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Impact of Celebrity Endorsements and Brand Mascotson Consumer Buying BehaviorGarima Malik & Abhinav GupthaPublished online: 06 May 2014.

To cite this article: Garima Malik & Abhinav Guptha (2014) Impact of Celebrity Endorsements and Brand Mascots on ConsumerBuying Behavior, Journal of Global Marketing, 27:2, 128-143, DOI: 10.1080/08911762.2013.864374

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Journal of Global Marketing, 27:128–143, 2014Copyright c! Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0891-1762 print / 1528-6975 onlineDOI: 10.1080/08911762.2013.864374

Impact of Celebrity Endorsements and Brand Mascotson Consumer Buying Behavior

Garima MalikAbhinav Guptha

ABSTRACT. Celebrity and brand mascot endorsements are very popular and often-used techniquesby marketers. Marketers believe that celebrity and brand mascot endorsements provide a higher degreeof appeal, attention, and customer recall ability compared with when this technique is not used.Marketers also claim that a celebrity affects the credibility of claims about a product and increases thememorabilia factor of the message, which may provide a positive effect that could be generalized tothe brand. Primarily this essay has been designed such that it examines various parameters related toadvertisements containing celebrity and brand mascot endorsements. Data were been collected from150 respondents through questionnaire and subjected to t test, !2 test, and difference of means test toenforce the hypotheses that celebrity endorsements have impacts on customers’ perceptions and theirpurchase intentions. The findings of this study provide insights for marketing and brand managers todesign and market their campaigns effectively.

KEYWORDS. Celebrity endorsement, physical attractiveness, source credibility, congruence, cus-tomer purchase intention, customer attitude

INTRODUCTION

The use of celebrities and brand mascots inadvertisements and promotion campaigns is oneof the topical strategies of many brands; the pur-pose of such use may be to get attention fromthe target audience, to obtain easy acceptabil-ity of the products and prolonged association,or for the purpose of recall. This study pur-ports to consider the importance of celebritiesand brand mascots and will analyze the im-pact of celebrities in influencing consumers tomake purchases from the various product cat-

Garima Malik is an assistant professor associated with Amity Business School, Noida, India. AbhinavGuptha is an assistant manager-branding at National Payments Corporation in Mumbai, India.

Address correspondence to Dr. Garima Malik, c/o Prince Malik, No. 25, Sector 16-A, Noida, Uttar-Pradesh,India 201301. Email: garima261@rediffmail.com

egories. Celebrity endorsement acts as a credi-ble means of spending money for the brand, asthe consumer immediately associates with theproduct and differentiates the endorsed brandfrom the given variety. This could be for rea-sons of social standing: people want to wearthe “right” clothes, drink the “right” beverages,and use the “right” fragrances. As per the con-sumer’s perception, an endorsed product wouldhave higher purchase value than its counterpart(Clark & Horstman, 2003). Celebrity endorse-ment is more likely to be observed for productswith a high price–production cost margin and

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with a large customer base. In short, celebrity en-dorsements are more typical for nationally mar-keted products than they are for local or nichemarket products and are more typical for prod-ucts such as running shoes, soft drinks, and otherproducts for which the price–cost margins arelarge.

There is a tremendous impact of celebrity tele-vision endorsements among Indian consumers;there is a large fan following in India, andcelebrities act as role models for a majorityof Indians (Balakrishnan & Kumar, 2011). In-creasingly, companies prefer to use celebritiesfrom different fields in India such as cricketplayers, Bollywood celebrities, and other sportspersonalities to endorse their brands. Many com-panies brand mascots to endorse their products,and this strategy is very popular for fast-movingconsumer goods. Marketers spend an enormousamount of money on celebrity endorsement con-tracts based on the belief that celebrities areeffective spokespersons for their products orbrands (Katayal, 2007). Television has widelypenetrated the minds of people from diver-gent socioeconomic classes. In India, celebritypower can rightly be assessed by their successfulendorsements; film stars and cricket playershave been successful not only in gathering hugepublic attention but also in increasing com-panies’ sales volumes. For example, Cadburyand Nestle used Amitabh Bachchan to promotetheir brand when it went through a bad phasein India. Soon, the endorsement restored peo-ple’s love for the brand and hence this phe-nomenon increased Cadbury’s and Nestle’s sales(Joshi & Ahluwalia, 2008; Matrade, 2005).Aamir Khan is used by Coca-Cola to com-municate to and influence semiurban and ru-ral consumers to purchase the brand “ChotaCoke.” This celebrity endorsement has also beenquite effective in influencing consumers’ buy-ing decision. Similarly, various endorsementsby Shah Rukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, andothers have been found to be successful in af-fecting consumers’ buying decisions (Joshi &Ahluwalia).

