Celebrity Selection Strategies in the Automobile Industry A Review of Related Literature

Abstract

Practitioners continually face the difficulty of strategically executing their marketing communications in order to draw consumer attention and influence consumer judgments. One of the strategies among the barrage of options proposed to companies yearning to achieve competitive edge is these companies careful and tactical use of marcoms activities such as strategic advertising to promote both corporate and brands image. This paper seeks to assess Celebrity Selection Strategies as effective Marketing Communications tool in the Automobile industry. The specific activities to be carried out in the process of this current study are: To identify effective strategic options to be adopted by automakers and their ad agencies to select celebrities to endorse their products or brands; explore strategic options automakers adopt to achieve the right “congruence” or “fit” between the endorsed brands and the celebrity endorsers; identify how automakers gain sales’ benefits through the adoption of celebrity endorsement to promote their products or brands; determine potential risks associated with celebrity endorsements, and their effects on the entire endorsement contracts signed by automakers and explore strategic options automakers adopt to reduce the risks associated with celebrity endorsements. Both theoretical and empirical literature are reviewed. Conclusions are drawn based on the findings.

Keywords: Celebrity, celebrity endorsement, celebrity selection strategies, automobile products or brands, Ghana, Nigeria, France, Germany.