3.

Email residence : ______________ ( Not discretionary ) Gender: Male Female Age: 13-19 20-30 30-40 40-50 50 as well as Above Occupation: Service Business Housewife Student Others (Please Specify) _________ 2. What have been a motivating factors when we devise to buy mobiles or cars? Discounts as well as offers Fewer prices Latest models as well as trends Celebrity endorsing a product 3. Do we hold products privately advertised by a celebrities have been of great quality? Yes No 50% Not sure 4. What is a many persuading cause to squeeze a following products? a) Motor vehicle? Brand Name Celebrity Luxury Self Esteem b) Clothing Brand Name Celebrity Status Cost c) Food Products Celebrity Attractive Package

Quality Brand Name 5. Companies have been investing vast amounts of income for regulating celebrities; do we consider a assisting them to enlarge their sum revenue? Yes No Dont know 6. Which TV channels do we watch? (Specifically Indian channels) 7. Does a participation of celebrities similar to Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachan or Aishwariya Rai in an announcement encourages we to squeeze a product or service? Yes No Not sure 8. Do we hold a celebrities additionally operate those products that they themselves endorse? Yes No Not sure 9. What sort of luminary publicity persuades we privately to squeeze products? Film star Famous personalities Cricketer Politician 10. Please rate a following celebrities as a code endorser:a) Aishwariya Rai for LOreal Excellent Average Poor Unsure b) Amir Khan for coca cola Excellent Average Poor Cant rate c) Sushmita Sen for Olay creams Excellent Average Poor Cant rate

d) Juhi Chawla for KurkureExcellent Average Poor Cant rate e) Amitabh Bachan for Cadbury chocolatesExcellent Average Poor Cant rate 11. What do we worth a many when purchasing a product? Price of a product Celebrity endorsement Quality of a product Value for money 12. Does luminary publicity assistance in code promotion? Yes No Not sure 13. What equates to of advertisements persuades we a many to squeeze a product? Television Radio Newspaper Magazines Internet 14. What do we consider is a reason for a companies to select luminary publicity for compelling their products? Easy approval of product Cant beget latest ideas to be means to enlarge sales as well as profit To contest strongly Best answer: Answer by Michael Scarn Very interesting! we would have looked during it a same way. Add your own answer in a comments! Related posts:

1. I need a research paper topic.?

2. Introduction to Online Market and Industry Research (Business Reasearch Solutions) 3. Poor Richards Internet Marketing and Promotions: How to Promote Yourself, Your 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Business, Your Ideas Online 2nd Edition Q&A: Resume help: How does my resume look? Internet marketers out there? Q&A: describe the benefits and opportunity to the business of using internet marketing within the marketing mix? Poor Richards Internet Marketing Promotions: How to Promote Yourself, Your Business, Your Ideas Online, POOR RICHARDS INTERNET MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS: HOW TO PROMOTE YOURSELF, YOUR BUSINESS, YOUR IDEAS ONLINE.: An article from: Technical Communication Poor Richards Internet Marketing and Promotions: How to Promote Yourself, Your Business, Your Ideas Online 2nd Edition 2nd Edition. I like to market an Internet based business concept to a large portal willing to invest. How can I ? Pls help.

11. What do you value the most when purchasing a product? Price of the product Celebrity endorsement Quality of the product Value for money 12. Does celebrity endorsement help in brand promotion? Yes No Not sure 13. What means of advertisements persuades you the most to purchase a product? Television Radio Newspaper Magazines Internet 14. What do you think is the reason for the companies to choose celebrity endorsement for promoting their products? Easy recognition of product Cant generate new ideas to be able to increase sales and profit To compete strongly
Celebrity endorsement nowadays has become one of the most popular advertising campaigns. Companies use many celebrities like movie stars, athletes and singers to endorse in their adverts in order to attract consumers into purchasing their brands. The publics fascination with celebrities has helped marketers to utilise this marketing strategy and influence consumers

purchasing intentions. Even though celebrity endorsement has become the most common advertising promotions, marketers still doubt if it is a successful and effective marketing strategy. Companies use celebrities for their fame so their glamour can reflect and draw attention on the product. However, some celebrities can destroy a brands reputation if they manage to get bad publicity. Therefore companies need to be really cautious when choosing a particular celebrity to promote their brand. This study aims to find out whether or not consumers purchasing decisions are in fact influenced by celebrity endorsement. This will be carried out by primary and secondary research methods in the form of questionnaire and literature review. Secondary data will examine several models and theory and primary data will be collected using Microsoft Excel 2007. Results will be analysed through the use of histograms, pie charts and bar charts. Celebrity endorsement has increased dramatically the past few years and primary research has allowed the current author to prove this. Results have shown that this type of marketing promotion is successful as long as the link between the celebrity and the product is strong and the target market is considered before using a celebrity to promote a specific product

