Role of culture in celebrity endorsement: brand endorsement by celebrities in the Indian context

Abstract

Celebrity endorsement is a big market in India and continues to grow bigger. However, in spite of prevalent use of celebrities for endorsement, not all celebrity endorsements have been successful. The list of unsuccessful examples suggest that it will be wrong to consider celebrity endorsement as an effective response to media clutter in all situations inspite of the intensity of involvement people have with celebrities in India. In the absence of existing celebrity endorsement theories to satisfactorily explain the phenomenon in India, this paper uses the lens of culture to develop propositions on how consumer attitude towards celebrity endorsements is a function of cultural parameters in emerging countries like India. We build our argument by using culture to explain the congruence between celebrity and consumers for elaborating celebrity endorsement in Indian markets.