1. Review of Literature
Friedman, Termini and Washington (1976) have defined a celebrity as someone, who is,
“knownto the public for his accomplishment in areas unrelated to the product class endorsed.” (p.
22) Using a celebrity for endorsement is not a new occurrence but prevalent since 19th century.
Celebrity endorsements help to break the clutter and differentiate the brand. It also helps in
image repair of a brand (Kaikati, 1987). In today’s world where thousands of advertisements
come across people in various forms, celebrity endorsement can easily win the confidence of
consumers (Sabnavis, 2003). Celebrity helps in increasing profitability of the organization. In
fact, celebrity endorsement is more effective than non-celebrity endorsement in generating
attitudes towards advertisement (AAD), attitude towards brand (AB) and purchase intention (PI)
(Erdogan, 1999). Research findings suggest that the percentage of celebrity advertisements out of
the total number of ads aired is as high as 25-30% in western countries (Agrawal and Kamakura,
1995) and around 60% in India (Patel, 2009). In such a scenario both academia and industry look
for the issues in selection, use and effectiveness of celebrities as product endorsers. Research in
celebrity endorsements in the last thirty years have tried to address various issues in celebrity
endorsements such as the effects of credibility of endorser on the consumers (Friedman and
Friedman, 1979; Goldsmith et al., 2000), issues in celebrity product ‘match-up’ (Kamins, 1990;
Till and Busler, 1998), meaning transfer in celebrity endorsements (McCracken, 1989) and a host
of other issues such as effect of negative celebrity information, cross country comparison of
celebrity advertising, gender and celebrity endorsement perceptions, etc.
in this case material “Pepsi and Madonna” examines the use of entertainment personalities in
advertising commercial products through the example of Pepsi's use of Madonna. It illustrates
how companies try to tie the success of the artist to their product. The paper demonstrates the
need for clear evaluation of the celebrity endorser, their public image, and if the relationship
between the artist and the product applies to the advertising rules. When Pepsi picked Madonna,
the choice turned out to be too hot to handle. The $5 million campaign featuring the extravagant
vocalist had to be scrapped because of its links to Madonna's highly controversial "Like a
Prayer" music video."
David H. Silvera, Austad B (2008) in their research topic have examined whether consumers
infer that celebrity endorsers like the products they endorse, and presents a model using these
inferences and other characteristics of the endorser to predict attitudes toward the endorsed
product. Participants in two experiments examined written endorsement advertisements and were
asked to infer the extent to which the endorser truly liked the advertised product and to rate the
endorser's attractiveness, similarity to themselves, and knowledge of the product. Attitudes
toward the advertisement, the endorser and the product were also measured. The resulting model

2. indicated that product attitudes were predicted by inferences about the endorser's liking for the
product and by attitudes toward the endorser.
Goddard L, Wilbur N (2009) in their study provide a starting-point for further research on
negative information transference in the celebrity endorsement relationship. It is crucial that
organisations be aware of the risks associated with using celebrities to endorse their stores and
products. Given that these results provide tentative support for the commonly held belief that a
decline in the celebrity's image can impact the image of the brand, it is important that retailers
carefully choose an endorser who currently has a good image and will likely be able to uphold
this image in the future.
Dix S, Pougnet S (2009) in their research have found that Athlete role model endorsers have a
positive influence on young adults' product switching behaviour, complaint behaviour, positive
word-of-mouth behaviour and brand loyalty. This confirms the assumption that sports celebrities
are important socialisation agents and can have significant impact on purchase intentions and
behaviours. This research provides useful insight into the influence of athlete endorsers on young
adults and suggests athletes have a positive influence on young adults' behavioural intentions in
switching products, generating word-of-mouth and establishing brand loyalt

