BRAND ENDORSEMENT THROUGH CELEBRITY

India is witnessing change in life styles of large section of the population. The need to understand the emerging markets and consumers has become a big challenge for the corporate world especially in creating and managing a powerful brand. By developing a powerful brand, corporate can establish 'brand equity' and the equity assists firms in a variety of ways to manage competition and to maintain market share. Due to the globalization process, Indians are getting attracted to readymade dresses, particularly Multinational brands. Buying behavior of men on branded Trousers is changing one. Number of people visits the showroom with a brand in mind because the quality and comfort of that brand are suitable for them. It becomes important for the marketers to understand these relationships for successful design and execution of branding strategies. The present study investigates men’s perception towards branded Trousers and to ascertain the brand of shirt most preferred by respondents in Coimbatore city. The study also examines consumer’s perception towards retail garments showrooms in Coimbatore city. The study is a descriptive study. Primary data was collected with the help of structured questionnaire administered to 215 male respondents in Coimbatore city and the type of sampling was convenient sampling. Using statistical package for social science for the following test was administered 1.Factor Analysis, 2.Multiple Regression, and 3.Descriptive statistics. Pilot study was conducted and the necessary additions and deletions were made in the questionnaire. To check the reliability and validity of the data collected Cronbach’s alpha test was administered and the value of Cronbach’s alpha is 0.772. Based on the test result some of the relevant finding were derived that will be use full to find the factors that really influences men’s towards particular brand of Trousers. The manufactures can come out with suitable strategies to overcome the problems.

Brand is the most valuable asset of any company and promoting the product of that company through a brand ambassador can enhance brand value or equity which in turn can be leveraged through brand extension. Although brand personality also nourishes brands to gain market share, command premium price and insulates from discounting brands. Endorsing brands of any products through a well known personality has become very prominent these days as they sort out the problem of over communication, provides instant recognition and transfers their goodwill to the brand. There are some theories like Source Credibility Theory, Source Attractiveness Theory and Meaning Transfer Theory which provide a transparent methodology of celebrity endorsement which explains how the process of the celebrity endorsement influences the minds of the consumers. As we know, many industries invest huge amounts of money as advertising expenditure for hiring the right celebrity. However there lies uncertainty with respect to the returns that the company might be able to garner for the brand. The issue of matching the values of the celebrity with the brand values is also very important, i.e. getting the right celebrity to endorse the right brand. In this way consumers perceive the brand as having superior quality because it has been endorsed by a credible source. This makes endorsement as one of the indictors of quality for any brand. Corporate credibility along with endorser credibility plays a significant role in the attitude of the consumer towards the brand and the advertisement respectively. On the other hand, the over popularity of the celebrity sometimes overshadows the brand. When the celebrity is involved in multiple endorsements, it tends to create confusion among consumers and hence adversely affects the perception of the advertisement and the brand. In this article we tried to propose the usefulness of different theories in celebrity endorsement for different Indian brands.

Neuromarketing is one of the most promising and controversial areas of marketing. The goal of Neuromarketing is to study how the brain is physiologically affected by advertising and marketing strategies. It is the effectiveness of these strategies, brain activity resulting from viewing an advertisement. In Neuromarketing the brain activities are monitored and measured using neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG). The idea of using this technique is that consumer purchase decisions are made in seconds in the subconscious mind.The emotional side of the brain and that by understanding what we like, we donot like, what we want, what causes us fear when watching our brain responses to stimuli can design products and marketing communications to better meet the unmet needs of the market and determine purchase. Neuromarketing studies indicate increasingly more towards various "centers known" in the brain. The knowledge about these so-called "known centers" are oftensketchy and the demands on their function are often motivated by speculation rather than by a knownfact. Neuromarketing studies aim to analyze different brain areas while experiencing marketing stimuli in order to find and document the relationship between behavior and the neuronal system. Using knowledge andknow-how from brain anatomy and knowing the physiological functions of brain areas, it is possible to modelneuronal activity and investigate behavior. So Neuromarketing research tries to better understand the effects ofmarketing stimuli on consumers, having the possibility to obtain objective data through the use of the availabletechnology and advances in neuroscience. Researcher is trying to notice the activities decision maker namely the brain. This action led to a controversial new field called Neuromarketing, combining Neuroscience, Marketing and Technology.

This paper attempts to examine the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement for the sake of achieving consumer buying intention in FMCG sector of Pakistan. While, different dimensions of brand performance like brand image, brand awareness and brand favorability are taken as mediating variables. Data has been collected by using self-administered close ended questionnaire from 350 consumers of Pakistan. Regression test has been used to check the relationship between celebrity endorsement and consumer buying intention with the mediating effect of brand performance (comprises of brand image, brand awareness and brand favorability). The research output shows that celebrity endorsement is positively and significantly affects the consumer buying intention. While different dimensions of brand performance are also played as mediator between celebrity endorsement and consumer buying intention. The above study is provided an enormous contribution in the overall literature of the topic. This study will be useful for managers and policy makers to ensure the effective policies that help them to improve the organizational performance through focusing upon various aspects of celebrity endorsement (its selection and effectiveness for the sake of increasing consumer buying intention of particular brand). This study can also helpful for the researchers who want to further explore the same area with some variations.

Retailing store plays an important role in fulfilling the daily needs of customers/consumers. Retailing business has grown up in multi fold in last decade because of the fruitful changes incorporated in the business model. The significant features like easiness and comfort in shopping under one roof has really played a great role in success of retailing store in western countries, however the same success has not been accrued in Asian countries wherein cost cutting mind set still plays a vital role in shopping. This moderate success of the retailing business is owing to the wide spectrum of selection criteria that customer/consumer is looking for which are meaningfully met by retail managers in a retail stores. The aims of the present study is to provide comprehensive criteria that have been used by customer in making retail selection and to prioritize them using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The prioritized criteria will help both customers and retail managers to decide their buying and selling strategy respectively. A case problem of retail store selection using the prioritized criteria in Aseer region of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been illustrated.

THE IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT ON CONSUMER BUYING BEHAVIOUR, 2016

Celebrities are the personalities that are well known in public either because of their credibility or of their attractiveness or because of both of these. To leverage this, advertisers use celebrities in their advertisement to increase the effectiveness and heighten the credibility of commercials. Research has proven that celebrity endorsement does cast its impact, but other schools of thought attest the contrary. This research work moves on the positive line and affirms the Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on Consumer Buying Behaviour with a case study of; Seven- Up Bottling Company Plc. Celebrity endorsement business has become a multi-million naira industry in Nigeria. Marketers use celebrity endorsers to influence the purchase decision of consumers in order to increase their sales and extend their market shares. This research work will critically analyze how celebrity endorsement in advertisement as a tool affects and influences people’s opinions in marketing and its effect in the society compared to other forms of advertising. The methodology of collecting data for this research work will be through both primary and secondary research which will involve questionnaire and reviewing relevant literature such as journals, articles, texts, print media, social media and electronic media in this area of study. The data collected will be qualitative which will be analyzed and presented in forms of tables. Finally, the results of the study prove that celebrity endorsements positively impact the purchase intention of the consumers.