Celebrity endorsements have become an effective marketing tool which can exert greater influence on consumers' attitudes and buying intention
The term ‘Hero’ denotes a person who is admired for his courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities. It is generally associated with ‘a war hero’. The hero is a character who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage or strength. The hero is a role model, looked by others as an example to be imitated. According to Cambridge dictionary, ‘hero worship’ is a feeling of extreme admiration for someone, imagining that they have qualities or abilities that are better than anyone else’s. The concept of hero narratives fulfil important cognitive and emotional needs, including the need for wisdom, meaning, hope, inspiration and growth. The framework called the Heroic Leadership Dynamic (HLD) is to explain how need based heroism shifts overtime from our initial attraction to heroes to later retention or repudiation of heroes. Central to HLD is the idea that hero narratives fulfil both epistemic and energising functions. To energise us, heroes promote moral elevation, heal psychic wounds, inspire psychological growth and exude charisma.
However, gone are the days when ‘hero worship’ provided the elevation of the human spirit. Today, the concept of role model has shifted from personalities of heroic deeds to film actors, singers, musicians, models, cricketers and other sportspersons, wrestlers and the likes who are simply the professionals in their respective fields but have somehow gained fame and public support. They have no visible role to elevate the human spirits but still, through the vehicle of media resources, have successfully reached to target the impressionable minds, mostly the teenagers to blindly follow them as their role models worthy of veneration. The glamour which they exhibit accelerates their fame and ‘star’ becomes their pseudonym.
Celebrity endorsement of advertisements make a great impact. However, quite often the endorsements given by celebrities for a particular product are unscrupulous and unreliable as these promoters hardly use the products being endorsed. A few years ago, the issue of misleading endorsement had cropped up in India, when Maggi noodles were temporarily banned after the food regulator revealed that it contained an excessive amount of lead.
Marketers use celebrity endorsements to make advertisements believable and to enhance consumer recognition of the brand name. Celebrity endorsements as of now have become the most effective marketing tool in advertisements, which can exert a greater influence on consumers' attitudes and buying intention. The millennial generation, especially the college students, are the viable purchasers and brand loyalists. There is a great effect of celebrity-brand congruence and publicity on consumers' choice and buying behaviour. Fans of celebrities quite often seek to imitate or follow the style of their choice celebrities to improve their self-image and self-esteem. As such, they become crazy to purchase the product endorsed by them.
Celebrities cause great influence on the endorsed product. However, for creating such a big influence upon the sale of the endorsed product, they charge heavy amounts from the manufacturers/ businesses. Some celebrities charge up to Rs 5.5 crore a day to endorse brands. Several celebrities have also endorsed the co-ownership endorsement model by taking an equity stake in the product brand company. Another form of arrangement is a royalty agreement where the celebrity leases a brand to another company, which is in manufacturing and distribution.
The law of demand states that other factors being constant (ceteris paribus), price and quantity demanded of any good and service are inversely related to each other. When the price of a product increases, the demand for the same product decreases, then increases as the prices fall. However, this rule is changed when not bothering the demand or price of a product endorsed by the favourite celebrity, the consumer out of celebrity influence finds himself forced to buy the product.
Leaving aside the questions of false and misleading advertisements and celebrities’ endorsing a product or service without using, experiencing and having knowledge of the product endorsed, the question arises from the principle of reasonableness as well as accounting procedures that the heavy amount paid to celebrities by manufacturer for endorsement in any form is made through business expenses, which ultimately falls on the neck of the consumers.
The phenomenon of marketers’ sensitising, informing customers about their product/service may be fair enough through reasonable modes but why the intervention of celebrities for recommending a product? How can it be in the consumer's interest, when the choice of the consumer is not the demand of the product but the psychological influence of the endorser? More so, what is the rationale, rule or criteria of celebrities charging heavy amount as fees for endorsement in a most arbitrary, discriminatory, fanciful and unjustified manner? Who decides the quantum of fees and on what measure or basis? The endorsers have been let loose to charge any amount of fees from manufacturers arbitrarily with no legal control.
The question arises whether the heavy cost of endorsement falling upon the neck of the consumer is a consumer rights issue? If yes, then the central authority is empowered to protect, promote and enforce the rights of consumers as a class and prevent violation of consumer rights and unfair trade practices under the CP Act, 2019. The Authority is also empowered to undertake and promote research in the field of consumer rights. It is, therefore, essential to establish that endorsement practice is unfair and prejudiced to consumers interests or rights.
(The writer is a legal journalist and an author. The views expressed are personal.)
