Critical Theory of Advertising and Branding

This assignment delves into the critical theory of advertising, examining its impact on society and culture. It discusses brand image, celebrity endorsement, event sponsorship, and how brands serve as symbols for self-identity and social ties. The role of self-brand connections and symbolic associations is also explored, highlighting their significance in consumer motivation and behavior.

Term 1
Effective IMC
- The term Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is often used to
emphasise that different communication strategies need to be complementary
and well blended.
- It is important for organizations to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of
promotional activity with a view to maximizing the company’s resources in
future promotional campaigns.
Ethical EX: Fair trade
DRIP-The Task of Marketing Communications
- Differentiate - to position a brand so that it is perceived to be different to its
competitors
- Reinforce - to remind or reassure customers about a brand
- Inform - to make customers aware of a brand’s existence or attributes
- Persuade - to encourage customers to behave in particular ways
Branding = The creation of an image of goods, services and consumer groups
Marketing includes advertising, Public relations, sponsorship, promotions,
etc.
Differentiating between Advertising and Promotion
- Advertising is often referred to as ‘above-the-line’promotion, whereas other
types of promotion are known as ‘below-the-line’methods.
- Advertising=Paid Media
[The content of advertisement can be controlled since you have paid media fees.]
The AIDA Model can also be relevant to other forms of promotion

The Marketing Communications Mix
Media Channels

Marketing Communications Practice
- In-house marketing team (may be split into advertising and PR)
- Full-service agencies (strategy; planning; implementation)
- Specialist agencies (digital; PR; advertising; MR)
The Planning Strategy:
Marketing Communication Strategy should derive directly from marketing
strategy which in turn derives directly from corporate strategy.
Media Vehicle Decisions
- Media vehicle decisions should be based on readership, viewership,
listenership figures etc.
- Media planners must also have information on the emotional aspects of media
consumption, its social & cultural context and its meaning in consumers’lives.
Scheduling Issues
· Reach
- The number of individuals reached at least Minimum Effective Frequency.
· Effective Frequency
- To raise disposition to purchase to the action threshold with the fewest
insertions (the lowest cost)
· Wear-Out
- Occurs when successive exposures no longer have a positive impact on the
audience.
- Too many exposures may turn disposition to purchase in a negative direction.
PR=Earned Media Exposure
PR concerns ‘establishing and maintaining good relations with different public
stakeholders in order to facilitate the marketing function’.
[One of the main functions of PR is to communicate through the media to gain
public attention and awareness.]

- Earned media [public WoM/eWoM]
- Owned media [refers to the company's own website or social media such as
Instagram account.]
- Paid media [Paid TV commercial or media advertising layout or media
influencers.]
Public Relations Methods
- Media Relations
- Publicity and Events
- Lobbying
- Sponsorship
- Crisis Management
- Public Affairs
- Industry Relations
- Issues Management
Public relations (PR)
 ‘PR’ is often described as ‘free publicity’, but more specifically it means
that the medium in which the publicity features is not paid directly for this.
 In fact, it does usually require an investment on the part of the retailer to
gain the publicity by employing PR specialists.
 PR generates interest and goodwill for companies through sending press
releases and photographs to appropriate media and organizing events
such as product launches, as well as other methods.
 New product innovations; rebranding; successes; changes in personnel and
financial statements could be considered newsworthy.
 ‘Gifting’ is a PR technique used by many large or upmarket retailers, which
involves giving its products away to celebrities or other opinion leaders
e.g. bloggers, to influence consumers.
Personal Influencers
- Opinion Leaders
- Opinion Formers
- WoM
Sponsorship
 Sponsorship is a promotional strategy employed by various organizations.
 Sporting events are key areas for sponsorship, enabling retailers to place
logos on sportspeople’s clothing and at sites associated with the events,
without paying for advertising space directly.

