosity was concerned but the
actual product couldn't meet the expectations of people, and hence, the
endorsement strategy didn't work. He has been used very effectively by
Parker Pens, ICICI Bank and Cadbury's to name a few.
• Bata’s sales doubled soon after they adopted Rani Mukherjee as their brand
ambassador.
• Magic Johnson lost his endorsement deals when he announced in 1991 that
he's HIV-positive. It wasn't until July 2003 that he landed his first endorsement
deal since the announcement.
• Ticket sales at Wimbledon are known to have shot up significantly for all
matches featuring the latest 'sex-symbol' on the circuit - Anna Kournikova. An
average player who is yet to win even a single tennis tournament, Anna is
known to have earned far more from endorsements than her tennis career
could ever have given her.

Celebrity Endorsements as a Strategy

How Tiger Woods’s endorsement of Accenture is beneficial to the company in
sending the message of high performance. This is just an example of having
celebrity endorsement. Marketers of consumer products have long used celebrities

~ 27 ~
to endorse their product - and this has become a common strategy. I therefore have
chosen to write about the theory and the intentions behind the strategy of using
celebrity endorsements.

Objectives ofMarketing Communications

Defining the objectives of the advertisements is the first step. In general, there are
four major objectives for any advertisement. Note that not all advertisements need to
have all the objectives.

1. Establishthe product need

stablishing a need for a product or a product category is the necessary first

step. This is more important in new-to-world category of products In Indian
context, consider the advertisement for Polio Immunization drive - the TV
advertisement featured AmitabBachan telling that immunization is a must for
every child - while people suffering from polio are shown in the background
along with healthy kids. This advertisement used a celebrity to create the
need for polio immunization.

~ 28 ~
 Another good example is Toyota’s advertisement of Innova in India. The TV
advertisement prominently shows Amir Khan playing different roles while
traveling in an Innova. The different roles - establish the need for such a big
car in India. ( Note that Indian car market is dominated by small cars - which
can seat only four adults, Toyota wanted to establish the need for a 8 seater
car in India)

2. Create Brand Awareness

Once the need for a product is established, customers must be able to

associate the brand with the product category. For example iPod is strongly
associated with portable MP3 players, Nike with sports shoes etc..

A classic example of this is Nike’s use of Michael Jordan advertising for Nike.
This advertisement instantly created a strong association of Nike with
basketball shoes.

3. Set customerexpectations

Brand value comes from the customers experience with the product. If the
product meets or beats his expectations, then a positive brand image is
created, else a negative brand image is created. Therefore it is essential to
set the customer expectations accordingly.

This is most common in established consumer products - Beauty products,

household cleaning products, food products etc.

Create a purchase intention

These are marketing promotion advertisements - Buy one, get one free, or get
additional discounts if you buy within a particular date etc.. The sole purpose of such
communication messages is to encourage customers to buy immediately or within a
short periodafter seeing.

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Use of celebrity endorsements to create a purchase intention has been very limited.
This is mainly because such advertisements adversely affect the personality brand
value of the celebrity. Being associated with a discount deal is not favorable image
for the celebrity and the customer.

CHAPTER II
COMPANY PROFILE

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COMPANY PROFILE

Research has shown that there are three aspects that influence a customer's attitude
and, hence, the long term impact on the brand - Attractiveness, Trustworthiness and
Expertise. The matrix below shows us the images and the celebrities: -

Aspect of Brand Image Celebrity Product

Elegance AishwaryaRai Nakshatra Diamonds
Beauty Madhuri Dixit Emami
Attractiveness Classy Saif and Soha Ali Khan Asian Paints-Royale
Saif Ali Khan Provogue
Stylish
Amitabh Bachhan Reid & Taylor
Honest TarunTejpal Tehelka
Trustworthiness
Reliable MS Dhoni TVS Star City
Knowledge Sachin&Sehwag Reebok
Expertise
Qualified NainaBalsavar Shampoo

Hence, we see depending on the product and aspect of brand, the choice of the
celebrity is important so that the celebrity can reflect that and not go against the
brand.

We talk about Brand Equity, Brand Identity and Position. It is worthwhile to see the
effect of a celebrity on these critical elements. Brand equity essentially made up of
loyalty, awareness, perceived quality, associations, and other proprietary brand
assets. The celebrity should be chosen in such a way as to reinforce and strengthen
the brand in all these elements but the question is, can he? Take an example of
another star Fardeen Khan, who endorses Provogue. Snazzy fashionable apparel
from an Indian manufacturer with the backing of a star son was a great idea for the
brand image. It was able to attract new customers who were fashion conscious but
unable to afford high price international brands.

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Awareness of the brand was phenomenal as fashion shows, print and media
advertising was booming and Fardeen and Provgue had become a national
phenomenon. Quality was given utmost importance and, hence, from the
manufacturer side, the commitment to the customer was complete. Competition was
present but sales figures showed Provogue reaping handsomely. Then the image of
the so-called Bad Boy Fardeen emerged with the drug and brawls in night clubs.
This did lead to a certain discontent amongst fans of the star and the brand. But
remarkably not much effect on sales. It seemed that the consumers had forgotten
Fardeen's issues and remained loyal to the brand. Today Fardeen is still the
mainframe picture of every advertisement and the brand has not lost any of its shine.

Measuring a Celebrity Endorsement

It becomes very important to measure the effectiveness of a celebrity (or determine

the worth of one). Few of the methods of measurement that are in practice are: -

 The Q-SCORE Method

 The FRED Principle

The Q-SCORE Method

There is a way to measure the credibility, believability, popularity, and like-ability of a

celebrity. It's called a Q-Score, and you can purchase the Q-Scores of the
candidates you're considering.

Consider both sides of the deal - for a client who wanted to use a celebrity endorser,
and for a celebrity who was looking for an endorsement opportunity. Once you've
defined the kind of endorser you need (e.g., athlete, actor, male/female, young/old,
etc.), its well worth going through the Q-Score exercise.

Evaluating the contribution of the endorser after you've already made the decision is
not nearly as straightforward. One time, many years ago, a company actually shot a
commercial with a well-known (high Q-Score) endorser for national use, and it shot
the same commercial with a good actor, not so well-known. The company ran a
limited market test for 6 months with the unknown actor (cutting in the commercials

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locally, over national network schedule) so could quantify the sales impact of the
celebrity. By the way, the celebrity was worth every penny of his outrageous fee. It
ended up using him for years, and he helped the brand reach market leadership
almost entirely on the strength of the commercials in which he appeared.

