Marketing - Literature review Example

Ar Critical Literature Review How Celebrity Endorsement affects Consumer Behavior 3/25 Critical Literature Review Introduction With theincrease in marketing these days it has been noted that different new techniques have arrived which further help in boosting the arenas of marketing. One such technique is the involvement of celebrities while marketing products and is known as celebrity endorsement. Celebrity endorsement is an important arena of marketing as it defines consumer behavior and choice and forces them to try products of the company because of the trustworthiness of the endorser. Secondly consumer behavior is also an important aspect of marketing as it determines as to when a consumer would buy a product and what techniques should be used. This consumer behavior can help the company to increase its sales if on the right track (Czinkota & Kotabe 2001). Celebrity Endorsement Two articles chosen in this literature review are namely Celebrity Endorsement Versus Created Spokespersons In Advertising: A Survey Among Students by Van Der Waldt et al and Factors Predicting the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement advertisements by Silvera and Austad (VanDer Waldt et al 2009 & Silvera & Austad 2004) Van Der Waldt et all classifies two types of endorsements which are Celebrity Endorsement and Created Spokesperson Endorsement. Celebrity Endorsement in this article is defined as a variable which can greatly affect the marketing techniques of a company and can greatly enhance or lower down the sales of a company. Celebrity Endorsement is classified as an endorsement in which celebrities are hired to advertise for specific products or goods for the company which they are planning to sell. These celebrities then are usually used in advertisements so that they can advertise the products and can get their message to the consumers that this product is worth using. According to this article when a celebrity is used it is made sure that he has connections to the product and has a good consumer base. The celebrity is relied upon by his image in the market and is then asked to advertise for that product. This helps in creating brand image for the company. The positives and negatives of celebrity endorsement are also given in this article in relation to endorsement by spokespersons (Erdogan 1999 & Mccracken 1989) Silvera and Austad in their article have done a research so as to see the consumer inferences regarding Celebrity endorsements. It was done to find out if the consumers are really affected by celebrity endorsements because of their inferences regarding the celebrity or not. Celebrity Endorsement by Silvera and Austad is defined as the endorsement of products or goods by a celebrity for a certain amount of endorsement fees. These celebrities then do the endorsement even if they like the product or not. And according to the article the consumers tend to get attracted towards the product because of the trustworthiness and the likeliness of the celebrity. These consumers also consider that the product that is being endorsed is being used by the celebrity himself (Ohanian 1990 & Ohanian 1991& VanderWaldt et al 2007). In both these articles celebrity endorsement has been given immense importance and both the advantages and disadvantages of celebrity endorsement are provided. Both the authors have given the argument that the company might fail to successfully increase their sales because of celebrity endorsement if the celebrity does not have a good image or if he gets into any bad situation. Similarly both articles put forward that celebrities can prove to be excellent endorsers if used rightly for the right product. However both the articles put forward their own conclusions in which they present their researches. One article put forwards that celebrity endorsement is not any better than created spoke persons endorsement while the other puts forward that celebrity endorsement should be carefully chosen when endorsing a product. On the other hand the basis for both the articles is almost the same (VanDer Waldt et al 2009 & Silvera & Austad 2004) It can be seen that both articles are praising celebrity endorsements and are providing with researches which give a way to advertising agencies to carefully plan their endorsement plans. One of the articles also provides with alternatives to celebrity endorsement and its benefits by going through a research. While the other puts forward the inferences of the consumers regarding celebrity endorsements. Both the articles are perfectly crafted however still there is further to need to research on the subject of celebrity endorsement which is left by these two articles. It can be seen that both the articles do not propose a successful alternative endorsement plan for companies to advertise their products than the celebrity endorsement which might prove cheaper. The authors are also not using more alternative techniques which can be used to endorse goods or products. And lastly the articles do not take into consideration consumer behavior while talking about celebrity endorsement (VanDer Waldt et al 2009 & Silvera & Austad 2004) Consumer Behavior Consumer Behavior is another variable which shows as to how, why and where a consumer would buy the product. The articles chosen to further elaborate the variable are Influencing the online consumers behavior: The Web Experience by Constantinides and Cultural Values Do Correlate with Consumer Behavior by Walter Henry (Constantinides 2004 & Henry 1976). Constantinides in his article clearly tells about consumer behavior as being affected by many factors which are related to the purchase of the product or good. He tells as to why and where the consumers would buy the product and what would probably be their reasons for buying it. He tells that consumer behavior is the behavior of consumer with regard to the