INFLUENCE OF CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT ON CHOICE OF PRODUCTS BY CONSUMERS A STUDY OF ETISALAT TELECOMMUNICATION INTRODUCTION 1.

1 Background to the Study As the economy expands and develops in the 20th century, advertising has also developed along side with innovation of modern trends; however the use of celebrity endorsement in advertising is at a moving pace in the world. Today, celebrity endorsement is a widespread practice among consumer oriented companies. Research indicates that, at least in the United States, one out of every four marketing programs features some type of celebrity endorser according to Erdogan, Baker, and Tagg, who authored the article Selecting celebrity endorsers: the practitioners perspective published in the prestigious Journal of Advertising Research (Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 39-49).The general belief among advertisers is that advertising messages delivered by celebrities provides a higher degree of appeal, attention and possibly message recall than those delivered by non-celebrities. Marketers also claim that celebrities affect the credibility of the claims made, increase the memorability of the message, and may provide a positive effect that could be generalized to the brand (Cooper, 1984). However Kambitis et al (2002) observed that the use of celebrities came from the art scene, modelling, sports and the movie industries. In fact the first celebrity endorser was a British actress lillie langtry who appeared in 1893on a packaged pears soap. In Nigeria the increase in the recognition of the entertainment industry most, especially the Nigeria home video and the music industry and the way they have captivated there audience as made them icons that have significant effect on their audience as they are used as celebrity endorsers of products. Relatively, with the high rate of globalization, education, technology and innovations which as wiped out the old form of communicating advertising messages to the public, advertisers are finding ways to get close to the consumers of their brand and this they are doing through celebrity endorsement. The use of popular celebrities in advertising in general is typically an expensive proposition but Nigerian advertising think that these old but sum new form of sending advertising messages is the best for now. However what is important to be known is that getting the right celebrity for a brand is very vital and as such when this is done effectively the brand become the best amongst its other competitors due to the celebrity endorser involved. Also the inherent benefit of attaching a celebrity to a brand is that the brand literally has a face, name and personality that immediately project an image of a living, breathing, credible person as opposed to a faceless corporate Entity or brand. Celebrities can be used to introduce a new brand, break the cycle of sales stagnancy that had hitherto held the product bound, and dispel nose diving sales rumors being peddled by rivals. The use of celebrities sometimes has a devastating effect on sales where the celebrity endorses one brand and is seen using the competitor's, or suffers a major setback in his/her profession. Whether the sole aim of using Nigerian celebrities in adverts to promote the

companys brands, with a view to achieving the prior set projected sales profit and even surpassing same has been attained, lies coded on the mysterious sales card which the companies have held securely in their hands abiding doggedly by the principle of "for our eyes only". The telecommunications industry in Nigeria has not been left out in the wave of using celebrities as endorsers of their products, prior to the advent of GSM in 2001, phone penetration was low to the verge of negligible. Nitel had the monopoly. But all that changed with the GSM revolution brought by the licensing of Econet, Mtel, MTN and the later entry of Glo and Etisalat into the industry. At first, all that was needed for marketing success was availability. Because the demand for phone was far more than the supply, these companies were on a roll, snapping subscribers after subscribers from phone starved Nigerians. That has since changed. The landscape is becoming more competitive and the growth rates of yesteryears are becoming hard to replicate. In a nutshell, continued success in the contemporary Nigerian GSM market calls for marketing wizardry. These they are doing with the old but looks new trend of celebrity endorsement.

