Essay on Celebrity Endorsement and Its Impact on the Consumers Purchasing Behavior

The utilization of celebrity endearment has become popular in recent time. Celebrities have become pervasive elements in the marketing industries, especially in the sub-Saharan Africa, improving the brand image, brand loyalty, and brand love.  Celebrity endorsement has become one of the most profitable businesses across the globe and has had a significant influence organization brands as well. Marketers apply celebrities in their marketing strategies to influence buyers purchase decision and also influence the overall sales revenue and product market share.  This led to the study of "Building Brand Loyalty and Brand Love through Celebrity Endorsement."  The thesis majorly focuses on the examination of the perception of consumers in the sub-Saharan Africa in regards to celebrity endorsement and how this approach influences the organization brand image, brand loyalty, and brand love.  The introductory chapter of the thesis gives an overview of celebrity endorsement, definition and understanding of brands and their importance, and definition of brand related terms such as brand equity, brand image, brand awareness, brand loyalty and brand love. The second chapter reviews the existing literature on celebrity endorsement and provides insights into the research which gives more clarification on the importance related to the topic. The topic has further provided various definitions of terms that are linked to the study topic. The third chapter is the methodology section and utilizes a quantitative method to investigate the perception of the consumers, their attributes and the subsequent impact that celebrity endorsement has on their buying decision.  Data collection is done through questionnaires then analyzed using data analysis software. The fourth chapter focuses on data analysis and findings whereby graphical illustrations are used to indicate the results findings. The final section of the thesis concludes the entire research and provides the recommendations that can help improve the approach of celebrity endorsement.

Conclusion and Recommendation

This research focused on celebrity endorsement and its impact on the consumers purchasing behavior as well as perception regarding the particular brand or products of the given brand. Quantitative, as well as qualitative approaches were used in this research to investigate the impact of celebrity endorsement on brand love and brand loyalty. Celebrities often bring meaning to products that can later influence consumer purchase decision in the long run. Result findings of the research highlight on the statement and supports on the direct relationship between the celebrity endorsement strategy and the consumer's purchase decision. At the same time, the effect of meaning transfer to the buying decision is likely to be low when compared to other attributes tested in the research. The existing strength of meaning transfer and consumer purchase intention is significantly low. The meaning transfer has been analyzed as the least effective variable in relation to the consumer's intention to buy a product or choose a service in the market. Descriptive frequency analysis of the research has indicated that about 27 percent of the study population concurred with meaning transfer to an organization product can affect the buyer's decision to use a brand. Many scholars across the globe have studied the effectiveness of applying celebrity endorsement in marketing products and service. The author in this context further seeks to find out if the celebrities affect the consumer purchase decision. A lot of these scholars in the empirical study concur that celebrity endorsement had a positive impact towards improving brand love, brand image, and brand loyalty. This is often transferred to high purchase intention to a product and increase profitability for an organization as compared to those without celebrity endorsers. The findings of the research have further supported the findings of the study. In the first question, respondents were asked about their perceptions of the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. Of the 300 respondents, about 19.7% said it is very effective, 31.3 % stated that it is effective, 47.3% said it is slightly effective is, and 1.7 % said it is not effective at all. This means, about 98.3% in total have an excellent perception about celebrity endorsement in Sub-Sahara Africa. This also shows that a significant population of the buyers is likely to buy, do buy and are often happy with their purchase through the celebrity endorsement theory. Furthermore, of the total respondents, 87.3% said that celebrity endorsement is more attractive.

Currently, celebrity endorsement has been a normal scenario with marketers across the globe changing it into a multi-million sector. Different brands have utilized celebrity endorsement to change the perception of the buyers and entice them as a means of improving their sales and buyer behavior. The aspect of celebrity endorsement has been applied to improve marketing of products. Through marketing evolution, people have developed different perceptions about celebrity endorsement strategy. Varying audiences of media often tend to assume most adverts seen in newspapers or television. With this drawback on these advertisements, the prevailing glamor that is linked with celebrity rarely goes unnoticed by the buyers. It is for this reason; therefore, that celebrity endorsement has changed how adverts are done. Respondents were asked to tell whether celebrity endorsement influences their love for a particular brand. The findings has revealed that reveals that 55.7% said they love brands that use celebrity endorsement in their adverts and 20.7% stated that they somehow love brands that use celebrity endorsement in their advertising strategy while only 16.3% were neutral or have no opinion and only 7.3% said they not love brands that use celebrity endorsement in their advertising. This indicates the prevailing influence that celebrity endorsement has on ensuring the success of a product.

