UNIVERSITI MALAYSIA SABAH-LABUAN INTERNATIONAL CAMPUS

SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS AND FINANCE

SEMESTER 1 (SESSION 2012/2013)

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

GC30503: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN INTERNATIONAL MARKETING

TOPIC: IMPACT OF CELEBRITY ADVERTISEMENT ON CUSTOMER BRAND PERCEPTION AND PURCHASE INTENTION IN MALAYSIA

LECTURER: ASSOC. PROF. DR. NORAZAH MOHD SUKI

NAME MATRIC NO. SIGNATURE

CHOW HOY SENG BG10110061

NGOOI ZHUANG YI (REGINA) BG10160585

SHIRLEY TEE BG10110469

THOO WENG SENG BG10110528

Impact of Celebrity Advertisement on Customer Brand Perception and Purchase Intention in Malaysia

Structured Abstract:

Purpose – The purpose of this research paper is to analyze the impact of celebrity advertisement on customer brand perception and purchase intention in Malaysia. The present research also explores the acknowledgement and the affect of celebrity endorsement advertisement to the perceived and purchase intention of customer in the current context while celebrity endorser advertisement is develop rapidly in every country.Design/methodology/approach – This paper reviews the theory of celebrity endorsement to identify how customers are perceived to an advertisement endorse by celebrity. It also reports the results of a respondent survey on celebrity advertisement by using the method of questionnaire. The survey questionnaires were distributed to 250 respondents from the student of University Malaysia Sabah Labuan International Campus, staff, lecturer and the citizen of Labuan, Malaysia. The questionnaires were processed and analyzed with the statistical programmed of SPSS version 18, using the method of descriptive, correlation, reliability, hierarchical regression analysis.Findings – The findings provide some interesting thread regarding customers’ perceptions on the affect of celebrity advertisement and purchase pattern. Further findings suggest that most consumers have showed that the celebrity advertisement will affect them in the purchase behavior and they are strongly agreed of the influence of celebrity advertisement. Hence, business executives should foster and develop the image and credibility of the celebrity to retain the customer. Results also indicated an overall positive correlation between effective of celebrity advertisement and customers purchasing intention of the brand perception. Practical implications – The paper suggests the important of uses celebrities’ endorsement on how the way to influence the mindset of the target audient. This is beneficial to the advertiser to identify which attribute of the celebrities could bring the greater impact to the target customer. The results also offer precious knowledge on the effectiveness of endorser advertising which can implicate the enterprises to create and develop the better concept of advertisement which attracted by customers.Originality/value – Although celebrity endorsement has been an interesting research topic for the advertising and marketing field, is difficult for examine on the definite impact of the celebrity to the customer perception. Due to the various context of culture and believe in the country, exist of various perception and is hard to indentified without any bias. This paper has analysed the most of the common attribute from the celebrities that bring the impact to customer to influence their attitude to the brand even on the purchase behavior.Keywords Malaysia, Celebrity advertisement, Customer perception, Purchase intention, Labuan society, Celebrity endorsement

Introduction

The new era and high technology of modern world flourish with many ways and techniques to help the marketer to market and promote their products. The most direct and effective way to promote and receive the high attention from consumer is advertisement. Advertisement can be distributed through different ways mainly from media mass included TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, poster, billboard even though the public transportation such as bus, rail, taxi and the building also be the target of publishing the advertisement. But with the

notion and the new generation creativity, people tend to come out a bunch of idea in the advertisement. As is mentioned, advertising with celebrity’s endorsement is one popular way of advertising to enhance their brand (Ohanian, 1991). Thus, celebrity advertisement is arisen as a tactics which can draw consumer attraction and be impressive.

Celebrity advertisement is something where marketers have to hire some celebrities who are the people very persuasive and recognised by the public with their outstanding characteristic and special skill to affect the society to agree and accept with their statement or announcement (McCracken, 1989). Due to the word and deeds of the celebrities, the societies always keep a watchful eye on them, so, the celebrities have to foster a good image to match with the company condition. The celebrities can be actor/ actress, model, athlete and mostly come from entertainment industry. Celebrity advertisement lead to the perceived value of the product and that perceived value of the product leads to the purchase intention. Customer purchasing are always influence by the surrounding factor, those include pricing, promotional, placing, and also people. Therefore, celebrity plays an important role to affect the customer’s intention to purchase the product.