Celebrity endorsement advertising has beenrecognized as a “ubiquitous feature of modernday marketing” (McCracken, 1989). It has been

TABLE 1. Valuable Factors That InfluencePurchasing Decisions

N Mean SD

Price of the product 150 2.38 1.028Celebrity endorsement 150 3.04 1.029Quality of product 150 1.83 1.085Value for money 150 2.29 1.102

estimated that one quarter of all advertisementsuse a celebrity spokesperson to endorse aproduct or brand (Shimp, 1997) to the extentthat it is a global phenomenon today. Thisindicates the validity of this strategy as a meansof persuasive communication. Celebrities areoften employed by advertisers to lend theirpersonality to a product or brand (Kaikati,1987). They have been found to produce morepositive responses toward advertising andgreater purchase intentions than a noncelebrityendorser (Atkin & Block, 1983; Petty &Cacioppo, 1983). Furthermore, McCrackenfound that celebrity endorsers represent aneffective way of transferring meaning to brands.From a theoretical perspective, celebrities areeffective endorsers because of their symbolicapparition reference group associations (Assael,1984; Solomon & Assael, 1987). Advertisersuse celebrities because they heighten the appealof advertisements. They are believed to enhanceaudience attentiveness; make the advertisementmemorable, credible, and desirable; and addglamour to the product (Spielman, 1981).Kaikati (1987) enumerates five advantagesof employing celebrities to endorse products:drawing attention, crisis management, brandrepositioning, global marketing, and boostingsales.

TABLE 2. Friedman Test

Parameters Mean rank

Price of the product 2.50Celebrity endorsement 3.13Quality of product 1.96Value for money 2.41

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TABLE 3. Factors That Influence Purchases ofPersonal and Food Products

Brand name Celebrity Quality Cost

Personal care 1.91 (3) 3.06 (1) 1.90 (4) 2.60 (2)Food products 2.48 (2) 2.93 (1) 1.75 (4) 2.45 (3)

Note. Values in parentheses show mean.

This study has been divided into two sec-tions. First, the literature review related to thetopic is provided. Then the database and re-search methodology designed for the study aredescribed, and the detailed results of the surveywith respect to influence of celebrity and brandmascots on buying behavior of customers arepresented. The conclusions follow.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Trip and Carlson (1994) studied the ef-fects of multiple product endorsement bycelebrities on attitudes and intentions of cus-tomers. His study revealed the number ofproducts a celebrity endorses negatively in-fluences consumer perception of the en-dorser and the advertising itself. It wassuggested that when as many as four productsare endorsed, celebrity credibility and likability,as well as attitude toward the advertisement, mayattenuate. Mathur, Mathur, and Rangan (1997)show that the anticipation of Michael Jordan’sreturn to NBA and the related increased vis-ibility for him resulted in an increase in themarket-adjusted values of his client firms ofalmost 2%, or more than $1 billion in stockmarket value. From this study, one can observethat the major celebrity endorser with a gossip-centered personality has tremendous potential toinfluence the profitability of endorsed products.Dean (1999) studied the effects of three extrin-sic advertisement cues (i.e., third party endorse-ment, event sponsorship, and brand popularity)on brand and manufacturer evaluation and ob-served that endorsement significantly affectedonly product variables (quality and uniqueness)and one image variable (esteem). The third-

party endorsement, hence, may be perceived asa signal of product quality. Results clearly in-dicated the main effects for both endorsementand sponsorship cues, with endorsement affect-ing perceived quality, uniqueness, and esteemand sponsorship affecting only citizenship. Thepopularity cue lacks a significant main effect;the three cues do not significantly interact witheach other.