Celebrity endorsement has been established as one of the most popular tools of advertising in recent time. It has become a trend and perceived as a winning formula for product marketing and brand building. It is easy to choose a celebrity but it is tough to establish a strong association between the product and the endorser. While the magnitude of the impact of celebrity endorsement remains under the purview of gray spectacles, this paper is an effort to analyze the impact of celebrity endorsements on brands. Objective of this article is to examine the relationship between celebrity endorsements and brands, and the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer's buying behavior as well as how consumer makes brand preferences. This paper proposes a 20 point model which can be used as blue-print criteria and can be used by brand managers for selecting celebrities and capitalizing the celebrity resource through 360 degree brand communication which, according to this paper, is the foundation of the impact of celebrity endorsement. Celebrity endorsement is always a two-edged sword and it has a number of positives - if properly matched it can do wonders for the company, and if not it may produce a bad image of the company and its brand.

CELEBRITY ENDOSREMENT
Forms of Celebrity: As a spokesperson Multiple celebrities for one product Multiple product for one celebrity Celebrity Pairing Endorsement in movies

WHEN DO COMPANIES INDUGLE IN CELEBRITIES ENDORSEMENT: Close Substitutes Clear Differentiation Entry into the Market Lifecycle of the Brand Competition Criteria for selecting a celebrity: Celebrity-Product match Celebrity- target audience Cost Celebrity credibility Celebrity availability Celebrity physical attractiveness Why customers accept the celebrity endorsements: High degree of attention and recall for consumers Celebrity expertise perceived relevant Celebrities are perceived trustworthy Ambitious psyche Physical Attraction Benefits of Celebrity Endorsement: Establishes credibility Attracts attention Associative benefit Psychographic connect Demographic connect Mass appeal

Positive impact of Celebrity endorsement on the brand: Sense of trust Attention of the target group Persuasive message Demographic and psychographic Public relation opportunities Why Celebrity endorsements do not work sometimes: Improper Positioning Brand- Celebrity disconnect Clutter Flutter Dissatisfaction with product performance Confusion/Skepticism

Sample Size 150 Respondent. Out of this 10% did not submit completely filled questionnaire. Hence; Final Sample Size 135 Responden Area of Survey:-Indore, Madhya Pradesh. Time Frame:- 3 months; JanuaryMarch 2008 Sampling Technique:-Non- Probabilistic ConvenientSampling. Data Collection Tool:-Questionnaire with Open & Close ended questions "A sign of a celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services. - Daniel J Boorstin INTRODUCTION The motif behind total branding may be decocted as an attempt to amalgamate diverse activities to win customer preference. Apropos to this context, the topic Impact of celebrity endorsement on overall brand, is a significant one. The crescendo of celebrities endorsing brands has been steadily increasing over the past years. Marketers overtly acknowledge the power of celebrities in influencing consumer-purchasing decisions. It is a ubiquitously accepted fact that celebrity endorsement can bestow special attributes upon a product that it may have lacked otherwise. But everything is not hunky-dory; celebrities are after all mere mortals made of flesh and blood like us. If a celebrity can aggrandize the merits of a brand, he or she can also exacerbate the image of a brand. If I may take the liberty of rephrasing Aristotles quote on anger, Any brand can get a celebrity. That is easy. But getting a celebrity consistent with the right brand, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way... that is not easy.

Celebrity endorsements are impelled by virtue of the following motives: Instant Brand Awareness and Recall. Celebrity values define, and refresh the brand image. Celebrities add new dimensions to the brand image. Instant credibility or aspiration PR coverage. Lack of ideas. Convincing clients. The scope of a celebrity on the incumbent brand: Simply stating, a brand is a differentiated product and helps in identifying your product and making it stand out due to its name, design, style, symbol, color combination, or usually a mix of all these. Before we can scrutinize the effects of celebrity endorsement on the overall brand, we have to ferret the implicit nuances that act as sources of strong brand images or values:

