The use of celebrity endorsement on social media in the fashion industry and its impact on consumer behaviour

The main objective of the thesis was to examine the impact of celebrity endorsers on social media on the consumer’s behaviour in terms of fashion. Furthermore, the aim was to analyse and describe the implementation of celebrity endorsements as well as the impact of social media and the caused changes on celebrity endorsement as a popular advertising strategy. Based on the general importance of social media and celebrities in the marketing world, the topic was selected, and the work was conducted. The theoretical framework of the thesis was elaborated based on selected literature such as articles from international journals and books. These articles and books were collected through an extensive literature search on Google Scholar, ResearchGate and by the implementation of the snowball sampling method. To further analyse the impact of endorsers on the consumers, a quantitative research method was selected and therefore an online survey was conducted. The survey was available in German and English and was distributed via social media. The questions were mostly close-ended, and one matrix question was included as well. It gathered information from over 170 participants and the collected data was analysed by using the software SPSS. The findings indicate that celebrity endorsers on social media inspire consumers in terms of fashion and further facilitate the shopping process through fashion trends and inspirations. Nevertheless, consumers do not feel influenced in their purchase decision, but almost half of the participants have already purchased a fashion product based on a celebrity’s recommendation on social media. Furthermore, consumers agree that a scandal caused by the company will lead to a negative impact on their purchase decision while a celebrity-owned scandal will lead to less trustworthiness. However, consumers are willing to forgive such mistakes of celebrities whether conditional or not