Ann Susan Wangari Njuguna is a student of Masters of Business Administration at the University of Nairobi. Ms. Njuguna is a marketing and communications professional with 12 years’ experience in strategic marketing, relationship management, customer experience management and business development. She has a Bachelor of Commerce, Upper Second Class Honors from Kenyatta University. She conducted a research on the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchase intention; a survey of consumers in selected supermarkets in Nairobi, Kenya. As a marketing major she selected the study because the number of products that are sold in supermarkets are wide and within each product range there are many different offerings. The availability of different products range raises the level of competition among the firms which necessitates adoption of unique advertisement to attract consumers to the products. Celebrity endorsement marketing is one such strategy that has been adopted by different manufacturers of products that are sold in the supermarkets. Celebrity endorsement is therefore believed to pose a significant effect on intention of purchase by a customer. Ms. Njuguna having scored an A in the research project plans to publish it so as to share the findings widely with different stakeholders who consider adopting celebrity endorsed advertisement.
Abstract
Stiff competition in the marketing sectors and the related industries including product manufacturing have pushed companies to come up with newer approaches towards marketing to reach a greatest number of customers. One of the marketing strategies adopted by business entities is the use of celebrities to endorse their products and services. The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchase intention in selected supermarkets in Nairobi, Kenya. The dimensions of celebrity endorsement investigated were celebrity physical attractiveness, celebrity credibility/trustworthiness and celebrity expertise. The research adopted a descriptive research design with the questionnaire being the main data collection instrument. Data analysis was done based on 88 questionnaires that were duly filled and collected and the analysis was done using descriptive measures of mean and standard deviation. With regard to celebrity attractiveness, it was found that the capacity of product endorser being elegant to the consumer significantly affected consumer purchase intention, while for the credibility of the endorser their credibility was the dominant factors that affected consumer purchase intention. In addition, the celebrity skillfulness in the area that they are advertising increased the consumer purchase intention. The research recommended that product managers should direct their effort towards putting in efforts in enhancing endorser credibility because the perception of the consumers on the endorser credibility expertise on the field in which he advertises was found to have stronger effect on the consumer purchase intention.
Research Supervisors
Dr. Catherine Ngahu