When the marketers know how powerful the celebrity advertisement impact to the consumers, there are plenty of tensions and pressures that impose on the advertisers for achieving to the firm’s financial objectives (Ferle & Choi, 2005). Therefore, the celebrity advertisement would be selective with the celebrity endorsers since they are famous and well known by the consumers to be representative for the brand of the product or services. This action let the consumer recall about that particular brand and carry out the more trusty toward the brand to let the customer more strongly positive attitude and the purchase intention to the brand perception, also to the product and service.

In Malaysia, there are approximately 21 million people, with three main ethnic groups, it come with multi-languages and a number of religions being practiced. Celebrity endorsements in advertisement also play the part of important role in the Malaysian market. Production of the celebrity advertisement in Malaysia is very restricted and faced with a lot of barrier because Malaysia is still considered as a conservative country and under surveillance of Islamic control system even though Malaysia is a multicultural society. Malaysia’s society is unable to adopt those celebrities from western country to perform daring, sexy and sensitive elements in the advertisement. Hence, these become a concern for marketer when entering the market as the legal restriction and limitation of culture (Shao & Waller, 1993).

The purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of the celebrity’s endorsement in the advertisement to the company brand image and the consumer perceptions to the product through convey the customer to purchase the product in Malaysia. This will benefit to the further research of the effectiveness endorser on the marketing communication study.

Literature Review

The study in the literature review discusses about the celebrities endorser, with consist of celebrity’s credibility and product/brand congruency, the perceptions of the customer toward the advertisement and brand, and purchase intention.

Celebrities Endorser

Celebrities’ endorsement has become one of the most popular and influential in the merchandise advertisement. Endorser advertisement has brought the positive effects on customer purchasing behaviour and perception toward the endorsed product and brand(Bower & Landreth, 2001; Lafferty, Goldsmith & Newell, 2002). Hunter (2008) argued that the celebrities endorse bring negative effect toward the brand. If the celebrities have brought out the negative information, this causes to negative attitude towards the brands. According to the Pandey (2012) stated that the young generation in nowadays are tend to buy the product through that media especially on television and satellite channels affected the lifestyle of individuals. Customers are preferred to purchase expensive or complex product which were recommence by the expert or professional celebrities rather than typical customers. These showed customers are more confident to the glamour celebrity.

Gan (2006) stated that Chinese customers more in preferring celebrity in commercial world as endorser. One of the researcher Neha (2005) also support that a well-known celebrity directly effect to the customer perception toward certain product. Zahid, Jainthy and Samsinar (2002) had showed that attractiveness of the celebrity help to enhance the product in an advertisement. Therefore, the relationship between the celebrity endorsements and brands perception is depending on how the endorser influence consumers’ brand attitudes and preferences (Schlecht, 2003).

Celebrity Credibility

Celebrities are often viewed as the credibility sources toward a product or brand they endorse (Goldsmith, Lafferty, & Newell, 2000). In the definition of celebrity credibility, Ohanian (1991) defined that ‘a communicator’s positive characteristics that affect the receiver’s acceptance of a message’. In term to create a positive characteristics, and effective message, it is dependable on the expertise and trustworthiness of an endorser and communicator (Erdogan, 1999). In the pass of the research, source of credibility also refer to the perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the product (Methaq & Nabsiah,2012). Whereas, some of the researches argued that source credibility consist of three dimensions which is perceived expertise, trustworthiness and also attractiveness (Ohanian, 1990).

Expertise

Expertise is also known as the perceived validity of a messenger or communicator’s assertions and knowledge (Erdogan, 1999; Ohanian, 1990). Ohanian (1990) suggests that, the product-related knowledge was final measure of the endorser’s expertise. In 1991, Ohanian also mentioned that, the true expertise of an endorser may not be related to the product, the knowledgeable of the endorser be the main role influence consumer instead of real expertise. Some of the research also found that a well knowledgeable endorse bring out persuasive effect to consumer to buy the product (Bardia, Abed & Majid, 2011). In the other words, Erdogan (1999) also agree that a knowledgeable celebrity affect the consumer to have positive perception toward the brand. Therefore, most of the endorser even though with a less significant product expertise but with their knowledge and profession is always related to the product, such as Lin Dan who is endorser for Li-Ning Badminton Racquet and Dato Lee Chong Wei who is endorser for Yonex Badminton Racquect. These advertisements are

bringing the persuasive effect to the consumers as the endorser has the great achievement in the particular sport by using the sport product.