 Companies can also use sponsorship by supporting educational initiatives
related to their products or local communities.
 In return, the sponsors gain exposure of the brand name that stands out
from above-the-line advertising.
 For the sake of brand image retailers need to be selective in the choice of
people or organizations being sponsored, as they need to be consistent
with brand personality.
Characteristics of Sponsorship
- Indirect and implicit messages
- Less control
- Often integrated with other tools such as PR and sales promotions to achieve
effectiveness
- Less effective in gaining attention
- Less cluttered and cheaper
- Exposure effect: brand ends up in evoked set
- Positive attitudes towards the event/cause-positive attitude towards the brand
Marketing communications via digital and social media
· There are three main classifications of digital media:
– Paid:
This type of media is bought by the retailer to target specific customers. It
might include display advertising, affiliate advertising and SEM (search engine
marketing).
– Earned media:
Here a retailer posts a story or image that is considered of interest to other
readers so the content is posted, for free, on other digital media channels. This
has strong links to PR.
– Owned media:
Digital channels that the retailer owns, including the company website, which is
the hub for all digital content, forming a promotional function as well as a
transactional one.
Retailers are increasingly including consumer-generated reviews on their
transactional websites, which can influence other customers in their purchases.
Word-of-mouth (WoM)
- WoM refers to consumers informing each other about products, brands and
retailers, making recommendations or criticisms.
- Positive WoM has significant advantages over other forms of promotion, since
consumers may view their peers’ views as objective, impartial and authentic .
- No costs are usually incurred for the retailer, but WoM is the technique over
which retailers have the least control.

- Consumers may be likely to consider friends, family, online reviews and
bloggers as more reliable sources than adverts.
- However, retailers can undoubtedly have a strong impact on the messages
spread via WoM by providing an effective marketing mix and behaving with
integrity.
- Retailers can give customers a platform to facilitate an exchange of views,
e.g. user reviews on the website.
Digital PR
· PR involves communications with an organization’s various publics (i.e.
stakeholders) via the media.
· Digital media are increasingly being used as key channels to generate PR, e.g.
Instagram; Facebook; blogs; vlogs/YouTube; micro-blogs (e.g. Twitter);
Pinterest.
· PR can be via positive publicity from social media users’messages or from
social media accounts or websites operated by the company whose
products/services are being promoted.
· Promotion can also take place through digital channels via other methods
such as affiliate marketing and email.
PR aims
- To inform people about products or services
- To encourage people to have favorable views towards and organization and its
products/services
- To influence people’s attitudes towards an organization’s products or services
Strengths of Public Relations
Implementing PR campaigns
· Developing newsworthy stories

· Building and maintaining effective lists of journalists
· Writing attention-grabbing press releases
· Choosing the right agency or consultant for the organization, brand or
product/service
Corporate Communications
· Corporate Communications can be defined as the total integrated approach
to the communications activity generated by all functional departments of a
company, aimed at establishing and maintaining the link between strategic
objectives, the corporate identity and the corporate image in line.
· Corporate Reputation is the evaluation or esteem in which an organization’s
image is held. It is based on experience with the company and/or exposure to
communications, behavior and symbolism. It is not easily altered in the short
run. It implies credibility, trustworthiness, reliability and responsibility. It refers
to how stakeholders view and believe in the core identity and image
components of the company.
Crisis Management – The objective of crisis management is to limit the effect
that a crisis might have on an organization and its stakeholders, assuming the
crisis cannot be prevented.
Pre-Crisis Management Rules
· Communicate (build trust, build brand equity, build crisis scenarios)
· Be responsive and keep in touch
· Do Not act as if problem does not exist
During a Crisis
· Designate a single spokesperson
· Be honest
· Give details
· Show regret/compassion
· Indicate the larger, more positive picture
· Offer reassurance and a detailed plan of action
Personal Selling
(two-way, face-to-face communications used to inform, give presentations to,
maintain or establish a long-term relationship with, or persuade specific members
of a particular audience)
- Personal selling forms part of Integrated Marketing Communications in
retailing as well as in business-to-business (B2B) markets.
- Sales advisors are in valuable position of being able to impart information
about products and to receive feedback.
- Personal selling is an effective way to generate sales, but it is also time-
intensive and expensive.

