Global footwear and apparel industry Assignment Sample

Research problem

The prime research problem, in this case, reflects the attributes of celebrity endorsement that can provide profound positive implications to influence consumer perception. The footwear and apparel industrial players are noted to put a profound focus on celebrity endorsement that has been creating attractive brand image and thereby positively transforming consumer behaviour and perception. In this regard, the problem statement of this research emphasizes on evaluating existing interrelation between celebrity endorsement and consumer perception that can ensure organisational growth to a fair extent.

Context

The context of the global footwear and apparel industry can be highlighted in this concern that has been encouraging celebrity endorsement to a large extent. For evidence, the context of renowned industrial players like Nike and others can be highlighted where a celebrity endorsement has been positively implicated with the brand performance. Nike approached Michael Jordan for celebrity endorsement, which added a greater value to their products accountability in the market (Badenhausen, 2020).

Justification and rationale

The footwear and apparel sector can be noticed to put a profound focus on celebrity endorsement as an integral part of their promotional strategy in the market. The consequences of celebrity endorsement have largely been implicated with the market standings of Nike (Putra and Ningrum, 2019).

Extended celebrity endorsement strategy eventually added a greater value to the organisational brand recognition. The aforementioned figure has been highlighting the gradual stability of the organisational brand value throughout the global market in the recent past (Tighe, 2021). It reflects positive attributes of sales growth and revenue generation from the perspective of Nike where a subsequent contribution can be assumed from celebrity endorsement strategy.

On the other hand, other respective industrial player like Adidas is also noticed to follow this strategy (Wuisan et al. 2020). It has also been positively implicated in their financial performance growth and enhancement. From this viewpoint, the consequences of celebrity endorsement can be interpreted as a profound promotional strategy, which can positively influence consumer purchasing decisions and behaviour to a fair extent.

Impact of celebrity endorsement on customer perception

Celebrity endorsement can be referred to as the marketing strategy used by various companies with the purpose of advertising a product by using single or multiple celebrities. The sole purpose of using celebrities in the advertisement is to reach a wider range of consumers with the fan base of the celebrities (Osei-Frimpong et al. 2019). Often, it can be witnessed that an individual is getting intrigued into purchasing a certain product, as the individual’s favourite celebrity on the television or social media sites is advertising it. Consumer’s perception regarding the companies tends to grow and in addition to that, their trust and sympathy towards the brand increases when they watch certain products being advertised by the celebrities that they relate to. Celebrities play a major role in the lives of consumers as they can relate themselves with the celebrities. Furthermore, people often are driven by emotions, which have been analysed by the companies that they use for increasing the profitability of the organisations. Celebrity endorsement is preferred by the companies for endorsing their products on various channels in order to get them sold and thereby increase brand loyalty (Gupta et al. 2020). It needs to be said that apart from just hearing an advertisement, a clear presentation about the relevance of the products from the celebrities put a direct impact on the minds of people. People tend to have a perception as if the celebrities are themselves using those products and making people aware for its benefits so that consumers can also benefit from them. In this manner, the perceptions of the consumers are tricked into purchasing the products. However, aside from just celebrity endorsements, it needs to be said that companies need to focus towards spreading or boosting awareness of the companies through digital mediums such as Facebook, Instagram and others for reaching a wider range of consumers. Different aspects need to be considered for making the marketing proposition of the company successful.

Therefore, it can be stated that celebrity endorsements are gaining a humongous impact over the consumer perception, as some of them are role models for the customers. As reflected by Ahuja (2021), most of the organisations are exploiting this segment of marketing as the popularity of entertainment sectors are growing among the consumers, which are directly influencing the consumer’s mind and preferences. It is the sense of trust, loyalty, awareness and even faith, which are the major driver of celebrity endorsements that are rapidly influencing consumers.

Factors influencing companies to consider celebrity endorsement

Celebrity endorsements are used as an effective marketing strategy of the companies due to various reasons. Primarily, the companies find it relevant to use celebrity endorsement due to several factors. One of the major factors is that the messages that the companies want to bring forth to the consumers can be done with ease (Zeren and Kapukaya, 2021). Furthermore, companies that are not renowned largely tend to use celebrity endorsement more due to their huge extent of fan base. Furthermore, consumer purchasing behaviour and perception towards the company can be brought forward, which can alternatively increase brand awareness, loyalty of the customers and profitability. Additionally, factors like exposing the companies to a brand new market, driving consumer-purchasing intention and building credibility can be done through celebrity endorsements (Amitay et al. 2020). Famous people tend to have an ability to drive or influence people to a certain extent.

Even though there are similar ways of marketing, which is termed as influencer marketing, is also gaining popularity but celebrity endorsement will always be the top priority for the organisation when it comes to increasing their brand loyalty. As mentioned by Marliawati and Cahyaningdyah(2020), it is true that, in order to be efficient with gaining brand loyalty, there are significant other practices such as offering premium quality products, providing the best customer experiences are the one, which can rapidly drive customer perception. However, when it comes to being attractive and giving face to the brand, celebrities are the only advertisement strategies that will represent the brand successfully in the marketplace.

Impulse buying behaviour theory 

Impulse buying behaviour can be defined as the sudden intriguing desire within the consumer towards purchasing a product or service. Companies tend to analyse this nature of the people and accordingly strategise their marketing in order to get the products sold through impulsive actions of the consumers to a certain extent.

