Effectiveness of celebrity endorsement on high and low involvement products

Celebrity endorsement is a common advertising method in Singapore whereby all kinds of products are featured. The purpose of this research study is to examine two issues- whether celebrity or non-celebrity endorsement is more effective in increasing purchase intention and affect towards product featured; and whether celebrity endorsement is more effective in driving purchase intention and affect for high or low involvement products. Based on past studies and literature reviews, three hypotheses were proposed. Two pre-tests were set up to determine the particular products, celebrities and their fictitious brand names. These were used in the core research study that followed; 2 sets of questions were used to measure respondents’ purchase intention and affect after viewing each self-created, product-specific print advertisements that featured either the selected celebrity or other non-celebrity endorsers. The target respondents were young adults aged 18-24, and the pre-tests and core research stages were conducted via online surveys. The results concluded that celebrity endorsement resulted in a significantly higher purchase intention and affect towards the product featured, as compared to non-celebrity endorsement. Celebrity endorsement is also more effective in increasing purchase intention and affect for high involvement products as compared to low involvement products. The research finding can enable marketeers to allocate their marketing budget more efficiently, especially in times of recession, which will aid them in devising more effective marketing efforts.BUSINES