Abstract:
Celebrity endorsements are a powerful form of advertising. In the fashion products world,
many companies utilize celebrities to generate more sales. The main question becomes: Do
celebrity endorsements influence consumers’ attitudes toward their view of a fashion product or
their desire for the product?
This study aims to assess the influence of celebrity endorsements on a consumers’ view
of fashion products and their intention to purchase. The diffusion theory is one framework that
can help add context to the effect celebrity endorsements can have by outlining the stages
consumers go through during an adoption process.
In order to collect data, a questionnaire was sent to participants who were currently
enrolled college students and over the age of 18. They had three weeks to complete the Qualtrics
survey, and the total valid sample size remaining to analyze was 140 (n=140).
The results show that participants indicated that their desirability of a product is not
linked to any celebrity endorsement. However, they indicated that they believe that celebrities'
negative behavior in public would influence their view of the product endorsed by those
celebrities. Participants also indicated that their ability to remember a fashion product would be
improved when a celebrity endorses the product, and they would not purchase an endorsed
fashion product for the purpose of fitting into social groups. People with different gender, age
and ethnicity were not significantly different in their beliefs on how celebrity endorsements
affected their intention to purchase the fashion product. The results indicated that consumers
believed there would be no change to their perception of the product having more relative
advantages because it was endorsed by a celebrity. Consumers also believed there would be no
change to their perception of the fashion product endorsed by a celebrity helping them fit into a
social group. They also noted a celebrity endorsed fashion product does not change their
perception of product complexity. Lastly, consumers reported that they were not more likely to
want a fashion product because it was endorsed by a celebrity.
There were some limitations in this study that need to be considered such as biased
feedback because the survey was asking questions about what participants believed they would
do, rather than actual observed behavior.