The FRED Principle

This concept is seen as the foundation of a successful endorser selection.

F is for Familiarity. The target market must be aware of the person, and perceive
him or her as empathetic, credible, sincere and trustworthy.

R is for Relevance. There should be a meaningful link between the advertised

brand and the celebrity endorser, and more important, between the celebrity
endorser and the defined target market. The audience must be able to identify with
the person. If consumers can immediately associate with an endorser, they will feel
more predisposed to accepting, buying and preferring the brand to competition.

E is for Esteem. Consumers must have the utmost respect and confidence for the
celebrity. Amitabh Bachhan& Tendulkar have these. So do Shahrukh Khan,
PreityZinta, KapilDev among others. The public respect them because of their
distinguished careers and unassailable salesmanship.

D is for Differentiation. The target consumers must see the endorser as a cut
above the rest. If there is no perceived disparity among celebrities, then the strategy
will not work. Michael Jordan is an example of an international celebrity that rises
above the clutter. This proves to be a huge contributory factor to his effectiveness as
an endorser.

The Fred concept is not a guarantee to success, but it can serve as a guideline when
selecting a spokesperson. Each organization and its objectives are different, and
should be evaluated on an individual basis.

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THE IMPACT

As defined earlier, impact would be both short term and long term, but here the focus
would be more on the long term implications of the brand. Measurement of this
would be challenging and data would be difficult to obtain. The parameters on which
impact could be measured would be on a comparative basis of the brand before and
after the celebrity began endorsing the brand. Sales / revenue, market share, brand
recall, level of repurchase, brand loyalty, trust, image and perception of the brand
per say.

In this trend of creative advertising, we see usage of celebrities of all walks in life -
particularly actors, film stars, models, sports persons, and the whole gamut. But the
usage can always backfire if the choice of the star is completely contradictory in
nature to the brand. Believability and association of brand to celebrity is important.

Selection of celebrities can be done while they are at their peak or when they are
destined for greatness in the near future. Again a risk that may go either way. What
is important at some level is the value that a celebrity adds to a particular brand. The
advertiser tries his best to make the celebrity and brand as analogous as possible.
The celebrity endorser is seen to score quite well on dimensions such as
trustworthiness, believability, persuasiveness, and likeability when tested for reaction
from people. This is important to a marketer as if he can get a celebrity to make the
masses follow, believe or listen to him, he has been successful.

As discussed by Kelman (1961), the basis for the effectiveness of celebrity-endorsed

advertising can be linked to this process of identification and internalization of the
desired behavior. Price of fame may be high for the celebrity endorsed brands but
they have both what the markets and the everyday common man want - attention,
power and star sizzle.

Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition of a large group of people.
Celebrities may convey a broad range of meanings, involving demographic
categories (e.g., age, gender and status), personality and lifestyle types. For
instance, people adore Sachin Tendulkar because he represents a middle-class

~ 34 ~
Maharashtrian boy who made it big with sheer hard work. Likewise, Amitabh
Bachchan for most is an icon of style, trust and dependability.

Though marketers should remember that celebrities are mere living beings like us
and if they can highlight the benefits or advantages of a brand they can also have
some uncanny negative impact. Theory and practice suggests that the use of stars
and their unleashing power in advertising generate a lot of publicity and attention
from the public but the underline questions are, do these stars really help a brand by
increasing its sales? On the other hand, can they really have an Impact on the
person's consumption pattern, thereby changing his brand preference? How an
advertisement featuring a celebrity can influence consumers buying decision and
can create an association between a brand and a common man.
To answer these questions, the article will examine the relationship between
celebrity endorsements and brands, and the impact of celebrity endorsement on
consumer's buying behaviour as well as how consumer makes brand preferences.
We will apply a wide range of accepted principles of how consumers brand attitudes
and preferences can be influenced, how buyer'sbehavior can be influenced, how
buyer's behavior can be molded. We will use the principles of credibility of source

~ 35 ~
and attractiveness, the match-up hypothesis, the consumer decision-making model
and the communication model to understand this phenomenon.
Brand- A layman perspective
Brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational and cultural image that you can
associate with a company or the product. Few examples will bring home the
meaning i.e. Amul - utterly butterly delicious; Coke – thandamatlabcoca-cola; Pepsi
– Yehdil mange more; Kurkure-Masti bole to kurkure and Daewooka India.
These examples convey one message that when people watch advertisement a
connect is being created and result is that people go for experience of buying.
People feel by using the brand they will portray certain traits or characteristics that
otherwise they do not have. This generates a certain level of emotional affiliation and
a sense of fulfillment. It is this emotional relationship with brands that make them so
powerful.
Advertisements enforces what exactly the brand stands for and what to expect by its
consumption and above all what factors, features and attributes makes it better from
competition. Advertisements along with other marketing efforts generate
expectations and feelings in a customer and force them to think when they see or
hear the brand name. This Thinking process and emotional bonding gets more
mature and relevant when a celebrity endorses the brand. The subjective intangible
feelings of a customer become objective and tangible in the form of celebrity and the
level of expectations will rise. The customer will start to perceive himself in the
reference frame of the celebrity after the brand or the advertised product has been
purchased or consumed by him.
Celebrity
Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition and mostly they are the experts
of their respective fields having wider influence in public life and societal domain.
Attributes like attractiveness, extraordinary life style or special skills, larger than life
imageand demigod status can be associated with them.
It is safe to deduce that within a corresponding social group celebrities generally
differ from the social norm and enjoy high degree of public awareness.
Celebrities appear in public in different ways. To start, they appear in public when
fulfilling their professional commitments example: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who
played cricket in front of an audience in Twenty-Twenty World Cup. Furthermore,
celebrities appear in public by attending special celebrity events, example: the movie
~ 36 ~
award nights; special screening; world premiers of movies or for social causes.
These celebrities have universal presence and appeal, they are present everywhere,
in news, fashion shows and magazines, tabloids and above all advertisements.
Celebrity and a Brand
Star power in India can be gauged by the successful endorsements done by
Sharukh Khan (Pepsi, Hyundai Santro, Sunfeast, and Navratan etc.), Amitabh
Bachchan, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, HrithikRoshan and the others. The
inevitable question is, if and how the lively interest of the public in the rich and
famous can be efficiently and effectively used by companies to promote their brands
and consequently to increase their sales revenues.
This fact can be brought out by using certain examples i.e. Mr. Amitabh Bachchan
promoting Cadbury chocolates after the fiasco of infestation when the image of
Cadbury India went very low in the eyes of people. Soon the company found a
perfect fit and a reliable celebrity to transmit the correct message and help
regenerating the lost trust. The fit between the product and celebrity is evident as
Mr.Bachchan and Cadbury chocolates both have tested troubled times and still they
stand tall and the love and trust they both share with the people all across India. This
is a live example of how a celebrity brought certain attributes to a product like
chocolate.
Actor Sharukh khan has also endorsed diversified products. His endorsement basket
is ranging from Hyundai Santro to Sunfeast biscuits on one hand and from Compaq
computers to Videocon electronics on the other.
According to Advertising research companies both the actors are doing well and the
ad spent on both by the companies is increasing at a phenomenal rate, so does their
basket of endorsements. These actors bring reliability and trust in the brand and
above all, they help in increasing the sales revenues.
Celebrity endorsements are powerful, has become evident from the above two
examples but, why is it so? This power is offered by the following elements, which
also creates a 'Top of the Mind Position'.

