Far East Journal of Psychology and Business

Vol. 6 No. 3 March 2012

A STUDY ON EFFECTIVENESS OF MULTIPLE AND SINGLE CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT ON CONSIDERABLE PRODUCT ADVERTISEMENTS IN CHENNAI PERCEPTIVE, INDIA
A. Pughazhendi Research Scholar PSG Institute of Management, (PSG Institute of Technology), Coimbatore 641 004 Dr. K. Antony Baskaran Assistant Professor, PG & Research Department of Commerce Sacred Heart College, Tirupattur - 635 601 M. R. Prakash Research Scholar Vel Tech Ranga Sanku Arts College, Chennai 600 062 R. N. Balamurugan Research Scholar PSG Institute of Management, (PSG Institute of Technology) Coimbatore -641 004 ABSTRACT The instrument of celebrity endorsement has nowadays become a pervasive element in advertising and communication management. The advertisers see this as an opportunity to grab and work on so as to expand their operations and promote their product. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptual difference of consumer towards single celebrity endorsement and multiple celebrity endorsement more than one celebrity in a single advertisement for high and low involvement products and services. Questionnaires were administered on a sample of three hundred university students to assess the impact of multiple and single celebrities endorsement with respect to High and low involvement products. Four print media advertisements, two advertisements, one multiple and one single celebrities are taken from low involvement products and two advertisements, one single and one multiple celebrities advertisements were taken from high involvement products. The results showed that the attitudes toward advertisements, attitude toward brand and purchase intentions are more positive for multiple celebrities ad which belong to low involvement category while for high involvement product category attitude toward advertisements, attitude toward brand and purchase intention showed no significant difference for multiple and single celebrity advertisements. Keywords: Multiple and single celebrity endorsement, Attitute towards advertisement, brand, and purchase intentions, Considerable products and services. Paper Type: Research paper

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INTRODUCTION Advertising is imperative for any kind of products or services to survive in the market advertisers adopt distinctive techniques for advertising. In this globalised era celebrity advertising emerges as a better way of advertising. In promotion and of advertising, a testimonial or show consists of a written or spoken statement, sometimes from a person figure, sometimes from a private citizen, extolling the virtue of some product. The term "testimonial" most commonly applies to the salespitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas "endorsement" usually applies to pitches by celebrities. Advertisers have attempted to quantify and qualify the use of celebrities in their marketing campaigns by evaluating their awareness, appeal, and relevance to a brand's image and the celebrity's influence on consumer buying behavior. Endorsements by celebrities have started since a long time. Celebrities include fame movie stars, sports personalities, talk show personalities, politicians and others who have the charisma. Now more than ever, celebrity images are essential to hold the attention of the modern consumer. Celebrity Endorsement Deals has established a service based on one simple fact that is undeniable and widely recognized. Corporations can reap the financial benefits of celebrity endorsements in the form of increased sales. Non-profit organizations can utilize celebrity names to foster higher online and event-based fundraising revenues. Celebrity endorsements can be utilized to further your business goals in a myriad of ways. For decades, celebrity spokespeople have been a favorite marketing tool of companies with products or services to sell. Instant recognition attracts the desired target audience and makes the product they are promoting more visible. Audiences have a higher recall of, and can be more persuaded by, advertisements containing celebrities. Celebrity spokespeople are a staple in marketing. More than 20 percent of all advertisements today feature a famous face, voice or likeness. Even small businesses use celebrity spokespersons. The reason why Consumers pay attentions to celebrities because people are inherently attracted to a familiar face and voice. REVIEW OF LITERATURE Indian market is not by a large space, an easy audience to target for the advertisers. The one billion people of the country are speckled in terms of beliefs, ethnicity, states, culture, language, dialects, norms and values. Other aspects such as the economic discrepancy in the country separates it in a way which has resulted in a large number of lower and upper middle class, with a very small class falling under in the middle class. This demonstrates a vast disparity in the buying power and decision making clout, one which the advertisers should keep in mind. Indian advertisement has been placing a vital amount of importance on both recall and persuasion as brand differentiating messages. (Dixit, 2005). Very often, various advertising styles are used by advertisers to influence consumer brand choice behavior and among these different available choices one very popular choice is Celebrity Endorsements. (Alsmadi 2006). Surabhi B. Prasad & Ravi Girdhar (2005) have come up with a model that is a function of several input parameters, their priorities and the correlation score between the parameter and endorsement effectiveness. The paper first examines the various facets of celebrity endorsements and the impact on brand equity. A through literature survey has been made in light of which the arguments have been substantiated. Neha Taleja, (2005) studied the impact of celebrity endorsements on brands. 12

