Business research method - Essay Example

Celebrity Endorsement Introduction Unlike the ical era, modern advertising strategies have really changed. Some of the changes that have emergedare the use of celebrity endorsement, humor, fear, sexual appeal and curiosity (Soderlund, 2003). The main reason for using these techniques is so the company may deliver the information it needs to send to both its customers and prospects, so as to gain a high brand awareness and recognition. A popular person attracts very many people especially if people can identify themselves with that particular person. This, in-turn, has positive effects on how the customers behave on advertisements. In these modern times, celebrity endorsement is considered as one of the most successful form of promotion in the market. Celebrities help create unique ads for companies; a positive engendered attitude and sales intention towards produced brands (Ranjbarian, Schekarchizade & Momeni, 2010). Celebrity endorsement is a panacea for all marketing woes and is becoming common each day. This is because of the impetus bases on attracting customer’s attention thus developing a positive association. This influences recall and also induces trial, which eventually effects purchase decision. Furthermore, the assumption that they have a similar lifestyle with celebrity lures people to buy the product. In view of the fact that celebrities are always on the spotlight, they are able to transfer their image to the advertised product. For this to happen, becomes an added advantage to the company. According to McCracken (1989, p.310), “a celebrity endorser is an individual who publicly enjoys recognition and uses it on behalf of consumer goods through advertisement”. Celebrity endorsement influences the consumers’ feelings and attitude towards the advertisement and towards the brands. This increases purchase intentions and sales because, in this whole process, goals are achieved, which include awareness of the product; interest to know more about the product; desire to own product and action to buy the product. Marks & Spencer is the most suitable target group to bring out advertising using celebrity endorsement. When beginning to design a research on this topic we first and foremost have to use the two fundamental types of research, descriptive and explanatory. Descriptive research covers what activity is going on in a company. Explanatory research covers why an activity is going on in the company. Marks & Spencer is a company that deals with the sale of clothes for all gender and all ages. This UK, based company strategically came up with the idea of using celebrity endorsement to market their products. This was necessary to them because the type of business they are in comes up with new upcoming products. They have used a couple of celebrities over the years, and they include; David Beckham, Helen Mirren, Dannii Minogue, Twiggy, Antonio Banderas and the X factor’s finalists. Marks & Spencer used these celebrities for different reasons. It enabled the audience easily recall the brand. When a new product comes into the market and is advertised by a particular celebrity, certain target groups follow and remember the existing brand. It helps the company recover its image. For two years in a row, this company had experienced losses and needed the fastest way to recover its customers back and attract more from competitors. For those people who did not recognize of the existence of this company, got to know because the certain interest that the celebrities imparted on the viewers of the advertisement. Celebrities are considered as respectable and only settle for quality when choosing things. Therefore if, he/she is in a particular advertisement the customers develop confidence on the product. Marks & Spencer used this strategy to create confidence in the goods they manufactured. They also used people are familiar with the customers because they wanted their products to look believable. This is because a celebrity cannot advertise for a company that is a hoax (Till & Busler, 1998, p.579). Research Questions: 1. What is celebrity endorsement and what are some of the determinants of celebrity endorsement? 2. What is the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumer attitude? 3. How does negative publicity influence the relationship of celebrity endorsement on consumer attitude? Objectives: 1. To develop and measure celebrity endorsement standards on social advertisement. 2. To analyze underlying factors of celebrity endorsement and social advertisement. 3. To open new vista for study. Literature Review According to Clark & Horstman (2003), celebrity endorsements affect consumer purchase decision as studied by researchers of both marketing and social psychology fields. The two authors used hypothesis to support their arguments (i) endorsement by celebrities have product recall, (ii) celebrities have credibility in terms of expertise thus; product becomes more desirable, or perception qualities are enhanced (iii) image of celebrity is transferred to the product to show the consumer the association present with reference to the image. The authors used experiments to show how celebrity endorsement of product enhances consumer assessment and recall. According to Seno & Lukas (2005), theories are used in addressing the effect of celebrity endorsement. First, model of source credibility, which delineates that attitude of the consumer, is influenced positively by celebrity’s credibility. This model is useful when high involvement is experienced by consumers because it influences