* Instant Awareness, knowledge about the brand and easy recall.

* Values and image of the brand is defined, highlighted and refreshed by the
celebrity.
* The celebrity adds new edge and dimension to the brand.
~ 37 ~
* Credibility, trust, association, aspiration and connectivity to brand.
* Belief in efficiency and new appearance that will result in at least trial usage.

Understanding Consumer Behaviour

Consumer behaviour is the study of how people buy, what they buy, when they buy
and why they buy. It blends elements from psychology, sociology, sociopsychology,
anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision-making
process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual
consumers such as demographics, psychographics, and behavioral variables in an
attempt to understand people's wants. It also tries to assess influences on the
consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups, and society in
general.
The study and knowledge of consumer behaviour helps firms and organizations to
improve their marketing strategies and product offerings. Following are the important
issues that have significant influence on consumer's psyche and their ability to take
decisions:
• The psychology of how consumers think, feel, reason, and select between
different alternatives (e.g., brands, products);
• The psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment
(e.g., culture, family, signs, media);
• The behavior of consumers while shopping or making other marketing
decisions;
• Limitations in consumer knowledge or information processing abilities
influence decisions and marketing outcome;
• How consumer motivation and decision strategies differ between products
that differ in their level of importance or interest that they entail for the
consumer; and
• How marketers can adapt and improve their marketing campaigns and
marketing strategies to more effectively reach the consumer.
• Their Age, Religion, Culture, Income, informal group and Referent Group.
Understanding these issues helps us adapt our strategies by taking the consumer
into consideration.

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Consumer Decision-making process

The given process is very complicated though on first sight it does not look so.
Process starts with problem recognition or with an unsatisfied need. Something that
a consumer would like to have or purchase in order to attain satisfaction. This need
can be Psychological, attitudinal or Physiological but yes it should have the capacity
to be fulfilled by consuming a particular product or service.
To satisfy the given need what all are the components that should be taken into
consideration and how we can maximize the satisfaction is the next stage. In this
stage, we will cover ability to purchase, level of involvement, people whose opinion
will count and other relevant details that will help us in optimizing satisfaction.
Based upon information search we will generate various alternatives i.e. which brand
or product is affordable for me, where will it be available comfortably and above all in
comparison to other brands or products how better or economical it is.
Evaluation stage will look like cost benefit analysis and based upon maximum value
or utility per rupee spend, we will decide or shortlist the product or brand. This is the
decision and confirmation stage where the consumers prepares himself for the
purchase of a particular brand and give preference to one and only one over and
above the others.

~ 39 ~
Next comes the purchase when the consumer will finally go to the market and look
for the brand or the product, physically verifies it and purchases it.
Last is the post purchase Evaluation in which the customer wants to justify his
consumption or purchase decision. He tries to find out whether his purchase decision
was right or not. Companies make lot of effort to tackle this situation successfully
and they want the customer to be satisfied with their product.
This stage may result into three situations, first is satisfaction where customer is
satisfied and he got expected results but this does not necessitates the repeat
purchase by the consumer. Second is dissonance where the consumer is not
satisfied as he got less utility or less than expected result from the consumption or
product performance. Third is Delight, here the consumer gets more than expected
satisfaction and utility and this will assure the repeat purchase and creation of brand
loyalty.

Traditional Factors affecting consumer decision making

There are several factors that affect consumer's decision to purchase a brand and a
product. These factors though at time are not very much visible but they make an
impact and affects sales of a product or brand up to a great extent. The table below
shows some of these factors.

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Impact of a Brand on consumer purchase decision
Research studies have proven that known products and names are sold more than
unknown ones. Therefore, a known brand or an optimally exposed brand will find
more recognition and buyers in the market in comparison to completely unknown or
unexposed brand. Recognition of brand and its significance along with the traditional
factors plays a very significant role in consumer decision-making process.
More or less every consumer has a brand preference and given the affordability and
societal norms, each buyer would like to buy and consume one of the highly
acceptable, recognizable, and reputed brands.

The above given model explains the important role that a brand plays in three
different stages of consumer's purchase decision making. A consumer start
collecting data or information about his favourite brand than he keeps his favourite
as one of the alternatives and he evaluate his selected brand against all available
options and on finding it suitable or best among all options based upon a qualitative
and quantitative evaluation he will ultimately purchase the selected or favourite
brand.

