Celebrity Influence on Consumer’s Buying Decision in India

Celebrity Influence on Consumer’s Buying Decision in India
Date of submission:
Word count:
Abstract
The use of celebrities in advertisements is massive. Indian customer attitudes are changing at
a rapid pace and they are becoming more aware of the products that they use to define their
‘self’. Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition by a large share of a
1 | P a g e

certain group of people whereas attributes like attractiveness, extraordinary lifestyle are
just examples and specific common characteristics cannot be observed though it can be
said that within corresponding social group celebrities generally differ from the social norm
and enjoy a high degree of public awareness (Schlecht,2003). Through my dissertation I
would like to understand the extend of impact of the celebrities Indian or western have on the
purchase decisions of consumers in the country and do people of India have a preference of a
particular type. It will also help us to know which are the other factors that are affecting their
decisions like credibility, likeness for a celebrity etc. This would be done with the help of
online survey circulated and the data then being analysed through SPSS. A proper reliability
test along with correlation and regression will be done on the obtained data.
Table of Content
Serial No. Description Page No.
1 Abstract
2 Acknowledgement
3 Introduction
4 Literature review
2 | P a g e

5 Methodology
6 Finding
7 analysis
8 Conclusion
9 Appendix
10 References
3 | P a g e

Chapter 1/4 Introduction
The use of celebrity endorsements in advertising has become a trend and a perceived winning
formula of corporate image building and product marketing. As existing media get
increasingly cluttered, the need to stand out has become paramount and celebrities have
proved to be the ideal way to ensure brand prominence.
It has been experienced that the products endorsed by celebrities help them to standout and
get more noticed while shopping due to their improved level of product recall (Bowman
2002). Each celebrity proposes has a unique set of cultural meaning and can bring meaning to
the product he or she is endorsing or promoting. Indian celebrities along with sports
personalities have been promoting products or services for a very long period now and the
popularity of using celebrities is increasing only.
Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli emerged as the top celebrity endorser while Akshay
Kumar, with a $104.5-million brand value is on the 2nd position and the power celebrity
couple Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh tied at the third spot this year. It is also seen
that one celebrity endorses multiple brands as well for example Kumar continued promoting
more than a dozen brands such as Honda (motorcycles), Eveready (batteries), PC Jewellers,
Harpic, HUL Ayush, Policybazar.com and Layer’R Shot deo among others.
It is very clearly visible in today’s time that celebrities endorsing brands has both positive
and negative effect on the buying decisions of consumers. As celebrities endorsing alcoholic
drinks and nicotine products make the viewers believe that if their ideals i.e., celebrities are
4 | P a g e

consuming it then there is no harm in consumption of such products. Another example of this
is the stereotyping of fair looking people and application of fairness creams. At the same
time, it has positive impact as well. As celebrities are used to promote tourism in India for
example Amitabh Bachchan promoting Gujarat tourism which make people travel to these
destinations and encourage economic growth.
Celebrities from western countries are also sometimes seen in Indian advertisements which is
also a matter of question that whether these western celebrities have any effect on the mindset
of the people watching such advertisements and do they get influenced by them leading them
to purchase those products.
India being a developing country has a lot of stereotypes that get affected by advertising in
the country.
Chapter 2/4 Literature Review
"Celebrity endorser is an individual who is known by the public for his or her achievements
in areas other than that of the product class endorsed" (Friedman and Friedman, 1979). A lot
of multi-national organisations use celebrities to gain popularity of their brand and develop
motivation among the consumers to purchase it. Celebrities have always been believed to
have the capability of inviting people to buy product or service with the enormous power they
hold of due to credibility and distinctive position. Celebrities are not only chosen on the basis
of their personality but also assessed on various other dimensions to have the perfect match
with the product they are endorsing. Like Bipasha Basu promoting a fairness cream
advertisement wouldn’t appeal to people. India comprising of Bollywood, has a lot of
5 | P a g e

