Celebrity Endorsement & Brand Perception

Brand is the most valuable asset of any company and promoting the product of that company through a brand ambassador can enhance brand value or equity which in turn can be leveraged through brand extension. Although brand personality also nourishes brands to gain market share, command premium price and insulates from discounting brands. Endorsing brands of any products through a well-known personality has become very prominent these days as they sort out the problem of over communication, provides instant recognition and transfers their goodwill to the brand. There are some theories like Source Credibility Theory, Source Attractiveness Theory and Meaning Transfer Theory which provide a transparent methodology of celebrity endorsement which explains how the process of the celebrity endorsement influences the minds of the consumers. As we know, many industries invest huge amounts of money 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. In this way 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. When the celebrity is involved in multiple endorsements, it tends to create confusion among consumers and hence adversely affects the perception of the advertisement and the brand. In this article we tried to propose the usefulness of different theories in celebrity endorsement for different Indian brands.