The research in this paper is about the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchase intention: a case of TIKI’s using Ha Anh Tuan (HAT). In spite of potential risks when using celebrity in a marketing plan, the method has developed strongly nowadays due to its impressive benefits. The relation between variables including (1) physical celebrity attractiveness, (2) celebrity popularity, (3) celebrity credibility, (4) celebrity expertise, (5) matchup relevance, (6) multiple endorsement, (7) brand perception, (8) purchase intention were investigated in the literature review and resuls part. In particular, the thesis identifies Vietnam snack industry as contextualization and point out Vietnamese customers for the reason that there are inadequate studies about celebrity endorsement in Vietnam marketing market. To begin, the study provides an analysis about general hypothesis by researching many theories of foregoing researchers. In addition, a quantitative method has been used by conducting a survey with 268 participants to measure the relationship between dependent and independent variables. The findings showed that there is a positive relation between all the independent variables and consumers buying intentions even though some of them were not truly effective. Furthermore, the paper research supports some interesting views by analyzing other results from collected data that have been checked in the conclusion.
ABSTRACT The research in this paper is about the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchase intention: a case of TIKI’s using Ha Anh Tuan (HAT) In spite of potential risks when using celebrity in a marketing plan, the method has developed strongly nowadays due to its impressive benefits The relation between variables including (1) physical celebrity attractiveness, (2) celebrity popularity, (3) celebrity credibility, (4) celebrity expertise, (5) match-up relevance, (6) multiple endorsement, (7) brand perception, (8) purchase intention were investigated in the literature review and resuls part In particular, the thesis identifies Vietnam snack industry as contextualization and point out Vietnamese customers for the reason that there are inadequate studies about celebrity endorsement in Vietnam marketing market To begin, the study provides an analysis about general hypothesis by researching many theories of foregoing researchers In addition, a quantitative method has been used by conducting a survey with 268 participants to measure the relationship between dependent and independent variables The findings showed that there is a positive relation between all the independent variables and consumers buying intentions even though some of them were not truly effective Furthermore, the paper research supports some interesting views by analyzing other results from collected data that have been checked in the conclusion LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS DECLARATION CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 The reason for choosing the topic Until now, when any product is born, in addition to researching and investing for the best product quality, promoting the brand to consumers is also an equally important activity (Todor, 2014) Corporate image, brand value and reputation are proof of the competitiveness of the business Customers when using the brand also feel more proud (Kirmani, 2009) That is why most businesses have to spend a lot of money and effort to invest in brand promotion activities In the competition for good brand recognition and the pursuit of profit, there are many times the press exposes unscrupulous businesses and deceives customers As a result, consumers are increasingly skeptical Consequently, they will think that advertising is never true (Darke and Ritchie, 2007) Besides the growing society, increasing living standards, it is also a time when it is more difficult for consumers to choose to believe in a particular brand or product To promote the brand, marketing managers face a challenge that they must always create different marketing strategies to attract and build trust with customers Every day, consumers are exposed to a variety of different advertisements from brands Marketing and communication magazine AdAge (2021) has shown that customers receive about 3,000 advertising images every day, but in fact only 150 images affect the subconscious of customers, of which 30 are images Images can influence the mind of customers (Giang and Duong, 2018) At this point, an effective marketing strategy is to invest in building brand ambassadors Brand ambassadors have become extremely popular and are also a necessary part of a business' branding strategy, especially big businesses To make a difference, attract and reach more customers, businesses often invite famous stars to be brand ambassadors to promote their products Star faces associated with product images help the public to always remember the brand According to market research firm Millward Brown, more than 15% of advertisements in the US have the appearance of famous people while this figure in India is 24% and Taiwan is up to 45% (Esangbedo, 2011) Son (2013) stated that the presence of celebrities also helps some brands increase sales by up to 20% Marketers need to have a basis to know the real impact of brand ambassadors on customers' purchasing intentions, so that they can make the right decisions in their investment Besides, at the present time, a new way of word-of-mouth marketing strategy, marketing through influencers, has become much more popular According to the statistics of Digital Marketing Institute (2021), 49% of consumers rely on recommendations of influencers and 60% of young consumers trust the advice of more influential figures is a celebrity According to Scott (2015), influencer marketing is a marketing strategy that uses the influence of individuals or leaders to drive consumer brand awareness and purchasing decisions However, the marketing strategy by brand ambassador is no longer effective? In order to be able to partly suggest to businesses in Vietnam easier in choosing effective branding strategies, which can bring their brands to the world, develop the country's economy , the group of authors conducted a research on the topic "The impacts of celebrity endorsements on customer's perception and brand image in Vietnam - a case study about Ha Anh Tuan endorses TIKI brand" 1.2 Objectives of the study - To test the relationship between well-known endorsers and customer-based brand equity - To provide directional management implications for businesses to enhance brand value in the Vietnamese market 1.3 Research subjects The research focuses on famous endorsers and customer-based brand value 1.4 Research scope The study is limited to HCMC on the relationship between celebrity endorsers and customer-based brand equity Survey object: consumers in HCMC market Data source: The study uses primary data source by direct consumer survey method with designed questionnaire 1.5 Research Methods The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods: - Qualitative method: using the method of interviewing the survey subjects and using exploratory interviewing and group discussion techniques to identify, calibrate, and build a formal survey questionnaire - Quantitative method: collect data by distributing questionnaires directly to survey subjects by sampling method The data obtained after the survey were processed using SPSS 20 software 1.6 Research structure There are chapters in this research as follows: CHAPTER INTRODUCTION CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW CHAPTER METHODOLOGY CHAPTER RESEARCH RESULTS AND DISCUSSION CHAPTER CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Identity and brand consumption In Marketing Management, Keller and Kotler have defined that customerbased brand equity, an added value for services and products, is controlled by consumers This definition normally displays customers’ opinions, feelings, beliefs and actions, which are linked to the brand (Kotler et al 2012, 243) It means that the more supportive the consumers are, the more positive the customer-based brand equity is For marketers, hence, developing customer-based brand equity is believed as a considerable challenge, since it expects the brand to achieve the customers’ requests Building customer-based brand equity drives marketers establishing brand resonance model According to Keller and Kotler, this model, which presents the process of customer loyalty creation, consists of six brand building blocks: salience, performance, imagery, judgments, feelings, and resonance (Kotler et al 2012, 249) These building blocks are constructed based on the four stages of brand development, corresponding a set of essential questions that the consumers would ask about the brand Beginning with ‘brand identity’, it is important for the brand to build brand salience with customers Brand salience demonstrates the competence for purchasers to remember a brand, including how often and how easily for them to remind of the brand (Kotler et al 2012, 248) This measurement refers to the brand awareness in the consumers’ perceptions, concluding brand logo, name, and symbol For example, the logo of Starbucks declares that the product category of this brand is coffee Brand performance and brand imagery are constructed for the second stage of brand development, ‘meaning’ While brand performance is how the products or services meets consumers’ functional demands, brand imagery specifies “the extrinsic properties” to psychological needs of customers (Kotler et al 2012, 248) Simply, brand performance focuses on the brand’s tangible features, such as style, design, or price; and brand imagery focuses on the intangible components of the brand, like history, experiences, and values Red Bull’s marketing strategy, to illustrate, is the one which meets both brand performance and brand imagery Besides using visually appealing videos and images, claiming the brand performance, Red Bull focuses on its tagline and core value “Red Bull gives you wings” in its campaigns to meet customers' needs in brand imagery (Bergstrom 2017) In the third brand development stage, ‘response’, brand judgments illustrate the individual opinions of clients, for example, quality or credibility; whilst brand feelings describe the consumers’ reactions, like warmth or excitement (Kotler et al 2012, 249) The last building block, brand resonance is the required action in the final step of developing customers loyalty This block defines the relationship of consumers towards to the brand, as well as “the extent to which they feel they’re “in sync” with it” (Kotler et al 2012, 249) Some examples of brand resonance are customers loyalty and engagement 2.2 Celebrity endorsement Due to the development of social media, influencer marketing is not an unfamiliar definition today Utilizing endorsements from influencers, this marketing method is established based on the trustworthiness of the influencers, which means the more trusted the influencer is, the more credibility the products are (Chen 2019) It is believed that influencer marketing is the new word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing method in the digital era This new method WoM includes three key actors: the brand, the audience, and the influencer In an influencer marketing process, the influencers, like celebrities or key opinion leaders (KOLs), are invited to collaborate with the brand, in order to deliver the brand’s message to the target market Besides the message from the brand, influencers drive the image and the value of the brand in the customers’ perceptions, hence increasing the consumer loyalty There are three significant examples of the collaboration of Tiki with the mega influencer, the macro one and the micro influencer The mega influencer, according to Brown, is someone who has at least a million followers on social media (Brown 2019) For illustration, Min, a Vietnamese singer, is known as a mega influencer, since she has an estimated 1.4 million followers on Instagram Having a large number of followers, the collaboration with the mega influencer could reach the largest possible number of audiences Thus, campaigns with this kind of influencers mightrequire more money than the original price Macro influencers are the ones having from 100.000 to a million followers on social media (Brown 2019) As an example, the male singer Lou Hoang is considered as a macro influencer, as his audience size is about 199 thousand followers on Instagram Because the audience size of this kind of an influencer is smaller than the mega influencers’ ones, the expenses for the macro influencers are lower than the payments for the mega influencers Persons obtaining from an audience of 1.000 to 100.000 on social network are recognized as micro influencers (Brown 2019) Each kind of an influencer has its significant advantage, for example, the nano and the micro influencers possess high engagement and credibility from their followers without costing a high expense, due to their gained relatability with their followers The macro influencers usually reach in specific markets, with a large volume of targeted audiences The mega influencers, who are usually famous people owning a huge number of followers, could productively raise brand awareness by their “explosive reach” and “halo effect” It means that their voices could reach the furthest audiences, while driving followers to trust the brand by utilizing their popularities However, these advantages could also be considered as a disadvantage for the mega influencer; since holding these exclusive advantages generally leads to an expensive payment in order to invite a mega influencer to participate in a brand’s campaign, and this can be too expensive for many brands (Influicity 2018) 2.3 Dimensions of celebrity endorsements 2.3.1 Famous endorsements Brand ambassadors or brand representatives are a popular marketing strategy to attract customers Brand ambassadors will represent wants and needs and are easily accepted by consumers They will be mascots, 10