From the above image, four categories of impulse buying behaviour can be witnessed. However, in the case of celebrity endorsements, external stimuli are addressed more than the others. Major portion of profits of the companies generate from impulsive purchasing, which is done by celebrity endorsements. Marketing strategies of companies in Hollywood, luxury brands and others, typically study the trends of the market and accordingly endorse products by celebrities in social media sites, television and others for getting the customer to purchase their products (Chen et al. 2021). Furthermore, in terms of sports companies as well, they tend to use celebrities known for their sports career and use them to endorse their products for gaining a wider attention of people and increase revenues through sales.

Literature gap

In context to the present literature review section, one of the greatest barriers, which has come up during this study was the subscription issues in different secondary data sources. This aspect has limited the research outcomes to some extent. Moreover, the literature has not discussed the context of relational challenges associated with celebrity endorsement that has also been a limitation.

·       How celebrity endorsement strategy can influence consumer perception in the apparel and footwear industry?

The research objectives include-

·       To highlight the significance of celebrity endorsement in the footwear and apparel industrial business promotion

·       To signify the factors influencing respective footwear companies to considered celebrity endorsement

·       To critically evaluate the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer perception and behaviour concerning the footwear and apparel sector

Hypotheses

H0: Celebrity endorsement provides negative impact on consumer perception and business performance.

H1: Celebrity endorsement provides positive impact on consumer perception and business performance.

The researcher has thought about conducting the research based on primary qualitative and secondary qualitative methods. Therefore, the collection of the information will be obtained from primary interview and secondary sources (Mkandawire, 2019). In terms of primary interview, a simple random sampling technique will be framed, which will allow the researcher to take interviews of 12 managers of Nike who prefer celebrity endorsement. Relevant participant information form will be provided with a consent form that will be signed by each interview participants. Furthermore, in case of secondary sources all the authentic online websites, newspaper articles, journals will be undertaken, which will be analysed through thematic data analysis, supporting through statistics and figures (Belotto, 2018).

Ethical issues

In terms of ethical consideration, all of the ethical guidelines of Data Protection Act 2018 have been followed along with taking special care of information, which has been produced through the interview (Gov, 2018). Moreover, one of the ethical issues, which might come up while structuring the research will be data breaches, which are significantly being measured by taking all of the data at the university drive with a strong passcode. Moreover, all of the information collected will be deleted after completion of the research paper.

Table 1: Research timeline

Badenhausen, K., 2020. Michael Jordan Has Made Over $1 Billion From Nike — The Biggest Endorsement Bargain In Sports. [Online]. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2020/05/03/michael-jordans-1-billion-nike-endorsement-is-the-biggest-bargain-in-sports/?sh=65fc94546136> [Accessed 3 March 2022]

Belotto, M.J., 2018. Data analysis methods for qualitative research: Managing the challenges of coding, interrater reliability, and thematic analysis. Qualitative Report, 23(11).

Bloomfield, J. and Fisher, M.J., 2019. Quantitative research design. Journal of the Australasian Rehabilitation Nurses Association, 22(2), pp.27-30.

Chen, M., Xie, Z., Zhang, J. and Li, Y., 2021. Internet celebrities’ impact on luxury fashion impulse buying. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 16(6), pp.2470-2489.

Gov, 2018. Data Protection Act 2018. [Online] Available at: <https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted> [Accessed on 4 March2022]

Gupta, V., Tyagi, P., Siddiquei, M. and Sharma, G., 2020. Does Celebrity Endorsement Extend Brand Loyalty?.Int. J. Adv. Sci. Technol, pp.7674-7684.

Marliawati, A. and Cahyaningdyah, D., 2020. Impacts the brand of experience and brand image on brand loyalty: Mediators brand of trust. Management Analysis Journal, 9(2), pp.140-151.

Mkandawire, S.B., 2019. Selected common methods and tools for data collection in research. Selected Readings in Education, 2, pp.143-153.

Osei-Frimpong, K., Donkor, G. and Owusu-Frimpong, N., 2019. The impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchase intention: An emerging market perspective. Journal of marketing theory and practice, 27(1), pp.103-121.

Ryan, G., 2018. Introduction to positivism, interpretivism and critical theory. Nurse researcher, 25(4), pp.41-49.

Tighe, D., 2021. Brand value of the sports company Nike worldwide from 2016 to 2021 [Online]. Available at: <https://www.statista.com/statistics/632210/nike-brand-value/> [Accessed 3 March 2022]

Wardani, S. and Kusuma, I.W., 2020. Comparison of Learning in Inductive and Deductive Approach to Increase Student’s Conceptual Understanding based on International Standard Curriculum. Jurnal Pendidikan IPA Indonesia, 9(1), pp.70-78.

Zeren, D. and Kapukaya, N., 2021. Whose voice is louder? Influencer and celebrity endorsement on Instagram. ÖmerHalisdemirÜniversitesiİktisadiveİdariBilimlerFakültesiDergisi, 14(3), pp.1038-1050.

Wuisan, D., Kananda, I.L., Saputra, M.A. and Dinata, M.R., 2020. The Effect of Celebrity Endorsement on Purchase Intention of Adidas Products Mediated by Customer’s Attitude Toward Brand. In Conference Series (Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 525-533).

Putra, P.Y. and Ningrum, S., 2019, February. The Influence of Celebrity Endorser, Brand Image, and Brand Trust on Consumer Purchasing Decisions of Nike Brand Sport Shoes In Surabaya. In Journal of World Conference (JWC) (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 208-218).

Amitay, Y., Tj, H.W. and Wahyoedi, S., 2020, June. The Impact of Celebgram Endorsement on Purchase Intention: The Mediating Effects of Customer Attitude and Brand Awareness. In 8th International Conference of Entrepreneurship and Business Management Untar (ICEBM 2019) (pp. 478-484). Atlantis Press.