Experience of use: This encapsulates familiarity and proven reliability. User associations: Brands acquire images from the type of people who are seen using them. Images of prestige or success are imbibed when brands are associated with glamorous personalities. Belief in efficiency: Ranking from consumer associations, newspaper editorials etc. Brand appearance: Design of brand offers clues to quality and affects preferences. Manufacturers name & reputation: A prominent brand name (Sony,Kelloggs,Bajaj,Tata) transfers positive associations The celebritys role is the most explicit and profound in incarnating user associations among the above-mentioned points. To comprehend this, let us analyze the multiplier effect formula for a successful brand: S=P* D*AV --the multiplier effect Where S is a successful brand, P is an effective product. D is Distinctive Identity and AV is Added values. The realm of the celebritys impact is confined to bestow a distinctive identity and provide AV to the brand; the celebrity does not have the power to improve or debilitate the efficiency and features of the core product. Thus, we are gradually approaching an evident proposition claiming, The health of a brand can definitely be improved up to some extent by celebrity endorsement. But one has to remember that endorsing a celebrity is a means to an end and not an end in itself. An appropriately used celebrity can prove to be a massively powerful tool that magnifies the effects of a campaign. But the aura of cautiousness should always be there. The fact to be emphasised is that celebrities alone do not guarantee success, as consumers nowadays understand advertising. They know what advertising is and how it works. People realize that celebrities are being paid a lot of money for endorsements and this knowledge makes them cynical about celebrity endorsements.

Compatibility of the celebritys persona with the overall brand image A celebrity is used to impart credibility and aspirational values to a brand, but the celebrity needs to match the product. A good brand campaign idea and an intrinsic link between the celebrity and the message are musts for a successful campaign. Celebrities are no doubt good at generating attention, recall and positive attitudes towards advertising provided that they are supporting a good idea and there is an explicit fit between them and the brand. On the other hand, they are rendered useless when it comes

to the actual efficiency of the core product, creating positive attitudes to brands, purchase intentions and actual sales. Certain parameters that postulate compatibility between the celebrity and brand image are: Celebritys fit with the brand image. CelebrityTarget audience match Celebrity associated values. Costs of acquiring the celebrity. CelebrityProduct match. Celebrity controversy risk. Celebrity popularity. Celebrity availability. Celebrity physical attractiveness. Celebrity credibility. Celebrity prior endorsements. Whether celebrity is a brand user. Celebrity profession. Successful celebrity endorsements for a brand- An Indian perspective The latter part of the '80s saw the burgeoning of a new trend in India brands started being endorsed by celebrities. Hindi film and TV stars as well as sportspersons were roped in to endorse prominent brands. Advertisements, featuring stars like Tabassum (Prestige pressure cookers), Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), Kapil Dev (Palmolive Shaving Cream) and Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings) became common. Probably, the first ad to cash in on star power in a strategic, long-term, mission statement kind of way was Lux soap. This brand has, perhaps as a result of this, been among the top three in the country for much of its lifetime. In recent times, we had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign with the objective of mitigating the impediment that an unknown Korean brand faced in the Indian market. The objective was to garner faster brand recognition, association and emotional unity with the target group. Star power in India can be gauged by the successful endorsement done by Sharukh for three honchos- Pepsi, Clinic All Clear and Santro. Similarly, when S Kumars used Hrithik Roshan, then the hottest advertising icon for their launch advertising for Tamarind, they reckoned they spent 40 - 50 per cent less on media due to the sheer impact of using Hrithik. Ad recall was as high as 70 per cent, and even the normally conservative trade got interested. In the Indian context, it would not be presumptuous to state that celebrity endorsements can aggrandize the overall brand. We have numerous examples exemplifying this claim. A standard example here is Coke, which, till recently, didn't use stars at all internationally. In fact, India was a first for them. The result was a ubiquitously appealing Aamir cheekily stating Thanda matlab Coca Cola. The recall value for Nakshatra advertising is only due to the sensuous Aishwarya. The Parker pen brand, which by itself