Goldsmith et al. (2000) assessed the impactof endorser and corporate credibility on attitude-toward-the-advertisement, attitude-toward-the-brand, and purchase intentions. One hundredfifty-two adult consumers who viewed a fic-titious advertisement for Mobil Oil Companywere surveyed. They rated the credibility of theadvertisement’s endorser, the credibility of thecompany, and attitude toward the advertisement,attitude toward the brand, and purchase inten-tions. It was observed that endorser credibilityhad its strongest impact on attitude toward theadvertisement, while corporate credibility hadits strongest impact on attitude toward the brand.The findings suggest that corporate credibilityplays an important role in consumers’ reactionsto advertisements and brands, independent ofthe equally important role of endorser credibil-ity. Daneshvary and Schwer (2000) determinedthat credibility of the source is considered im-portant in influence acceptance. A consumer willaccept the accurate influence (information) andapply it if the source is perceived to be credible.Therefore, a product’s endorsement by a credi-ble source may impact purchase behavior. Zaferet al. (2001) found that some viewers forget thebrand that a celebrity approves; other viewers areso spellbound by the personality of the celebritythat they completely fail to notice the brand be-ing advertised. Sanyukta et al. (2005) studiedthe positive and negative aspects of celebrity ap-proval of a brand and found that approval of abrand by a star fosters a sense of trust for thatbrand among the target audience. This is espe-cially true in the case of new products.

Celebrities ensure the attention of the targetgroup by breaking through the clutter of ad-vertisements and making the advertisement andthe brand more noticeable. On the negative sideis the extreme use of a celebrity, called “lazy

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FIGURE 1. Type of Celebrity (color figure available online).

advertising,” which refers to inadequate contentmasked by the use of a celebrity. There is also thefear of brand–celebrity disconnect, which pointsout that if the celebrity represents values thatconflict with the brand values, the advertisingwould create conflict in the minds of the targetaudience. Agarwal et al. (2005) defined brandattitude as consumers’ general evaluative judg-ment of a brand based on brand beliefs. Suchbeliefs concern product-related attributes, likepractical and experimental benefits. A success-ful endorser is able to enhance intentions andpreferences toward brands directly or indirectly.Surana (2008) revealed that some properties,such as likability, expertise, trustworthiness, andsimilarity, cause a celebrity endorser to becomea source of persuasive information, and this cre-ates a sense of certainty.

Shimp (1998) examines the impact that nega-tive information about a celebrity might have onconsumer evaluations of endorsed brands. Prac-titioners hope their target audience’s positivefeelings toward a chosen celebrity will transferto the endorsed brand or will otherwise enhancethe brand’s standing.

What happens if either during or after an ad-vertising campaign negative information aboutthe celebrity becomes public? Widely publicizedincidents (e.g., Pepsi Cola’s series of debacles

with three tarnished celebrities: Mike Tyson,Madonna, and Michael Jackson) suggest thatcelebrity endorsers may at times become lia-bilities to the brands they endorse. Observa-tion reveals an increase in the use of animatedcharacters as product endorsers. It was deter-mined that 28% of animated advertisements con-tained cartoon-character celebrities such as BugsBunny and Mickey Mouse as these characters aregenerally immune to negative publicity.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

• To study the degree to which con-sumers’ purchasing decision is influ-enced by celebrity endorsements and brandmascots.

TABLE 4. Attributes of Celebrity

N Mean SD SEM

Attractiveness of celebrity 150 2.99 1.093 0.089Trustworthiness of celebrity 150 3.47 1.041 0.085Expertise of celebrity 150 3.36 1.038 0.085

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TABLE 5. DOM Test 1

Sum ofsquares df

Meansquared F Sig.

Attractiveness ofcelebrityBetween groups 35.285 28 1.260Within groups 59.058 74 0.798 1.579 .062Total 94.342 102

Trustworthiness ofcelebrityBetween groups 63.714 28 2.275Within groups 71.700 74 0.969 2.348 .002Total 135.414 102

Expertise of celebrityBetween groups 54.528 28 1.947Within groups 32.969 74 0.446 4.371 .000Total 87.497 102

Note. Dependent variable: purchase intention.

• To ascertain which of the two has a greaterimpact on consumer: celebrities or brandmascots.

• To study how the image of the celebrity caninfluence the brand image.

