RESEARCH PROPOSAL

The Impact of Pakistani Cricketers Endorsement

on Consumer Buying Decisions

Hamza Ahmed Khan 20192-25059

AurangZeb 20192-24956
Muhammad Ali 20181-23694
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Background of Study: ................................................................................................................................ 2
Scope of the Study .................................................................................................................................... 3
Objectives of the study ............................................................................................................................. 3
Statement of the Problem ........................................................................................................................ 3
Research Questions .................................................................................................................................. 3
Hypothesis................................................................................................................................................. 4
Review of Literature:..................................................................................................................................... 4
Research Methodology: ................................................................................................................................ 9
Data: .......................................................................................................................................................... 9
Variables: .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Inclusion Criteria: ...................................................................................................................................... 9
Sample and Sampling Technique: ............................................................................................................. 9
Statistical Technique: .............................................................................................................................. 10
References .................................................................................................................................................. 15
Introduction
With ever growing competition, due to numerous products flooded in the market, customers
have a wide range of options to choose from. With that, customers are also bombarded with
advertisements on magazines, newspapers, websites, billboards, radio and television.
Marketers constantly try to come up with innovative and effective ideas to grab their
customer’s attention. One of the approaches to make the advertisement effective is by making
use of celebrity endorsers. It is marketers’ job to identify a knob that may allow customers
attention towards the product. Therefore, celebrities are the knobs that can grasp the
customers’ attention quickly (Malik & Qureshi, 2016).
Since its inception in the 19th century, this strategy has become the most effective tool of
marketing to create awareness and to get the desired result from your target market (Siddiqui
& Khalid, 2018).
Celebrities need not be international superstars, rather they are known figures in any field for
example, sports, politics, film industry etc. that can influence their target market. Therefore,
celebrities are influential spokesperson of their brands and brands pay a huge amount of capital
on celebrity endorsers.
It has been noted that companies are introducing cricketers as their celebrity endorsers
irrespective of the type of product and whether the cricketer has any sense of belonging with
the product or not. Therefore, by doing this research our aim will be to examine the effectivity
of cricketers as endorsers and how they change people’s buying intentions.

Background of Study:
The safest and quickest line for a brand to develop association of brand is celebrity endorsement. The
celebrity represents the brand personality and either the brand personality resembles with the
consumer mindset or not. Today, the use of athlete endorsements is more popular than ever before
(Zhou & Bergkvist, 2016). The first reason for this is the ease of endorsements due to the number of new
media through which athletes are able to endorse products or services, e.g. Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram and other types of social media (Kiiskinen, 2017). It is not necessary that the celebrity would
be the best super star or the best player of the world. The celebrity should be someone, with whom the
target audience can associate themselves. (Adam & Hussain, 2017). People listen to those whom they
like the most as compare to a stranger even if both were telling you the same thing in same wordings,
that’s the Human nature. If we apply this on advertisement will be going to affect the listening
concentration and buying decision of People. (Wang, Cheng, & Chu, 2013)

The Consumer’s perspective is that if the brand is associated with a well-known personality than it will
be good for them to buy the product but if the person is not associated with well-known personality the
consumer resist to buy the brand even if the product is unresisitable good (Adam & Hussain, 2017).
Scope of the Study
This Research solve numerous riddles associated with Celebrity Endorsement:
This Study helps to explore the impact of Cricketer celebrity endorsement on consumers buying
intentions. It mainly focuses on finding the thought process of Pakistani Consumers about
celebrity endorsement by analyzing different characteristics of cricketer endorsed with brand
and customer buying intentions. It helps Consumer remember brands like, when they are out
for shopping and see the brands which celebrity have endorsed quickly pinned the consumers
mind, so consumers can easily recall the brand endorsed by famous personalities mostly
cricketers. It shifts the brand sales upward; brand image and market share also improve.
Some areas of celebrity endorsement are effective with respect to buying decisions while many
stars personality endorsement has negative relationship with consumer decisions. It enlightens
the marketers that what Consumer consider while purchasing and what not.

Objectives of the study

The sole purpose to study the theory of celebrity endorsement, particularly Pakistani cricketers
is to identify the following:
 To study the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement, specifically Pakistani cricketers,
and to explore its role in influencing consumer buying intentions.

Statement of the Problem

It has been observed lately that marketers are focusing more on hiring cricketers in their
campaigns as celebrity endorsements. The impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer
buying intentions needs analysis to check whether hiring cricketers in their campaigns is
beneficial or not.