commands equity, used Amitabh Bachchan to revitalize the brand in India. According to Pooja Jain, Director, Luxor Writing Instruments Ltd (LWIL), post Bachchan, Parker's sales have increased by about 30 per cent. India is one country, which has always idolized the stars of the celluloid world. Therefore it makes tremendous sense for a brand to procure a celebrity for its endorsement. In India there is an exponential potential for a celebrity endorsement to be perceived as genuinely relevant, thereby motivating consumers to go in for the product. This would especially prove true if the endorser and the category are a natural lifestyle fit like sportspersons and footwear, Kapil-Sachin and Boost or film stars and beauty products. Some Global Examples: Globally, firms have been juxtaposing their brands and themselves with celebrity endorsers. Some successful ongoing global endorsements are as follows: Celebrity endorsements have been the bedrock of Pepsi's advertising. Over the years, Pepsi has used and continues to use a number of celebrities for general market and targeted advertising, including Shaquille O'Neal, Mary J. Blige, Wyclef Jean, and Busta Rhymes, who did a targeted campaign for their Mountain Dew product. George Foreman for Meineke. He has also sold more than 10 million Lean Mean Fat-Reducing Grilling Machines since signing with the manufacturing company. James Earl Jones for Verizon and CNN. Nike golf balls, since the company signed Tiger Woods in 1996, have seen a $50 million revenue growth. Nike's golf line grossed more than $250 million in annual sales. In 2000 he renegotiated a five-year contract estimated at $125 million. Other successful endorsements like NikeMichael Jordan, DunlopJohn McEnroe, AdidasPrince Naseem Hamed, and so on. Venus Williams, tennis player and Wimbledon champion has signed a five-year $40 million contract with sportswear manufacturer Reebok International Inc. Advantages of a celebrity endorsing a Brand Brands have been leveraging celebrity appeal for a long time. Across categories, whether in products or services, more and more brands are banking on the mass appeal of celebrities. As soon as a new face ascends the popularity charts, advertisers queue up to have it splashed all over. Witness the spectacular rise of Sania Mirza and Irfan Pathan in endorsements in a matter of a few months. The accruement of celebrity endorsements can be justified by the following advantages that are bestowed on the overall brand: Establishment of Credibility: Approval of a brand by a star fosters a sense of trust for that brand among the target audience- this is especially true in case of new products. We had the Shah Rukh-Santro campaign. At launch, Shah Rukh Khan endorsed Santro and this ensured that brand awareness was created in a market, which did not even know the brand.

Ensured Attention: Celebrities ensure attention of the target group by breaking the clutter of advertisements and making the ad and the brand more noticeable. PR coverage : is another reason for using celebrities. Managers perceive celebrities as topical, which create high PR coverage. A good example of integrated celebrity campaigns is one of the Worlds leading pop groups, the Spice Girls, who have not only appeared in advertisements for Pepsi, but also in product launching and PR events. Indeed, celebrity-company marriages are covered by most media from television to newspapers (e.g. The Spice Girls and Pepsi) Higher degree of recall: People tend to commensurate the personalities of the celebrity with the brand thereby increasing the recall value. Golf champion Tiger Woods has endorsed American Express, Rolex, and Nike. Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is used by TMobile and Elizabeth Arden. 007 Pierce Brosnan promotes Omega, BMW, and Noreico. Associative Benefit: A celebritys preference for a brand gives out a persuasive message because the celebrity is benefiting from the brand, the consumer will also benefit. Mitigating a tarnished image: Cadbury India wanted to restore the consumer's confidence in its chocolate brands following the high-pitch worms controversy; so the company appointed Amitabh Bachchan for the job. Last year, when the even more controversial pesticide issue shook up Coca-Cola and PepsiCo and resulted in much negative press, both soft drink majors put out high-profile damage control ad films featuring their best and most expensive celebrities. While Aamir Khan led the Coke fightback as an ingenious and fastidious Bengali who finally gets convinced of the product's `purity,' PepsiCo brought Shah Rukh Khan and Sachin Tendulkar together once again in a television commercial which drew references to the `safety' of the product indirectly. Psychographic Connect: Celebrities are loved and adored by their fans and advertisers use stars to capitalise on these feelings to sway the fans towards their brand. Demographic Connect: Different stars appeal differently to various demographic segments (age, gender, class, geography etc.). Mass Appeal: Some stars have a universal appeal and therefore prove to be a good bet to generate interest among the masses. Rejuvenating a stagnant brand: With the objective of infusing fresh life into the stagnant chyawanprash category and staving off competition from various brands, Dabur India roped in Bachchan for an estimated Rs 8 crore. Celebrity endorsement can sometimes compensate for lack of innovative ideas. Disadvantages of a celebrity endorsing a brand: The celebrity approach has a few serious risks: The reputation of the celebrity may derogate after he/she has endorsed the product: Pepsi Cola's suffered with three tarnished celebrities - Mike Tyson, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. Since the behaviour of the celebrities reflects on the brand, celebrity endorsers may at times become liabilities to the brands they endorse. The vampire effect: This terminology pertains to the issue of a celebrity overshadowing the brand. If there is no congruency between the celebrity and the brand, then the audience will remember the celebrity and not the brand. Examples are the campaigns of Dawn FrenchCable Association and Leonard RossiterCinzano. Both of these