RESEARCH DESIGN

The research methodology for the presentstudy was based on descriptive research design.Stratified nonprobability sampling method wasused, which involves the sample being drawnfrom that part of the population that is close athand. In this study, the target populations weremen and women of 20 to 40 years old. Theresearcher collected responses from 150 respon-dents from the Northern Capital Region of In-dia during January–February 2013. In the re-search process, first, respondents were madeaware of the purpose of study, and then they wererequested to give their unbiased responses. The

TABLE 6. Regression Model Summary

Model R R2 Adjusted R2 SEE

1 0.577" 0.333 0.313 0.62237

"Predictors: (constants) attractiveness of celebrity, trustworthinessof celebrity, expertise of celebrity.

TABLE 7. DOM Test 2

ModelSum ofsquares df

Meansquared F Sig.

Regression 19.162 3 6.387 16.490 .000"

Residual 38.347 99 .387Total 57.510 102

"Predictors: (constants) attractiveness of celebrity, trustworthinessof celebrity, expertise of celebrity.

questionnaires (Appendix 1) were pretested on20 respondents, and minor changes have beenincorporated in the questionnaire. Further, thedata have been categorized into two parts: pri-mary data (collected through questionnaires) andsecondary data (collected with the help of news-papers, magazines, and various other journals)for statistical analysis. The primary instrumentfor data collection questionnaire consisted ofordinal-scale questions to determine the prior-ity of each item among the group of items(1 being the best rank and 4 being the least);later, an interval scale was used in a Likert-typescale to extract data with magnitude and a nom-inal scale was used to store demographics of therespondents. The primary data were analyzed us-ing SPSS software and were depicted using barcharts, pie charts, !2, t test tables, etc.

DATA ANALYSIS

Most Valuable Factor Rated byRespondents for Purchasing Product

In this question, respondents were askedabout the factors that influence the purchasingbehavior (given in Table 1). Ranks had beengiven by the respondents on the basis of theimportance of factors to know the priority ofeach item among the group (1 being the bestrank and 4 being the least).

On applying the Friedman test (Table 2), it isclear that celebrity endorsement is most valuableand influential to customers when it comes topurchasing a product, followed immediately bythe “price of the product,” “value for money,”and then “quality of product.”

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TABLE 8. Coefficients

UnstandardizedModel coefficients Standardized coefficients t Sig.

(Constant) 2.026 0.439 4.620 .000attractiveness of celebrity, 0.039 0.072 0.050 0.543 .588trustworthiness of 0.183 0.061 0.280 3.011 .003celebrity,Expertise of celebrity 0.320 0.072 0.395 4.464 .000

Note. Dependent variable: purchase intention.

Factors That Most Persuade You toPurchase Personal and Food Products

Respondents were asked to rank the factorsaccording to their importance when purchasingthe various categories of products.

Table 3 clearly shows the factors that wereranked on the basis of mean, from which we canclearly ascertain that celebrity has a major role toplay in persuading people to purchase personalcare items. Followed by celebrity, it is the costfactor that most influences purchase decision.Brand name is rated as the third most importantfactor, followed by quality.

For food products, the factors were ranked,from which we can clearly ascertain thatcelebrity has a major role to play in persuad-ing people to purchase food products. Followedby celebrity, it is the attractive packaging thatmost influences purchase decision. Cost is ratedas the third most important factor, followed byquality.

Type of Celebrity Endorsement ThatMost Persuades You

A question was asked about the type ofcelebrity the respondents would like to see mostto endorse the product.

Figure 1 shows that more than half of re-spondents said that film stars are most persua-sive of all the types of celebrities. Around 24%believe that sportspersons are most persuasive;this is perhaps because sportspersons, especiallycricket players, are personalities that people tendto look up to and, hence, their opinions are

considered genuine because of their winningpersonalities. There are other famous person-alities like television stars or famous writers orsingers who also sometimes influence people’spurchasing intent. Politicians possess a negligi-ble share.

Attributes of Celebrity That InfluencePurchase Intention Toward aCelebrity-endorsed Brand

For further analysis, the respondents wereasked to give their responses on the at-

TABLE 9. Believes Celebrity Endorsements

N Mean SD SEM

Easily influenced by acelebrity endorserwhen you purchasea celebrity-endorsed brand

150 2.69 0.970 0.079

Ever consideredpurchasing a newproduct justbecause of thepresence of acelebrity you liked.

150 2.67 1.240 0.101

Believe productsspecificallyadvertised by thecelebrities are ofgood quality.

150 2.84 0.984 0.080

Believe the celebritiesalso use thoseproducts which theythemselvesendorse.