The thesis has explored the current state of Sub-Saharan African consumer perception in relation to celebrity endorsement. It empirically recognized and tested the aspect of celebrity attributes which are specific to change purchase intention and also examined the impact celebrity has on buying intentions of the consumers. In line with the study aims and objectives, the following conclusions can be made. The project has first examined and investigated the current state of consumer's perception in relation to celebrity endorsement. The study has indicated that there is a high degree of familiarity with celebrity strategy across all ages. The study shows that buyers often find celebrity endorsement more attractive specifically to the younger generation. Furthermore, on the basis of attractiveness, marketers and organization leaders find actors and actress from films more influential as endorsers of the various goods and services provided. The application of celebrity as endorsers in advertisement increases the recognition and recall rate of endorsement product. A significant number of people believe that celebrity endorsement is more attractive and effective when it comes to purchasing decisions. At the same time, people understand and agree that celebrities rarely apply products by them. Secondly, the existing positive relationship between celebrities and purchase intention demonstrates the effectiveness of celebrities as successful endorsers. Even though some attributes are very effective in influencing the purchase. Even though some attributes are effective in affecting buying decision, some are relatively low or moderate. For instance, celebrity familiarity has a significant impact on purchase followed by similarity, expertise then trustworthiness.

The research findings have ranked the attributes as trustworthiness, likeability, meaning transfer and similarity which shows that there is a significant difference of what the Sub-Saharan Africa consumers do and think. It is essential to keep in mind that the selection of the celebrity, therefore, ought to be based on essential attributes but also consider the other priority since they help strengthen the impact a celebrity has over the buyer purchase intentions. It can at the same time be concluded that the various attributes assessed in the report positively affect the consumer's purchase decision and the success of a product in the market. The empirical research test is done between celebrity endorsement, and purchase decision has achieved the set objective of the research project. It empirically tested and discovered that celebrity endorsers have a significant influence on the purchase decision of the consumers as compared to those without celebrity endorsements. Results have indicated that consumers are likely to buy, already buy and are more satisfied with the purchases conducted under the influence of the celebrities. Negative celebrity publicity can influence the success of a brand, but at the end of the day, many will follow their celebrity regardless of the negatives while some will slightly consider it before making the final purchase decision. However, the overall result of the study has stressed the importance of using celebrity endorsement in ensuring the success of a brand or a product in context to sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, limitations, implications, and suggestions for more study need to be highlighted as well.

Limitations of the study

In the course of the research, there were some limitations witnessed. The first limitation was the time factor. There was short time scheduled for the data collection and analysis. For this reason, finding people willing to partake in the research was difficult. The second limitation of the study was related to funds. There were little funds to cover the expensive research process on the topic.

Theoretical Implications

The theoretical framework describes the general topic of the research study, with the indication that, there are some attributes showcased by celebrities making them stand out from the crowd. From the research study, the celebrity attributes discussed include attractiveness, credibility, reliability, trustworthiness, authority, meaning transfer as well as sincerity. The theoretical implication indicates that when the image of the brand in question improves in the customer's mind and the consumer wants to buy it regarding celebrity endorsement; it is a clear indication that the celebrity attributes have a relationship with the overall purchasing behavior.

Managerial Implications

The research findings give an approach to determine the customer's perspective in comparison of celebrity and non-celebrity advertisement. In today's world where media keeps dominating vast platforms, neglecting the client's perspective. Organizations and individuals have also become increasingly aware that one of their most valuable assets is the brand name associated with their products, services, and personality. For this reason, marketers have come to the realization that one of their critical tasks is to build brands and make consumers understand what they stand for.

In this research, much more attention is given towards customer perception. These results give the advertising agencies an elevated understanding of the importance of consumer perception in respect to celebrity and non-celebrity advertisement. This gives marketers a better understanding of which type of advertisement best suits their brands as well as products. When dealing with a brand, the marketers need to look for celebrities that best suit the brand and product to realize the best results. Celebrity endorsement has a significant effect on the purchasing decisions of consumers. Managers...