campaigns were aborted due to celebrities getting in the way of effective communication. Another example could be the Castrol commercial featuring Rahul Dravid. Inconsistency in the professional popularity of the celebrity: The celebrity may lose his or her popularity due to some lapse in professional performances. For example, when Tendulkar went through a prolonged lean patch recently, the inevitable question that cropped up in corporate circles - is he actually worth it? The 2003 Cricket World Cup also threw up the Shane Warne incident, which caught Pepsi off guard. With the Australian cricketer testing positive for consuming banned substances and his subsequent withdrawal from the event, bang in the middle of the event, PepsiCo - the presenting sponsor of the World Cup 2003 - found itself on an uneasy wicket Multi brand endorsements by the same celebrity would lead to overexposure: The novelty of a celebrity endorsement gets diluted if he does too many advertisements. This may be termed as commoditisation of celebrities, who are willing to endorse anything for big bucks. Example, MRF was among the early sponsors of Tendulkar with its logo emblazoned on his bat. But now Tendulkar endorses a myriad brands and the novelty of the Tendulkar-MRF campaign has scaled down. Celebrities endorsing one brand and using another (competitor): Sainsburys encountered a problem with Catherina Zeta Jones, whom the company used for its recipe advertisements, when she was caught shopping in Tesco. A similar case happened with Britney Spears who endorsed one cola brand and was repeatedly caught drinking another brand of cola on tape. Mismatch between the celebrity and the image of the brand: Celebrities manifest a certain persona for the audience. It is of paramount importance that there is an egalitarian congruency between the persona of the celebrity and the image of the brand. Each celebrity portrays a broad range of meanings, involving a specific personality and lifestyle. Madonna, for example, is perceived as a tough, intense and modern women associated with the lower middle class. The personality of Pierce Brosnan is best characterized as the perfect gentlemen, whereas Jennifer Aniston has the image of the good girl from next door. CONCLUSION Despite the obvious economic advantage of using relatively unknown personalities as endorsers in advertising campaigns, the choice of celebrities to fulfill that role has become common practice for brands competing in today's cluttered media environment. There are several reasons for such extensive use of celebrities. Because of their high profile, celebrities may help advertisements stand out from the surrounding clutter, thus improving their communicative ability. Celebrities may also generate extensive PR leverage for brands. For example, when Revlon launched the "Won't kiss off test" for its Colorstay lipsticks in 1994 with Cindy Crawford kissing reporters, the campaign featured on almost every major news channel and equally widely in the press. A brief assessment of the current market situation indicates, that celebrity endorsement advertising strategies can, under the right circumstances, indeed justify the high costs associated with this form of advertising. But it would be presumptuous to consider celebrity endorsement as a panacea for all barricades. Celebrity endorsement if used effectively, makes the brand stand out,

galvanizes brand recall and facilitates instant awareness. To achieve this, the marketer needs to be really disciplined in choice of a celebrity. Hence the right use of celebrity can escalate the Unique Selling Proposition of a brand to new heights; but a cursory orientation of a celebrity with a brand may prove to be claustrophobic for the brand. A celebrity is a means to an end, and not an end in himself/herself.
Synopsis Today 'Celebrity Endorsement' has attracted immense debate on whether it really contributes to the brand building process or whether it is just another lazy tool to make the brand more visible in the minds of the consumers. Although it has been observed that the presence of a well-known personality helps in solving the problem of over-communication that is becoming more prominent these days, there are few undesirable impacts of this practice on the brand. The theories like 'Source Credibility Theory, Source Attractiveness Theory and Meaning Transfer Theory' provide a basis on which the methodology of celebrity endorsement works and also explains how the process of the celebrity endorsement influences the minds of the consumers. Firms invest huge amounts as advertising expenditure for hiring the right celebrity. However there lies uncertainty with respect to the returns that the company might be able to garner for the brand. The issue of matching the values of the celebrity with the brand values is also very important, i.e. getting the right celebrity to endorse the right brand. Consumers perceive the brand as having superior quality because it has been endorsed by a credible source. This makes endorsement as one of the indictors of quality for any brand. Corporate credibility along with endorser credibility plays a significant role in the attitude of the consumer towards the brand and the advertisement respectively. On the other hand, the over popularity of the celebrity sometimes overshadows the brand. If the celebrity is involved in multiple endorsements, it tends to create confusion among consumers and hence negatively affects the perception of the advertisement and the brand. Hence, to say clearly whether the practice of celebrity endorsement impacts positively or negatively to the brand still remains a debate. Introduction The society that we live in can not only be called secular or democratic, it should be more appropriately termed as over-communicated these days. A typical supermarket in USA displays more than 12000 brands, an American family has at least one television set and a consumer is exposed to around 1000 ads per day1. Likewise, there are around 130 television channels in India broadcasting over 3 million television commercials each year in India. The media-explosion can thus be easily demonstrated. More over, people forget 80% of the information in just 24 hours! Just imagine the plight of the marketer to make his brand shout over the deafening clutter of all the brands! Some where in the 80's, Indian marketers found the solution, 'Celebrity Endorsement' for the brand! Firms endorse celebrity for a variety of reasons. It might be the life experience of the celebrity that fits the advertising message or the endorser's high appeal with the firm's consumer target group. Studies associated with the market effect of celebrity endorsement suggest that consumers positively value the use of celebrity endorsers in the advertisements. Firms invest significant money in putting together brands and