Trustworthiness

Trustworthiness is defined as the good faith and veracity of the celebrities’ endorser in the view from the customer (Erdogan 1999). Ohanian (1990) also have mentioned trustworthiness is the most effective and useful ways to convince the customer with their higher level of confident. In 1997, Shimp found that most of the advertisers were preferable to choose celebrities with characteristics of higher trustworthiness and honesty. This is also relevant with the research from Smith said that consumer was feel disgusted with the dishonest celebrities since consumer doubt on the message bring from the endorser to be credible or not. Sirdeshmukh, Singh, and Sabol (2002) found that good faith of celebrities can bring positive effect to customer’s value perceptions and further affect the purchase choice (Erdem & Swait, 2004). Therefore, this finding have create the awareness on the trust relationship between the customer’s and endorser is very important when deliver the message from an advertisement.

Attractiveness

According to Ohanian (1990) the source of attractiveness has brought the perception of credibility which is derived from the similarity and familiarity celebrity’s endorser. Therefore, if consumers feel that celebrities have the familiarity and similarity with them, they found that the celebrities tend to become more attractive to them. Attractiveness has played a vital role for a successful celebrity’s endorsement. Some researchers found that physical attractiveness always be first judgment for an individual to another person (Bardia et al., 2011) and can be described as the physical and facial image (Morrow,1990). Some researchers argued that, physical attractiveness is determined by the characteristics and attribute (Langlois, Kalakanis, Rubenstien, Larson, Hallam & Smoot, 2000). Apart from that, some authors mentioned effectiveness of an advertisement could enhance by the physical attractiveness of the celebrities (Till & Busler, 2000). Instead of effectiveness of advertisement, brand perception image can be significantly enhanced by the endorser’s attractiveness (Bardia et al., 2011). Hence, this study has leaded to the hypothesis of:

H1.1: Attractiveness of endorser credibility has direct and positive relationship with (Ab).H1.2: Trustworthiness of endorser credibility has direct and positive relationship with (Ab).H1.3: Expertise of endorser credibility has direct and positive relationship with (Ab).

Brand Congruency

Brand Congruency is refers to harmony match between the celebrities and the endorsed product. (Till & Busler, 2000). According to Misra and Beatty (1990), the congruency between the celebrity and brand is depending on the degree of ‘match up’ between celebrity and the endorser brand. If the celebrity is match-up with the product, it creates a high level of believability (Kotler, 1997). Therefore, the celebrity and product match up were the determinant for the endorsement advertisement (Erdogan & Baker, 2000; Till & Busler, 2000; Batra & Homer, 2004). Whereas, Till and Busler (2000) argued that, celebrities/product math-up was only effective in certain measure such as brand attitude but

to measure purchase intention is not effective. Yet some of the researches have emphasized that the fact of familiarity of the celebrities and product have significant influence on the customer’s attitude toward the purchase decision and brand. Hence, this study has leaded to the hypothesis of:

H2: Product congruency has direct and positive relationship with attitude toward Brand (Ab).

Customer Attitude

Attitude is defined as “relatively global and enduring evaluation of an object, issue, person, or action” ( Hoye & MacInnis, 1997). Oskamp (1999) also states that, attitude is often considered relatively stable for consumer behaviour in certain way and is very useful to predict consumer behaviour toward a product. Present studied, many of researchers were referred on attitude toward advertisement (Aad) and attitude toward brand (Ab).Attitude toward brand (Ab) is referred to the favourable and unfavourable response of consumer toward a brand after viewed the advertisement (Phelps & Hoy, 1996). In other words, when consumer like with the advertisement and this affect he/she have a positive attitude toward the brand. Customer attitudes toward brand have significant effect on consumer’s purchase intention (Goldsmith, Lafferty & Newell, (2000). Fournier (1998) found that if a brand meets consumers’ want, consumers have the physiological affect that to maintain loyalty with the brand and increasing their willingness to purchase the product. Hence, this study has leaded to the hypothesis of:

H3: There is a significant and positive relationship between attitude toward Brand (Ab) and Purchase Intention (PI).

Purchase Intention

Purchase intention can be defined as the possibility of customer and consumer’s willingness is to buy a product (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000). Customers were based on their purchasing experience, brand preference and external factor to make the decision on purchasing (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2000; Yang, 2009). Yang (2009) stated that an advertising endorser with high credibility can attract consumers in a short time and increase purchase intention. Laroche, Kim, and Muller (1996) also agreed that advertising endorser changes consumer preference and create willingness to purchase. Furthermore, consumers’ brand attitude and purchase intention was increase if a product has higher similarity and familiarity (Kamins & Marks, 1991). Therefore, customer perception toward the brand image plays important role to influence the chance of customer to purchase the product itself and predict their purchase intention.

