The Cat among the Pigeons: The Dilemma of Lost Advertising

Abstract

The use of celebrities in the advertisement is a powerful way to give meaning to a brand. A celebrity endorsement in an advertisement may attract consumers, but on the contrary, the commercial message of a brand may lose. The objective of this research paper is to investigate the role of celebrity endorsement on brand recall, brand message and to investigate if celebrities overshadow brand message? The studies related to the impact of celebrity endorsement are usually not based on experimentation, and therefore, lack concrete evidence in celebrity selection and endorsement decision making. Further, related studies with the celebrity endorsement and its impact in Pakistan are in mint condition and based on experimental designs with concrete findings are not available at all. The methodology used was before - after Experimental design, comprised of Experimental and controlled groups. The study was concluded by running different commercials in a natural and controlled environment, where the subjects were not aware of the experiment. Out of six commercials,
three commercials were endorsed by celebrities and the rest were with no celebrity. Associative network theory was used as a lens and grounded theory to conduct this study. The study concluded that celebrity endorsement overshadows the brand and brand message. The study was limited to television commercials and consumer products spread over to the diversified industries.