Sales Person (responsibility)
- Prospecting
- Providing Service
- Self-management
- Relationship Management
- Handing Complaints
- Maintaining customer records & information feedback
Advantage of Personal Selling is that the attention of the buyer is virtually
guaranteed once he or she has chosen to interact with the sales agent, and the
feedback from the buyer takes place during the sales presentation, without any
delay.
Examples of Personal Selling Roles
- Sales agents
- Sales representatives
- Sales directors
- Personal shoppers
- Retail sales associates (assistants/colleagues etc.)
Examples of differences between B2C and B2B marketing
· Product/service – a bigger variety of products in B2B markets because they
include consumer products as well as products/services needed to operate B2B
organizations.
· Price – industry prices are lower than selling prices to consumers and negotiation
can often take place.
· Promotion – far less emphasis on advertising than in consumer markets and a
stronger emphasis on RM (record management [security, access, general
efficiency).
· Place – there may be less investment in the premises.
· Buyer behavior – fewer customers and a closer relationship with them than in
consumer markets.
Marcomms in B2B markets
· There is no mass media (e.g. TV, radio or press advertising) for businesses, at
least not with the same reach.
· B2B markets must therefore approach communications with customers
differently to methods used by B2C marketers.
· Advertising is an important element of the marcomms mix, especially for raising
awareness, but is often less effective in business markets than in consumer
markets, e.g. for FMCGs.
· Sales promotions are common in B2C contexts and are also important in B2B
marketing (e.g. BOGOF).
· Various PR options are available to B2B marketers.

· Direct marketing is often used in B2B marketing alongside personal selling to
improve performance.
Marcomms used in B2B sectors include:
- Trade fairs
- Industry exhibitions
- Fashion shows
- Conference presentations and stands
- Showrooms/Factory visits
- Brochures/leaflets
- Webinars
- Contact from sales representatives
Direct Marketing
- The distribution of products, information and promotional benefits to target
consumers through interactive communication in a way that allows response to
be measured.
- Is concerned with the management of customer behavior and refers to all media
based activities that generate a series of communications and responses directly
with an existing or potential customer.
Direct marketing techniques
- Direct marketing involves communicating directly with existing or potential
customers to promote companies and their products, mainly via digital
communication.
- Databases can be built up through using (e.g. loyalty cards, competitions in-
store or online with the main intention of gathering email addresses, retails
can ask customers to sign up if they wish to receive news and offers from the
company)
The role of Direct Marketing
- Aim to provoke a change in the audience’s behavior
- Collect customer information to feed future strategies and campaigns
- Reach audiences with call-to-action messag es by using a variety of media,
including the telephone, internet, direct mail, email, press and posters.
Digital Marketing

Three Forces for Direct Marketing
Database Marketing
- An interactive approach to marketing that uses individually addressable
marketing media and channels (such as mail, telephone and the salesforce)
to:
· Provide information to a target audience
· Stimulate demand
· Stay close to customers
Email Marketing
- Methods of marketing by electronic mail wherein the recipient of the message
has consented to receive it (Opt-in/Opt-out).
· Very powerful and cost-effective tool for digital marketers (Easy to use, costs
little to produce, has the potential to reach millions of willing prospects in a
matter of minutes.)