~ 41 ~
The diagram above explains how various traditional factors along with brand
preference interact during purchase decision process and finally results into a
consumer's final product choice or ultimate purchase.
Celebrity and a brand
Surveys suggest that compared to any other types of endorsers, famous people
achieve a higher degree of attention and recall. They increase awareness of a
company's advertising as well as help in retention of message in the psyche of the
audience. They can also help the company in reducing their expenditure on Media
and other forms of publicity. An example will bring more clarity, When S Kumars, a
known textile brand entered into readymade garments business they used
HrithikRoshan, then the hottest advertising icon for their launch advertising for
TAMARIND, now one of the premium readymade brands. They reckoned that they
have spent 40-50 percent less on media due to sheer impact of using hottest star
like Hrithik. The Ad recall was as high as 70 percent and the campaign can be
termed as a great success.
Celebrities also create positive feelings towards brands, connect user to brand and
are perceived by consumers as more entertaining.
Using a celebrity in advertising or for any, other type of communication for brand
building is likely to positively affect consumers' brand preference, brand attitude,
brand association and purchase intentions. To ensure positive results, however, it is
critical for advertisers to have a clear understanding of consumer's reactions and
reinforcement of celebrity endorsement. The impact of celebrity endorsement on any
brand as well as on consumer's purchase decision is very critical.
Source Credibility
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Central goal of advertising is the convincing of consumers and persuasion to
purchase, the ultimate objective, though not openly spoken, is to some how attract
consumers to the market offering of the company, generating positive attitude,
reinforce positive association and ultimately to generate sales, may be a trial
purchase. At later stages, the sponsor may work towards creating a brand loyalty but
generating initial sales or increasing the existing sales is the primary objective. In this
respect, the credibility of an endorser along with advertisement plays an important
role in convincing the target audience of the attractiveness of the company's brand
and generates sales. Pursuing a celebrity endorsement strategy enables advertisers
to project a credible image in terms of expertise, persuasiveness, trustworthiness,
and objectiveness.
To create effective messages, celebrity advertisers also have to consider the
attractiveness of the spokesperson. Source attractiveness refers to the endorser's
Physical appearance, Personality, Likeability and Similarity to the receiver, thus to
the perceived socialvalue of the source. This behavior mainly goes back to halo
effect, whereby persons who perform well on one dimension example: physical
attractiveness or top professional performance, social status are assumed to excel
on other levels as well i.e. happiness and coolness. This is evident from the use of
Fardeen Khan, modern, dynamic, outgoing and smart personality for Provogue; he
translates the modernism of the brand well. Titan uses Aamir Khan in his different
avatars for communicating to the public that their watches are as reliable and
passionate as Aamir is for films. Both Fardeen and Aamir carry the message well
and enhance the credibility of the brand they endorse.
Establishing a Perfect Match
Research proves that a spokesperson especially for a service product or
organization (ICICI- First Amitabh Bachchan, now Shahrukh Khan) interacts with the
type of brand being advertised. These stars communicate the value of the product
and transform an ordinary service into a miracle solution for all problems of an
ordinary customer.
According to Friedman and Friedman (1979), a famous relative to a 'normal'
spokesperson is more effective for products high in psychological or social risk,
involving such elements as good taste, self-image, and opinion of others. Several
research studies have examined the congruency between celebrity endorsers and
brands to explain the effectiveness of using famous persons to promote brands.
~ 43 ~
In India, a brand called Reid & Taylor presented its perfect example when they first
launched their advertising campaign featuring James Bond fame of the time Mr.
Pierce Brosnan along with the tagline 'BOND WITH THE BEST' but the James Bond
idea did not worked and the company was not happy with the results.
After the debacle of the first campaign, company introduced a family ad where
children are celebrating there parents silver wedding anniversary and they are out
with their father to purchase a suit for him. Even this commercial did not work and it
was taken off the air. As a last resort, company introduced Mr. Amitabh Bachchan as
Reid & Taylor man, a man propagating the brand for special occasion and for very
special people in life. The commercial from the initial days got good response and
did extremely well as people were able to connect with Mr.Bachchan and the values
he was propagating.
For the masses, there was a perfect match of an ideal Indian family man, a star and
a good quality but bit highly priced brand reserved especially for special occasions
and for very special people.
Second example that can be quoted is of VishwanathanAnand, who endorsed NIIT.
NIIT adopted a very smart strategy by roping in VishwanathanAnand an international
chess wizard for their advertising campaign. As chess is considered to be a game
full of strategies and a game for smart people and when one of the greats of the
game is asking people to join NIIT it was suppose to have a positive influence on the
people and actually it had. There was complete congruency and compatibility
between the celebrity endorser, the product and the message.
Contrary to only favorable outcomes, there are several examples where the product,
even the entire campaign collapsed due to heavy weight celebrity as the agency or
the ad failed to establish the relationship between the endorser and the product.
Keeping the focus only on success, where the product and the celebrity were a
perfect match, following are few examples:
Celebrity Endorser Company / Product
*Dabur, Reid and Taylor, Parker and
Amitabh Bachchan
*Cadbury
*Santro
Shahrukh Khan *Videocon
*Sunfeast,and Pepsi
JuhiChawala * Kurkure

~ 44 ~
UstadZakirHussain * Tajmahal tea
*Titan
Aamir Khan *Coke
* Toyota Innova
*Nakshatra
AishwaryaRai
* Lux
*Fanta
Rani Mukherjee
* Nestle Munch
*Whirlpool
Kajol and Ajay Devgan
* Tata Indicom

The campaigns are not only basking with the glory of success stories, but there is
considerable number of failures as well. Assuming that a person just have to be
famous to represent a successful brand, however, would be incorrect and may turn
out to be a very dangerous preposition resulting into a big calamity for the entire
advertising campaign or the brand.
Very well accepted and attractive super stars like AbhishekBachchan and Amitabh
Bachchan failed in turning their endorsements into success i.e. Maruti Versa similarly
VirendraSehwag also failed to deliver Reliance Telecommunication with the master
stroke of his cricketing genius.
Among the possible reasons identified by several authors, including overexposure
and identification, the 'match-up hypothesis' specifically suggests that the
effectiveness depends on the existence of a 'fit' between the celebrity spokesperson
and endorsed brand.
Empirical work on the congruency of brand with the celebrity often has concentrated
on the physical attractiveness of the endorser. Results show that an attractive
spokespersons are more effective in terms of attitude change when prompting
brands that enhance one's attractiveness i.e. cosmetics; health drinks or fashion
wear.
Primary data states, for celebrity spokespersons to be truly effective, they should be
knowledgeable, experienced, mature, and a bench mark in their respective field and
qualified to talk about the product.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

~ 45 ~
 Sample size

For the investigator study, the scope is being restricted with to the commercial
department of the Celebrity Marketing which is dealing with the management of
inventory (including raw material, stores and spares, finished goods), would be 100
customer.

• Primary data

Is the first hand data, which are selected a fresh and thus happen to be original in
character. Primary Data was crucial to know various customers and past consumer
views about bikes and to calculate the market share of this brand in regards to other
brands. Primary data is collected during the surveywith the help of questionnaires

• Secondary data

Secondary data are those which have been collected by someone else and which
already have been passed through statistical process. Secondary data has been
taken from internet, newspaper, magazines and companies web sites.

Limitation (if any)

1. It was observed that the most of the customers were not playing
Proper attention to fill the questionnaire

2. The research is confined to a certain parts of New Delhi and does not
necessarily shows a pattern applicable to all of Country.

3. Some respondents were reluctant to divulge personal information which can

affect the validity of all responses.