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While the magnitude of the impact of celebrity endorsement remains under the purview of gray spectacles, the research has established reasoning to the impact of celebrity endorsements on brands and reveals that the level and the magnitude of the effect vary with the celebrity and the product category and that most of the endorsements have a favorable impact. Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann (1983) have proposed the Elaboration Likelihood theory in which they have discussed the two process model of response to the advertising stimuli. In this model they have discussed two conditions, the first condition for the high involvement products under this condition attitude change travels through central route, in which evaluation is on the bases of the quality of the argument. The second condition is for the low involvement products under this condition attitude change travels through a peripheral route, in which simple cues, objects or celebrity play important role in the evaluation process. The results of this research supported this theory, as for the low involvement products celebrities in an ad plays more important role to effect consumer perception compare to the argument in the ad. Similarly for high involvement products celebrities are not as important as the argument in the ad which can influence the consumer attitudes. Chaiken (1980) has given a similar theory. The social adaptation theory (Kahle, 1984; Kahle & Timmer, 1983; Kahle & Homer, 1985) implies that the importance of the information will determine its impact on the consumer attitudes. For example if we take print media ad as stimulus and the ad is for the low involvement product the viewer will glance at the ad for a second or two and than moves to the next page or source so the information form that source in that second or two will have an impact in the consumer mind, which may include only the name of the product or the endorser or the graphic. Similarly for the high involvement product advertisement the consumer may spend a considerable amount of time reading the copy; the argument in that copy strong or weak plays an important role (Kahle & Homer, 1985).The difference in Elaboration Likelihood theory and Social Adaptation theory is that in ELtheory the information scanning is the same way for the both high and low involvement products however in SA theory the information process end very quickly for the low involvement products.(Khale & Homer, 1985). Both theories have more points on which they agree than the points on which they disagree, both agree that information or the argument is important for the high involvement product decisions, both agree that the information scanning is different for high and low involvement products (ibid). There is a lot of research work done on celebrity endorsement but there is a distinct lack of research on multiple celebrity endorsement in advertising. Despite the fact multiple celebrity endorsements are becoming more prominent as compare to single celebrity endorsement advertising (Hsu & McDonald, 2002). Celebrities have the ability to hold the viewers attention and it also help to penetrate the clutter of the advertising spots (Miciak and Shanklin, 1994). When using more than one celebrity in a campaign, the consumer association with the product also increases. Hence the use of multiple celebrities for a product can be beneficial for attracting different target audience (Hsu;McDonald, 2002). Multiple celebrities may help the advertisers to reduce the boredom and sometimes the target audience is very wide so multiple celebrities are required to cover that audience (Erdogan &Baker, n.d). Multiple celebrity endorsements with reference to the low and high involvement products/services have not yet been explored.

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HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY H1: consumer perception is more positive for multiple celebrities advertisements compare to single celebrity advertisement for low involvement products and services. H2: there is no significant difference in consumer perception for multiple and single celebrities advertisements for high involvement products and services. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Research Design The research was conducted using a questionnaire design to understand consumer views on celebrity endorsement with reference to the high and low involvement products and services, measuring their attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand and their intentions to purchase the given product or service. Four print media advertisements were chosen based on the number of celebrities in them. Two Advertisements contain single celebrity in them while two ads contain more than two celebrities in them. Two advertisements, one single and one multiple celebrities were taken from low involvement product ads while two advertisements one single and one multiple celebrities were taken from high involvement products/services.Each participant of the study was provided with one advertisement, either single celebrity advertisement or multiple celebrities advertisement. Same questionnaire was used to measure consumer perception about single celebrity endorsement and multiple celebrities endorsement. Sample A total of 300 university students from different university in Chennai region. Student samples have been used by most of the comparative advertising research (Barry 1993). The data was collected from one private universitys in Chennai and one government university (Anna University Chennai). Dependent and independent Variables Four print media ads were used as stimulus. Two advertisements from low involvement products and services were taken one single celebrity Pantene pro v shampoo advertisements, and one multiple celebrities Lux soap advertisement with five celebrities in it. Two advertisements were taken from high involvement products and services one single celebrity Idea mobile net work connections advertisement and one multiple celebrities Airtel mobile net work connection advertisements with three celebrities in it. To measure young adult perception three variables were studied, attitude toward advertisement, attitude toward brand and purchase intentions. Data Analysis Data was analyzed by SPSS. The first test run was the Levens test for normality of data at 0.05% level of significance. The p values of attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand and purchase intentions are0.187, 0.396 and 0.247 respectively. It is concluded that the data is normally 14