Performance Measures
· Response rate
· Total sales
· Number of contacts purchasing
· Average order value
· Conversion rate from enquiry to sale
· Repeat purchase rate
Relationship Marketing
· Relationship marketing (RM) can help to build long-term relationship between
retailers and customers through various types of interaction.
· RM can encourage customers to feel an emotional connection with a retailer
that leads to long-term loyalty.
· Another term for RM is Customer Relationship Management (CRM), an apt
term for large companies where a large amount of data exists about
customers that has to be managed in order to meet their requirements.
· RM is relevant to all aspects of the business that affect customers’ interactions
with a retailer and it can therefore be considered as more that simply a
method of promotion.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- The aim of using these systems is to provide relationship with superior value
by enabling suppliers access to real time customer information. This helps
suppliers to anticipate and satisfy customers needs effectively, efficiently and
in a timely manner.
- The methodologies, technologies and e-commerce capabilities used by firms
to manage customer relationships.
- Potential company-customer contact points”
· Sales force
· Email
· Websites
· Post
· Phone
· Distributors
The Impact of Incentive and Customer Characteristics on Direct Mailing
Effectiveness
- Call-To-Action (CTA) direct mailings have a positive impact on customer
purchase behavior.
- Non-monetary incentives have a higher impact on purchase incidence than
monetary ones.
- Utilitarian non-monetary incentives work slightly better than hedonic ones.
- Retailers should target customers based on relationship and communication
history.

Out-of-home media (OOH)
- Outdoor media consists of three main formats:
· Static:
- Street furniture (e.g. bus shelters)
- Billboards
· Mobile:
- Transit (e.g. underground, lorries, buses and taxis)
OOH selections
- ‘The length of the ad exposure (viewer ‘dwell time’in relation to the ad), the
ad’s intrusiveness on the surrounding environment, and the likely mood and
mindset of the consumers who will encounter the ad’.
- Billboards, street furniture and transit can be precisely targeted to specific
customers and venues.
OOH locations
- OOH can also be classified under the more general heading of ambient ads, a
much broader category that includes the following, examples are:
· Floor media
· Washrooms
· 3D
· Petrol pumps
· Ticket barriers
· Special or one-off buildings
· Miscellaneous (e.g. napkins, coasters)
Marketing Communications Media Channels
- Broadcast/film
· TV
· Radio
· Cinema
- Print
· Newspapers (national or local)
· Magazines (trade or consumer)
· Supplement/flyers
- Digital
· Internet – computers and mobile devices
· Digital TV and radio
- Out-of-home
· Posters/billboards
· Transport
· Ambient media

Point of Purchase (POP)
· Also known as point-of-sales (POS) or in-store media
· The most used techniques are:
- Windows displays
- Posters
- Information cards
- In-store videos
- Packaging
· Brands can be permitted to supply their own POP promotions in stores.
Ambient Marketing
· Promotion that is located beyond usual advertising locations, usually
temporarily in an outdoor environment. (e.g. IKEA and Supor)
· Some types of ambient marketing can also be called experiential marketing
(e.g. if they involve some kind of performance such as a flash mob.)
· Ambient marketing is relatively cheap, may gain attention by being in unusual
places and can potentially go viral. However, it also risks being damaged by
the weather or the public.
· Guerilla marketing often takes place in unofficial locations, which can make
some of its techniques legally dubious.
· It offers immersive experiences and emerging technologies.
Guerrilla Marketing
- Techniques often use space that isn’t paid for and it may therefore infringe on
being illegal:
· Graffiti, e.g. on pavements or walls
· Reverse graffiti
· The term is sometimes used interchangeably with ambient marketing
Ambush Marketing
- Organizations and brands that are not official sponsors promote at the same
time and place as an event, e.g. Nike at the Atlanta Olympics, resulting in a
new law in the UK for the 2012 London Olympics.
Promotional Merchandise
- Can be sold to promote a product or service or given free.
- Popular in the music and film industries as an additional and lucrative income
source.
- · Clothing
- · Posters
- · Bags
- · Mugs
- · Keyrings
- Targets loyal customers and opinion leaders to influence other consumers.

