Celebrity Attractiveness Model

This bond that is created between the viewer and a celebrity helps understand the effectiveness that endorsements have where marketers have failed. The celebrity builds character in the eyes of the public and that character carries on into the product he is endorsing, and even though a part of the persuasion has to exist in the product itself, but a celebrity uses his status and the character he has built to gain credibility and likeability among the target audience. This character the celebrity transfers to the product is known as the “meaning “(2). The transfer of the meaning to the product goes through three stages. The first stage is in finding the celebrity with the desired meaning that they want to carry to the product this requires casting from the wide world of celebrity endorsers. The second stage is choosing which celebrity embodies the meaning the marketing campaign requires for the product, this stage is subject to expense restraints and availability. After deciding on an endorser stage three is the most complicated stage as in this step the endorser has to be able to transfer that meaning into the product, they have to make this meaning “available to the consumer in a material form”(2), this stage allows the consumer to accept the meaning they are given and accept the product and you use is a tool to build their own character. These three steps not only

“People are more likely to pay attention to a TV commercial if one of their favorite players is talking, than they would be if the owner of the company was the star” (Miller). It is the association with the known and likeable character which may attract people to follow celebrity endorsements. It may also be the association with success which the athlete is characterizing. Whatever the case may be, Miller gives tips of what marketing companies look for before persuading a player with an endorsement:

Companies are very selective when choosing a celebrity to endorse their product because they know the person is a great candidate for them to sell their product to the consumers. Before the company signs on the celebrities to endorse their brands, the companies need to make sure that these celebrities meet three basic qualifications.

The credibility of a person depends on many different elements. Credibility can pertain to trustworthiness and expertise. Trustworthiness is affected by things like reliability and characteristics of the person. Expertise is affected by credentials and proven skill (Flanagin, Metzger, 4). The same person may be perceived as credible at one point in time, but may lack credibility later in time. Credibility is largely based on what we as a society are experiencing during that time period. Small things may affect credibility that we would not originally think to include. If a person were to see an ad every day about a certain lawyer, they might think of the lawyer if it comes a time for them to need a lawyer. But if someone were to hear about how wonderful a certain lawyer is from a friend or coworker, that person would be more likely to use that lawyer if the need arose. It stands to reason that people are more likely to trust people they know blindly when it comes to credibility. Appearance is another aspect of credibility that would not always be considered. Much of the time it is subconscious, but people are more likely to trust a person or service if the staff or spokesperson is attractive physically

The positive feedback on products to assure quality and may lead to a purchase decision. Endorsements by celebrities and models play an important role in such buying patterns.

Use of celebrities in advertising is no new concept, companies have used celebrities to sell everything from cars, to moisturizer. Celebrities, due to our consumerist and media based society, are the ideal salespeople. (Wright, 2015) PETA’s campaign team understands that celebrity can help sell products and put a spin on that marketing technique by using celebrity endorsement in order to sell their ideals, and a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. Celebrity endorsement can help companies and non-profit organizations such as PETA to gain public recognition, and to make a strong impression on viewers and consumers, so that they will remember the product, or in PETA’s case, consumers will remember the ideals and advocacy that the organization is promoting. (Fleck, Korchia, & Le Roy, 2012) It’s also apparent that a celebrities attractiveness has something to do with it as well. Fleck, Korchia, and Le Roy also state that “A celebrity spokesperson's physical attractiveness has a positive impact on brand recall, attitude toward the brand and purchasing intent”

If we look at the case of Canada Goose, they sent their coats to celebrities to have their brand to be imprinted on the American consciousness. They sponsored cold-weather film festivals where the Hollywood crowd could cosplay for a week as snow bunnies. We know from examples from various industries that celebrities often have a huge impact on consumers’ decision because consumers admire celebrities and want to be like them. This can be illustrated by Adidas Yeezy, an official collaboration sneaker by Kanye West and Adidas. Taking advantage of Kanye West’s fame, Adidas successfully not only marketed their products but also acquired significant amount of revenue.

It seems in this modern day and age, no-one in the entertainment industry can seem to maintain a good credibility. A prime example of this is David Hasselhoff. David Hasselhoff demonstrates why having good credibility is an important virtue but can easily and hastily be destroyed. He also demonstrates that all your actions effect your credibility.

Celebrity endorsement is possibly the most successful form of advertising. The fact that a celebrity approves of a product is often enough for people to get on board. Advertisements create a false life or image. Chiat says in his article: “Advertising--including movies, TV, and music videos--presents to us a world that is not our world but rather a collection of images and ideas created for the purpose of selling” (Chiat 212) .There is no better way to sell a false life or idea than to have a celebrity sell it for you.

The history of celebrity endorsement goes back to the 1760s. Josiah Wedgwood, the creator of the Wedgwood brand of pottery and chinaware, also known as the father of the modern brand used endorsements and new advertising strategies to build an impression around his company’s name that give the brand name a worth further than the attributes of the goods itself. Somewhere around 1875 and 1900, the trade card popularized celebrity endorsement, either given along with the product to the consumers or inserted in the packaging. The card had a photograph of the celebrity and a description of the product, but it had no quotation or a direct testimonial by the celebrity. Trade cards highlighted actresses like Lily Langtry and Sarah Bernhardt and baseball

As mention previous, when certain celebrities endorse a product, the credibility is lost to an extent. That

Have you ever wondered what influences us to behave the way we do? Look a certain way? Or even looked for an explanation to what causes us to apply a certain perspective regarding personal and controversial issues? One of the answers to these questions may revolve around the influence we absorb from celebrities. A definitive term for celebrity is an iconic figure to a category or group who has achieved success in one or multiple aspects of their lives. As a result, these individuals have drawn in publicity and fame. Over the years with the advances in media and other forms of communication, celebrities have become topics of discussion worldwide, rather if it’s at school, with colleagues or at the dinner table, it is fair to say that

Celebrity endorsements are one of the most famous methods of marketing used today. Celebrity endorsers are being used in about 25% of all the advertisements that we can see on the television. Marketers are investing large sums of money to have a contract with the celebrities as they believe that celebrities can affect the chances of success of a product. (Erica Weintraub Austina*, 2008) Kiakati

Celebrity endorsement is a billion dollar industries today (Kambitsis et al., 2002) with companies signing deals with celebrities hoping that they can help them stand out from the clutter and give them a unique and relevant position in the mind of the consumer. According to Solomon (2002), the reasons for using celebrity endorsement involves its potential to create awareness, positive feelings towards their advertising and brand. Research has shown that celebrity endorsement can have an impact on the consumer’s attention, recall, evaluations and purchase intentions (Atkin and Block, 1993), Celebrity endorsement is a widely used tactic in marketing and much research

Furthermore there are other researches as well which suggest that the approach of using a celebrity to endorse a product can not be viewed as a general practice of using any celebrity for any product endorsement. Pornpitakpan (2003), while discussing match-up hypothesis, describes the results of a study by Erdogen et al (2001) which suggests that "British advertising agency managers considered various criteria like celebrity- target audience match, celebrity-product match, overall image of the celebrity, cost of hiring the celebrity, celebrity trustworthiness, controversy risk, celebrity familiarity, celebrity prior endorsements, celebrity likeability, risk of celebrity overshadowing the brands, celebrity expertise, celebrity profession and celebrity physical attractiveness". A match between the target market and the endorser is important for effectively transmitting right message to target audience. For example, the advertisements which are produced by Pepsi, are mostly targeted for youths and so the celebrity endorsers that they use in their advertisements are young personalities. The match up hypothesis goes true for the multiple celebrity advertising as well. A good example of this is the Pulse Polio campaign taken up in India to eradicate the polio