Negative Perceptions of Celebrity Endorsements

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3. Endorsements’ Negative Influence To The Brand

The celebrity and the endorsed brand have an inseparable relationship. If a celebrity was exposed the negative information, it would influence not only the reputation of the celebrity, but the endorsed brand(Erdogan, 1999).

Market researchers try to avoid any non-positive messages about the brands and celebrity endorsers which is associated with the brands. As the research shows negative information has some influence one customers’ belief and estimates(Till and Shimp, 1998).

In the old days， people get news from TV, radio and newspapers what have been edited. The government could control people’s concerns. However, news is spreading on the Internet which is faster than traditional media in the information age. Sometimes people could get other countries about thousands of kilometers far away in ten seconds, which cause the difficult for the governments to supervise. Compare to normal news, people show the interest in negative information.(Till and Shimp, 1998). This unusual behavior is mainly out of people’ curiosity.

There are some different customers’ reactions. Firstly, most people would blame the celebrity for the scandal which cause the loss of respect. In the end，the part of people would stop consuming the brand’s products and turn to other similar brands. The brand may fall into the crisis of confidence and die out slowly. Some people even spread negative information to others, it would do harm to the brand’s image. Now the society is multi-culture and it is easy to pass information from each other by phones and the Internet. Everyone has the right to express the emotion of dissatisfaction which would have a negative impact on the brand image.

On the contrary, some people do not care about what the celebrity has done and it makes no sense. They will still buy the products because they focus more on the products’ quality instead of the endorsements. In fact, the products’ quality would not change after the negative of the endorser. As to the loyal fans, they may be blind and try to follow everything from the celebrity. They would never blame their idol and support the celebrity’s endorsed product as before.

The degree of negative impact depends on the fame of the celebrity. The more famous people will get more attention and cause greater impact.

Basically speaking, the negative behavior of celebrity would cause irreversible loss to the brand. It would reduce the product’s consumption and reduced the profits indirectly.

4.Conclusion

It is widely accepted by advertisers to use celebrity endorsements strategy for building an attractive brand image and get more returns from the market. the successful use of celebrity endorsement could help the brand stand out from the products with similar functions.

however, the negative effects of celebrity endorsements can have a negative impact on the brand, which can sometimes be fatal to a brand image.

In sum, celebrity endorsement strategy is like a double-edged sword, whether it could do harm to the brand decided by celebrities, products, information and medium.

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Reference

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Erdogan, B. (1999) ‘Celebrity endorsement: A literature review’, Journal of marketing management, 1376(August). doi: 10.1362/026725799784870379.

Jagdish Agrawal ; and Kamakura, W. A. (2015) ‘of Celebrity The Event Endorsers : An Study Analysis’, 59(3), pp. 56–62.

Kellner, D. (2001) ‘The sports spectacle, Michael Jordan, and Nike: An unholy alliance’, Michael Jordan inc.: Corporate sport, media culture and late modern America, (January), pp. 37–64.

Kumar, A. (2017) ‘Role of Celebrity Endorsement in Advertisement: A Study of Cold Drink’, Engineering and Science. Available at: http://www.irjaes.com/pdf/V2N2Y17-IRJAES/IRJAES-V2N2P213Y17.pdf (Accessed: 3 August 2017).

Pappu, R. et al. (2011) ‘Celebrity endorsement , brand credibility and brand equity Celebrity endorsement , brand credibility and brand equity’, European Journal of Marketing, 45(September 2015), pp. 882–909. doi: 10.1108/03090561111119958.

Rai, S. and Sharma, A. (2013) ‘Celebrity Attributes and Influence on Consumer Behaviour–A Study of Sekhawati Region of Rajasthan’, Pacific Business Review International. Available at: http://pbr.co.in/Vol 5 Iss 11/8.pdf (Accessed: 3 August 2017).

Till, B. D. and Shimp, T. A. (1998) ‘Endorsers in Advertising : The Case of Negative Celebrity Information’, The Journal of Advertising, 27(1), pp. 67–82. doi: 10.1080/00913367.1998.10673543.