The Impact of Celebrities on Consumer Buying Decisions in India

This report investigates the significant influence of celebrities on consumer purchasing decisions in India. The study examines how celebrity endorsements, both Indian and Western, affect consumer behavior and brand perception. It explores factors such as celebrity credibility, likability, and the match-up between the celebrity's image and the product. The research utilizes an online survey, followed by data analysis via SPSS, incorporating reliability tests, correlations, and regressions to quantify the impact of celebrity endorsements. The report delves into the AIDA model, match-up hypothesis, and the model of meaning transfer to understand the underlying mechanisms of celebrity influence. It also addresses the potential negative impacts of celebrity endorsements, such as the promotion of harmful products, and provides insights into effective marketing strategies in the Indian context.

Celebrity Influence on Consumer’s Buying Decision in India
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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
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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
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5 Methodology
6 Finding
7 analysis
8 Conclusion
9 Appendix
10 References
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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
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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
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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.
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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).
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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
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have good values and culturally relevant. As consumers feel more attached to the celebrities
they know and want to be like them whether in appearance, style or values.
According to the match-up hypothesis, we are able to assume what is beautiful is good.
Endorsers generally select attractive celebrities in order to get a duel benefit of celebrity
status and physical appeal (Friedman and Friedman 1979; Singer 1983). It basically believes
that the image of the celebrity and the image of the product should converge in order to
provide a greater appeal to the consumers. However, is there is an incongruency between the
product and celebrity image it will have a negative effect. An example of this can be like
Ranveer Singh an Indian actor has a macho, quirky and energetic personality so him coming
in the ad of Thumbs Up (Taste the Thunder) makes senses and will have a great appeal to the
audience. However, someone like Amitabh Bachchan who is old and has a mature kind of
personality can’t be used for the same advertisement. So, depending upon the personality the
celebrities are given advertisements. So attractive individuals are more influential as
compared to non-attractive individuals. Therefore, the determinant of the match between
celebrity and brand depends on the degree of ‘fit’ between the brand and celebrity image. The
better it is, the greater appeal it will have among the consumers. However, few studies have
concluded that special attention must be given while employing celebrities who should
considered as expertise by the target audience. Therefore, it is clear that the match-up
hypothesis research may have to extend beyond attractiveness and credibility towards the
consideration and matching of the entire image of a celebrity with the product they are
endorsing. Another model that talks about this is the Model of Meaning Transfer. According
to McCracken (1989), celebrity endorsements are also an example of a more general process
of meaning transfer. In this process, among the customer societies there is a movement of
cultural meaning through conventional path. This process has three stages: the formation of
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celebrity image, transfer of meaning from celebrity to product and finally from product to
customers.
A generalised application of advertising has suggested that physical attractiveness of the
celebrities determines the effectiveness of persuasive communication through the process
called identification, which is assumed to occur when information is received from an
attractive source is accepted as a result of desire for that person (Kelman,1961). As it is
always believed that physically attractive communicators are always more successful at
changing beliefs. As it is a source to capture attention of audience in all forms of media. As it
is believed that physical attractiveness has positive effect on customer’s behaviour while
comparing it with products presented by unattractive people (Ohanian, 1991). Moreover, a lot
of products are associated with a person’s physical attractiveness such as facial creams,
beauty soaps, hair colour, shampoos etc. Like in India, majority of the beauty products are
endorsed by attractive and famous actresses like Deepika Padukone, Katrina Kaif etc. They
are generally showcased wearing pretty dresses, footwear and makeup. So physical
attractiveness is a very powerful source to influence people by their look and style. As
celebrities help people to recall a brand easily. People always want to use the products that
their favourite celebrities are endorsing. They’ll be like if he/she is using than we’ll also use
it.
Also, the previous studies show that a female model has a greater and stronger influence
because they are physically attractive especially when the product has romantic overtones
(Baker and Churchill,1977). Results also showed support for this hypothesis. As for example
we can say the advertisements related to condoms, portray actress like Sunny Leone in India
as he is considered as a very attractive and sensuous actress.
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The celebrities are not only used to promote the established brands but also to promulgate
new brand image, reposition brand or introduce new brands in the market. Like Ranveer
Singh in the advertisements of Ching’s Secret Chinese has helped the brand and the entire
category to be showcased as buzzier, younger and exciting. This shows that celebrities can
have a major influence on repositioning brand image. (Hsu and McDonald ,2002) suggested
that having multiple celebrity endorsement advertising might have a greater appeal to
multiple audiences. However, it is only possible when the advertisers can afford the multi-
celebrity ad, as multi-celebrity endorsement advertising might help the advertisers to create a
sense of consensus, avoid audience to get bore and appeal to multiple audiences.
Celebrities endorsing brands is an easy way to connect with customers. Celebrities enjoy
public recognition and therefore on behalf of the product, use this recognition by appearing in
their advertisements (McCracken, 1989). Strong and famous celebrities can help the
customers to connect with the brand on better level and take them to retail stores of the brand
to purchase it. Celebrities thereby reduce the time that customers take to move from
awareness to action. It is always believed that in order to better connect with the consumers,
the celebrities should be culturally relevant (Low and Lamb Jr,2000). As Indian celebrities
will more connect with the consumers in India than any other western celebrity.
Friedman and Friedman (1979) also hypothesized and thereby later concluded that the use of
celebrity instead of a noncelebrity endorsers in advertisements leads to higher believability,
more favourable evaluation by consumers of the product and advertisements, and a
significantly higher intention among consumers to purchase the product. Pringles (2004)
stated that celebrity endorsements serve as a signpost to quality and can thereby enhance
brand reputations. Consumers who use products that are associated with celebrities get a little
bit extra in terms of imagery, aspiration, and entertainment, factors that often just may be
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enough to ensure a favour towards one brand over the competitors on the supermarket shelf.
Gupta (2003) also pointed out that celebrities may be successful in drawing consumers
attention by piquing their interest or desire and penetrating the target customers perceptual
mapping.
The benefits of using celebrity are also present. As advertising is very challenging in today
times. With increasing rivalry to attain customer retention, marketer and advertisers are
forced to use attention grabbing endorsers or media stars. Moreover, celebrities can also help
advertisements to stand out from the surrounding media clutter, thereby improving the
communication ability by cutting through excess noise in communication process.
However, the role of the celebrity is not only to look attractive or be credible but also the
celebrity has to make up certain meanings the consumer finds compelling and useful
McCracken (1989). He proposed the Meaning Transfer Model which emphasized on the
important role that cultural meaning has in the process of messages passing from a celebrity
to the product they promote and then from the product to the consumers. When endorsing a
product, the celebrities bring out symbolic meanings to the endorsement process, through
which his or her status, class, gender, age, and personality are encoded and thereby
transferred to the product. Once the product is purchased, the consumers “claim, exchange,
care for, and use” (McCracken, 1989, p. 317) the product to appropriate the meanings.
Celebrities, by using their constructed selves or their personality, present themselves as a
kind of exemplary or inspirational figure to the target consumers (McCracken, 1989). Based
on this model researchers try to find out the kind of effect celebrities can have on the product
and we will also find it with the help of our survey whether they feel it is more appealing or
whether they like to see celebrities in the advertisements and does that enable them to
remember or recall the product better.
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