Draft Case

Historical Development

It is quite common that companies nowadays use celebrity endorser to promote their products or services. This form of advertising goes back to the late nineteenth century, where for example Queen Victoria promoted for Cadbury's Cocoa. By introducing the cinema to the people the range of endorsement as an advertising technique was widened, although today's endorsement was developed during the growth of commercial radio, in the 1930s, and commercial television, in the 1950s. In those days, ''stars'', as we know them today, were very rare. It was proscribed under stars to act as sheer 'brand presenter'. Therefore it was hard for the firms to find adequate stars for their products or services. Starting from the late 1970s the amount of available stars increased, because of a change of mind of the stars. Especially when the number of film and television roles has expanded, all the mistrust was declined . That gave the firms the opportunity to choose their favorite celebrity.

As seen from Figure 1, which shows the estimated percentage of utilized celebrity endorsers in all US commercials, the use of celebrity endorses has increased dramatically. Beginning with only 15% in 1979, the number of celebrities used in commercials rose to 20 % by 1988. By the end of 1997 almost 25% of endorsers were used in US commercials.

Figure 1: Estimates of utilising celebrity endorsers in all US Commercials

The definition of what a celebrity endorser is was described by McCracken's in 1989.

"McCracken's (1989) definition of a celebrity endorser is, "any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement (marcoms), is useful, because when celebrities are depicted in marcoms, they bring their own culturally related meanings, thereto, irrespective of the required promotional role.""

Is it useful to describe the historical development or should I leave it out?