CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT IN ADVERTISING: A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

The advertising market has become more cluttered and competitive now and everywhere. To highlight their brand, advertisers are turning to celebrities as endorsers. They are willing to invest significant amount of monies to juxtapose their brands with celebrity’s attributes like attractiveness, expertise and trustworthiness. They believe that the celebrity’s qualities might transfer to their brand, thus produce favourable campaign results. However, celebrity endorsement is not without potential risks. The purposes of this paper are threefold: first, to discuss how the marriage works between the brand and celebrity; second, to describe the benefits accrue from celebrity endorsement and third, to warn of potential dangers of the strategy. Keywords: clutter, celebrity endorsement, benefits, risks © 2017. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

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