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distributed. The backward linear regression test is applied to find out the relationship between these variables. Independent sample t test is used to measure the difference in the consumer perception for high and low involvement product and services. ANALYSIS & DISCUSSION The sample consists of 61% male while 39% female respondents, 36% were of age between 18 to 21,48% were of age between 22 to 26 while 16% were of age between 27 to 30. 57% of respondents had bachelors degree while 43% had professional degree. The frequency distribution, of single celebrity Pentane Pro V shampoo advertisement was 27% the single celebrity Idea mobile phone connection service providers advertise men was 24% the multiple celebrities Lux soap advertisement was 27% and multiple celebrity Bharathi Airtel Net work connection service providers. The results of backward liner regression showed that there is a significant relationship between purchase intention as dependent variable and attitude toward ad and attitude toward brand as independent variables. The r2 of the regression model is (0.49) the f statistic of regression model is 142.412) and the p value of this model is (0.000). It has been observed from the model that attitude toward brand has much stronger relationship with purchase intention as compare to the attitude toward advertisement. The results of regression are displayed in table no 1. Table - 1: Regression Model Purchase intentions as dependent variable Regression coefficient, st. error in parenthesis, t values in brackets and p values in Bold Constant 0.331 (0.281) (-1.179) 0.239 Attitude toward ad 0.245 (0.63) (3.900) 0.000 Attitude toward brand 0.691 (0.65) (10.712) 0.000 0.000 r2 0.49 Frequency value 142.419

To measure consumer perception about multiple and single celebrity advertisement celebrities advertisement for low involvement products first Independent sample t test is applied for single celebrity Pentane Pro Shampoo ad and multiple celebrities Lux soap advertisement. The p value for attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand and purchase Intentions are (0.002, 0.048, 0.002) which shows that there is a significant difference at 0.05% level between Multiple and single celebrity advertisement for low involvement products which proved our first hypothesis. The mean values are more positive for multiple celebrities advertisement compare to single celebrity advertisement for low involvement products. When Independent sample t test is applied for single celebrity Idea and multiple celebrities Airtel advertisement (the advertisements for high involvement Product and services) there is no significant difference for attitude toward advertisement, attitude toward brand and purchase intentions between Multiple and single celebrity advertisements. The p value for attitude toward ad, attitude toward brand and purchase intentions are (0.175, 0.312, 0.064) which shows that there is no significant difference at 0.05% 15

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level between multiple and single celebrity advertisement. Advertisement for high involvement products and services which proved our second hypothesis. Table 2: Independent sample t test Airtel mobile net work connection (multiple celebrities advertisement) Idea mobile net work connection (single celebrity advertisement) High involvement product category Variables Attitude toward ad Celebrities Multiple celebrity Single celebrity Attitude toward brand Multiple celebrity Single celebrity Purchase intentions Multiple celebrity Single celebrity Mean 4.8146 4.5399 5.0798 4.8732 4.3521 3.9437 St. dev. 1.29178 1.10355 1.16866 1.25371 1.35446 1.25481 t-value -1.362 p-value 0.175

-1.016

0.312

-1.864

0.064

Table 3: Independent sample t test Lux soap ad (multiple celebrities advertisement) Pantene pro v shampoo advertisement (single celebrity advertisement) Low involvement products category Variables Attitude toward advertisement Attitude toward brand Purchase intentions Celebrities Multiple celebrity Single celebrity Multiple celebrity Single celebrity Multiple celebrity Single celebrity Mean 4.9241 4.3439 5.1709 4.8122 4.7426 3.9620 St. dev. 1.29011 1.05218 1.15747 1.10276 1.55154 1.48783 -3.228 -1.994 0.048 0.002 -3.5068 0.002 t-value p-Value

