Bakgrund – Att använda sig av celebriteter i marknadsförningssyfte har på den senaste tiden blivit en allt vanligare företeelse bland företagen i dagens samhälle. Detta fenomen har fått namnet celebrity endorsements och förekommer frekvent över hela världen. Många företag använder sig av denna marknadsföringsstrategi då den har visats bryta igenom dagens mediebrus och fånga konsumenternas uppmärksamhet. Fenomenets ökade popularitet har lett till en mängd forskning på området, samt ett generellt intresse för celebritetens effektivitet. Trots flera framsteg finns det fortfarande mycket kvar att undersöka inom området. Syfte – Syftet med studien är att erhålla kunskap om vilka karaktärsdrag hos ambassadören en konsument värdesätter i en kongruent respektive i en inkongruent marknadsföringskampanj. Metod - Den teoretiska referensramen testades via internetbaserade enkäter med hjälp av vänner och bekanta. Samtliga respondenter talade svenska och majoriteten var mellan 19 och 35 år gamla. Enkäterna bygger på teorier och modeller som utvecklats av tidigare forskare inom området. Efter att ha samlat in all data användes statistikprogrammet SPSS för att analysera enkäternas svar med hjälp av korrelations- och regressionsanalyser. Slutsats - Resultatet av studien visar likt tidigare undersökningar att faktorn expertis har en inverkan på konsumenternas attityd när ambassadören anses vara kongruent med den produkt hen marknadsför. Utöver detta fann studien att faktorn likhet påverkade konsumenten när ambassadören ansågs inkongruent med produkten.

Background – Celebrity endorsement has been researched to a great extent, however the main focus of the previous research has been about the effectiveness and the neg-ative/positive information about the celebrity and the brand. Additionally, previous studies on gender differences have been conducted; however it has not been done in consideration with celebrity endorsement in the fashion industry. Purpose – This study aims to examine if there is a difference between how men and women perceive celebrity endorsement in the fashion industry. The purpose is to gain a deeper understanding of factors that affects how genders perceive celebrity endorsement, and lastly to research if the celebrity endorsement has a positive or negative effect on the brand endorsed. Method – The theoretical framework was tested through focus groups conducted with students from Jönköping University. It was also researched through an online questionnaire that was spread to the author’s personal networks via social media. The questions have been designed according to the AIDA-framework to help address im-portant steps that the consumer goes through. Conclusion – The findings suggests that there is a difference between how men and women perceive celebrity endorsement. The women analyze different cues to a greater extent and tend to be more skeptical, while the men focus mostly on the prominent cues. Moreover, the findings show that both men and women are more at-tentive to a male celebrity endorser than a female celebrity endorser.

Celebrity as endorser is one of the important facilitators in advertising activities. Most of the extant master theses on advertising endorsement have focused on the present celebrity people. Seldom did they study intensely the communicative effects of celebrity-past as endorser in advertising. The current research investigates celebrity-past¡¦s effects as endorser on communication in print advertisement, using an quasi- 3x3x2 factorial design of experimental method to test the various empirical hypotheses. Measurement of the dependent variables¡Xcommunicative effects¡Xincluded: purchase intention, attitude toward product, and product concept. In addition to the main effect of celebrity-past as endorser, product category and advertising slogan are also involved in as two moderator variables, so that the interaction effect can be detected as well. Three past celebrity persons included in the current experiment are Terisa Teng, Audrey Hepbum, and Xi Shi, separately and solely acting as endorser in the print advertisement pages for skin-cream, watch, and chicken-essence, in that sequence. Participants of the experiment were 56 female undergraduate and master students at National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. In the research results, many of the hypotheses were supported significantly by the empirical data, such as interaction effect on purchase intention from celebrity-past and product category, interaction effect on attitude toward product from celebrity-past and advertising slogan, and the main effect of celebrity-past on product concept.

The increasing involvement of individuals in social media over the past decade has enabled firms to pursue new avenues in communication and sponsoring activities. Besides general research on either social media or sponsoring, questions regarding the consequences of a joint activity (sponsoring activities in social media) remain unexplored. Hence, the present study analyses whether the perceived image of the brand and the celebrity endorser credibility of a top sports team influence the perceived brand value of the sponsoring firm in a social media setting. Moreover, these effects are compared between existing customers and non-customers of the sponsoring firm. Interestingly, perceived celebrity endorser credibility plays no role in forming brand value perceptions in the case of the existing customers. Implications for marketing theory and practice are derived. (authors' abstract)