- Distributed at concerns, festivals, online or in retailers.
- Specialist merch companies can customize products.
- Companies can license their products/brand names.
Sales Promotion
- Offers buyers additional value, as an inducement（（（（to generate immediate
sales. [targeted at consumers, distributors, agents and members of the sales
force]
- A communication tool that adds value to a product or service with the
intention of encouraging people to buy now rather that at some point in the
future.
Sales promotion vs. Advertising
· Sales promotion is decidedly short term and capable of influencing behavior
rather than attitudes.
· Advertising is regarded as being more influential in the longer term and best
suited to enhancing buyer attitudes.
A typology of sales promotion
Value-increasing:
· Discount pricing
· Money-off coupons

· Low interest credit
· Refunds
· Guarantees
· Multipack or multi-buys
· Quantity increases
· Group buying
Value-adding:
· Samples
· Special features
· Valued packaging
· Product trial
· In-pack gifts
· In-mail gifts
· Piggy-back gifts
· Gift coupons
· Information in print
· Clubs or loyalty programmes
· Competitions/ Prize draws
The Retail Market Level continuum
Reasons for the use of sales promotions
· Add value
· Assist segmentation
· Reach new customers
· Reduce distributor risk
· Reward behavior
· Retention
· Induce action
· Improve efficiency
· Integration
· Preserve cash flow

Pricing Strategies:
Everyday Low Pricing
· Emphasises the continuity of retail prices at a level somewhere between the
regular non-sale price and the deep-discount sale price of high/low retailers
· DOES NOT mean lowest price.
· Retailers have adopted a low price guarantee policy to reinforce their EDLP
strategy
· Advantages:
- Assures customers of low prices
- Reduces advertising and operating expenses
- Reduces stockouts and improves inventory management
Pricing Strategies
EDLP (Everyday Low Pricing)
- Assures customers low prices
- Reduces advertising and operating expenses
- Better supply chain management
° Fewer stockouts
° Higher inventory turns
High-Low
- Higher profits through price discrimination
- More excitement
- Build short-term sales and generates traffic （（
Reasons for Taking Markdowns
· Clearance Markdowns to get rid of slow-moving, obsolete merchandise. （（（（（
· Promotional Markdowns
- To increase sales and promote merchandise
- To increase traffic flow and sale of complementary products generate
excitement through a sale
· To generate cash to buy additional merchandise.
Markdowns: Seasonal sales, reductions and offers
· The reasons why retailers use markdowns vary but legislation in different
countries can impact upon organizations’ decisions to reduce prices.
· Perishable products often require deep discounts to avoid disposal and some
retailers make a feature of this by locating them together in one display unit, to
attract price-conscious shoppers.
Leader Pricing
· Certain items are priced lower than normal to increase customer traffic flow
and/or boost sales of complementary products.
· Best items: purchased frequently, primarily by price-sensitive shoppers
EX: bread, eggs, milk

Price Lining
· It is therefore usual for retailers to use price lining by adopting a selection of
price points that meet their customers’expectations.
Psychological (odd) pricing
· A popular method of retail pricing is for products and services to be priced to
end in odd figures such as .99 or .95, with the intention that the customer will
perceive the cost as being cheaper than the nearest pound, dollar or other
currency.
Multiple-unit pricing
· This pricing technique can be implemented with the aim of selling products in
large volumes in a short period of time.
· Price bundling is when a reduction can be given on a different, but related
product, to encourage consumers to make a multiple purchase.
EX: Buy Three For Two
Segmented Pricing
· This flexible method of pricing refers to retailers selling products or services at
different prices depending on the market segment that purchases them, e.g.
concessionary discounts in cinemas.
· Prices can also be based on time segments with reductions offered on product
and services at less busy times.
· Student lock-ins at shopping centers offer a discount to students at
numerous outlets in a certain location, at a specific time later than the centre’s
usual opening hours, often supported by live entertainment.
Predatory Pricing （（（（（
· Predatory pricing is an approach that can be used by large retailers to set prices
below those of competitors.（（（（（（（（（ aim of driving competitors out of business（
· It is one of the many areas of pricing with the potential for unethical practice.
(Several large niche retailers have raised prices after competitors have been
diminished, leading to them being accused of using predatory pricing.)

