1. The document analyzes the impact of celebrity endorsements on the sales of food companies. It discusses how celebrities can help improve brand awareness, credibility, and popularity through endorsements. 2. The literature review covers concepts like source credibility, celebrity trustworthiness, attractiveness, and likeability that influence the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements. Studies show endorsements are more effective when the celebrity is seen as an expert and trustworthy. 3. Marketers use celebrity endorsements to help products stand out amid increased competition and clutter. Celebrities can help improve brand image and recall and make advertisements more memorable for consumers. Overall, the literature suggests celebrity endorsements likely have a positive impact on consumer buying behavior.

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Food Trend Analysis
Impact of celebrities on sale of Food Companies
Tatheer Ahmed (192360030)
Ahmed Shehzad (192360064)
Abdullah Javed (192360040)
Business Research Method – MGT-303
Department of Business Administrator, GIFT University
Instructor: Sir Anas Zia
July 26, 2022

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Impact of Celebrities on Sale of Food Companies
1. Introduction
Celebrities advertising is a strong component of business in any society. It possesses pervasive and
persuasive power. Through primarily designed by firms in order to create awareness about goods and
services, it also “…encourage the development of new and better products, thereby giving consumers wider
varieties of choices”. According to Vivian advertising generates most of the operating revenue for
newspapers, magazines, television and radio”. Initially advertising was used primarily to create awareness
about goods or services, but as the line between product differentiation in terms of the quality and reliability
grows thinner and become almost completely blurred as a result of availability of cut edge technology, it
also becomes oblivious that advertisers employ strategies that will confer credibility and increase the
popularity of such a product over the others. The endorsement of products and services in advertising has
become an important and integral aspect of modern day advertising, as it has been found to have the
potential of improving the financial returns of companies that use it in their advertisements.
A well designed celebrity endorsed commercial can change the future of the brand forever (Balzey and
Ganti, 2005).
A celebrity endorser used in an advertisement can be interpreted as inspirational references group the serves
as a point of comparison or reference for an individual by effecting communication values, attitudes and
providing a specific guide of behavior (schiffman and kanuk, 2004). In general, potential hazards of
celebrity endorsement of the costs, the possibility that celebrity overshadows brand image, or it can change
the image and overexposure of the celebrity, especially when a celebrity become an endorser for many
different product (For example, one of famous Indian Bollywood star endorses several brands/products
starting from SUV, pesticides, water pumps, insurance, biscuits, chocolates fabrics and so on).
Non-celebrity endorsed advertisements can also gain positive ‘attributes towards the advertisement and
‘intentions to purchase endorsed brands’ (Mehta, 1994). This research investigates whether or not non-
celebrity endorsement can be as effective as celebrity endorsement in selected FMCG products categories.
Consumers in Pakistan are exposed to several new products every other day followed by marketers’
differentiation, positioning techniques. Therefore, it will be interesting to investigate the impact of celebrity
endorsement on consumers’ buying behavior in Pakistan. From a business perspective, this research study
would be understanding perception of Pakistani consumers towards celebrity and non-celebrity
endorsements.