Friedman, Termini, and Washington (1977) found that the celebrity version of the advertisement had higher scores on probable taste, advertising believability, and purchase intention, the three dependent variables. Similarly, Atkin and Block (1983) found that advertisements with celebrity spokespersons had more favourable effect on consumers than those with non-celebrities. Therefore, based on previous research, it is hypothesized that advertisements with celebrity spokespersons will have greater effectiveness as measured by higher scores on advertising believability and purchase intentions than those with non celebrities. Celebrities are people who enjoy public recognition by a large share of a certain group of people. Whereas attributes like attractiveness, extraordinary lifestyle or special skills are just examples and specific common characteristics cannot be observed, it can be said that within a corresponding social group, celebrities generally differ from the social norm and enjoy a high degree of public awareness. By definition a celebrity is a well known personality, personalityactor, entertainer or athlete, who to the known to the public for his or her accomplishment in the area other than the product class endorsed (shimps, 2003) Mc crackens (1989) defines the concept of a celebrity endorsement as Any individual who enjoys public recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appealing with it in an advertisement. Defined celebrity also by pringle (1994) as any individual who enjoys public recognition and who brings quality to bear in facilitating the disposition of a consumer good Furthermore, because of their fame, celebrities serve not only to create and maintain attention but also to achieve high recall rates for marketing communication messages in today's highly cluttered environments (Croft et al, 1996, Friedman and Friedman, 1979). Also crownwork book on advertising (page 32) defined a

celebrity or personality is defined as a person who is generally famous, recognizable revered, well known and is held at high esteem in the society According to professionals, industry expect whose views were sought through personnel communication, celebrity endorsement is a type of mix used by marketing communication to perceive, educate and also vital strategy pin down there consumers to their products and services, celebrities is expected to help raise awareness of the brand, generate positive associations for it, and build purchase intention among its prospective customers. Sometimes, its merely a reactionary step meant to nullify the impact of celebrity endorsement exercised by a competitor. (An Exploratory Study in Celebrity Endorsement) Jagdish and wagner (2005) (as cited by bergstron and skarfstad, 2004) state that celebrities make advertisements believable and enhance message recall. They argued that celebrities aid the recognition of a brand name, create positive attitudes towards the brand and create a distinct personality for the endorsed product. Assael (1984) suggests that celebrity advertising is effective because of their ability to tap into consumers' symbolic association to inspirational reference groups. Such reference groups provide points of comparison through which the consumer may evaluate attitudes and behaviour (Kamins 1990). In advancing reasons why celebrity advertising may be influential, Atkins and Block (1983) assert that celebrity advertising may be influential because celebrities are viewed as dynamic, with both attractive and likable qualities. Additionally, their fame is thought to attract attention to the product or service. However, in a study involving Edge disposable razor advertisements, Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann (1983) found that under high involvement conditions, arguments but not celebrities influenced attitudes, whereas under low involvement conditions, celebrities but not arguments influenced attitudes. This suggests that celebrity influence may be related to the nature of the product rather than the person Today, both practice and theory have proven that use of celebrity in advertising generates a lot of publicity and attention from the public (ohanian, 1991) and as such the celebrity must be of good behavior and must be selected carefully so as not to tarnish the image of the organization However the major concern of this research is to establish whether indeed celebrity endorsement of a product makes it increase sales or the other way round. 1.2. Brief Profile of Etisalat Etisalat has been the telecommunication service provider in the United Arab Emirates since 1976 and has footprints in 18 countries traversing the Middle East, Asia and Africa. In its many years of operations, it has built up state of the art telecom infrastructure and taken a leadership position of innovation, and quality service delivery among regional and international operators. In Nigeria, etisalat made the first official call on its network on the 13th of March 2008 in the presence of officials from Nigerian communication commission (NCC)