Term 2
Strong and Weak Theories of Advertising Effect
· Strong Theories: (AIDA, Linear Model of Communication)
- The hierarchy-of-effects theories
- A directly persuasive way
· Weak Theories: (ATR)
- Advertising cause and the sales effect are far less directly linked
- Powerful and enduring
- Remind consumers that the brand is still around and still relevant
- Reassurance for the consumer
Weak Theories
· A positive presence in the consumer’s set of choices
- Short-term memory of humans is estimated at about 7 pieces of information
- The buying set from which we choose for most purchases is relatively small.
· The majority of purchase decisions are made by default.
· All non-verbal communication can be seen as ‘week’ communication
· The meaning of the communication can never be precisely ascertained
· Thus the linear, sender-receiver model is not adequate （（（
- The communicative engagement between advertisement and consumer is
much complex.
The Social Context
· Our senses of discernment （（（ and preference （（ are culturally learned in
interaction with our social worlds.
· Advertising seeks to create meaning that will resonate in some way with （（
- Our sense of social identity & （（（（（
- Our culturally derived values, aspirations and fantasies. （（（（（（（（（（（（（（（

Advertising as Commodity
· Advertising is not merely a force acting upon us.
· We actively use it in our own social lives.
· Use & Gratification Theory
· Budweiser wassup
· Clear and unambiguous claims:
- Strictly constrained by law and industry regulation
· Advertising suggests, implies and hints.
· It places images and words in suggestive juxtaposition to imply that consuming
a given brand will symbolically confer certain qualities and values:
· In rhetoric, what is not said but left implicit is often considered to be as
significant, or more significant, than what is explicitly said.
· In advertising it is the implication, rather than the overt (or ostensive) claim that
is often the most potent and persuasive element of communication.
• The study of signs and their meaning
– Copy, typeface, soundtrack, positioning, image, colour, objects
• The meaning of a given sign depends on
– the context, the receiver and the communication codes that form
the cultural expectations of the sender and receiver.
• We actively seek meaning by completing a Gestalt whole from even
incoherent visual or other cues
– Brand’s personality and values.
Creativity: The CAN Elements
· Connectedness:
- Target audience
· Appropriateness:
- Delivering the brand’s positioning strategy
· Novelty:
- Unique, fresh, and unexpected
Advertising Appeals

Campaign Evaluation
· Pre- and post-launch street surveys for brand recall/prompted recall
· Social media data analytics for brand engagement (e.g. clicks, page views)
· Sales data/enquiries/conversion rate analysis
· Media content analysis
· Mid-campaign audience/reader surveys
· Surveys of intermediate attitudes, e.g. intention to purchase, brand preference
· Calculation of advertising RIO by ratio of revenue to advertising and media
costs
· Market share analysis
· Focus groups
· Case studies
Elaboration Likelihood Model
- Central: effortful elaboration
- Peripheral: non-thoughtful
Central Route
· People are motivated to hold correct attitudes
· Motivation
· Availity
· Thoughtful elaboration of the issue-relevant information
Peripheral Route
· Less effortful scrutiny of the information
- Source expertise
- Source attractiveness
- Message length
- Background music
· Inference processes

· Associative processes
How do sex appeals work?
How do humour appeals work?
· Attention
· Memory
· Positive emotional experiences
Message processing
· 3 sub-processes involved in information processing
- Encoding
- Storage
- Retrieval (Memory)
· The operation of these sub-processes requires cognitive resources
Cognitive Resources
· The mechanisms of allocating cognitive resources:
- Controlled, or
- Automatic
· Orienting Resource (OR):
- Automatic biological mechanism, we do not have the ability to suppress it.
- Allows for assessment of danger or benefit when triggered by motivational
signals or novelty in the environment.
Orienting Response
· Stimuli:
- Novel: things that are new or unexpected
- Signalling: things that signal important or relevant information
· Allocate cognitive resources to process the stimulus:
- Encoding
- Storage
- Memory
Signals
1. Opportunity: Appetitive/approach (motivational) system
- Approach to pleasant stimuli to sustain life.
- Positive emotional states
2. Threat: Aversive/defensive/avoidance (motivational) system
- Withdrawal from unpleasant stimuli to protect life
- Negative emotional states
3. Simultaneous activation (or co-activation) of the systems
- Mixed or ambivalent emotional states