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2. Literature Review
Celebrity: According to McCracken (1989), “A celebrity endorser is an individual who enjoys public
recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with in an
advertisement (marketing communication)”. Whereas, Pringle (2004) says “Celebrity is anyone who is
familiar enough to the people he wishes to present the brand to and add value to the communication by
associating with their image and reputation”.
Non-Celebrity: According to Mohan (2001), “A non-celebrity is a person who prior to placement in
the campaign, has no public notoriety but appears in an Advertisement for the product”.
The Source Credibility Model: A source/celebrity that is more experts has been found to be more
expert has been found to be more persuasive (Aaker and Myers, 1987) and generate more intentions to
buy the brand (Ohanian, 1991). Schumann and Thompson (1988) that expert celebrities produce higher
recall of product information that non-expert response to the source’s recommendations seem to vary
directly with the source’s perceived level of expertise and the target person’s level of agreement with
those recommendations. Subjects exposed to a source perceived as highly exhibit more agreement with
the sources with low expertise (Ohanian, 1990). The level of perceived celebrity expertise should predict
endorser effectiveness.
Celebrity Trustworthiness: Trustworthiness is the degree of confidence consumers place in a
communication intent to convey the assertions he considers most valid (Ohanian, 1990). Giffin (1967)
describes favorable disposition, acceptance, psycho-logical safety, and perceived supportive climate as
favorable consequence of trust. Much of the literature supports the positive effect of trustworthiness on
effectiveness. Perceived communicator trustworthiness has been shown to produce a greater attitude
change than perceived expertise (McGinies and Ward, 1980). The extant literature on celebrity
endorsers suggests that trustworthiness is an important predictor of celebrity endorsement effectiveness.
Celebrity Attractiveness: According to Erdogan (1999), attractiveness does not mean simply
physical attractiveness, but includes any number of attributes that consumers might perceive in a
celebrity endorser: for example, intellectual skill, personality properties, lifestyles or athletic prowess.
Along with respondents in kahle and homer’s study (1985). They were more likely buy an edge razor
after seeing an attractive celebrity in a magazine advertisement than an unattractive celebrity. However
as indicated earlier by both Till and Busler (1998) and Ohanian (1991). The endorsement expertise is
more important than physical attractiveness in affecting attitude toward an endorsed brand. Further,
Simp (2000) found that attractiveness alone is subordinates in important to credibility and matches up
with the audience and brand.

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Celebrity Likeability: Celebrity likeability refers to the positive or negative feelings that consumers
have toward a celebrity (Mowen and Minor, 1998). It can also be defined as the extent to which the
source is viewed as behaving in a way that matches the desires of those who observe him or her. Various
studies suggest that advertisement things like is one of the most important forecasters of brand likings,
second only to in-going, or prior, brand attitude (Thorson, 1991). Respondents tend to like brands that
are associated with the characters that they have high regard for (Callcott and Phillips, 1996).
Meanwhile, Urde (1999) states that likeable spokespersons increase attention toward a brand enhance
brand liking and thus create a considerable impact on the consumer’s purchase behavior and their
loyalty towards the brands.
The Increasing competition between firms in order to attract more consumers towards their products
has encouraged marketers to use celebrities to endorse their products. Moreover, recent technological
advances in the media such as DTH, video control systems, cable and satellite television has increased
consumer power over programmed advertisement and made advertising more challenging (Croft et al.
1999). It is also perceived that the featuring a renowned celebrity helps in solving the problem of over
communication that is becoming more and more prevalent these days (Kulkarni & Gaulakar, 2005).
Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition by a large share of a certain group of people
whereas attributes like attractiveness, extra ordinary lifestyle are just examples and specific common
characteristics cannot be observed though it can be said that within a corresponding social group
celebrities generally differ from the social norm and enjoy a high degree of public awareness
(Schlecht,2003). (Anonymous, Business Standard, Dec,2003).
Marketers to ease this threat and attract more consumer attention towards their products and
advertisements use celebrity endorsement strategy. Due their well knowness, celebrities help
advertisements to stand out from the surrounding clutter by appearing in them, increasing the
communicative ability by cutting through excess noise in a communication process (Sherman 1985).
Hiring a famous celebrity as their brand endorser may also help improving the image for a tarnished
company. Celebrity Endorsement may also help in restoring or polishing a company’s image
(Erdogan, 1999). It is been experienced that the products endorsed by celebrities help them to standout
and take more
notice while shopping due to their improved level of product recall (Bowman 2002).
Advertisements featuring a celebrity make a strong impact on the learning style and memory of a
consumer which is an important aspect of marketing communication success. Celebrities often make
the ad more memorable in the mind of the consumer even if there is no immediate need of the
advertised product. Marketers use this advantage of information storage in the minds of the consumers
which can be readily retrieved at the time of shopping or when the need arises (Schultz & Barnes,
1995).
All these arguments lead to the conclusion that celebrity endorsements likely to have a positive effect
on consumer buying behavior (Goldsmith, Lafferty and Newell 2000; Mathur, Mathur & Rangan
1997).

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