How to make Celebrity Endorsement More Effective?

By: Ni Kadek Virgina Nanda Wedasari (Student of International Marketing Program)

The promotion of a product or brand through candid use by celebrities, or celebrity endorsement is becoming an increasingly popular strategy to garner mass media exposure. A celebrity is described as an individual or people who enjoy public recognition (Mcracken, 1989 in Ha & Lam, 2016) and endorsement is one of communication channels that are used by celebrity as a means to express message to promote the brand using their fame and personalities as a foundation (Kotler, 2007 in Ha & Lam, 2016).

But, in its implementation there are some risk in using celebrity endorsement. Furthermore, celebrities might become scandalous, negative publicity of the celebrity will associate the brand with the scandal. Celebrity endorsers has potential to negative publication and undesirable circumstances that can be transferred to the brand and company they are endorsing; another potential hazard of celebrity endorsement is that the celebrity could overshadow the product. The major concern is that the attention will be fully on the celebrity and failed to promote the brand. Another concern is that, Celebrity endorsements can be extremely expensive, not only in terms of the monetary payments to the celebrity but also in terms of intangibles such as how the celebrity may affect the image of the advertiser (Muda, Musa, & Putit, 2017).

Therefore, a study of celebrity attributes was conducted to measure the attributes of a celebrity that will significantly influence attitude towards social media advertising of smartphone brands. The study found 4 factors of celebrity endorsement that positively influenced attitude towards social media advertising, namely, “celebrity trustworthiness”, “celebrity liking”, “celebrity match-up with product” and celebrity familiarity. Therefore, in selecting celebrity for smartphone endorsement, the factor mentioned needs to be considered, in order to increase the consumer’s attitude towards social media advertising.

BIBILIOGRAPHY

Ha, N. M., & Lam, N. H. (2016). The Effects of Celebrity Endorsement on Customer’s Attitude toward Brand and Purchase Intention. International Journal of Economics and Finance, 9(1), 64. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijef.v9n1p64

Muda, M., Musa, R., & Putit, L. (2017). Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising: A double-edged Sword. Journal of ASIAN Behavioural Studies, 2(3), 21. https://doi.org/10.21834/jabs.v2i3.188

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