According to the report of effective advertising analysis in the Taiwan area released by Rainmaker XKM International Corp., the advertising amount of care product industry is up to 28.8 million dollars, ranking second place in whole industry. In the market of care products, each firm is in high competition. For winning form the competition and accessing to consumer, the firms look for celebrities to be the endorsers for their own products, and even spend tons of money to make consumers know their products and brands in the short period. The strategies of endorser have many advantages, and be adopted widely. Besides, based on the properties that the care product industry is in high competition and the product life cycle is very short, whether the expenditure of spokesman can reach firm¡¦s expectation? Are the endorsers that firms choose are liked by public? This research takes Olay as example to discuss the effect of endorser credibility on advertising effectiveness. Also, this research takes involvement with advertisement as moderator variable to realize the relationship between endorser credibility and advertising effectiveness. Finally, comparing Olay¡¦s endorsers belong to different products to understand consumer¡¦s evaluation. The consequences of analysis indicate that the endorser credibility will affect advertising effectiveness and the trustworthiness, relevance, and likability has higher positive relationship. In addition to, the attractiveness and expertness has lower relationship. Besides, involvement with advertisement certainly has moderator effect between endorser credibility and advertising effectiveness. Finally, this research gives some practical advices for the business administrator according to the consequences of research.

How we communicate about brands and companies has changed. CEOs have come into the spotlight of brand communications but little marketing research offers holistic knowledge about CEOs as brand endorsers. This research investigates how CEO endorsers influence consumer attitudes toward a brand differently from conventional endorsers (e.g., celebrities and athletes). Further, this research examines underlying mechanisms that determine consumer responses to CEOs as brand endorsers and especially consumer moral judgments of a brand’s wrongdoing. Building on research on brand endorsers and brand equity, as well as drawing theoretical support from research on leadership, anthropomorphism and mind perception, this dissertation proposes a moderated mediation model of CEO endorser effects on consumer moral judgments. Brand endorsers for decades have been viewed as essentially communicating via three characteristics: attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness. This dissertation identifies perceived leadership as an additional endorser dimension elicited from a CEO-brand endorser. Further, this dissertation introduces brand mind perception into marketing research and finds that perceived leadership positively influences consumers’ perception of brand mind, which in turn determines consumers’ moral judgments. Boundary conditions are explored and include endorser-brand relationship and crisis controllability. Two sets of studies provide empirical support. The first set defines and develops the scale of perceived leadership including item generation (Study 1), item purification (Study 2), and scale confirmation (Study 3). The second set tests the hypotheses in the conceptual model. Two exploratory studies first find preliminary evidence of that perceived leadership differs from existing endorser dimensions by its effects on moral judgments (Study 4), and that mind perception is possible for a brand and can be enhanced by CEO association (Study 5). Study 6 shows positive effects of CEO endorsers on consumer attitudes by communicating perceived brand leadership. Study 7 investigates a brand-wrongdoing scenario and shows that perceived brand leadership yields negative results for a brand by increasing blame and reducing forgiveness; Study 8 demonstrates these relationships are mediated by brand mind perception. Study 9 shows that the inspiring aspects of perceived leadership can enhance perceptions of brand mind (to feel and experience), thus reducing consumers’ blame. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Titel: Celebrity endorsement är väl ingen sport – En studie om hur sportmodevarumärken använder celebriteter i varumärkesbyggande syfte Författare: Erik Hagberg & Niklas Radhammar Handledare: Thomas Helgesson Nivå: Kandidatuppsats, Marknadsföring 15 hp, VT 2012 Nyckelord: Varumärke, varumärkeskapital, celebrity endorsement, celebrity endorser, sportmodevarumärke, varumärkesbyggande Problemformulering: Hur arbetar sportmodevarumärken på den svenska marknaden med celebriteter i sina varumärkesbyggande processer? Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att med utgångspunkt i den teoretiska referensramen och en abduktiv fallstudie av fem varumärken, kartlägga hur sportmodevarumärken arbetar med celebriteter i varumärkesbyggande ändamål på den svenska marknaden. Vi vill även analysera positiva effekter och risker vid användning av celebriteter i varumärkesstrategier. Metod: En kvalitativ ansats med ett abduktivt angreppssätt har använts, där beslutsfattare från fem varumärken har intervjuats inom uppsatsens ämne. De fem företagen är adidas, Craft, Tenson, Peak Performance samt Unihoc. Alla dessa arbetar aktivt med celebrity endorsement som strategi i varumärkesbyggande och marknadskommunikation. Teoretiskt perspektiv: Avsnittet inleds med en grundläggande beskrivning av varumärkeskapital samt hur celebriteter kan addera ytterligare värde till kapitalet. Därefter behandlas fenomenet celebrity endorsement samt processen vid urval av celebritet inom samma ämne. Teoriavsnittet berör även de positiva effekter samt risker som kan uppstå vid användningen av celebrity endorsement. Avslutningsvis behandlas även return on investment gällande celebrity endorsement. Empiriskt perspektiv: I det empiriska kapitlet presenteras de intervjuer vi utfört med ansvarig för respektive varumärke. Empirin speglar deras användning av celebrity endorsement. Slutsats: Studien visar att celebrity endorsement kan användas på olika sätt för att bygga varumärkeskapital, men även för att stärka varumärket i sin helhet. Vi anser att celebrity endorsement är en långsiktig strategi och inte som många teorier hävdar, en kortsiktig. Vi kan även dra slutsatsen att den risk som tas upp i samband med de teorier som präglar uppsatsen inte överensstämmer med våra fallföretags upplevda risk. De anser att risken är liten vid användning av celebrity endorsers.