their purchasing decisions. In addition, qualitative arguments levels are considered. Moreover, at high involvement attitudes are changed, which means that they will be held with more confidence thus, become resistant to change and persuasive (Solomon et al., 2006). Secondly, source attractiveness model is mostly applied when low involvement of consumers is present as they apply simple behavior of decision-making. The influential source is physical attractiveness. Third model is the meaning transfer model useful for good match-up existing between brand and celebrity. Research Methodology Sampling During a research, one has to consider the determination of proper sampling procedure, which can be divided into probability and non-probability sampling. For probability sampling it uses population sample randomly while non-probability sampling is sampling without a frame to work (Skinner, 2012, p.45). Non probability sampling is cheaper than probability sampling because no frame is available. In addition, probability sampling deals with facts while non-probability sampling fully relies on assumptions. Conjoint analysis is also another type of methodology that was used-it is a technique concerned with the understanding of how people make choices on goods and how their needs are satisfied. This analysis is conducted by asking consumers to rate the products. Conjoint analysis has been recognized as a very powerful way of getting to know what reasons consumers have when settling for the purchase of the product. It also enables companies to understand consumers’ needs, which in-turn improves the market share (Skinner, 2012, p.52). The reason for conducting a conjoint analysis is to understand the consumers’ actions towards the products using an evaluation on the celebrity. Accordingly, as to make conjoint analysis reliable and valid a respondent needs to evaluate the following. Attributes and attribute level, when choosing the attributes and level of attributes it is very important that they are realistic and related to the problem. For one to be able to conduct a conjoint analysis, he/she must come up with attributes. When deciding on levels of an attribute one has to consider whether they are qualitative or quantitative (Skinner, 2012, p.84). Data collection, during conjoint analysis surveys there are two types of scales used; rating and rank order. When respondents are asked to rank the two and state the easier one to them, they will always rank them in the order of preference and not stating the degree of preference. Ranking for postal questionnaires is not advisable since most respondents require assistance to facilitate or to do their task. Survey This is divided into five different parts: Presentation and task instructions for the respondent. Description of the attributes and their levels The combination A post experiment questionnaire A short questionnaire concerning the respondent’s characteristics. In the beginning, respondents were directed to assume that celebrity was associated with negative information and were told to rate each combination so as to display the factors that a company should consider in such cases. The second phase is of utmost importance for the respondents to understand the meaning of each attribute level. Thirdly, the combinations will be brought forward in a verbal description where they will be a sequential introduction of the attributes. The results depend highly on this since the order of the attributes is vital for this activity to be completed successfully. Lastly, the authors are not to segment the total population according to the answers given. This will lead to no particular interest in demographical information like sex. For this reason, the questionnaires were short and only focused on asking personal traits as well as how they are fashion- oriented. As much as authors randomly pick on respondents within each location, they span from asking respondents if they are not conscious about fashion in order to enhance validity. By the use of an unconventional method which is non-probability sampling the authors’ data collection choice was supported. Statistics- during this activity is imperative for an understanding to be made on how well the experiment has been explained. In conclusion, the paper demonstrates how endorsing celebrities has influenced consumer purchasing. The research questions and objectives have been achieved and thus, celebrity endorsement is an advertising strategy that should be employed by companies. Bibliography Clark, R.C. & Horstman, I.J. (2003) Celebrity Endorsents [Internet] “Is celebrity advertising effective Business Standards” Dec 05, 2003. Retrieved from: [Accessed 11Aprile 2013]. McCracken, G. (1989) Who is celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the celebrity endorsement process. Journal of consumer research, 16(3), pp.310-21. Ranjbarian, B., Shekarchizade, Z. & Momeni, Z. (2010) Celebrity endorser influence on attitude toward advertisements and brands. European Journal of Social Sciences, 13(3). Seno, D., Lukas, B. A., (2007) The equity effect of product endorsement by celebrities. . European Journal of Marketing, 41, pp.121-134. Skinner, W.N. (2012) Cause Related Marketing [Internet], understanding celebrity, consumer, and product fit relationships. Available from: [Accessed 11 April 2013]. Solomon, M. et al. (2006) Consumer behavior: a European perspective. New Jersey, Prentice Hall. Till, B.D. & Busler, M. (1998) Matching products with Endorsers: Attractiveness versus Expertise. Journal of consumer marketing, 15(6), pp.576-586. Read More