~ 46 ~
 CHAPTER-III
ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS

~ 47 ~
ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

It is a known fact that the best endorsements achieve an eclectic balance between
the product (brand) and the celebrity. Giving a brand a 'face' is more than just a
marketing strategy to increase sales or gain market share, it is a decision that can
change the future of the brand forever.

Choice of the celebrity, hence, is of utmost importance and is usually done based on
many different parameters - appeal, looks, popularity or even just a fantasy figure to
endorse a brand.

In today's highly competitive markets, big brands are at logger-heads when it comes
to products, each having a similar product to that of a rival. Where does one brand
gain that quintessential advantage - advertising, service, promise of trust, or even
the all important price factors? Advertising seems to be the best platform where
brands prefer to compete on - right from hiring the best advertising agencies to
getting the biggest celebrities. What would be the formula to success then? Well, a
good creative agency, a large enough promotional budget and a huge star to
endorse your brand would definitely ensure in the minds of a brand management
team a feeling of security, success and a triumph over the competitors brand.

The general belief among advertisers is that brand communication messages

delivered by celebrities and famous personalities generate a higher appeal, attention
and recall than those executed by non-celebrities. The quick message-reach and
impact are all too essential in today's highly competitive environment.

The different models applied by brands to achieve the full potential of such
endorsements, highlight the need for a convergence between the theoretical and
pragmatic approaches of brand building and effective advertising. The importance of
a celebrity-brand match and the various roles played by them as brand-associates
show the momentum this strategy has gained in the last decade or so. We put
forward certain ideas like 'positioning by association', 'diminishing celebrity utility' and
the Multiplier Effect which show the triangular relationship between the brand, the
consumer and the celebrity.

~ 48 ~
India is a country where people are star-struck by film stars, cricketers, politicians,
and even criminals. Why? Populations of 1 billion and ticking, everyday people need
something or someone to look up to. A sense of security, admiration, comfort,
familiarity, and above all, someone they aspire to be at some hidden level in their
lives. And clever marketers leverage this very celebrity appeal and are successfully
carrying out their jobs by giving the bottom lines of all the brands what they want -
profit, market share and even recall. But how much star power is too much? "Does
Amitabh really use Tide," asked a 6 year old to her mother. Her mother laughs and
says, "No way, just a gimmick." What does that do to the brand?

Now, despite the potential benefits derived from celebrity endorsements, they
increase a marketer's risk manifolds and should be treated with full attention and
aptitude. A brand should be cautious when employing celebrities to ensure promise
believability and delivery of the intended effect. The growing importance of mythical
characters as celebrities and their sway over the target segments are ample proof of
public demand for icons to look up to. As the celebrities traverse from a mere
commercial presence to public welfare message endorsements, a whole new
dimension is added to this process and helps us in achieving a holistic view of the
impact which celebrities generate in every sphere and segment through their well-
versed endorsements.

At the end of the day, do any stakeholders in a company (employees, contractors,

customers, shareholders, communities the company supports with jobs) benefit from
a celebrity endorsement?

Does anyone buy a product because a Bollywood or TV actor/actress stands up and

reads a script in somewhat convincing manner? Are their distinctions in how
consumers perceive these types of endorsements and respond to them?

What happens when a celebrity endorser gets involved in a public scandal, or worse,
dies? Will the product lose consumer support or perish?

The most important thing to remember is that putting a celebrity in an ad is not an

idea in itself. Unfortunately, this is how most celebrities are being used in Indian
advertising, where they just become a prop. Ideally, there should be an idea that

~ 49 ~
makes the celebrity relevant to the product and the consumer. A celebrity's presence
in the ad should be contextual.

Celebrity endorsement cannot guarantee fool-proof success. The celebrity

endorsement strategy must be integrated with target market characteristics, and the
other elements of the marketing mix such as product design, branding, packaging,
and pricing. The message execution that will be mouthed by the celebrity must
likewise be made clear and single-minded. You can do this cleverly by aligning the
spirit of the brand to the product, or by using a celebrity because it ensures that
people will notice you, and hopefully remember what the brand is saying. Smart
associations are ones where the former happens.

Before we go into analyzing success and failure stories of brands, we examine the
title once again and try looking at it extremely minutely.

Relationship between a Celebrity & a Brand

To understand how consumers associate celebrities to brands is well documented by

a research study by Anderson (1976); Collins & Loftus (1975); Rumelhart, Hinton &
McClelland (1986). In their study, associative learning principles were based on a
conception of memory as a network consisting of various nodes connected by
associative links. In the research context, celebrities and brands both represent
nodes, which initially are unconnected but become linked over time through the
endorsement process.

~ 50 ~
When a consumer thinks about a brand, the link with the celebrity node is animated
to a certain level through spreading activation (Anderson 1983a). The joint activation
of brand and celebrity provides a path over which one's evaluation of the celebrity
has an opportunity to transfer to the brand. The key to the process is the
simultaneous activation of the brand and celebrity nodes. Negative information about
the celebrity activates the celebrity node, which then activates the brand node to
some degree and allows reduced evaluation of the celebrity to transfer to the brand.
Studies by Noffsinger et al. (1983) and Judd et al. (1991) provide empirical evidence
demonstrating that attitudes can be affected in such a way.

It is also important to view the consumer in their social and cultural setting to further
see how celebrity endorsements increase sales and impact brands over time.
Celebrities usually form a very good example of a reference group appeal. This is
particularly beneficial to a marketer and a brand who can cash in on the success of
the star and, hence, push his brand. People who idolize their celebrities, hence, have
a biased affinity to the brand their favorites endorse. As time passes on, they believe
that they by adopting the brand that their celebrity endorses are becoming more like
them. Celebrities can be used in four ways namely: testimonial, endorsement, actor
and spokesperson.

Right now the current hot favorite in India is roping in celebrities for social causes
like pulse polio, etc. This has shown to be having a positive effect on the people. In
India, Bollywood and sport personalities rule the mind-space and airwaves.

A recent study by FCB-ULKA was done on celebrity endorsements in India. Here,

they discussed two parameters: Compatibility Index and Trait Index when it came
to finding the relationship between a celebrity and a brand.