150 2.25 1.029 .084

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TABLE 10. The t Test

Test value = 4

95% CI of thedifference

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean difference Lower Upper

Easily influenced by a celebrityendorser when you purchase acelebrity-endorsed brand

#16.578 149 .000 #1.313 #1.47 #1.16

Ever considered purchasing anew product just because ofthe presence of a celebrity youliked

#13.107 149 .000 #1.327 #1.53 #1.13

Believe products specificallyadvertised by the celebritiesare of good quality

#14.444 149 .000 #1.160 #1.32 #1.00

Believe the celebrities also usethose products that theyendorse

#20.862 149 .000 #1.753 #1.92 #1.59

tributes related to celebrities, like the attrac-tiveness of a celebrity, the trustworthiness ofa celebrity, and the expertise of a celebrity(Table 4).

Difference of means (DOM) was imple-mented to observe significant differences be-tween the means of the variables. The resultsin Table 5 for “Trustworthiness of celebrity”and “Expertise of celebrity” show a significance

level of less than 5%, implying that both aresignificant. “Attractiveness of celebrity” is justabove 5%, thereby implying that it is not thatinsignificant. The results are insignificant forDOM for purchase intention. The F statistic alsoconfirms this insignificance because all observedF values are less than the critical F value of 2.76.

H0 (Null Hyphothesis): Attractiveness ofcelebrity, trustworthiness of celebrity, expertise

FIGURE 2. How Often Do Brand Mascots Influence You? (color figure available online).

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TABLE 11. Attributes in Brand Mascots ThatInfluence Purchase Decisions

Parameters N Mean SD

Friendliness 150 2.55 1.235Uniqueness 150 2.45 1.108Humor 150 2.39 1.128Emotional touch 150 3.01 1.144Trustworthy 150 2.61 1.335Loyalty 150 2.48 1.294Attractiveness 150 2.73 1.262

of celebrity do not highly intend customer topurchase advertised products.

Tables 6, 7, and 8 show the results of regres-sion testing, where the values to be consideredare R2 values, referring to the fitness of modeland the explanatory power of the model. Themodel has 34% explanatory power of the de-pendent variable. Because the significance valueis .000, which is less than .5, the null hypoth-esis, H0, is rejected and the alternative hypoth-esis, H1, is accepted. The attractiveness of thecelebrity, the trustworthiness of the celebrity, andthe expertise of celebrity endorser have signifi-cant impacts on consumers’ buying decisions.

Believes Celebrity Endorsement

Respondents were asked to rank the state-ments according to their perceptions of what theythink about the advertisment and products thatare endorsed by the celebrities (Table 9).

H0: Respondents do not pay special attentionto advertisements and products that are en-dorsed by celebrities.

Responses were collected for four statementsthrough the use of Likert-type scales, apply-

TABLE 12. Celebrity Versus Brand Mascot

Observed N Expected N Residual

Celebrity 73 75.0 #2.0Brand mascot 77 75.0 2.0Total 150

TABLE 13. The !2 Test

!2 0.107a

df 1Asymp. sig. .744

ing the t test to responses to four statements.It was found that the significance value forall is .000, which is less than .05 and, hence,the null hypothesis is rejected and H1 is ac-cepted (i.e., Celebrity endorsers has a signif-icant impact on the consumers’ mind and al-ways received special attention from them)(Table 10).

It was ascertained that 69% of respondentssay they are only sometimes influenced by brandmascots, around 25% said that they are neverinfluenced, and the remaining 6% said thatthey are always influenced by brand mascots(Figure 2).

Important Attributes of Brand Mascots

Respondents were asked whether they are in-fluenced by the brand mascots, and their re-sponses were “always,” “sometimes,” or “never.”

From Table 11, we can deduce that it is theemotional touch feature of brand mascots thatis the most important influence on a person’spurchase decision. Attractiveness, trustworthy,friendliness, and uniqueness are other featuresthat influence purchase decisions.

Celebrity Versus Brand Mascot

In this question, respondents were asked tocompare the celebrity and brand mascot andasked to give a response regarding their pref-erence.

H0: Celebrity endorsers are not more influen-tial than brand mascots.

On the basis of !2 test, because the sig-nificance value is .744, which is greater than.05, the null hypothesis is accepted. Celebrityendorsers are not more influential than brandmascots.