Theoretical Framework below showed that the influence of the endorser credibility and brand/product congruency affect on the customer attitude toward the brand and purchase intention.

Methodology

Research methodology involves the research methods and a review of the logic and thoughts behind the methods. Data collection comprises of primary data and secondary data. The primary data has been collected through questionnaires and secondary data from related journals and publications. The questionnaire was based on the initial research model and propositions. Primary data were collected through questionnaire survey. The sample instrument of the study was focused on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in Labuan, Malaysia. The survey was conducted in Labuan and the sample was chosen from the different level person which as the respondents. By using the non-probability of convenient sampling technique, a total of 250 questionnaires were distributed and respondent requested to filled out these questionnaire in self-administration way. There were 3 sections in the questionnaire and 27-items in all for measure the relationship of celebrities’ endorsement on the customer brand perceptions and purchase intention. In the section of questionnaire: section A is requiring respondent to fill up the profile portfolio, section B is to fill up on the experience on the frequency of contact with advertisement and the last section C is require respondent to filled up question with the variables that related with the perception on the celebrities, attitude toward the advertisement and brand, and the purchase intention. There were 32-items in the section C: 4 items for the physical attractiveness of the celebrity, 5 items for the trustworthiness of the celebrity (Newell & Goldsmith, 2001), 5 items for the celebrity’s expertise (Goldsmith et al., 1999), and 5 items for the product / brand congruency (Qurat & Mahira, 2012), 5 items for attitude toward the advertisement (Aad) (Goldsmith et al., 2002), 5 items for attitude toward the brand (Ab) (Goldsmith et al., 2002), and 3 items for the purchase intention (PI) (Goldsmith et al., 2002). Semantic differential scale was use for data collection of the physical attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise items. The respondent is asked to

Celebrity Credibility

H1.1

H1.2

H1.3

Attractiveness

Trustworthiness

Expertise

Brand Congruency

Attitude toward Brand

Purchase Intention

H2

H3

Figure 1: Theoretical Framework

choose where his or her position lies, on a 1-5 scale between two bipolar words. A five-point Likert scale (Likert, 1932) was used for data collection with “1” being “strongly agree” and “5” being “strongly disagree”. The data analyze were used for this study by SPSS 18. Hierarchical regression analysis was carried out in order to test the hypothesis in this research. This method allows in testing for the moderating effects from the control variables and independent variable (Sharma, Durand & Gur-Arie, 1981). Gender, age and qualification from the demographic respondents are used as the control variables in the hypothesis testing.

Data Analysis

The target respondents of the present study are the people who stay in Labuan, Malaysia. In the part of demographic respondent of the sample in Table 1.1 it is shown that, the frequency of male respondent are approximately 47.2 percent and females are 52.8 percent among the 200 numbers of respondents. For the age distribution as is shown in Table 1.2, most of respondents are fall in the categories between the age group of 18-29 which is 68.4 percent, showing that respondents in the sample are young in age and most of the samples are students. 18.8 percent of the samples are fallen into the age group of 30-39, 10.4 percent of the sample are fall in the age group of 40-49. For the least number of age group distributions are 50-59 which have only 6 numbers of respondents (2.4%) taken as the samples of the study. With respect to Table 1.3 most of the respondent’s occupations selected in the study are students consisting of 152 numbers of respondents among the 250 numbers of samples, with approximately 60.8 per cent of the respondents. Senior management and middle management categories in the samples are 6.0 percent and 10.4 percent respectively. For the government and skilled/semi skilled were also consist of 6.8 percent and 4.4 percent. The least group of the occupation in the samples are the professional level and retired, which only have 5 numbers and 4 numbers of the respondent been choose in the sample. With respect to the qualification of the education level, Table 1.4 shows that the frequency of the high school or equivalency level are the most high with is 184 numbers of respondent, approximately 72.0 percent. Followed by the respondents of Bachelor’s Degree consist of 16.8 percent of the entire sample. The least respondent education groups are Master Degree level and below high school which only has then 15 and 13 numbers of the respondents with respectively.