Compatibility Index meant that the consumers saw a suitable match between the
brand and the celebrity. Trait Index was based on the match between brand and
celebrity personality traits. The numbers showed that Compatibility Index was more
favorable than Trait Index. E.g., Hrithik Roshan scored high on his Compatibility
Index (100) as compared to his Trait Index with Coca Cola. But the end user being
the consumer preferred him. The other startling fact was the high points 93 and 100
by Salman Khan. But Thums-Up had to drop him after Salman's accident. But people

~ 51 ~
still associate Thums-Up with the Khan. The other important factor is unaided
association and Salman scored higher than other competition. But in the long run, to
protect the brand image, Salman was dropped. So what is important is the way the
customer perceives a brand and the celebrity, so if the celebrity is favored, it does
have a positive influence over the brand. The other factor is the sheer image or
popularity of the star, if the star's image is larger than life, for example, for Amitabh
Bachchan or Sachin Tendulkar, the Compatibility Index seems to be a natural
collorary.

Taking the millennium superstar Amitabh Bachchan, as an endorser, he fulfills all the
FRED objectives, namely, Familiarity (target market is aware of him, finds him
friendly, likeable, dependable and trustworthy); Relevance (which says that there
should be a link between the endorser and the product as well as between the
endorser and the audience); Esteem (the polio endorsement, for example, is
successful as the masses see him as a credible name-face-voice); Differentiation (in
all his projections, he is seen to be one among the masses, and yet he towers above
them. He is different). His appeal is universal; lesser mortals merely cater to specific
niches. While there may be different reasons, depending on the category, the
lifecycle stage in which the brand is, and the particular marketing mantra being the
flavor of the moment, the main reason is to make the brand stand out and to facilitate
instant awareness.

For example, in the much talked about Shah Rukh - Santro campaign, the
organization wanted to overcome the shortcoming of an unknown brand, Korean at
that. The objective of the company was to garner faster brand recognition,
association and emotional unity with the target group.

The Santro ad showed the highest recall amongst auto ads, despite average media
spends for the category. Reason being simple - star power paid off.

Another example was the launch of Tamarind by S. Kumar, they reckoned they
spent 40-50 per cent less on media due to the sheer impact of using Hrithik Roshan
who was riding on the 'Kaho Na PyarHai' wave of Success. Ad recall was as high as
70 per cent, and even the normally conservative trade got interested (so while a new
brand would normally take 8-10 months for entry into a Shopper's Stop, Tamarind

~ 52 ~
was prominently displayed within 20 days of launch). But now looking at the long
term effects of Hrithik, his movies began to flop and it may seem a sheer co-
incidence that the Tamarind brand died out as well.

Looking on the flip side, the biggest concerns from the advertiser's point of view is
that of 'vampiring' - the celebrity being bigger than the brand. Consider the 1980s
when Dinesh Suitings chose Sunil Gavaskar as their brand endorser. Soon it was
seen that Gavaskar completely overshadowed the brand. A similar case was that of
Shah Rukh and MayurSuitings, where post termination of the contract, the corporate
had to vest crucial monies in a campaign where the sole objective was to wean the
brand identity off Shah Rukh Khan. So having a celebrity who may outshine your
product is not such a viable idea is the common consensus.

The other problem is that of duration of endorsement, and a possible mismatch

between the celebrity's life cycle and that of the brand. Owing to unavailability of
dates, sometimes long-term contracts are signed, but the celebrity's life might be
over soon. Multiple endorsements are the other problem. There is unfortunately a
limited pool of celebrities who can resonate with consumers. So you have the same
celebrity endorsing several categories, as in case of Shah Rukh and Sachin, who are
completely over-exposed - one would assume a fair degree of confusion and little
room for credibility, and hence, a possible devaluing amongst customers.

Studying TV and print advertisements, one will realize that either some celebrities
are endorsing several brands or a specific brand is endorsed by different
spokespersons. These concepts are called multiple brand endorsement and multiple
celebrity endorsement respectively.

The question is, does this special form of celebrity endorsement affects consumers'
brand attitudes? Following Tripp et al. (1994), the endorsement of as many as four
products negatively influences the celebrity spokesperson's credibility (i.e., expertise
and trustworthiness) and likeability. They further add that these effects are
independent of the celebrity, i.e., the perceptions of even well-liked stars can be
influenced. Reasons may be found in the lack of distinctiveness, with one famous
person endorsing several products instead of concentrating on and representing one
specific brand. Though these findings may be valid, it does not automatically mean

~ 53 ~
that the concept of multiple product endorsement is useless. Further, research is
suggested on potential positive effects, like transfer of positive brand images, and on
the shape of consumers' response when more than four products are endorsed.

Is celebrity advertising effective?

What are the benefits of representing India in the national cricket team? It is an
opportunity to compete with the best in the world and pitch one's talent against the
best.

It is an opportunity to travel around the world. It is an opportunity to uphold national

pride. And make good money from every match played.

But there is more, a ticket to modelling in the advertising world (and a future perhaps
in Bollywood). Not surprisingly it's a very attractive profession. As advertisers pour
crores of rupees every year, into celebrity advertising.

Think of Sachin Tendulkar. He means Pepsi in soft drinks, Boost in malted

beverages, MRF in tires, Fiat Palio in cars, TVS Victor in two-wheelers, Colgate
Total in toothpastes, Britannia in biscuits, Visa in credit cards, Airtel in mobile
services and Band-aid.

Clearly, an overload of brands and categories associated with one star.

In the advertising world, celebrity advertising is seen as a substitute for 'absence of

ideas' -- and actually frowned upon. Yet it appears again and again.

The reasons are quite insightful.

A client hits upon celebrity as a solution when his agency is unable to present to him
a viable, exciting solution for his communication/marketing problem. He then feels
that the presence of a well-known face is an easy way out. It is rare that there is an
idea on the table and client and agency mutually agree that the presence of a
celebrity will actually lift the script. This is very similar to Bollywood blockbuster films

~ 54 ~
where the cast is decided upon and the script either written accordingly or re-
engineered around the cast!

There is no doubt that celebrity advertising has its benefits –

The four Qs:

Quick saliency: It gets cut through because of the star and his attention getting
value. GoodlassNerolac has ensured high saliency for its brand with the inclusion of
Amitabh Bachchan in its advertising.

Quick connect: There needs to be no insight but the communication connects

because the star connects. Sachin, Shah Rukh and their ilk's ensure an easy
connect for Pepsi with the youth.

Quick shorthand for brand values: The right star can actually telegraph a brand
message fast without elaborate story telling. KapilDev and Sachin Tendulkar seem to
have done that successfully for Boost in the early '90s. And helped to differentiate it
in the malted beverages market.

~ 55 ~
Quick means of brand differentiation: In a category where no brand is using a
celebrity, the first that picks one up could use it to differentiate itself in the market.
Boost did it in the malted beverage category.

