David Beckham- Professional Endorser

Case Analysis

Companies spend huge chunks of their capital on celebrity endorsers to promote their brand and product to the mass. Be it a high involvement product like a car or low involvement products like the daily newspaper, we see local and international celebrities endorsing them all. Normally business houses use influential people like sport athletes, actors and social celebrities as brand ambassadors to convince and sell their products in the market. Prime examples of successful celebrity endorsers are Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Sachin Tendulkar, Tiger Woods, and David Beckham. This case describes the potentials of celebrity endorsers citing footballer David Beckham as a successful endorser and as a brand used by companies such as Adidas, Diesel, Pepsi, etc as a successful marketing strategy to promote and sell their products.

Companies such as Adidas want to be endorsed by sports-stars such as David Beckham because the source of the message has a huge impact on the likelihood that the message will be accepted. The source of the message, here celebrities such as Beckham, are chosen for their credibility and attractiveness. People who tend to be sensitive about social acceptance and opinions are more persuaded by attractive source while those who are internally oriented are swayed by a credible, expect source . For companies like Adidas, Beckham provides both source credibility and attractiveness. Adidas is a sports product manufacturer and David Beckham is the famed footballer who promotes the Adidas brand. Customers believe that he has the expertise and knowledge over the sports products so using Beckham can help reduce the risk of using the product and create a positive attitude towards the product. As for the source attractiveness which refers to the source's perceived social value, David Beckham is considered as a physically attractive man with high regards to his humble personality and social status. By nature, people are drawn to beautiful and attractive people. A physically attractive source facilitates attitude change and affects the consumer's purchase intention and product evaluation . Using Beckham in their ads, Adidas captures more attention of the public. Furthermore Beckham's attractiveness can be a source of information and proof for the consumers as the effectiveness of the product. Consumers might relate the comfort and success during Beckham's play to Adidas and his looks and grooming to Gillette.

Another reason for using Beckham by companies like Adidas is to differentiate the company products among its competitors. Consumers don't perceive much difference between sportswear such as Nike, Adidas, Puma, etc so using Beckham to differentiate itself could be a valuable deal. Hence being endorsed by David Beckham increases Adidas's advertising and enhances both company image and brand attitude.

Obviously there are pros and cons