Table 1: Demographic Profile of Respondents Demographic Frequency Percent (%)Gender Male

Female118132

47.252.8

Age 18-2930-3940-4950-59

17147266

68.418.810.42.4

Occupation ProfessionalSenior ManagementMiddle ManagementAdministrationGovernmentSkilled/Semi SkilledStudentRetired

515262017111524

2.06.010.48.06.84.460.81.6

Qualification Below High SchoolHigh school or equivalencyBachelor's DegreeMaster Degree

131804215

5.272.016.86.0

Consumers Experiences on Advertising Media

For the data analysis of the experiences of the respondent on advertising media, descriptive analysis was used to compute the frequency of the respondents data in their experience on using the advertising media. From the total of 250 of respondents, 34.8 percent of the respondents found that television is the most popular medium of media of attention and followed by the print media which have 26.8 percent of the respondents. Whereas for the radio and word of mouth have approximately of 23.2 percent and 15.2 percent. For the enduring period of impact through the advertisement, the most of the numbers of respondent choose the range of 1 day to 3 days which is out of 43.2 percent from the respondent. However there is also some number of the respondent that does have remained the advertising impact after 7 days which is around 13.6 percent of the respondent. The next analysis is on the time spend on watching television per day, the most frequent of the number ranges from 1 hour to 2 hours which is 91 numbers out of the 250 respondents. However there is also having the number of respondent that to spend the watching time more than 5 hours with approximate 14.4 percent of the sample. And last for the descriptive analysis we do computed is the frequency listens to radio in a week, from the respondent, we found that , most of the respondent were willing spend about 2 days to 4 days in a week on listen the radio. However there is also a minimum of the respondent that willing to spend more than 6 days in a week to listen the radio.

Table 2: Experience on the Advertising MediaExperience Frequency Percent (%)Medium Print

RadioTelevisionWord of mouth

67588738

26.823.234.815.2

Enduring Less than 24 hours1-3 days4-7daysMore than 7 days

591084934

23.643.219.613.6

Time Less than 1 hour1-2 hours3-5 hoursMore than 5 hours

63906136

25.236.024.414.4

Frequency Less than 2 days2-4 days4-6 daysMore than 6 days

59945542

23.637.622.016.8

Reliability Analysis

After the descriptive analysis was run on the demographic respondent and part B of the questionnaire item, the reliability analysis was performed in order to determine the items in the questionnaire are consistently reflect to the construct (Field, 2005). According to Hair et al. (2006) reliability is mostly measured by internal consistency of the scale and Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to measure the internal consistency of scale. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient ranges from 0.0 to 1.0, with a high internal consistency having a Cronbach’s alpha value close to 1. According to Skaran (2003) a Cronbach’s alpha more than 0.8 is considered well, 0.7 is till acceptable and 0.6 is considered low internal consistency.

From the result of the reliability test, Cronbach’s alpha of the overall variables is considered as acceptable, because the Cronbach’s value is more than 0.7. Table 1.3 shows the result of the Cronbach alpha from all of variables item. For the independent variable of the Physical Attractiveness items (Table), the Cronbach’s alpha value is 0.775 and the value is acceptable as consistent. For the trustworthiness of variable, the value of Cronbach’s alpha is 0.786 which is considered as good having nearly to 0.8. The reliability statistics of expertise variable with the Cronbach alpha value of 0.750 and is considered acceptable. For the Cronbach’s alpha of brand congruency is 0.779, the value is acceptable as the value is nearly to 0.8. For the reliability statistic of attitude toward brand (Ab) the Cronbach’s alpha value is 0.790, this variable is considered as consistent and reliable to be measured because the value is the most near to 0.8. The last reliability test is performed on the dependent variable based on purchase intention, Table 1.3 shows that the Cronbach’s Alpha value is 0.769 and this variable is considered as good reliable.

Table 3 Reliability Statistics

Correlation Analysis

Correlation analysis was computed to determine the level and the direction of the relationship between the variables. Table 1.4 shows the correlation analysis the relationship between that independent variables and dependant variables. Most of the correlations among the study variables are significant at the 0.05 and 0.01 level. The correlations among the study variables all of the variables are positive relationship with each of the other variables and some of relationship is consider strong. According to the Cohen (1988) suggested guidelines, the strong relationship is determined when the r value is equal to 0.5 to 1.0 or -0.5 to -1.0. From the result of the correlations analysis, the variables between expertise (Ex) and trustworthiness (TR) have the highest r value which is 0.541. This is show that, the relationship between is two variables is strong and positively. Follow by the highest, the relationship between brand congruency (BC) and expertise (Ex) do have the second highest value of r, which is 0.477. However there is also have some weak significant relationship between the variables, (PA and PI, Ex and PI, BC and PI, TR and PI, PA and Ab, and Ex and PA) with the r value of 0.1 to 0.29 only.