And PreityZinta does all the above four for Perk -- connecting with the youth and
reinforcing the brand's youthful, spontaneous, energetic values.

In general celebrity endorsements are impelled by virtue of the following motives:

• Instant Brand Awareness and Recall.

• Celebrity values define, and refresh the brand image.
• Celebrities add new dimensions to the brand image.
• Instant credibility or aspiration PR coverage.
• Lack of ideas.
• Convincing clients.

An appropriately used celebrity can prove to be a massively powerful tool that

magnifies the effects of a campaign. But the aura of cautiousness should always be
there. The fact to be emphasized is that celebrities alone do not guarantee success,
as consumers nowadays understand advertising. They know what advertising is and
how it works. People realize that celebrities are being paid a lot of money for
endorsements and this knowledge makes them cynical about celebrity
endorsements.

Compatibility of the celebrity’s persona with the overall brand image

A celebrity is used to impart credibility and aspirational values to a brand, but the
celebrity needs to match the product. A good brand campaign idea and an intrinsic
link between the celebrity and the message are musts for a successful campaign.
Celebrities are no doubt good at generating attention, recall and positive attitudes
towards advertising provided that they are supporting a good idea and there is an
explicit fit between them and the brand. On the other hand, they are rendered
useless when it comes to the actual efficiency of the core product, creating positive
attitudes to brands, purchase intentions and actual sales.

~ 56 ~
Certain parameters that postulate compatibility between the celebrity and brand
image are

• Celebrity’s fit with the brand image.

• Celebrity—Target audience match
• Celebrity associated values.
• Costs of acquiring the celebrity.
• Celebrity—Product match.
• Celebrity controversy risk.
• Celebrity popularity.
• Celebrity availability.
• Celebrity physical attractiveness.
• Celebrity credibility.
• Celebrity prior endorsements.
• Whether celebrity is a brand user.
• Celebrity profession.

Successful celebrity endorsements for a brand- An Indian perspective

In the history of advertising — products or services, political parties or ideas —

celebrities have played a seminal role in boosting the bottom line. Whether what's on
offer is a soft drink, beauty aid, ideology or public health message, it's the celebrity
endorsement that makes the difference between recognition and anonymity.

The latter part of the '80s saw the burgeoning of a new trend in India– brands started
being endorsed by celebrities. Hindi film and TV stars as well as sportspersons were
roped in to endorse prominent brands. Advertisements, featuring stars like
Tabassum (Prestige pressure cookers), Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), KapilDev
(Palmolive Shaving Cream) and Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings) became common.
Probably, the first ad to cash in on star power in a strategic, long-term, mission
statement kind of way was Lux soap. This brand has, perhaps as a result of this,
been among the top three in the country for much of its lifetime.

In recent times, we had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign with the objective of
mitigating the impediment that an unknown Korean brand faced in the Indian market.

~ 57 ~
The objective was to garner faster brand recognition, association and emotional unity
with the target group. Star power in India can be gauged by the successful
endorsement done by Sharukh for three products- Pepsi, Clinic All Clear and Santro.
Unique selling propositions are best boosted when a popular credible figure vouches
for it. A Govinda who claims to wear a particular brand of banian impels scores to
switch brands. An AishweryaRai pledging her eyes motivates thousands to queue up
to pledge theirs.

In the Indian context, it would not be presumptuous to state that celebrity

endorsements can aggrandize the overall brand. We have numerous examples
exemplifying this claim. A standard example here is Coke, which, till recently, didn't
use stars at all internationally. In fact, India was a first for them. The result was a
ubiquitously appealing Aamir cheekily stating Thandamatlab Coca Cola. The recall
value for Nakshatra advertising is only due to the sensuous Aishwarya. The Parker
pen brand, which by itself commands equity, used Amitabh Bachchan to revitalize
the brand in India. According to Pooja Jain, Director, Luxor Writing Instruments Ltd
(LWIL), post Bachchan, Parker's sales have increased by about 30 per cent.

Review of literature:-

Attribution theory and endorsement effectiveness

Although past research documents a general tendency for consumers to believe in
the purity of the motives of celebrity endorsers, it is likely that this tendency varies
substantially both across consumers and across endorsers. For example, Tripp
showed that celebrities who endorse several products are viewed as less credible
endorsers than those who endorse only a single product. also demonstrated that
celebrities who are blamed for negative events (e.g. accidents) can have detrimental
effects on the products they endorse. In short, the effectiveness of a celebrity
endorser is dynamic, dependent on the celebrity, the product, and perhaps even
societal conditions at the time and place where the advertisement is shown. As such,
it could be fruitful to abandon the use of traditional measures of the celebrity
endorser's trustworthiness or credibility in general in favor of directly measuring the
degree to which individuals evaluate the celebrity as liking the endorsed product
after viewing the advertisement. Such evaluations fit under a class of judgment that

~ 58 ~
has been referred to as “correspondent inferences” Correspondent inferences more
generally refer to any judgment in which observers use an individual's behavior (e.g.
an endorser saying that she loves Cheerios cereal) to infer congruent dispositions in
that individual (e.g. inferring that the endorser actually does love Cheerios cereal).
We propose that correspondent inferences are a direct measure of a celebrity's
credibility in the specific context of the advertisement, and thus should predict
consumers' attitudes toward the advertised product.H1. =Correspondent inferences
will be positively associated with attitudes toward the advertised product. Another
interesting question in this context is whether consumers will tend to make
correspondent inferences about celebrity endorsers. Early social psychological work
in attribution theory suggests not – a large endorsement fee should be viewed as a
strong incentive toward endorsement behavior, and thus observers should doubt that
endorsements reflect true liking for the product on the part of the endorser. However,
research indicating that celebrities are especially credible and trustworthy endorsers
(e.g. Freiden, 1984) suggests that consumers might believe celebrities like the
product regardless of endorsement fees. Furthermore, research examining a
phenomenon called “correspondence bias” suggests that observers are biased such
that they tend to attribute behavior to personal characteristics of the individual
performing that behavior (e.g. liking for the product) even when situational factors
(e.g. endorsement fees) are sufficient to fully explain the behavior.

FINDING AND INFERENCES

The following are the findings regarding the consumer surveyconducted by me.The
following graphs show the consumer’s perception about different things, as shown
below, below their questions:-
1. Percentage of cell phone ownership, among the surveyed people.

Perc ent

No

Yes Yes No

~ 59 ~
2. Cell phone buying behavior.