organisations with endorser qualities such as attractiveness, likeability, and trustworthiness. But today's dynamic market conditions make these investments unviable. In this paper we are attempting to discuss the positive and negative effects of celebrity endorsement with few examples. History Celebrities are involved in endorsing activities since late nineteenth century2. The advent of celebrity endorsements in advertising in India began when Hindi film and TV stars as well as sportspersons began encroaching on a territory that was, until then, the exclusive domain of models3. One of the first sports endorsements in India was when Farokh Engineer became the first Indian cricketer to model for Bryl cream. The Indian cricket team now earns roughly Rs. 100 crore through endorsements. There was a spurt of advertising, featuring stars like Tabassum (Prestige Pressure Cookers), Jalal Agha (Pan Parag), Kapil Dev (Palmolive Shaving Cream) and Sunil Gavaskar (Dinesh Suitings). Mechanism and Theories of Celebrity Endorsement Celebrity endorsements give a brand a touch of glamour and the hope that a famous face will provide added appeal and name recognition in a crowded market. In the battle for the mind, you get the customer excited by showing him a known face, and an effective demand is created. In short it helps increase the recall value of the brand. A piece of research states that the target audience age group of 15-30 gets influenced first by cricketers, then Bollywood stars and only then music, festivals and food4. According to Source Credibility Theory5, acceptance of the message depends on 'Expertness' and Trustworthiness' of the source. Expertness is defined as the perceived ability of the source to make valid assertions. Trustworthiness is defined as the perceived willingness of the source to make valid assertions. Audience acceptance increases with the expertness of the source and the ability of the audience to evaluate the product. According to Source Attractiveness Theory, which is based on social psychological research, the acceptance of the message depends on familiarity, likeability and similarity. Familiarity is the audience's knowledge of the source through exposure; likeability is the affection for the source's physical appearance and behavior while similarity is the resemblance between source and receiver. This theory explains the message acceptance in two ways: Identification and Conditioning. Identification is when the receiver or the target audience of the communication begins to identify with the source's attractiveness, and hence tends to accept his opinions, beliefs, habits, attitudes etc. On identification, a quote from Bijou Kurien, COO, Titan, "We decided on Aamir because we wanted someone who is a biticonic, who is styleconscious himself, and somebody who cuts across both sex and age group, between urban and rural India. A celebrity who is mouldable and who is not over-exposed". Conditioning is when the attractiveness of the source is supposed to pass on to the brand after regular association of the source with the brand. Grant McCracken6 has criticized the previous two theories and proposed the Meaning Transfer Theory. The theory explains that a celebrity encodes a unique set of meanings which if well used can be transferred to the endorsed product. Such a

transfer takes place in three stages encoding meanings, meaning transfer, meaning capture (Figure 1). I. Encoding Meanings: Each celebrity has a unique set of meanings, which can be listed by age, gender, race, wealth, personality or lifestyle. In this way, the celebrities encode a set of meanings in their image. For example Preity Zinta can be seen as a lively, charming, bubbly, witty and enthusiastic. II. Meaning Transfer: This stage transfers those meanings to the product. When skillfully portrayed, celebrities can communicate this image more powerfully than lay endorsers. III. Meaning Capture: This assumes that consumers purchase products not merely for their functional value but also for their cultural and symbolic value. The theory says that consumers buy the endorsed product with the intention of capturing some of the desirable meanings with which celebrities have passed on to the product. This is more eminent in lifestyle products like clothes, perfumes, cell phones etc.