Endorser is common in advertising for marketing strategies. The firms spend hundreds of million dollars to hire celebrities to endorse their products and brands. Appropriate endorsers are beneficial in brand differentiation and help competitive advantage building. Previous researches in match-up between endorser and product image have two diverse points of view (congruity vs. incongruity). The latest research reveals that in moderate incongruity would accommodate the two different views. Based on the three inconsistent findings, this study explores the effects of gender-based trait through different match-up levels of endorser and service type. The present study uses experimental design to investigate the advertising effects of endorser¡¦s gender (male vs. female), endorser¡¦s gendered traits (male vs. female), and service type (masculine vs. neutral vs. feminine). Thus, a 2x2x3 factorial design is conducted. The ad effects are measured by perceived quality, attitudes toward the brand, and purchase intention to observe the responses under twelve different and fictitious scenarios. The results indicate that a male endorser with female traits is more effective than a male endorser with male traits, especially promoting feminine-based service marketing. Besides, consumers¡¦ perceived quality is different when evaluating match-up combinations based on endorser¡¦s gender. Moreover, when promoting a masculine-based service, a female endorser with female trait is more effective than a male endorser with male traits in perceived quality and purchase intentions. According to these findings, the research provides implications for researchers and marketers on match-up between endorser and service type.

This research is trying to understand the relationship between spokesperson and athletic products. With the increasing competing markets, major athletic brands are focusing on marketing strategies in order to attract and obtain consumers. Among them, brand¡¦s marketing is extremely important to sports industry. This is because the enterprise can attract consumer¡¦s attention through its spokesperson and represent their unique characteristics to promote its products. Using spokesperson to endorse its brand is a bridge to communicate with the consumers. The successful career of a professional sports endorser will create an image for the brand, which will lead the consumers belief by wearing the products will have the similar and expected results. When a brand decides on its spokesperson, it is based on the spokesperson¡¦s public image and personal characteristics. First of all, the enterprise will consider if the spokesperson¡¦s image is positive, then they will review if his/her characteristics fit well with their athletic products. This research will related spokesman from western countries for examination on the relationship of the spokesperson with brands and regarding the buying effects on consumer. According to Ohanian¡¦s (1991) research paper, celebrity endorser¡¦s source credibility, contains three dimensions: attractiveness, trustworthiness, and expertise, has positive impact on consumers¡¦ purchase intent. This research proved that the source credibility theory applies to sports brands¡¦ marketing in Taiwan market as well. The research findings not only confirm with Ohanian¡¦s theory, but also discovered one additional factor, exposure, that affect consumers¡¦ perception on endorser¡¦s credibility, but also influence consumers¡¦ intention to purchase. Based on the initial findings, the study then designed questionnaire for survey for the consumers. The survey results proved that endorser¡¦s exposures have significant impact on the consumers. When the Exposure Effect enhances the endorser¡¦s attractiveness, the endorser¡¦s source of credibility affects consumer¡¦s buying perception. Thus, the study suggests the sports brand marketers, for better marketing values, to investigate the endorser¡¦s media exposures, in order to elevate consumers¡¦ buying intention.

Social media offers a myriad of opportunities for entrepreneurial marketing strategies that leverage the power of communities, especially when they are combined with traditional approaches such as celebrity endorsement. The reach, frequency, and speed of communication on social media offer the ideal leverage for the drivers of entrepreneurial marketing. However, the rapid rate of change may threaten the effects of investments in entrepreneurial marketing on social media and they might become only short-lived. Employing structural equation modeling, we test the long-term effect of Facebook-based celebrity endorsement on purchase intention among 234 members of a Facebook fan community in a two-wave longitudinal design. We argue that this relationship is mediated by a sponsor's brand image and moderated by brand differentiation. This study is the first to investigate the long-term effects of entrepreneurial marketing on social media. We present the contributions and implications of our findings as they affect research and practice.