Social media platforms have been widely used globally since the inception of the internet. Facebook, twitter, Instagram, and whatsapp among others are being used as means of communication. Being a low cost strategy to reach a wide target audience, marketers have started using it as a promotion platform for their products and brands (Lee, Hansen, & Lee, 2016). Social media networks have allowed the consumer an easier access to celebrities and they are now exposed to the culture of Celebs. This has resulted to celebrities becoming trendsetters having a great influence on social media users. Fans are now engaging in what Choi & Rifon, (2012),refer to as celebrity-standard consumption and this means they will make their decisions to purchase based on whatever they have leant from celebrities’ practices of consumption. According to Cara & Tocila, (2015) marketers are using million of dollars for celebrity endorsements. There is thus the need to ensure that the endorsements are effective and are providing returns on investment that have been invested in them. The paper is investigating the effect of social media endorsements towards the intention to make a purchase.
Endorsement strategies
Various scholars have identified some four types of endorsers namely; the celebrity endorser, the expert, the satisfied consumer and finally the presenter. According to Chao-Sen, (2015), the celebrity endorser is the one who the public easily recognizes and thus uses his status in the society to twist or influence others’ opinions to a favor a given product sponsor. Usually celebrities are known due to their achievements in various fields, which can thus be associated with the said products like, athletes, footballers, musicians or actors. Using a celebrity as the endorser as a strategy, is advantageous is it increases the exposure of the brand more so in the British fashion industry regardless of the product type. A large percentage of the target audience will ultimately recognize the celebrity and identify with them thus an effect transfer happens.
Hung (2014), postulates that an expert is the individual or a group who have superior knowledge that is related to the product being endorsed. The expert endorser is more vital and is required to suit a technical product where his knowledge about the product can diminish any fears about the product. The strategy is effective in particular for high-risk products.
A consumer endorser as argued by (Hung 2014), is more effective compared to the others more so in situations when the target audience is best known. The endorser is just an ordinary person who has no technical knowledge regarding the product. The advantage, of this strategy is that the potential consumers will easily relate with such an endorser. The attributes of an endorser like honest and being trustworthy are vital in delivering a message.
Jaikumar & Sahay, (2015), argues that in the social media era, the typical satisfied consumer strategy is becoming more authentic as the endorsers are making voluntary endorsement action without the brand’s incentives. Consumer and celebrity Para-social relationships are vital in trying to understand the behavior of consumers pertaining the intention to purchase.
Social media adoption
As discussed earlier, social media has consisted of the tools that are used by various individuals to distribute, ideas, content, opinions, thoughts and experiences that will encourage conversation as well as interaction between diverse groups of people. In less than a decade after social media intention, it has become the most popular activity online and is successful at it reaches a large number of consumers within a short time (Alsmadi, 2006). Research has shown that around 88% marketers have incorporated social media into their strategies of marketing to influence and communicate to their consumers in a positive way. Among the reasons why social media has transcended the other tools for marketing is that it provides a direct access to fans to their favorite celebrities. It has created a platform from where different celebrities can directly communicate to their fans in a special way. Courtesy of social media, celebrities today are humanized as they can freely interact directly with their fans globally. In their study, Whiting & Williams (2013) came up with reasons why many people are using social media. They agreed that people are using social media for interaction, passing time, seeking information, and as entertainment for relaxation. This clearly elaborates the basic need for many celebrities to engage their fans via social media. The fans and the celebrities’ can directly engage in social media as they cannot meet face to face. This thus means that many celebrities would wish to be like their fans and this where marketing endorsements works well when done by celebrities.
Social media engagement
After people adopt social media, the next step is for them to start engaging with it. According to Bronner & Hoog, (2014), engagement can involve creating a lasting bond between a brand and its consumers that is based on an incessant effort from such a brand stimulating interest of the consumers via interaction, rewards, shared values and experimental contents. Mariani & Mohammed, (2014), argues that a user becomes more engaged with social media when they believe it to be part of their daily lives and that can satisfy their needs by social media sites. In this case, the celebrity usually assumes the role of a brand and thus has the obligation of keeping the fans engaged with social media pages by either interacting or rewarding fans frequently. Engagement in social media has been an effective tool for brands in retaining and sustaining relationships with the consumers and attracts new fans as well as customers. A well managed and a successful engagement between celebrities and the fans strengthens the two way communication medium thus information about a brand is shared. If the relationship is sustained, then the celebrities can influence the fans to make an intention to purchase a given product or they can successfully endorse a product.