Discussion Does celebrity endorsement really work? Theoretically yes, because the qualities associated with the endorser are associated with the brand and the brand therefore remains at the top of the consumer's mind. However one needs to realize that the impact of an endorser cannot be sustainable in all product categories and in all the stages of brand life cycles. It really depends upon the type of product. If it is a 'functional brand', then the product itself is the hero. Here any celebrity association with the brand without corresponding performance of the product will not be sustainable. While incase of 'image brands', like the categories of soaps, soft drinks, cigarettes etc., where it is difficult to distinguish between the products, celebrity endorsements help to distinguish between the brands at an emotional level. A research conducted by Synovate7, a global market research firm, revealed that 47% people would be more likely to buy a brand that was endorsed by their favorite celebrity. Pepsi Co. has used a variety of celebrities including Aishwarya Rai, Hrithik Roshan, Amitabh Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor, Rahul Khanna, Fardeen Khan, Sachin Tendulkar etc. Amongst advertisements featuring celebrities, Pepsi tops the heap with the

highest recall of 70%, while arch rival Coke is lower across all markets with 52% recall. This proves that Pepsi has really exploited the use of celebrities in their advertisements and has worked8. Hindustan Lever's 'Lux' soap in India has been using popular film actresses to endorse the soap since its launch four decades ago implying that they owe their stunning looks to the brand. This consistent message hence reinforces the brand values and has been successfully able to position the soap rightly as the 'beauty soap'9 . It would be difficult to judge the direct effect of celebrity endorsement on the sales or profits of the company. On Amitabh Bachchan endorsing RIN, an HLL spokesperson says that it was too early to gauge the success of 'Rin' in terms of sales and that though Dabur healthcare products' sales had improved, the increase could not be solely attributed to him10. Similarly, there are also cases wherein there was a dramatic change in the sales figure after the endorsements. For example Rahul Malhotra, Associate Director Marketing, P&G India quotes "Certainly, it has helped us promote our brand 'Head & Shoulders'. Last year, we were ranked as No. 2 and this year we are market leaders in this segment with over 45% market share". D. Garg, Vice-President (Marketing), Dabur India Ltd quotes, "A celebrity does help in increasing brand sales, but only if he/she is selected carefully and used effectively. The personality of the brand and the celebrity have to complement each other and the selection of the celebrity is, therefore, very important." Positive Impacts of Celebrity Endorsement on the Brand Approval of a brand by a star fosters a sense of trust for that brand among the target audience. This is especially true in case of new product11. Celebrities ensure attention of the target group by breaking the clutter of advertisements and making the advertisement and the brand more noticeable. A celebrity's preference for a brand gives out a persuasive message and hence, because the celebrity is benefiting from the brand, the consumer will also benefit. There is a demographic and psychographic connection between the stars and their fans. Demographic connection establishes that different stars appeal differently to various demographic segments i.e. age, gender, class, geography etc., while psychographic connection establishes that stars are loved and adored by their fans. Some stars have a universal appeal and therefore prove to be a good bet to generate interest among the masses. Another invaluable benefit from celebrity endorsements is the public relation opportunities. Dwane Hal Dean12 studied the effects of three extrinsic advertisement cues viz. third party endorsement, event sponsorship and brand popularity on brand / manufacturer evaluation. It was observed that endorsement significantly affected only product variables (quality and uniqueness) and one image variable (esteem). The third party endorsement hence may be perceived as a signal of product quality. Goldsmith et al.13 assessed the impact of endorser and corporate credibility on attitude-toward-the-ad, attitude-toward-the-brand, and purchase intentions. 152 adult consumers were surveyed who viewed a fictitious advertisement for Mobil Oil Company. They rated the credibility of the ad's endorser, the credibility of the company, and attitude-toward-the-ad (Aad), attitude-toward-the-brand (AB), and

