Caroll And Thomson Erc Theory

In the past several years, academic and practitioner interest in consumer relationships has flourished (e.g., Seth and Parvatiyar 1995). One approach to studying these relationships focuses on feelings of attachment and love (e.g,. Caroll and Ahuvia 2006), which lay “at the core of all strong brand relationships” (Fournier 1998, p. 363). [From studies of Thomson, 2006]

By 1760, celebrity endorsement has been very palpable. This made different companies use this as one of their common strategies in promoting their product. The use of celebrities to endorse products and services has been a popular marketing strategy used by corporations for decades. Estimates suggest that as much as 25 percent of all television commercials (Erdogan et al. 2001)

Moreover, they would pursue this study to know how do customers are convinced by human brands to patronize the brand that they endorsed.

Theoretical Framework

Figure 1. Thomson’s ARC Theory

To provide anchor and support for the study, the researchers cited a framework conceptualized by Matthew Thomson in his study in consumers’ attachments to the celebrities (2006). This concept is derived from the theory of Ryan and Deci (2000) which states that if an object is responsive to a person’s needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence known as the “A-R-C, intense attachments may result. In his studies, Thomson defined the following needs for attachment:

Autonomy is defined as “a person’s need to feel that his or her activities are self-chosen, self-governed and self-endorsed” (Deci and Ryan 2000, Ryan and Deci 2000). Associated with the fulfilment of this need is a person’s

perception that he or she is has own freedom to behave in a certain ways and is able to express him- or herself as he or she wants to (La Guardia et al.

Conceptual model; Costumer Attachment Strength to the endorser

Researchers conceptualized the autonomy, relatedness, and competence are the determinants that motivate the costumers to admire human brands. In this case, the human brand earns these emotional bonds from the customers which result to the attachment strength that links to the human brands and the costumer.

Researchers believed that: the customer is independent on what he/she does, whom she choose to rely on, and so on and so forth (autonomy); He/she belong in a certain culture and he/she has something in common with somebody (relatedness); The customer is innate and skilled (competence). Each of these factors induces customers to have an attachment with the human brands.

Problem Statement

Nowadays, social media has been more visible everywhere; to the radio, television, internet and mobile applications. Consumers are keen observers when it comes to the things that they encounter particularly to ads. Typically, a brand that was released without any endorsement ends up being less noticed by the consumers. In this case, no one will purchase the product. If no one or few buyers will purchase the product, the companies of a particular brand will not attain their target