Various endorsement social media platforms apart from Facebook which is under study
This is a growing video and photo sharing application that is wholly owned by Facebook and was launched in 2010 growing to have over 150 million users. Instagram has become more appealing to marketers as its demographics involve young people with 90% of its users being people under the age of 35 years. This makes it the ideal social media site for marketers or advertisers targeting 18-34 year old consumers. Just like other social media, Instagram has been skewed towards feminism with over 68% of the users being female. In terms of engagement, Instagram is more much better compared to twitter and Facebook. Beauty brands in Britain are the fast growing industry when it comes to Instagram receiving the highest engagement levels as they use visual content targeting females. According to Alford (2013), celebrities have in recent time being seen to endorse products on Instagram. For instance, Beyonce endorses various beauty products; Kim Kardashian endorses various brands, with Nicole Richie endorsing Unilever haircare products. So and so, postulates that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements on Instagram is today been questioned by marketers due to its clumsiness and unoriginality being used in promoting the products. The study emphasizes more on Instagram as it has the highest rate of engagement compared to other social media sites since it is growing at a faster rate.
Just like Instagram, beauty and fashion industry are using celebrity endorsements on it as it has more female users compared to men. Out of over 645 million twitter user, 57% of them are women thus the fashion and beauty brands are targeting such users using celebrity endorsements. A large number of celebrities have twitter handles where they engage their fans and can influence them to purchase a given brand. Many celebrities are paid by either money or free products to promote beauty products in their twitter thus reaching out to millions how do follow them and influencing their decision to purchase. Bright & Cunningham (2012), made a conclusion that twitter was not very effective when it comes to celebrity endorsement for beauty products. The study investigates the effectiveness of endorsements on social media on the British fashion industry.
Persuasion knowledge
Many individuals usually approach information through experience where they apply knowledge gained from one medium to the other thus developing attitudes and knowledge based on the experiences. Bright & Cunningham, (2012), defines persuasion knowledge as what the consumer knows about advertiser and their tactics. The persuasive messages from the advertiser tactics bring about the perceptions through which this knowledge is achieved. The persuasion knowledge model states that consumers learn about persuasion via different means. They can either learn through their own experiences, by interacting with celebrities, family or friends or by just engaging in discussions that can influence their behavior and thoughts. This knowledge possession is what changes the attitudes and behaviors of the consumers to persuasion. This means that it is difficult for consumers to be just persuaded by celebrities to purchase a product on social media just because they like or are following the endorser (Bright & Cunningham, 2012).
Consumer skepticism
Many are the times when consumers have coped with persuasions by being skeptical. Lu, Chang & Chang, (2014), argues that consumers are sometimes wary of celebrity endorsements and that they do not intent to purchase a product simply because it has been endorsed by a celebrity. The celebrities’ motives when endorsing a brand/product have over time been questioned by consumers. Many consumers have held the believe that celebrities endorse the product simply because they are paid to do so and not because they like/love the product. This negative attitude being exhibited by consumers towards the motives and claims made by marketers is what is referred to as skepticism which creates disbelief towards claims of advertisements. Modern consumers are very much aware that advertisement messages are meant for persuasions thus they do not hold high regards to them as they can be biased and untrue. According to Chao-Sen, (2015), skeptics are not positive when they respond to claims of advertisements thus they believe t less, like t less and have the believe that it is less influential even when endorsed by a celebrity. A skeptical fan will not have a positive attitude towards a celebrity endorsement on social media unless the product is good and the consumers feel that. The levels as to which consumers will respond to sponsored message vary across different people and how they are knowledgeable. Consumers will usually act depending on their knowledge of persuasion as some will be able to deal with persuasive attempts better than others. This will be reflected on how they will react to the sponsored messages.
Effectiveness of endorsements
Celebrity endorsements as argued by Boyd & Shank (2004), has significantly increased. Today, celebrities across the globe in movie and television starts, athletes, politicians, and prominent people are being used by marketers to promote their products. Various studies are showing that the primary motive by brands endorsing celebrities is to stand out from what they call clutter of adverts being aired recently. The probable benefits of celebrity endorsements to products included but not limited to, the ability of the celebrities to gain as well as hold the attention of the customers as they are admired by the consumers (Shaouf, Lü & Li, 2016). Due to their credibility, celebrities are n addition able, to provide professional testimonials about the products that they can argue have contributed to their successful career. This has been used mainly by British fashion endorsers. Though the existing literature provides potential benefits of celebrity endorsement, various scholars have argued that there are some probable limitations which can bring negation to the benefits. For instance, Subhadip (2012) postulated that sometimes celebrities overshadow a brand and can damage a brand reputation/image due to the celebrities’ failures, scandals and controversies. The high costs of endorsement are some other forms of disadvantages as the deal is potentially risky (Schimmelpfennig & Hollensen, 2016).
Based studies of source characteristic
There various studies aiming to identify the factors that are vital to the success of celebrity endorsements. Source characteristics based studies mostly emphasize on the importance of establishing the celebrity’s characteristics source that will influence the target audience in the process of communication. The effects that the characteristics will have on the potential customers should also be identified. Many researchers doing celebrity endorsements have often referred to the celebrity as the source of the message being sent to the consumers to receive. This means that source characteristics are the characteristics possessed by the celebrity that can influence the target audience in the most suitable way (Demirel & Erdogmus, 2016).