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FIGURE 3. Descriptive Statistics on Brand Mascot (color figure available online).

Various brand mascots influenced the pur-chasing decision of cutomers: Respondents wereasked to rate brand mascots according to theirinfluential power (Tables 12 and 13).

Figure 3 clearly shows that Amul’s polka-dotted girl, 7 Up’s Fido Dido, Parle Agro’sHippo, and Pillsbury’s Doughboy have had ahigh level of influence on people’s purchasingdecisions.This indicates that these four mascotsmost certainly have high recall value. Kellogg’s

Coco Monkey and Kraft’s Tiger stand in the aver-age position, which basically indicates that thesemascots have low recall value.

Regarding the television channel that most in-fluences purchase intentions, respondents wereasked to give their responses concerning broad-cast medium. According to the survey, televi-sion is the most influential medium, followedby newspaper, Internet, magazines, and socialnetwork (Figure 4).

FIGURE 4. Demographics on Broadcasting Medium (color figure available online).

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CONCLUSIONS

Through this research, an attempt has beenmade to draw some conclusions from the surveyconcerning celebrity endorsements and brandmascots and their impacts on the purchasing be-havior of customers.

Celebrity Endorser

The study determined that a celebrity en-dorser plays a significant role in persuading peo-ple in both the personal care products and foodproducts categories. Celebrity endorsers play therole of “initiator” and “influencer” in the con-sumer’s buying process; they create awarenessand develop the interest of the people in thebrand and enable product association. When wediscuss types of celebrities, film stars are themost preferred ones; film stars like Shah RukhKhan, Amitabh Bachchan, and Katrina Kaif haveamazing persuasive power, and companies spendhuge amounts to make use of this power. For ex-ample, Katrina Kaif is a celebrity endorser ofPepsi Co.’s “Slice,” Juhi Chawla is the celebrityendorser of Kurkure. Many people also considersportspeople to be more persuasive because cus-tomers tend to look up to them and their opinionsare considered genuine because of their winningpersonalities. Among sportspeople, cricket play-ers are undoubtedly the most influential in In-dia. Boost, a health drink brand, has been usingcricket players as celebrity endorsers to promotethe brand.

The charisma of celebrity almost always en-tices people and their words are worshipped bymany.

• The trustworthiness of a celebrity is themost important and necessary feature ofthe celebrity. A trustworthy celebrity candevelop people’s faith in the brand. Forinstance, because of her trustworthy im-age, Aishwarya Rai, the celebrity endorserof L’Oreal products in India, convinceswomen that L’Oreal products are the best.

• People also sometimes purchase certainproducts if they are endorsed by a celebrityof their liking. For example, a fan ofKatrina Kaif is likely to purchase “Slice”

(product of Pepsi Co.) over “Maaza” (prod-uct of Coca-Cola).

• Celebrity-endorsed products are givenleverage over other products that have nocelebrity name attached to it. People tendto believe that a product that is endorsedby a celebrity is of good quality. In fact,to be accepted by the people and for sur-vival in the marketplace, almost all com-panies are spending huge sum of moneyto get the right celebrity to endorse theirbrands.

• It was ascertained in the study thateven though people consider a celebrity-endorsed brand as a “better” brand, alarge number of people are not really surethat celebrities use the products that theyendorse. This could perhaps be becauseof multibrand endorsement by the samecelebrities.

Brand Mascots

The following are some key features of brandmascots, in order of importance, that have animpact on consumers’ buying behaviors. Thishas been deduced from the responses to thesurvey.

1. Emotional touch2. Attractiveness3. Trustworthiness4. Friendliness5. Loyalty6. Uniqueness7. Humor

A strong brand mascot is more successfulthan celebrities.

It is observed that the popularity of any mas-cot not only is based on the response they ob-tain but also depends on the fact that they have ahigher recall value. The strength of mascots basi-cally lies in its uniqueness and its power of effec-tively communicating the ethos of the brand. Theutterly, butterly delicious Amul girl in polka dotsborn in 1967 is the best proof of mascot brandrecall lasting years or even decades. Celebritiesbecome associated with too many products and

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therefore it is difficult to relate them to one par-ticular brand, which is not the case with themascots. For example, Shah Rukh Khan en-dorses brands such as Pepsi, Airtel, Santro,Emami, and many more, but Fido is associatedwith just 7 Up. Brand mascots are loyal to thebrand. The impact and success of the mascotdepend on how effectively it conveys the brandvalues and the ideals that consumers would as-sociate with it.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Keeping certain successful mascot campaignsin mind, like the very successful Hippi cam-paign, fast-moving consumer goods companiesmust put more light on the concept of brand mas-cots, especially in the food segment. The scopeof the success of mascots is much higher in thefood products segment than in the personal caresegment.