To interpret the relationship between the independent variable and dependant variable, brand congruency (BC) does have the most highest of r value with the attitude toward brand (Ab) which is 0.476. This is to show that the brand congruency have a strong relationship to influence the attitude toward the brand. Followed by the strongest relationship, the Trustworthiness (TR) and attitude toward the brand (Ab) do have a high value of correlation which the r= 0.414 and this the second highest value compare with other variable. For the relationship of expertise (Ex) and attitude toward brand (Ab), the result is shown between this two variable have a moderate positive relationship and the r value is 0.363. For the lowest r value among the independent variables, physical attractiveness (PA) and attitude toward brand (Ab) on have 0.190. This show that compare with the other variable, physical attractiveness do have the weakest relationship to the attitude toward the brand. For the

Variable Number of Items Cronbach’s AlphaAttractiveness 4 0.775Trustworthiness 5 0.786Expertise 5 0.750Brand Congruency 5 0.779Attitude toward brand 5 0.790Purchase Intention 3 0.769

relationship between the attitude toward brand and purchase intention (PI) is consider as strong positive relationship, because the r value is 0.470 and value is considered high.

Table 4: Correlations Analysis

Variable PA TR Ex BC Ab PI

Physical attractiveness (PA) 1

Trustworthiness (TR) .420** 1

Expertise (Ex) .408** .541** 1

Brand Congruency (BC) .175** .363** .477** 1

Attitude toward Brand (Ab) .190** .414** .376** .476** 1

Purchase Intension (PI) .226** .240** .223** .295** .470** 1

Mean 3.3270 3.2112 3.2248 3.1032 3.0648 3.0507

Standard deviations .74130 .69458 .69086 .63022 .67553 .73548

Skewness .301 -.183 -.340 -.215 -.162 -.276

Kurtosis -.164 -.045 -.013 -.599 -.490 -.440

**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).

Hierarchical Regression Analysis

In model 1 of the Hierarchical regression analysis, Table 1.5 shows the demographic variables where age, gender, and education were entered to examine whether the endorser credibility has direct and positive relationship with attitude toward brand (Ab). In model 2, the independent variables are entered to allow the examination of any increase in explained variance over that contributed by the demographic variables. Based from the Table 1.5, the demographic profiles contributed 5.7% of the respondent feels that the endorser credibility has direct and positive relationship with attitude toward brand (Ab) and for the independent variables are able to predict the 28.2% of the respondent feeling to the attitude toward brand. Trustworthiness (TR), brand congruency (BC) is able to significantly predict the endorser credibility has direct and positive relationship with attitude toward brand (Ab). Therefore, the H1, H1.2, H2 are supported. For the physical attractiveness (PA) and expertise (Ex) have no significant relationship with the respondent feeling to the attitude toward brand for the celebrity endorser advertisement, thus H1.1 and H1.3 are rejected.

Table 5: Hierarchical Regression AnalysisResearch Variables Model 1 Model 2Gender .057 .010Age .233** .071Qualification .071 .014Physical Attractiveness (PA) .007Trustworthiness (TR) .247**Expertise (Ex) .056Brand Congruency (BC) .331**

Adjusted .057 .282

F 5.977 14.949Df 3 7Notes: *P<0.05, **P<0.01

Hierarchical regression analysis of Table 1.6, the model 1 shows the demographic variables where age, gender, and education were entered to examine the significant and positive

relationship between attitude toward Brand (Ab) and Purchase Intention (PI). In model 2, the independent variables which are attitude toward brand are entered to allow the examination of any increase in explained variance over that contributed by the demographic variables. For the Table 1.6, the demographic profiles contributed 2.1% of the respondent feels that there is a significant and positive relationship between attitude toward Brand (Ab) and Purchase Intention (PI), following the results show to the independent variables in this study are able to predict the 21.2% of the respondent feeling to the attitude toward brand. Hence, the H3 is supported.

Table 6: Hierarchical Regression Analysis

Research Variables Model 1 Model 2Gender .012 -.014Age .169** .063Qualification .035 .002Attitude toward brand (Ab) .454**

Adjusted .021 .212

F 2.740 17.764Df 3 4Notes: *P<0.05, **P<0.01

Discussion

This study is to examine the impact of the celebrity’s endorser toward the customer brand perception and purchase intention. From the result it is shown that, trustworthiness (TR) and brand congruency (BC) play a significant role in the celebrity endorser advertising to influence to the customer brand perception. These have implicated that, people in Malaysia are more reliable on the honesty of celebrity and the high level of product-match celebrity when there has choosing the product from a brand. Trustworthiness (TR), is the important attribute for a celebrity endorser because refers as the honesty and integrity of the celebrities. As mention in the early part, trustworthiness is the most effective and useful ways to convince to create customer positive perception toward the brand. Therefore, the effectiveness of a message communication in the advertisement depends on how effective is the celebrity trustworthiness, in term of the celebrity believability, honesty and ethic (Belch & Belch, 2001). From the result, this is consistent of the previous study to support the positive effect of trustworthiness on effectiveness (Chao, Wuhrer & Werani, 2005).