Research Questions
 How consumers reacts towards items which are endorsed by celebrities?
 How effective are cricketers as celebrity endorsers?
 How important is the performance of the cricketer to influence peoples buying
intentions?
 How important is a product and cricketer endorsee’s match?
Hypothesis
Ho: β=0
There is no impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer behavior
HA : β ≠ 0
There is impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer behavior

Review of Literature:
Many debates and arguments have been under process with respect to ideology on what
makes celebrity a sugarcoated ingredient for a successful product endorsement. Numerous
Studies are focused at linking all the factors that very prominent to develop an impact on the
buying behavior of customers.
As per marketer and brands strategist, Martin Roll (Roll, 2017), he points out there are three
essential elements for celebrity endorsements. They are:

 Understanding developed between the endorser and the Brand.

 Credibility of the Celebrity.
 Celebrity Attractiveness.
As per Martin Roll research, target audience of the brand must be fascinated by the celebrity
qualities like Attractiveness etc. Fascinated qualities like – living standard or physical
appearance mostly in case of Sports Celebrities like Cricketers in Pakistan.
Trustworthiness and Expertise are explained by Rolls, the factor helps in Credibility part of the
Celebrity Endorsement.
His Ideology about understanding developed is that there must be enough compatibility
between the Celebrity endorsement and Product.
Physical appearance can easily change the views of the target audience of the product, this is
proved by the researchers (Chaiken, 1979). Understanding between the receiver of the
message and the source of the message is the actual semblance created by the Celebrity
endorsement.
Active Source by which Celebrity actually influence consumer to pursue and consumer is
inspired and is willing to be in a relationship with the celebrity by having similar beliefs ,
behaviors and attitudes as like celebrity and if the Source of the message (Celebrity) change its
beliefs and attitudes, the consumer automatically change its behaviors and beliefs and follow
their favorite celebrity lead.
Celebrity Endorsement:
Endorsement by the celebrity is the most talkative topic among marketing topics, considered as a
source of transmitting the message to accessible audience with powers to influence as compared to
message conveyed by a common person other than celebrity (Ohanian R. , Celebrity Attractivness,
1990). A message conveyed by a sportsman automatically increase the recall of that particular message
also increases (Friedman, 1979).

According to the findings of (Charles Atkin, 1984), company’s image, credibility and its brand image
improves by the use of celebrity endorsement. From 1979, in every 6th Commercial Celebrity
Endorsement is used the marketers to create the understanding between the product and target
audience. By 2001, it is become the most popular way to promote your product and embossed positive
image in the minds of the consumers (Erdogan B. z., 2001).

(McCRAKEN, 1989) argues that Celebrity endorsement is the most influential communication
way because it has the abilities to capture the target audience attention, and the advertisement
pasted in the memory of audience of the product and Endorsement by a celebrity mix the
ingredients of desire and glamour to the endorsed product.
Types of Product Endorsement:

 Explicit - I Endorsed this Product

 Implicit - I use this Product
 Imperative - You Should use this Product
 Co-Presentational mode - Only Appearing with the Product
Expertise of the Celebrity:
Expertise in the context of the degree of the passion, knowledge, experience that celebrity have about
the product (Hovland, 1953). The imaginable expertise of an endorser in the memory slot of the target
audience is a very appearing element in explaining the consumer buying intentions as compared to the
expertise, attractiveness and trustworthiness of the Celebrity (Ohanian R. , 1990)

Conveyer of the message is considered to be the authentic source of assertion. Necessity of the celebrity
expertise can be grabbed from the example of a selling context; a salesmen with ultimate level of
expertise can influence a noticeable audience to purchase a specific brand as compared to a non-expert
salesperson (Woodside, 2004).

Celebrity Brand Match Up:

Most important thing in celebrity endorsement is the brand match up without which all other things will
lose their importance in the process of celebrity endorsement used in an advertisement. This means
that celebrity appearance and characteristics must matched with the brand being endorsed. The more
similarities between the brand and celebrity the better understanding the consumer will get from the
advertisement (Erdogan Z. , Selecting Celebrity Endorsers, 1990). When Customers fails to understand
the message conveyed by the brand endorsed and celebrity, the message will get disappeared in the
crowd of all other messages being targeted at Customers (Parmer, 2015).
Celebrity Selection:
(Mukherjee, 2009) have undergone through the relationship between the celebrity and consumer
intentions of buying. He presented a 20-point model which can be used by brand managers for selecting
perfect celebrity for their brand whose characteristics and behaviors matched with their brand.
Celebrity endorsement is a two-edged sword and it has a number of positive points, if properly matched
it can do number of goods for the particular brand and if not matched exactly it can harm the image of
the brand badly.