celebrities all of them having different personalities and traits. Some of them are more
famous than the others. Indian advertisements comprise of these actors in a large number.
If we talk about advertising, it is really important to understand that with the amount of
money spend on advertisements it’s very important that the advertisers should analyse the
effect of it on the consumers. The first formal advertising model was probably AIDA
(Attention-> Interest -> Desire -> Action), attributed to E. St. Elmo Lewis in 1898 (Strong
1925, p. 76). These types of "hierarchy of effects" models (Lavidge and Steiner 1961) have
dominated the literature ever since. This model is explained in detail further below.
Advertising, of own and competitive brands, is shown as an input for the consumer.
Scheduling of the media, message content, and repetition (Singh and Cole 1993) are
components of this input and constitute the advertising strategy that triggers a consumer's
response. The intermediate type of response implies that, consciously or unconsciously,
advertising must have some mental effect (e.g., awareness, memory, attitude toward the
brand) before it can affect behaviour. Cognition, the "thinking" dimension of a person s
response, and affect, the "feeling" dimension, are portrayed as two major intermediate
advertising effects. Individual purchasing and product usage behaviour, or changes thereto,
represent the consequential, behavioural effects of advertising in our model. For most
products, and especially the frequently purchased packaged goods in which much research is
interested, the consumer's mind is not a blank sheet awaiting advertising but rather al- ready
contains conscious and unconscious memories of product purchasing and usage. Thus,
behaviour feeds back to experience, which is our third principal intermediate effect.
6 | P a g e

Individual responses to advertising are effect by the consumers capacity to understand and
their existing knowledge.
This AIDA model is relevant in our research as once the consumers see the presence of
celebrities, they will catch their attention and arouse their interest in the product which may
or may not lead to purchase of the product endorsed. With our research we will be able to
find out whether the presence of celebrity has a major effect on consumer buying decision
making them purchase the product (Vakratsas and Amber 1999)
The use of celebrity in advertisements as a marketing practice has a history which dates back
to more than 150 years. However, since 1980 it has become a standard practice. In today’s
world about 25-30 per cent of advertisements (Jain 2016 and Yoo,2018) use celebrities in
western countries while in case of countries like India, Japan and China the figure is at 60-70
per cent (Jain 2016 and Yoo,2018). It is believed that huge amount of money is spend by
marketers on these celebrity endorsement contracts. The success rate of. Celebrity
endorsements has led to the study of its effectiveness. It is believed that for the celebrity
endorsement campaign to be successful, the celebrity is required to be on top of her/his field,
have the ability to bring attention towards the brand and most importantly, to know how to
bring trust of consumers towards the product. A study by (Erdogan, 2001, Lafferty,2002) on
celebrity trustworthiness examined its effects on valued outcomes, such as message
effectiveness, brand recall, attitude towards an advertisement, attitude towards the brand and
purchase intention .More recent studies have suggested that celebrity trustworthiness has a
positive effect on advertising appeal, social media advertising, brand credibility, brand
equity, brand loyalty, attitude towards the corporation, corporate loyalty, corporate image and
corporate reputation (Dwivedi and Johnson,2013).
7 | P a g e

If we talk about the prior research on this topic various articles provide useful insight which
helps us to understand how celebrities have a strong influence on the purchase decisions of
the consumers. As in today’s competitive environment, the quick reach and impact of
message is very essential. So, celebrities serve as an important link to attain this. A celebrity
is chosen on the base of his or her credibility and the same is explained by Friedman through
his internalisation theory. As Friedman and Friedman (1979) proposed that the expert
endorsers i.e. celebrities have a major influence through the process of internalization,
suggesting that expert endorsers persuade through the credibility dimension. That is, the
endorser is perceived to have credible information that may be used to solve the consumer's
problem. The process of internalization occurs when the consumers adopts an attitude
because it can be a solution to their problems. Therefore, the higher the credibility the higher
appeal, attention and recall would be seen among the consumers. However, this may not be
true as firstly in some cases expert advice would be considered more important than
celebrities representing the product. Products like toothpaste, organic food products etc can
be better endorsed by doctors and experts providing proper evidence regarding their quality
and testing. This practice is now developing in India.
Previous research has shown that the congruity between a celebrity’s and a brand’s image can
strengthen consumer’s perception towards the brand (Kamins,1990). Moreover, a consumer’s
attitude can also be affected through the similarities between consumer’s perceived self-
image and a celebrity endorser (Albert,2017; Erfgen,2015). Evidence too exist which indicate
that some endorsers are more than others, depending on the target audience and celebrity’s
congruency with the cultural value of the brand. As a consumer should always relate with the
celebrity so that their purchase decisions are influenced by them. As in India, Amitabh
Bachchan is a celebrity that is used to communicate social messages. As he is considered to
8 | P a g e