Executive Summary:

Effective marketing & advertisement involves celebrity endorsements in FMCG’s as well as in

luxury items. This trend was previously observed internationally but one can easily observe the
same trends being applied to our domestic market. The most attractive advertisements, mainly
from the FMCGs industry are rated as the best. In order to make the advertisement attractive
an icon base of high fan following is required. Celebrity endorsement basically means
association of a top model, a sports personality or an actor/actress with a particular good or
service for promotional purposes.

The research tends to focus at how celebrity endorsements affects the consumer buying
behavior in FMCG’s, in the local market. How the presence of a beautiful model in a TVC of a
well known beauty soap brand motivates an average person to buy the product.

Fan following is very common in the people of Pakistan. For example recently the 2010 Fifa
South Africa has attracted the attention of thousands of people towards the football sensation
Lionel Messi, and wherever he appears in an advertisement or on a billboard, people are
attracted. Similarly thousands of the Pakistani’s changed their shampoo, and started using
‘clear’ just because of the picture of David Beckham on the bottles of the shampoo. Another
example could be the latest advertisement of LUX purple lotus which is endorsed by Katrina
Kaif, the recent favorite of one and all. In addition to this our objective would be to understand
what sort of celebrity endorsement affects the buying behavior of the people.

Problem Statement:
The problem we are dealing with here is to help the FMCGs industry to find out the
consequences of celebrity endorsement on the buying behavior of the people at students level.
As a researcher, the client problem has to be resolved efficiently and an unbiased and fair result
has to be concluded regarding the problem mentioned above.

Research Objective:
Our first and foremost objectives are to pin-point the exact result of the personality’s
endorsement on the product sales and the variation of the consumer buying behavior of the
product.
The second objective is to understand which big-shots in the industry have successfully
understood this phenomenon and amended their advertisement skills to tone themselves with
the present market condition, and which of the unfortunates haven’t been able to match
themselves with the trend and where they lack behind.

Desk Research:
Internet wouldn’t be our choice for gathering any information, more than just knowing the
presently existing FMCGs manufacturers in Pakistan. Instead, we prefer using the primary
research method to understand what currently people think in regard.

Hypothesis:
We believe that celebrity endorsement has a massive affect on the consumer decision making
in the buying process.

Importance/Benefits of the study:

We feel that the importance of this research cannot be in any way neglected because it will give
us valuable insight on the consumer buying behavior in the country. The results of this research
may be quite important for different FMCG manufacturers in order to design their marketing &
advertising strategies in a way which would attract maximum customers towards buying their
product. These benefit through increase in sales, resulting in greater profits and greater market
capturing.

Research design:
We would design the research as an exploratory research. Since we wish to gain more of the
consumer’s view on the topic, therefore we would engage qualitative research and align
quantitative research along-side. Questionnaires would be the main source of gathering
information. But if needed we would also conduct focus group for further detailed information.

Data Analysis:
The research will be conducted at educational institutions as celebrity attraction differs
between educated and uneducated people. Basically, our main focus is on the consumers at
student level, so we intend to undergo the study at IoBM along with SZABIST .Moreover,
apartments in different areas will also be visited in order to survey different age groups as
celebrity attraction in customers differs between different age groups.
Questionnaires would be randomly distributed to a sample size of around 250-350 students,
which would contain more of the yes/no type questions, as well as detailed questions over a
criteria. Demographics would also be given space in the questionnaire to understand
consumers of which segment have a particular view.
Then if needed, focus groups or random interviews would be conducted to gain further
understanding of study, which would be monitored by a group member. Audio recording would
be collected for reference.

Nature of Research:
We expect that we would be able to meet the deadline prescribed by the course instructor. By
thorough analysis of the answers and investigation of the reasons for a particular answer we
aim at bringing out the most fruitful results.

Qualification of Researcher(s):
We aim at bringing out the best results. I believe that all my group members are highly capable
of conducting this research process in the most formal and professional way. Getting the
questionnaire filled isn’t a hard thing to do but the analysis of the research would be a tough
job, but the team members are capable enough to handle the problem. We also intend to make
the conclusion in a way that would help the industry in its advertising strategies and sales
promotional activities.

Budget for Research:

At a student level, since there is no as such income, we prefer to complete the entire process in
as minimum expenditure as possible. Our budget is set at Rs. 2500 which includes all allocated
direct and indirect costs of the research.

Schedule of Research:
Most probably, the research would take on maximum of 3-4 weeks duration. We have divided
this expected duration in the following sections:

1st Week Drafting of the research proposal and the determination of such important and
related studies to support any validity of findings and results
2nd Week Collecting and Gathering of possible data information and appropriate research
evidences. Designing questionnaires.
3rd Week Approval of questionnaires and conduct survey to fill up those questionnaires.
4th Week Finalization, Assessment and Evaluation of research discussions and its overall
contextual process.

Facilities & Special Resources:

We don’t intend to use any special equipment for the research process. Neither do we require
any help from the administration, other than the permission to conduct a focus group in the
conference room at the campus library.