Brand congruency (BC) is also a significant predictor that the consumer feelings to celebrity endorser advertisement are match to the brand concept. Brand congruency fit to the image of the celebrity endorser in term generating more effective of the advertisement to persuade and motivate the consumer purchase intention. Furthermore, the better explanation is more high level relevant or congruent the celebrity or brand pair is perceived from the customer, the greater value of the perception toward the brand to be. In addition, the significant result, were also consistent from the previous study of Kamins and Gupta (1994) stated that the high level of the product match would influenced the customer in making decision for selecting brand because of the match products were more similar and familiar to use.

However, the variables of the physical attractiveness (PA) and expertise (Ex) have no significant relationship with the customer attitude toward brand. These two variables are derived from the credibility of the celebrity. Although in the early research of Ohanian (1990)

suggested physical attractiveness is the most effective dimension in the credibility of the celebrities. Result from the study contradicts with the find of Bardia et al. (2011), where the celebrity’s with high attractiveness could influence the most of the customer feel that have a good will toward the product. In the discoveries of this study could not show the relationship between the expertise (Ex) and the customer brand perception. Therefore, the outcome of this research cannot prove this hypothesis. Based on the empirical study, this research expected the endorser with knowledgeable and skill to have influence on the brand perception. Hereby this result have contradicts from the study of Goldsmith et al. (2000) claimed that the success of a brand endorsement is dependable on the consumer’s perception toward the skill and knowledge of the celebrities endorser.

The research shows that there exist the significant and positive relationship between attitude toward Brand (Ab) and Purchase Intention (PI). As predicted in the context of the research, the attitude of the customer toward the brand has a major positive relationship with the intention of purchasing from the consumer. The outcomes of the study have proved that the H3 hypothesis is justifiable to significantly influence the purchase intention from the customer. This result is consistent with the study of Goldsmith et al (2000) suggest that when the consumer have a positive perception toward the brand, this will lead to the higher willing of consumer to purchase the product.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The research investigated the effect of the celebrity’s endorsement on the customer attitude toward the advertisement and brand, and purchase intention in Malaysia. The result suggests that the variables of physical attractiveness (PA) and expertise (Ex) are not able to predict the relationship to affect the attitude of the customers toward the brand. Instead, other variables such as trustworthiness (TR) and brand congruency have a significant relationship with brand perception of the customer. For the attitude toward brand variables, there is also having the significant relationship with the purchased intention variables.

This research was investigated from the perceived of celebrity endorser advertisement by the society of Labuan. This study is concentrated on the students of Labuan International Campus of University Malaysia Sabah and the citizens of Labuan, but to have a more precise and comprehensive analysis, it is recommended that the future study of survey should collect from the whole Malaysia country or even enlarge to other country to get a more generalized and reliable result, not only collect from Labuan. Other than that, the time period and the financial support also can be improved in the further study. The time that spends for this research is short which lead not to able to collect further information from other aspect of source, so, it might not be a perfect research. The financial support is also important for doing a research because from the reference of journal to survey collection till the method to analyze the survey data needs some expenditure for the whole research. So, lack of financial support will affect the process of the research with the problem of difficulty to have the extra reference because need to spend for the view and hard to have the advance technology in the research such as the online survey.

Implication

The study shows that the purchase intention of Malaysian consumers is normally affected by celebrity’s expertise. The professional opinion might influence the customer toward their purchasing ability. These people are more convinced about the message or information

whatever that are given. Malaysian consumers are considered as more reliable to the expert. Indeed, these expertises of celebrity’s endorser are attracting the consumer attention. Usually the customers are non independent, they need some advised from the expertise to convince them and let them more convenience. The recommendation by the celebrities is mostly influence the Malaysian customers and it shows effective to them.

Another implication, is issue of the brand congruency, the most consideration is about the level of matches of the brand celebrity that will fir target audience. This is important as the integration between the advertiser and the celebrity match up with the target audience perceptions. Different ethnic groups of people may have different perception toward the celebrity. Therefore, is necessary to test celebrity with the brand’s target group to ensure that the target audience the positive image to bring out the good will to the product or brand. This is particularly important in a cross-cultural context especially in Malaysia.