purchase intentions. It was observed that endorser credibility had its strongest impact on Aad while corporate credibility had its strongest impact on AB. The findings suggest that corporate credibility plays an important role in consumers' reactions to advertisements and brands, independent of the equally important role of endorser credibility. Looking at the effect of celebrity endorsement on the wealth of a company a classic example of Michael Jordan can be used. At the time of rumors of Michael Jordan returning to NBA in 1995, he was endorsing products of General Mills (Wheaties), Mc'Donalds (Quarter Pounders, Value Meals), Nike (Air Jordan), Quaker Oats (Gatorade) and Sara Lee (Hans Underwear). Study conducted by Mathur et al.14associated with Jordan's endorsements shows that the anticipation of Jordan's return to NBA, and the related increased visibility for him resulted in increase in the market adjusted values of his client firms of almost 2 percent, or more than $1 bn in stock market value. From this study one can observe that the major celebrity endorser with rumors or otherwise has a tremendous potential to influence the profitability of endorsed products. Semi-partial endorsement indicates that when a company uses famous characters from any TV soaps for brand endorsements, consumers tend to relate to the character that he or she plays in the soap and hence can attract more credibility. For example, Smriti Irani who plays 'Tulsi' in a famous soap has garnered a lot of support from the middle-class housewife today. If she would endorse a brand, there would be more relativity and credibility. Same can be said about Priya Tendulkar who used to play the character of Rajani. Negative impacts of Celebrity Endorsement on the brand More often talked about is the extreme usage of a celebrity called 'lazy advertising', that is inadequate content masked by usage of a celebrity15 . A good example is the use of Boris Becker by Siyaram and Steve Waugh by ANP Sanmar. Also as said earlier, associating with a star, in itself does not guarantee sales. There is also the fear of Brand-celebrity disconnect which points out that if the celebrity used represents values that conflict with the brand values, the advertising would create conflict in the minds of the target audience. Clutter in brand endorsements is very prominent these days and such kind of overexposure can be bad for the brand as the recall value drops by a huge margin. A popular drawback of celebrity endorsement is the 'Vampire Effect' or the celebrity overshadowing the brand16. Some viewers forget the brand that a celebrity is approving. Others are so spellbound by the personality of the celebrity that they completely fail to notice the brand being advertised. Two new drawbacks can be seen these days what marketers call Celebrity Trap and Celebrity Credibility17. Celebrity trap is when the celebrity becomes an addiction for the marketing team and the task to find substitutes becomes more and more difficult, leading to surfeit of celebrities. Celebrity credibility refers to skepticism by the consumers regarding the celebrities, especially when there is anything negative regarding the celebrity associated with the brand in the news, then brand is bound to be affected. For example, Air Jordan's generated revenue sales of $130 million in the first year. The sales dropped miserably in the second year when Jordan missed 62 games due to a broken foot18. Another main worry of the advertisers is that their celebrity endorser would get caught in a scandal or an embarrassing situation.

Multiple product endorsement also has a negative impact on customers' purchasing intentions. Tripp et al.19 investigated the effects of multiple product endorsement by celebrities on customers' attitudes and intentions. They found that the number of products a celebrity endorses negatively influences consumer perception of the endorser and the advertising itself. It was suggested that when as many as four products are endorsed, celebrity credibility and likeability, as well as attitude towards the ad, may attenuate. Superstar Amitabh Bachchan endorses multiple brands like Pepsi, Mirinda, ICICI, BPL, Parker pens, Nerolac, Dabur, Reid & Taylor, Maruti Versa, Hajmola, Tide, Cadbury and a few social messages. It has worked in some cases, while in some cases it has not. D. K. Jain, Chairman and President, Luxor Writing Instruments Pvt. Ltd, the marketer of the Parker brand said, "Using Amitabh Bachchan as our brand ambassador has helped in strengthening our brand image and recall within the target audience". Tarun Joshi, Communications Custodian, Reid & Taylor said, "Amitabh Bachchan is an icon with universal appeal and has helped us to reach out to the real 'Bharat.' In fact, agents and retailers have told us that already customers have started asking about the 'Amitabh wali suiting.'" Incase of Nerolac Paints, which was endorsed by Amitabh Bachchan, around 80% of the respondents when asked to associate Bachchan with any paint, did so with Asian Paints, which is the biggest competitor of Nerolac20. The budget or cost is an important factor for celebrity endorsement21. Depending on the status of the celebrity, remuneration could run into millions of rupees for several years or may also include a profit sharing plan. For example when S. Kumar's used Hrithik Roshan for their launch advertising for Tamarind, they reckoned they spent 40 - 50 per cent less on media due to the sheer impact of using Hrithik. Sachin's endorsements got him $18 million over five years. When Aamir first endorsed Pepsi in 1995, he received Rs 17 lakh for it; his Coke commercials in 1999 got him Rs 2 crore. Hrithik Roshan in his highflying days reportedly made over Rs. 20 crore in endorsements and events by 200122. However, a number of brands have been built without celebrity endorsement. For some of their brands, Hindustan Lever and Procter & Gamble do not believe in celebrity endorsement because they think that consumers, especially housewives, are more likely to identify with a lay person on screen than a celebrity. Procter & Gamble launched its 'Rejoice' brand in India with testimonials from ordinary women in their TV advertising. Few more examples of this will be Lifebuoy, Wheel, Dettol, Close Up, Fevicol etc. Conclusion Whether Celebrity endorsement has a positive or a negative impact on the brand is a debate that is open to interpretation. But till the time the corporate world continues to foot fancy bills of celebrity endorsers and till consumers continue to be in awe of the stars, the party is not likely to break up.