CONCLUSION The key finding emerge from this research is that celebrities have positive impact on consumer perception when they appear in low involvement products or services advertisements. The results showed that there is no significant difference in consumer perception for single celebrity and multiple celebrity advertisements for high involvement product or service. As for high involvement product or service ad the argument in that advertisement is more important for consumer compare to the celebrities in that advertisement. Consumer attitude is influenced by the argument not due to number of celebrities in that advertisement. 16

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This research could be a good extension of knowledge on celebrity endorsement as consumer perception remain same when we have one celebrity or when we have multiple celebrities in high involvement product ads so for advertiser and marketers of high involvement product or service argument should be of prime concern compare to number of celebrities in an advertisement. While for low involvement product and services multiple celebrities endorsement can play its magic but two points should be considered before going for more than one celebrity in an advertisement. First matching the celebrity with the compatible meaning which the brand is or product is using as multiple celebrities can lead to confusion about the brand identity (Erdogan & Baker, n.d., p.13). Second the target market should be divers enough because for diverse target market more than one celebrity are required to cater all of them (Hus & McDonald, 2002) LIMITATION The primary limitations are related to the generalization of the research results. The first issue is related to the sample, as student sample has limited external validity which limits the generalization of the results. Second generalization issue is related to the stimulus, advertisements which were used as a stimulus were all female celebrities advertisements, male celebrities ads and males and female celebrities advertisements may produce more constructive results. REFERENCES Agrawal, J. & Kamakura, W., A. (1995). The economic worth of celebrity endorsers: An event study analysis. Journal of Marketing, 59(3), 56-63. Atkin, C., & Block, M. (1991). Effectiveness of celebrity endorsers. Journal of Advertising Research, 23(2), 57-61. Barry T.E. (1993), twenty years of comparative advertising in the United States, International Journal of Advertising, 12(4), 325-350. Choi Y. K. and Miracle G. E., (2004), The effectiveness of comparative advertising in Koreaand the United States, Journal of Advertising, 33(4), 75-87. Chaiken, Shally, (1979), Communication Physical Attraction and persuasion, Journal of Personality and social Psychology, 37 (August), 1387-1397. Erdogan, B.Z. and Baker, M.J. (n.d.) Celebrity-endorsement: advertising agency managers perspective. Available from: http://www.execusports.com/br4.htm. Freiden, J.B. (1984), "Advertising spokesperson effects: an examination of endorser type and gender on two audiences", Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 24 No.5, pp.33-41.

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Friedman, H., H., Santeramo, M., J., & Traina, A. (1978). Correlates of trustworthiness for celebrities. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 6, 291-299 Friedman, H., H., & Friedman. (1979). Endorser effectiveness by product type. Journal of Advertising Research, 19(5), 63-71. Gaied, AM and Rached, KSB (2010), The Persuasive Effectiveness of Famous and Non Famous Endorsers in advertising faculty of Economic Science and Management of Tunis, Tunisia IBIMA publishing communications of the IBIMA/CIBIMA, Vol. Article ID 474771, 14 pages Kazmi, H and Batra, S (2010), Advertising and Sales Promotion, Excel Books, New Delhi Kotler, P, Keller, K, Kosy, A and Jha, M, (2007), Marketing Management; A South Asian Perspective, Prentice- Hall of India Private 6. Limited, New Delhi Mixon, Franklin G Jr, (1995), Advertising as information: Further evidence Ogilvy, David, (1988), Ogilvy on advertising, Vintage Books Ltd., USA Stanton, William J. and Futrell, Charles, (2001), Fundamentals of Marketing, McGraw-Hill International Editions, New Delhi Surabhi B. Prasad & Ravi Girdhar, S.P. Gupta (2005), Elementary Statistical Methods, New Delhi: Sultan Chand & Sons. Uma Sekaran (2005), Research Methods for Business, Singapore: John Wiley & sons (ASIA) Pvt. Ltd. Wadman, W, (2000) Variable Quality in Consumer Theory Robert van Der Veen analysis of celebrity endorsement as an effective destination marketing tool www.marketingteacher.com www.exchange4media.com www.express-press-release.net/Industries/Marketing-press-releases.php www.impactonnet.com www.indianmba.com/Occasional_Papers/OP88/op88.html www.indianmba.com/Faculty_Column/FC706/fc706.html www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=1777415&g=1

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