purchase of good which is affected by the products quality, the use of the product and alternative choices of the products. He puts forward a broad phenomenon which tells as to how the consumer behavior can be affected by many different factors of the society. He also tells as to how a company can excel to alter the consumer behavior and force the consumers to buy the product. The example of 4 Ps of marketing is given by the author to tell as to how the company can affect the consumer behavior. Henry in his article also provides with information regarding consumer behavior that why and what factors can affect the consumer behavior and can lure them to buy a particular product or service. He tells that culture has an important link with the consumer behavior and it is because of this factor of culture that many consumers buy products from a particular brand or company. Furthermore a research has been conducted also to link the relation of consumer behavior to that of cultural dimensions. The articles both revolve around the consumer behavior and tell its importance and what factors affect the behavior. They also give an overview as to how the company can lure the consumers to buy the products and can increase their sales. Both the articles put forward the factors such as demographic social and cultural which may be strong determinants of consumer behavior. One research article provides with the consumer behavior relating to online experience while one provides with the relation of culture to that of the consumer behavior. One article is providing details about online consumer behavior which might be different from the general consumer behavior while the other provides with the general consumer behavior (Goldsmith 1999 Lightner & Eastman 2002). Both the articles put forward a general perspective about consumer behavior but it is seen that all the arenas of consumer behavior are not considered in both the articles. The articles are somewhat lagging here that they are not able clearly tell as to how one can change the consumer behavior and can increase the sales of the company. The articles however have given the factors which might affect the consumer behavior but they have yet not done research on all the factors which can probably affect the consumer behavior (Constantinides 2004 & Henry 1976). Consumer Behavior and Celebrity Endorsement are directly related to each other. Celebrity Endorsement can directly affect the consumer behavior and can affect it in such a way that the consumer may buy the product or may not buy it because of the bad advertisement about the celebrity. As the above critical literature review tells that consumer behavior is determined by several factors and celebrity endorsement is one of the factors. Celebrity Endorsement would lead to the involvement of celebrities in ads and if the product matches their personality and name the consumers would be forced to change their behavior towards the product and would be forced to buy it. Celebrity Endorsement thus has a direct effect on that of the consumer behavior and it is a strong determinant of it. However on the other hand if the celebrity receives bad publicity or is not perfect for the advertisement of the product then the consumer behavior might change and the consumers would possibly not like to buy the product. Thus celebrity endorsement has to be in line with the norms so that the consumer behavior is changed in such a way that the company benefits (Preece et al 1994 & Reicheld & Schefter 2000 & Constantinides 2004 & Henry 1976). Bibliography Top of Form VAN DER WALDT, D., VAN LOGGERENBERG, M., & WEHMEYER, L. (2009). Celebrity endorsements versus created spokespersons in advertising: A survey among students. SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC AND MANAGEMENT SCIENCES.12, 100-114. ERDOGAN, BZ (1999) “Celebrity endorsement: A literature review”, Journal of Marketing Management, 41(3): 291-314. MCCRACKEN, G (1989) “Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the endorsement process”, Journal of Consumer Research, 16(3): 310- 322. OHANIAN, R (1990) “Construction and validation of a scale to measure celebrity endorser’s perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness”, Journal of Advertising, 19(3): 39: 52. OHANIAN, R (1991) “The impact of celebrity spokespersons’ perceived image on customers’ intention to purchase”, Journal of Advertising Research, 31(1): 46-54. VAN DER WALDT, DLR; SCHLERITZKO, NEA & VAN ZYL, K (2007) “Paid versus unpaid celebrity endorsement in advertising: an exploration”, African Journal of Business Management, 1(7): 185-191 October. Top of Form SILVERA, D. H., & AUSTAD, B. (2004). Factors predicting the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement advertisements. European Journal of Marketing. 38, 1509-1526. Top of Form CONSTANTINIDES, E. (2004). Influencing the online consumers behavior: the Web experience. Internet Research: Electronic Networking Applications and Policy.14, 111-126. Top of Form HENRY, W. A. (1976). Cultural Values Do Correlate with Consumer Behavior. Journal of Marketing Research. 13, 121-127. Czinkota, M.R. and Kotabe, M. (2001), Marketing Management, 2nd ed., South-Western College Publishing, Cincinnati, OH. Goldsmith, R.E. (1999), “The personalised marketplace: beyond the 4Ps”, Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 17 No. 4, pp. 178-85. Lightner, N.J. and Eastman, C. (2002), “User preference for product information in remote purchase environments”, Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, Vol. 3 No. 3, pp. 174-86. Preece, J., Rogers, Y., Sharp, H., Benyon, D., Holland, S. and Carey, T. (1994), Human-Computer Interaction, Addison-Wesley, Wokingham. Reicheld, F.F. and Schefter, P. (2000), “E-loyalty: your secret weapon on the Web”, Harvard Business Review, July-August, pp. 105-13.Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More