Percent %

on your own

with others

4. Motivating factor for buying a new cell phone.

percent
brand fewer
ambasso prices, 14
dor, 6
discounts
f ewre p rices and
f offers, 15
d isco unts and
o f f ers

latest
trends, 65

For a cell phone consumer brand ambassador matters least to them while latest
trends matters the most.
4. Motivating factor for buying different products.
60
a) Motor vehicle
50
percent
40

30

20

10

0
luxury self brand celebrity
esteem name

~ 60 ~
Luxury matters the most in final decision making for a motor vehicle consumer,
followed by self esteem.
b) Clothing

p ercent
50
percent
40
30

20
10
0
statusfewer p rices
latest tren celebrity
ds

Celebrity matters most to a shopper, but in this case as well people wants to follow
the latest trends or fashion, that fashion could be initiated by a celebrity or a brand
ambassador.

c) Food Products
Similarly quality of the product matters most to a food products consumer in the final
decision making,

percent

60

40
48
20
25
12 15
0
qualityb rand name
c lebattractive
rity p ackage

percent

a celebrity might help them considerably in raising awareness of the product but not
in buying behavior.

~ 61 ~
5. percent

can't say,
24

yes
no
can't say
yes, 52
no, 24

More than half the surveyed population believes that a celebrity helps an
organization in increasing its total revenue.
6.
percent

mostly
true, 36
can't say , 46

mo s tly not, 18

m ostly true m ostly not can't sa y

Similarly around half of the surveyed people believe that a brand ambassador
doesn’t always result in increase in the market share of the product, but 36% of them
believe that a celebrity mostly results in raising the market share.
percent

can'tsay, 10
7.
no, 30
yes, 60

yes no can'tsay

~ 62 ~
Around 60% of the surveyed people believe that a celebrity like Shahrukh Khan and
Hrithik Roshan in an advertisement motivates them to buy that product.
8.

60

50

40

30 58

20
30
10
12
0
yes no can'tsay

Around 60% of the surveyed people believes that a celebrity asks them to them buy
the product but they themselves don’t uses their endorsed product.

RECOMMENDATION

After analyzing the whole survey results, one can easily draw the following
conclusions.

1. Cell phone penetration is very high among the youngsters, especially in the
metros.
2. Celebrity endorsement plays a very minute role in final decision making for
buying a new cell phone (6% only). A celebrity might help in easy
recognization and popularity of a product but not in final decision making.
3. If a consumer wants to purchase a new cell phone then latest technology
matters the most to him/her and brand ambassador matters least to them.
4. Effect of brand ambassador differs with different products, according to our
survey results, it matters most in case of clothing and food products. Because

~ 63 ~
 people tends to be more choosy in case of high attachment and costly
products like cars.
5. A common man feels that a celebrity helps an organization in increasing their
total sales and hence the revenue.
6. A brand ambassador also helps in increasing the market share of the product.
7. Three fifth of the surveyed people feels that a celebrity like Shahrukh or
Hrithik motivates them to buy a product.
8. But vast majority of the surveyed people (60% approx) feels that celebrity
themselves don’t use their endorsed products.
9. Film stars are the most popular celebrities among all, followed by cricketers.
10. More then 60 % surveyed people feels that Shahrukh Khan is the fittest brand
ambassador for Nokia Communications.
11. Popularity of Hrithik Roshan is slightly more then that of Shahrukh Khan as a
brand ambassador of a cell phone.
12. Priyanka Chopra is not that popular as a brand ambassador of cell phones as
Shahrukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan are. Just 32 % of surveyed people
consider her as a good brand ambassador of Spice mobile.
13. In final decision making, a value for money is most important for a consumer
and a brand ambassador matters the least.
14. Around 75% of the surveyed people feel that celebrity endorsement helps an
organization in easy reorganization of their products.
15. According to the surveyed people, the high cost of a celebrity is the biggest
drawback of celebrity brand endorsement followed by celebrity vampire effect.

~ 64 ~
CONCLUSION

The given principles were linked to specific managerial suggestions regarding more
effective use of celebrities to enhance brand equity:

• Celebrity endorsements will be more effective when used consistently over

time to increase the strength of the link between the celebrity and the
endorsed brand.
• Celebrity endorsements will be more effective when the ad execution is
simple, clean, and free of irrelevant design elements. Focus on the celebrity
and the brand together.
• Celebrity endorsements will be more effective when using a celebrity who is
not already strongly associated with another product or service.
• Celebrity endorsements will be more effective when using a celebrity with a
high “fit”, “congruence”, or “belongingness” with the endorsed brand.
• Celebrity endorsers can be used to effectively reinforce and/or create an
image for a product or service.
• Test potential brand/celebrity combinations to ensure that the impression and
image of the celebrity is positive for the target audience.
• Celebrity endorsements will be more effective for less familiar brands.
• Celebrity endorsers will be more effective for brands for which consumers
have limited knowledge/facts.
• Celebrity endorsers will be more effective when integrated across the
elements of the marketing mix.
• Caution in choice of celebrity endorser is warranted given the potential risk of
tarnishing the brand’s image.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

BOOKS/MAGAZINES REFFERED:

• MARKETING RESEARCH By- SunandaEaswaran,Sharma,J.Singh

• Marketing management By- Phillip Kotler

• Advertising Management by Aaker, Batra and Myers

REFERENCES:
• McCracken, Grant (1989), "Who is the Celebrity Endorser?" Journal of
Consumer Research, 16 (December), 310-321

• Erdogan (1999), "Celebrity Endorsement: A Literature Review", Journal of

Marketing Research, 15, 291-314

• Daneshvary, Rennae and R. Keith Schwer (2000), "The Association

Endorsement and
Consumers' Intention to Purchase," Journal of Consumer Marketing, 17 (3),
203-213

• Friedman, Hershey H. and Linda Friedman (1979), "Endorser Effectiveness by

Product Type," Journal of Advertising Research, 19 (5), 63-71

• MeenalDhotre(2009),”Celebrity endorsements on Indian

Television”,MarketingMastermind,Vol 9,17-20

• SupriyaPatra and Saroj.K.Datta(2010) ,”Celebrity Endorsement in India-

Emerging Trends and Challenges”,Journal of Marketing and
Communication,Vol 5,16-23

• www.honda2wheelersindia.com
• www.autos.maxabout.com
• www.motosindia.com
• www.extrememachines.com

•www.indiauto.in
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• www.agencyfaqs.com

• www.deccanheald.com

• http://www.blonnet.com

• http://www.etstrategicmarketing.com

• http://www.hinduonnet.com

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