In addition to automatic activation, an individual’s own thoughts can also
activate the motivational systems.
Sex and Appetitive System
· Evolutionary Psychology
· Sex:
· - Primary biological motivator
· - Survival of the species depends on sexual reproduction.
· Automatic activation of appetitive/approach system
Humour
· A cognitive recognition of something that is incongruous or somehow wrong –
in a relatively benign way.
- Mismatch between stimuli and expectations
· Orienting Response
· - increased cognitive resources allocation.
· - followed by self-induced appetitive activation
· - positive emotional experiences
Critical theory of advertising
· Advertising, PR=peacetime propaganda
- “Weapons of Mass Persuasion”
· Advertising= an art of manipulation
· Promotes materialism and consumer culture
· Products were seen as a means of expressing one’s inner self to others
· Advertising helped transform society from a NEEDS culture into a DESIRE
culture
· To grow the economy, more stuff has to be produced, which means that
people have to buy more stuff, which can’t happen if people don’t desire more
stuff.
“Cultural Pollution”: Critical theory of advertising
· The social & cultural effects of advertising
· Ad’s role in perpetuating an unjust social order
· Distorted communications and ideological impact
· Persuasion/manipulation of consumers
Advertising literacy
· Ads targeting at children
· Processing of advertising information: ability and motivation
· Ad literacy:
- Dispositional: ad-related knowledge and skills
- Situational: ability to recognize and critically reflect on ad.
- “filter”: enables critical evaluation of persuasion attempt

Why celebrity sells?
• Celebrity endorsement increases the attention paid to an ad
• Celebrities are generally attractive,
– which helps persuasion when consumers are worried about social
acceptance and others’ opinions
– when the product is attractiveness-related
• Celebrities may be credible sources if they have expertise in a particular
area, such as
– an athlete endorsing shoes
– a beautiful model endorsing make-up
• Celebrities are often well-liked, possibly leading to identification and
consumer persuasion in an attempt to seek some type of relationship
with the celebrity
• Celebrities are most often considered a peripheral cue: they are
important in persuasion only when consumers are not involved in the
product category or in processing the ad.
• Celebrities may provide central information when an aspect of the
celebrity matches the product (as with beauty products and
attractiveness)
Meaning Transfer Model
What is brand image?
• "perceptions about a brand as reflected by the brand associations held in
memory" (Keller 1993, p. 3).
• Brand associations are developed from a variety of sources including :
– brand and product category experiences,
– product attributes,
– price information,
– positioning in promotional communications,

– packaging,
– user imagery (e.g., typical brand users), and
– usage occasion
How does celebrity endorsement work?
- Association network approach
- Memory as a network consisting of various nodes connected by
associative links
- Celebrities and brands both represent nodes, which initially are
unconnected but become linked over time through the endorsement process.
- Feelings toward a celebrity and/or meanings in the celebrity are
expected to transfer to the endorsed brand through their recurring association.
- The repeated exposure to two stimuli results in simultaneous activation
of memory nodes representing those stimuli, building an associative link between
the two nodes
How does event sponsorship work?
• Brand is linked with the event
• The image of the event is then transferred to the brand:
– Professional status, venue, size, etc.
– Past experiences with the event
• Directionality:
– The brand’s image can also be transferred to the event
Brands as symbols
• Possessions can be used to create, reinforce and express one’s self-
identity,
– allowing one to differentiate oneself and assert one's individuality
• Possessions can also serve a social purpose by reflecting social ties to
– one's family, community, and/or cultural groups, including brand
communities
• Brand choices are then based on the congruency between
– brand-user associations and
– self-image associations
Self-brand connections
• Consumers will be motivated to self-enhance
– By appropriating the symbolic associations of celebrities they
aspire to be like, and
– rejecting the symbolic associations of celebrities they do not
aspire to be like (which we call non-aspirational celebrities).
• The degree that brand communicates something about the user:

– more symbolic brands having stronger effects than less symbolic
brands