Advantages And Disadvantages Of Celebrity Endorser

There have been different definitions for the concept of celebrity endorsers. In 1989, McCracken defined a celebrity endorser as a person “who enjoys public recognition and uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appear with it in an advertisement”. Gupta (2009) considered celebrity endorser as a person who can use their name to get public attention, raise public interest and generate profit prom the public. In other words, associating with a celebrity allows companies to create background stories and eventually, the product or brand will receive attention from the public. A celebrity endorser can also be understood as a person who is known by the public when appearing in an advertisement with a product to promote that product

Take the case of Chris Brown for example, Body by Milk, the people behind the popular “Got Milk” campaign, had to terminate their contact with the singer after his notorious scandal; Wrigley also did the same thing since hardly anyone wants their brand to associate with his negative public image. Sung and Kim (2010) stated that the personality of the brand has a significant impact on the trust and loyalty consumers have for that brand; that is, when the personality of the chosen celebrity contradicts what the brand represents, customer trust and loyalty for the brand will be damaged. Negative publicity associated with the endorsed celebrity will lead to the decrease in customer’s perception of the brand being endorsed (Till and Shimp, 1998). Moreover, when a celebrity endorser adjusted his or her image, the perception of customers for the brand and its product will also be affected (Kaikati, 1987). Sticking to their well-known image is critical for celebrities in endorsement process because they can send an evident meaning to the product and brand they endorse (McCracken, 1989). However, celebrities tend to change their image to be more opened to different career options; consequently, the endorsement effectiveness will suffer from such inconsistance. For that reason, choosing the right celebrity can be a challenge to any firms. Customers may be unconvinced with the celebrity (Wells and Prensky, 1996), or in the case of Nick Lachey, a famous singer whose profile seemed to fit perfectly with the endorsed brand unfortunately turned out to overshadow MasterCard promotion; customers may pay more attention to the celebrity rather than the product and the brand being endorsed (Erdogan, Baker and Tagg,