The young generation also shows that they are easily influenced by the celebrity’s endorsement. Nowadays, the products, services, even the places that are come out in drama typically direct influence to the mind of young generation. Celebrities come out with the branded that they are using due the young people followed them especially the admire celebrities. They tend to follow the stylists in terms of glamour. This research has contributed that the purchase intention toward the brand of the Malaysia consumer are influenced by the celebrities’ endorsement.

Limitations

In this study research, there are several limitations in the process of data collection. Firstly, the research collection of celebrity endorser advertisement are mostly collected from the student level in Labuan who are more than 50% and it seems not accurate because student could not stand for a large proportion of society in Labuan. Other than that, compared with the category of society people such as administration and management level people, student might be not really comprehend the real meaning of celebrity endorsement and less engage about that. In the future study can extend the respondent collection more on the society people so that the study of research will be more accurate and reliable. Secondly, the respondent of celebrity endorsement should collect from the overall of the society in Malaysia but on this study just focus on the society of Labuan which is just a very small proportion of people in Malaysia. Lastly is the problem of short time consuming and lack of cost for the research. This research was completed in a short period, so, unable to enlarge the research or survey scope out from Labuan and lack of financial support for the advanced technology and data collection method which have to spend for the usage in this study.

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Impact of Celebrity Advertisement on Customer Brand Perception and Purchase Intention in Malaysia

This questionnaire intends to study the impact of celebrity’s credibility of the endorser on consumer’s attitude towards brand and their intentions to purchase the advertised products.

Section A: Demographics Respondent Profile.Please check the appropriate responses

1. Gender: Male Female

2. Age: 18-29 30-29 40-4950-59

3. Occupation: ProfessionalSenior ManagementMiddle ManagementAdministrationGovernmentSkilled/Semi SkilledStudentRetired

4. Qualification: Below high schoolHigh school or equivalencyBachelor’s DegreeMaster DegreeGraduate of professional degreeAssociate’s Degree

Section B: Experience on the advertising media.1. Medium of media gets your attention.

PrintRadioTelevisionWord of mouth

2. Enduring period of impact through the advertisement.

Less than 24 hour 1-3day4-7 dayMore than 7 day

3. Time you spend on watching television per day.

Less than 1 hour1-2 hour3-5 hourMore than 5 hour

4. Frequency listens to the radio in a week.

More than 5 day5-4 day3-2 dayLess than 2 day

Section C: Perception on the celebrity credibility, product congruency, attitude toward advertisement, attitude toward brand, and Purchase intention.

Physical Attractiveness (feeling toward the celebrity)

1. Unattractive 1 2 3 4 5 Attractive2. Not Classy 1 2 3 4 5 Classy3. Ugly 1 2 3 4 5 Beautiful4. Plain 1 2 3 4 5 Elegant

Trustworthiness (feeling toward the celebrity)1. Undependable 1 2 3 4 5 Dependable2. Dishonest 1 2 3 4 5 Honest3. Unreliable 1 2 3 4 5 Reliable4. Insincere 1 2 3 4 5 Sincere5. Untrustworthy 1 2 3 4 5 Trustworthy

Expertise(feeling toward the celebrity’s expertise)1. Not an Expert 1 2 3 4 5 Expert2. Inexperienced 1 2 3 4 5 Experienced3. Unknowledgeable 1 2 3 4 5 Knowledgeable4. Unqualified 1 2 3 4 5 Qualified5. Unskilled 1 2 3 4 5 Skilled

Strongly Agree -1 Agree – 2 Neutral – 3Disagree - 4 Strongly Disagree - 5

Product/Brand Congruency1. Familiar with the celebrity who

appeared in the ad1 2 3 4 5

2. Image of celebrities congruent 1 2 3 4 5

with the brand there are endorsing3. Brand is good fit for this celebrity

to endorse1 2 3 4 5

4. Celebrities is believable endorsing this brand

1 2 3 4 5

5. Celebrities will use this product 1 2 3 4 5

Attitude toward the Brand1. The brand is good 1 2 3 4 52. Feel pleasant with the brand 1 2 3 4 53. Like the Brand 1 2 3 4 54. The Brand is good in quality 1 2 3 4 55. Satisfy with the brand 1 2 3 4 5

Purchase Intention1. Likely to purchase this product 1 2 3 4 52. Try this product if seen in a store 1 2 3 4 53. Actively seek out this product in a

store1 2 3 4 5

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