Etisalat in Nigeria currently serves a growing subscriber base of over 10 million subscribers and consistently demonstrates its core values of optimism, simplicity and caring. For which it has become known in other markets to the Nigerian people as it offers them world-class service The use of celebrity as endorsers by etisalat is as a result of competitive Nigerian Telecoms market players "MTN", " ZAIN" and "GLO", though not under rating the existence of others who could give them a run for their money such as Starcomms, Multi Links, Visa Phone, Reltel , Intercellular. They had hitherto resorted to marketing aggressively, with various adverts spearheaded by unpopular faces promoting their brand via the electronic and print media. But a difference was made when "Banky W", the sensational R n B artiste with the hit track "Ebutte- Metta" which made waves in the music front was used to promote the brand etisalat, His smooth velvety voice and the closing lyrics "080,0809ja for life" did the trick. Nigerians took a great liking to the song and in different quarters, children and adults were heard reeling out the "0809ja for life song", taking the Etisalat brand to higher heights. Also the use of movie actors like Azeez Ayetoro popularly known as simply sarcastic and in as endorser of advert for etisalat as also taking the product to a higher height . However Less than 24 hours after pop singer Davido was announced as the face of MTNs new campaign, fast rising R&B singer Praise Adejo better known as Praiz has been chosen to be the new face of another telecoms company Etisalat for an undisclosed fee.with these we hope to see more from praiz and etisalat 1.3 Statement of Problem The media as we belief can be said to have a great impact on consumers decision, these which we see in the advertisement of product, however these has been more proposed when a celebrity endorse a product because youth are target of the most commercials, they tend to make use of celebrity as a source of attractiveness for the product. There are been no documented evidences(byrne and breen 2003,klebba and unger,1982) to show that the use of celebrity endorsers can generate a more positive response as well as, better purchasing intentions ,than non celebrity endorsed product or services. In a study carried out by byrne and breen (2003) to ascertain the impact of the celebrity endorsement on consumer behaviour from the perspectives of advertiser, some advertisers claimed that the use of celebrity endorsement can create a more positive response as well as higher purchasing intention than that of non celebrity product. It should also be known that the impact that celebrity has on advertising may differ and some time it may be the cause for the back drop of the product. Telecommunication companies in Nigeria like MTN, AIRTEL, VISAFONE, ETISALAT, GLOBACOM, among others have in the past years embarked on series of sales promotion, they have done this sales promotion messages via newspaper, magazine billboard with different methods and approach to it but ETISALAT went a step further with the use of

celebrity as endorsers of their product with the use of Banky w a musician to hafiz Oyetoro an actor to mention but a few The use of celebrity actually give credibility to product, the study will how ever try to identify the influence of the use of celebrity or endorser in advertising help to induce a person to purchase their product and service and to what extent as the use of celebrity endorsement help ETISALAT gain more customers to their side as well as the population of the people (especially the youth) that the use of celebrity in ETISALAT as been able to capture 1.4 Research Question Specifically this research is then to find answers to the following research questions 1. To what extent is use of celebrity endorsement in advertising the ETISALAT brand and service induce a person to purchase the product and services? 2. What is the population of consumers that is influenced by celebrity endorsement of ETISALAT product? 3. How effective is the use of celebrity endorsement in ETISALAT advert been able to capture the youths?

1.5 Purpose of Study There are several reasons for using celebrity endorsement, some time to make aware, influence, to persuade or to attract ,while some time advertising messages are developed around a celebrity which as required quality and as such helps the product better. The first major purpose of this research is to know how the use of celebrity endorsement in advertising ETISALAT brand and service been able to induce a person to purchase the product and services To also to know the population of the people that is influenced by the use of celebrity endorsement by ETISALAT Furthermore the research will be looking at how effective is the use of celebrity endorsement in ETISALAT advert has been able to capture the youth since they are there main target.

1.6 Significance of the Study The greatest significance of this study is to provide an insight on the influence of celebrity endorsement on ETISALAT telecommunication, to know how the use of celebrity endorsement has help sell the product better and the way forward for the product, whether celebrity endorsement is helping the product grow stronger or the other way round which will be useful for the organisation providing the service provider and other network providers in terms of competition

The finding on this research will be useful for regulatory agency to be able to know how they can control the use of celebrity in the telecommunication industry, and also be useful to advertising agency agencies to know how to select the right endorser to a particular product when the effect of the use of celebrity for ETISALAT is determined and it will also provide an insight on how celebrity endorsement can attract the youth of Lagos state universities Finally this study will add to the body of knowledge for communication scholars, student, and marketers and will be useful for as empirical review for relative study