According to Subhadip & Pansari, (2014), the most vital dimensions of source characteristics are source credibility, source attractiveness and source power. Modern researchers are focusing more on source attractiveness and source credibility more so when it come to the fashion industry in Britain to determine a successful endorsement deal. Source credibility is the perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the endorser by the consumers receiving the message. On the other hand, source likability is the ability of the celebrity (in this case the communicator) to generate a positive effect from the consumers. According to Younghan & Koo, (2015), celebrities with a high likability and credibility will be more effective in getting the attention of the target audience thus affecting their attitude towards the brand as opposed to celebrities with low likability and credibility. Research shows that source credibility is perceived by consumers to be very a vital factor in celebrity endorsement. This is because it has been proved that as the credibility source increases, the chances of the target audience being influenced increases. The source’s credibility much depends on the positive characteristics of the communicator that will affect the acceptance of the message by the receiver.
Factors that will determine how credible a given source is are trust and expertise whereby expertise is to what extent is the communication perceived to be a source of valid assertions. The expertise of a source according to Egan (2007), depends on each specific celebrity/product thus requires some training, knowledge and aptitude. Consumers therefore, will not believe a celebrity message when they have a perception that the celebrity does not know what they are talking about in that they are not exerts in the related area of the message they are trying to pass. Another vital dimension of source credibility is trustworthiness which refer to the audience’s confidence in the source for them to provide information in a more honest and objective manner. The consumers’ level of confidence on the celebrity endorser is vital for them to make intentions to purchase the product.
Source attractiveness on the other hand, refers to how likeable or how attractive the celebrity endorser is to the audience. The attractiveness of the source can be studied in three dimensions namely; familiarity, liking and similarity. In the fashion and beauty industry, attractiveness matters a lot in celebrity endorsements where customers a feel attracted and want to look like the celebrity.
Congruence in endorsements
The existing literature is very inconsistence about the most vital dimensions for an endorsement which is deemed effective. Some researchers argue that trustworthiness is more significant while others claim that expertise is more vital with others arguing that the source’s attractiveness matters the most. This has led to development of various models to help determine the selection of celebrities for purposes of endorsement (Younghan, & Koo, 2015). The most used model is the congruence/match-up model which argues that endorsement deals are more effective when the celebrity can fit the product as opposed to when they cannot relate to the product. This means that there ought to be a fit between the celebrity being endorsed, the message being sent to the consumers and the product being endorsed. The message and the image of the celebrity and the product message ought to be congruent in order for the endorsement campaign to be effective.
Consumer attitude as a measure of endorsement effectiveness
The attitude of the consumers is very vital when measuring the effectiveness of the celebrity endorsement. According to Li, Lin, & Chiu, (2014), attitude is a significant notion that has been frequently employed by researchers in understanding and predicting the way people will react and be influenced by an endorsement. The attitudes of the consumers can be studied in different celebrity endorsement aspects. For instance, celebrity scandals will have great impacts on the consumer attitudes towards the endorsements. The consumers will not want to be associated with products whose endorsers are celebrities with scandals (Younghan, & Koo, 2015). Advertisers who endorse celebrities to promote their specific brands are more concerned with creating an effective interaction between the celebrity and the consumer. To create effective interactions between the celebrities and the consumers on social media, it is vital to first understand the attitudes of the consumers and the factors that can affect their behaviors and intention to purchase (Mishra, 2015).
Social media and consumer attitudes
The development of social media has enabled consumers to interact with celebrities in many ways. This therefore means that the perceptions of the consumers will usually differ based on different interactions as a result of their different characters. According Pickton & Broderick, attitudes are relatively a constant response to a similar form of stimulus. Therefore attitudes are the best ways to measure and predict the behavior of an individual’s intention to purchase a given product. This because attitudes greatly impact on a consumer’s decision making.
Conclusion to the literature
The chapter has analyzed the basic models as well as theories about endorsements and the intention to purchase. It has explained how social media adoption and engagement is promoting endorsement by celebrities to advertise a brand/product. The chapter has also reviewed the characteristics of consumers and how they can impact celebrity endorsements. Though many studies have been done on the factors that affect celebrity endorsements on the traditional media, not many studies have been done to analyze endorsements on social media. The literature review has provided an in-depth analysis on how consumer attitudes can be used to measure the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements with regard to intentions to purchase a product. Various social media platforms have been analyzed and the literature concentrated on these ones applicable in the cosmetic industry like Facebook, twitter and Instagram. This has provided the basis for the research question discussed later on in the methodology. The literature chapter has given a theoretical framework which will help the researcher to examine how the variables relate.
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