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
India is a country where people love to live in dreams. They worship celebrities. Celebrities
which might be cricket stars like Sachin Tendulkar, Mahinder Singh Dhoni or Film Stars like
Shah Rukh Khan or John Ebrahim. They treat them as God. Marketers use this very preposition
so as to influence their target customers may exist or potential ones. For this they rope in these
celebrities and give them whopping amount of money. They believe that by doing this they can
associate their products with their target customers. This is called celebrity endorsement.
The field of consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups or organizations and the
processes they use to select, secure, use and dispose of product, services, experiences, or ideas to
satisfy needs and impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. And
understanding the consumer behavior is the prime and toughest task in front of every marketer.
There are a lot of factors, which influence consumer buyer behavior. This study aimed at to
understand the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumer buying behavior. Marketers pay
millions of Dollars to celebrity endorsee hoping that the stars will bring their magic to brand they
endorse and make them more appealing and successful. But all celebrity glitter is not gold.
The celebrity endorser fits in between these two interactions, where he tries to bring the image of
the product closer to the expectation of the consumer, by transferring some of the cultural
meanings residing in his image to the product. Now, despite the potential benefits derived from
celebrity endorsements, they increase a marketer’s risk manifolds and should be treated with full
attention and aptitude.
What therefore seems relevant by the study is that, yes, definitely celebrity endorsee influence
consumer buying behavior and brand building but while using celebrity endorsee, marketer has
to take care of all the aspect that whether they brought personality and image of celebrity
matches or not, whether celebrity endorsee has deep penetration among the masses or not,
whether he is considered as credible source or not etc.

4. The field of consumer behavior is the study of individuals, groups or organizations and the
processes they use to select, secure, use and dispose of product, services, experiences, or ideas to
satisfy needs and impacts that these processes have on the consumer and society. And
understanding the consumer behavior is the prime and toughest task in front of every marketer.
There are a lot of factors, which influence consumer buyer behavior. This study aimed at to
understand the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumer buying behavior. Marketers pay
millions of Dollars to celebrity endorsee hoping that the stars will bring their magic to brand they
endorse and make them more appealing and successful. But all celebrity glitter is not gold.
Celebrity sources may enhance attitude change for a variety of reasons. They may attract more
attention to the advertisement than would non-celebrities or in many cases, they may be viewed
as more credible than non-celebrities. Third, consumers may identify with or desire to emulate
the celebrity. Finally, consumer may associate known characteristics of the celebrity with
attributes of the product that coincide with their own needs or desire. The effectiveness of using
a celebrity to endorse a firm's product can generally be improved by matching the image of the
celebrity with the personality of the product and the actual or desired serf concept of the target
market.
What therefore seems relevant by the study is that, yes, definitely celebrity endorsee influence
consumer buying behavior and brand building but while using celebrity endorsee, marketer has
to take care of all the aspect that whether they brought personality and image of celebrity
matches or not, whether celebrity endorsee has deep penetration among the masses or not,
whether he is considered as credible source or not etc.

5. Questionnaire
Name: _________________________________( optional )
Occupation:___________________________________
Email address : _________________________ ( optional )
Gender:
• Male
• Female
Age:
• 18-25
• 26-32
• 32-39
• More than 40
2. Do you like to drink beverages?
• Yes
• No
3. Which category of products you like most?
• Soft drinks
• Juice
• Others

6. 4. If soft drink then which brand of soft drinks do you prefer mostly?
• Pepsi
• Coca Cola
• Local Brands
• Not specify
5. Does brand ambassador influence your purchase decision?
• Yes
• No
6. If yes than which factor affects you most?
• Friends
• Advertisements
• Opinion leader
• Others
7. Which factor related to product affects you most?
• Price
• Quality
• Celebrity endorsement
• Others

7. 8 The change in soft drink taste make the customer switch to the other brand ?
 Yes
 No
9. What comes in your mind when you go for Soft drinks?
• Celebrity endorsement
• Brand
• Quality
• Test
10. Do you think celebrity endorsement work as an effective tool of persuasion for Soft
drinks industries?
• Strongly agree
• Agree
• Disagree
11. In case of Soft drinks which celebrity persona you like most?
• Bollywood Stars
• Sport Stars
• Others
12. Is celebrity endorsement making you loyal toward soft drinks?
• Yes
• No