• It is recommended not to introduce brandmascots in the personal care segment.

This is because customers in this segmentwould like to see some evidence to satisfy them.In the personal care segment, approval by acelebrity is very essential as it builds a senseof trust leading to a “genuine” perception of thebrand.For example, a movie actress, with beau-tiful hair, confirming that her secret is a partic-ular shampoo, leads to building the customer’sconfidence in the brand. This is hard to achievethrough brand mascots because they lack the re-alistic factor.

• In the food segment, brand mascots arepromising.

Hippo, Amul polka dress girl, and Fido Didoare a few of the many successful brand mascotcampaigns in the food segment of FMCG com-panies. Mascots have a lasting appeal and cre-ate a whole new persona for the product. Theymanage the product as efficiently as a celebrity,are more cost efficient, and have higher recallvalue; most importantly, they are loyal to thebrand.

There had been a decline in the use of mascotsdue to the sudden blast of celebrity endorsementin the past few years. But now the Indian market,which is saturated with celebrity endorsements,has seen emergence of the mascots, and it is inthe hands of the companies to use this situationin the most beneficial way.

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APPENDIX 1. QUESTIONNAIRE

1) What do you value the most when purchasing a product? (please rank 1 to 4, with 1 being the highest and 4 beingthe lowest rank)

Price of the product !Celebrity endorsement !Quality of the product !Value for money !

2) Which of the following factors most persuades you to purchase personal care items? please rank 1 to 4, with 1being the highest and 4 being the lowest rank)

Brandname

!

Celebrity !Quality !Cost !

3) Which of the following factors most persuades you to purchase food products? (please rank 1 to 4, with 1 being thehighest and 4 being the lowest rank)

Celebrity !Attractive package !Quality !Brand name !

4) What type of celebrity endorsement persuades you personally to purchase products?Film star ! Sportsperson ! Politician ! Famous personality !5) To what extent do the following variables influence your purchase intention toward a celebrity endorsed brand?

(please check)

Very low Low Average High Very high

Attractiveness ofthe celebrity

Trustworthiness ofthe celebrity

Expertise of thecelebrity

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Please answer the following questions (please check)

Stronglydisagree Disagree Average Agree

Stronglyagree

6) Are you easily influenced by thecelebrity endorser when youpurchase a celebrity-endorsedbrand?

7) Have you ever consideredpurchasing a new product justbecause of the presence of acelebrity you liked?

8) Do you believe products specificallyadvertised by the celebrities are ofgood quality?

9) Do you believe the celebrities alsouse those products that theyendorse?

10) If the reputation of the celebritydegrades, does the reputation of thebrand also degrade?

11) Would multibrand endorsements bythe same celebrity lead tooverexposure?

12) Does inconsistency in theprofessional popularity of thecelebrity lead to negative impact onbrand?

13) Do brand mascots influence your purchasing decision?

Always ! Sometimes ! Never !

14) What is the most persuasive feature in brand mascots that make you purchase products? (please rank 1 to 5, with1 being the highest and 5 being the lowest rank)

Feature 1 2 3 4 5

FriendlinessUniquenessHumorEmotional touchLoyaltyTrustworthyAttractiveness

15) Of the two, what influences your purchase decision more? (please check)

Celebrities ! Brand ! mascots !

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16) To what extent have the following brand mascots influenced your purchasing decision?

Brand mascot Very low Low Average High Very high

Polka Dress Girl–Amul

Fido Dido – 7 Up

Hippo – Parle Agro

Coco Monkey – Kellogg’s(Continued on next page)

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Brand mascot Very low Low Average HighVeryhigh

Doughboy – Pillsbury

Tiger – Tiger Biscuits – Kraft

17) What channel most influences your purchase intentions?

Television ! Radio ! Newspaper !Magazines ! Internet ! Movie !Social network‘ !

Personal Details

Name: !Gender: Male ! Female !Age:20–25 !26–30 !31–35 !36–40 !

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