Effectiveness of Adam Levine as a Foreign Celebrity Endorser for Bench on the Consumers’ Attitude and Purchase Intentions

Abstract

This study explores how source attractiveness, source credibility, celebrity-product congruence, and an advertisement affect the consumers’ attitude towards a clothing brand and their purchase intentions. It also aims to find out if using foreign celebrities to endorse a Philippine clothing brand is, indeed, effective, as is perceived by most brands. One theoretical framework that is used is the Meaning Transfer Theory. It shows the movement of cultural meaning into the consumer societies through celebrity endorsers. There are three stages that explain the transfer of meaning: the celebrity, the celebrity to the product, and the product to the consumer. Another theoretical framework is the Source Attributes Theory, which identifies three attributes that influence the receiver’s attitude towards the message and the source: attractiveness, credibility, and power. The conceptual framework is an integration of the two aforementioned theoretical frameworks, but is tailor-fitted to the study. The research is the most focused on the last stage of the Meaning Transfer Theory, where the Source Attributes Theory is found. However, instead of the source power, the celebrity-product congruence is measured, as literature says that it, too, is an attribute. The intervening variable that is used is the advertisement of Adam Levine. Data is collected from 175 respondents through a reliable survey questionnaire, which contains 39 items that are grouped into six: source attractiveness, source credibility, celebrity-product congruence, advertisement, consumers’ attitude towards the brand, and their purchase intentions. The mean and standard deviation of each group of survey items are computed to scale the answers of the respondents. Moreover, each of the results of the first four variables is tested of its correlation with each of the results of the last two variables using Pearson’s r in SPSS. Findings show that only celebrity-product congruence and the advertisement have a strong, positive, and significant relationship with the consumers’ attitude and intent to purchase. Even then, the advertisement must meet several requirements for the consumers to find it likeable. When the data is tested according to sex, almost the same results come out from the male respondents, as findings show that only the advertisement influence their attitude and purchase intentions. For the female respondents, both the celebrity-product congruence and the advertisement influence them significantly. Moreover, the celebrity endorser’s attractiveness and credibility do not contribute the most in affecting the consumers, whether as a whole or according to sex. The celebrity endorser’s being foreign does not have a significant effect, too, contrary to a well-believed hypothesis. Overall, effectiveness is found in using foreign celebrity endorsers if and when there are strong celebrity-product congruence and a likeable advertisement, regardless of the consumers’ sex.