AN ENQUiry into The Efficiency of Celebrity Endorsement As A Marketing Essay

AN ENQUiry into The Efficiency of Celebrity Endorsement As A Marketing Communication Strategy In Modern Day Society - Essay Example It entails the collection of data, store and analyze it and finally present it in a logical format to enable the readers to understand the outcome of the study. The main purpose and reason behind the choice of this topic i.e. the study of impact of celebrity endorsements as a strategic marketing activity, was the popularity of the concept – i.e. involvement of celebrities for endorsing products / brands, or services. Thus, I wanted to explore the influence of such a promotional marketing strategy, in influencing the consumers in making their purchase decision; and to assess whether the consumers are really motivated to buy a product if it is endorsed by their favourite celebrity. Furthermore, I was interested in exploring and testing the relationship between celebrities, marketing communications and consumers. As a result, I decided to design this study to include the hypothesis discussed above, and to examine whether the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumers is positiv e or negative. The study also entailed a detailed investigation of the manner in which celebrities influence the purchase decision, what inspires / motivates the consumers to purchase the product etc. Celebrity endorsement has become a popular trend amongst organisations in recent times and some crucial questions have been raised to which this research aims to find answers to some of which some questions are: Does it affect the buying behaviour of the target market? Does celebrity endorsement have any impact on the sales of the product? Should it even be the main channel of brand communications? What are the criteria for choosing endorsers? What is the relationship between the images of the celebrity and that of the brand? Does the personality of the celebrity affect consumers’ perception in any way? If yes, how do the marketers manipulate the same in their favor? For the reasons stated above, a focused group was utilized for the primary research, where respondents were asked a series of unstructured of questions. Also, various print and television adverts were studied for the purpose of this study, and my own observations were also included in the form of findings. Research questions The questions I shall be seeking to explore for this research were structured through the process of literature review. The research questions for this study are: Dose the personality of an endorser alter perception of meaning by the consumer What is the role of celebrity endorsement in consumer decision making process Do consumers really believe celebrities endorse product for just the money making process Research method As my main purpose behind this study was to present a comprehensive view of the entire concept of celebrity endorsement, its emergence and popularity, reason behind its relevance and significance as a most favored promotional activity by the marketers, and most importantly the influence of celebrities on the consumers; I decided to communicate and intera ct with a small section of consumers to seek desired answers. I conducted interviews on a select focus group, studied various print and television advertisements and derived meaningful conclusions based on the literature review to form a basis for my findings. Focus groups are like group interviews that involve several participants (including the moderator) who are asked questions on a pre-structured pre-defined topic. Such a method relies heavily on the answers and responses given by the