Celebrity Endorser Theory Development
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According to Media Trust www.mediatrust.com, celebrities can add unique value for companies such as the following:
1 Increase enhance the companys sponsorships and contributions. 2 Attract new viewers or audiences.
3 Increase revenues with sponsorships and corporate contributions. 4 Provide involvement and lots of opinion from the consumers.
5 Contribute to public perception of the position of a company. 6 Restructure advertising campaign in the long run.
7 Increase or improve a company profile.
a. The Role of Celebrity Endorser According to Shimp 2010:250 in Integrated Marketing
Communication in Advertising and Promotion, the role of celebrity endorsers in advertising, is seen as:
1 Endorser Attributes: The TEARS Model In determining the celebrity attributes then advertising
executive should ensure celebrities’ effectiveness as endorsers. The TEARS model identified five attributes that were grouped under the
two general components of celebrity and attractiveness. Extensive research has demonstrated that two general
attributes, credibility and attractiveness, contribute to an endorser’s
effectiveness, and that each consists of more distinct sub attributes Pereira and Warren, 2010 in “The Wall Street Journal Online, March
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15, 2004. And then Shimp 2010:251 mentions that there are some characteristics of endorsers and summarizes those in to five discrete
attributes: trustworthiness, and expertise are two dimensions of credibility, where as physical attractiveness, respect, and similarity to
the target audience is components of the general concept of attractiveness. These could be seen from the explanation below:
a Credibility: The Process of Internationalization Credibility could be interpreted to the tendency to believe
or trust someone. When an information source, such as an endorser, is perceived as credible, audience attitudes are changed through a
psychological process
called internationalization.
Internationalization occurs when the receiver accept the endorser’s position on the issue as his or her own. An internalized attitude
tends to be maintained even if the source of the message is forgotten or if the source switches to a different position Stephanie
Thompson, 2004:62. b Attractiveness: The Process of Identification
The second general attribute that contributes to endorser effectiveness is attractiveness, which means more than simply
physical attractiveness ––although that can be a very important
attribute ––and includes any number of virtuous characteristics that
consumers may perceive in an endorser: intellectual skills, personality properties, lifestyle characteristics, athletic prowess,
and so on. When consumers find something in an endorser that
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they consider attractive, persuasion occurs through identification. That is, when consumers perceive a celebrity endorser to be
attractive, they identify with the endorser and are likely to adopt the endorser’s attitudes, behaviors, or preferences.
Shimp 2010:252 in Advertising and Promotion also describes that common concepts from attributes influencing the
effectiveness of celebrity endorsers, have an indicator that represents the dimension explained above. According to Shimp
2010:252 Endorsers’ effectiveness is determined by the
following: 1 Credibility
a Trustworthiness Trustworthiness, the T in the TEARS model refers to the
honestly, integrity, and believability of a source. b Expertise
The E component of the TEARS model ––Expertise refers
to the knowledge, experience, or skills proposed by an endorser as they relate to the endorsed brand.
2 Attractiveness a Physical attractiveness
The A component in the TEARS model ––is a key
consideration in
many endorsement
relationships. Advertising agents and their brand management clients
often select highly attractive celebrities to endorse products.
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b Respect The R in the TEARS model
––Respect represents the quality of being admired or
even esteemed due to one’s personal qualities and accomplishments.
c Similarity The S in the TEARS model, represents the degree to which
an endorser matches in audience in terms of characteristics pertinent to the endorsement relationship
––age, gender, ethnicity, and so on.
b. Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness To communicate effectively, marketers need to understand how
communication works. According to Kotler and Armstrong 2006:405,
the elements in the communication process, which make the communication effective, are the following:
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Figure 2.1 Elements in The Communication Process
Source: Kotler and Armstrong, Principle of Marketing, eleventh edition, 2006:405
Kotler and Amstrong 2006:405 present this model to explain the main factors in communicating effectiveness. For a message to be
effective, the sender’s encoding process must mesh with the receiver’s decoding process. Thus, the best messages consist of words and other
symbols that are familiar to the receiver. This model points out several key factors in the communication such
as senders and audiences and their ability to encode and decode messages Kotler and Armstrong, 2006:406.