Celebrity as a Marketing Tool:

The most world widely strategy used by brand managers is celebrity endorsement stated by
(Erdogan & Baker, 2001).
Millions of dollars spend by companies on celebrities to endorse their such celebrities are
viewed by others as being dynamic, likeable and attractive. Brand Managers align these
characteristics of celebrities with their product. According to (`Cooper, 1984), having celebrity
endorsed by the product grabs high level of appeal attention and glamour rate then
advertisements without Celebrities.
In few scenarios, researchers think that celebrity endorsements not work every time and do
not get marketers their desired results, sometimes advertisements sign celebrities do not
match the expectations of the advertiser because of not the matchup between the celebrity
and the product being endorsed.
Celebrity Endorsement is a sensitive tool which can make a brand successful or break a brand
if not used carefully.
Advantages of Celebrity Endorsement:
(Croft, 2015) finds out the race between the companies are increasing for the purpose of
attracting more consumers towards their brand. (Kulkarni & Gaulkar, 2005) states that a
celebrity can solve a problem of over communication by helping marketer
Hiring celebrity for a brand endorsement Is like breathing a life in a falling brand help it to rise
from ashes. New interests and excitement can be created among the consumers with the help
of consumers.
The entire discussion comes to an end with the conclusion that celebrity endorsement has good
and positive impact on customers buying (Goldsmith, 2000)
Negative effects of celebrity endorsements:
As a marketing tool many risk factors linked with celebrity endorsement. Wrong Publicity
related to celebrity is a major risk with celebrity endorsement that lead to:

 Popularity begins to decline

 Ethical Issues
 Lose of Credibility due to over endorsement
 Products overshadowing
The Celebrity must have to be a star for a successful Celebrity Endorsement.
The Vampire effect also known as the overshadowing of the product is due to the target
audience take more notice in celebrity rather than the product.
Celebrity Attractiveness:
Celebrity Attractiveness is one of the influential factors in reflecting positive Brand Image and
consumers buying behavior, which includes facial attractiveness ,physical appearance and familiarity
,similarity and also likability, these characteristics contribute towards the implications of the message
being conveyed by the celebrity and these implications leads to effective brand image and consumer
buying behaviors (Ohanian R. , 1990).

(Kelman, 1961) discussed that attractiveness is associated with the application of message effectiveness
conveyed by the celebrity. When the audience like the characteristics of attractive celebrity and take
him as a likable individual then chances of understanding the message conveyed by the celebrity
increases immensely. If an attractive celebrity in an advertisement claims to use a particular beauty
product it means the message is easily accepted by the audience (Michael A. Kamins, 1989)

Celebrity Trustworthiness:
Celebrity trustworthiness is known as the ability of the celebrity to make the consumer agree with
message transmitted by brand through Celebrity (Ohanian R. , 1990)

Erdogan argues and discussed briefly trustworthiness is the honesty and truthfulness of the celebrity
which can be observed by the audience of the advertisement. According to Miller and Baseheart,
response of the audience can easily influence if celebrity can make believe the audience about the
trustworthiness of the message conveyed by him.

Celebrity Credibility:
The Credibility of the Celebrity not only effect the image of the brand but also have impact on the
effectiveness of the message and helps the target audience to shaping their attitudes towards the brand
and also have a great impact on their purchase intention from a specific. Sometimes the over popularity
of the celebrity overshadows the brand image. The famous and attractiveness of the celebrity convince
the consumer about the positive image of the brand and divert their purchasing intentions towards the
particular brand. (Sumendra & Prasantra, 2012)
Consumers buying behavior in Pakistan:
The Economic Condition in Pakistan, have emerged a saving habit in consumers because of high
prices of quality products. Consumers are well aware as they spend smarty these days.
In Pakistan, advertisements work as successful driving force as it is persuading people and is
influencing consumer buying decisions in a positive way. The consumers of Pakistani mostly
emotionally attached to the products, in addition if the product is endorsed by their favorite
Celebrity Cricketer the emotional attachment with the product have increases immensely.
People Rely on advertisements and opinion leaders more than their reliance on family, friends.
Consumers emotional, psychological and behavioral aspects play a crucial role during buying
behavior. In Pakistan behavioral and emotional play their eminent role in consumer buying
intentions.

Cricketers as Celebrity:
This study objective is to examine the people interest and attitude towards Cricketer endorsed
as compare to other celebrity. Cricketers message is very important and have great impact on
people. Because of their facial, behavioral, physical fitness and trustworthiness in the society.
People get more attracted by them as they are national heroes. And with the help of cricketer’s
trustworthiness among audience the manager reduce risk and increase effectiveness of their
message to their target. Their personality has significant effect on consumers buying intentions
(Schlecht, 2003)

Representation of Data:
The best method of spreading any information in advertisement is to use celebrity for
delivering the information. It is more attractive for consumer to listen, concentrate and learn to
someone who is a well-known personality rather than an unknown person, its an important
aspects of marketing techniques. Celebrity make the ads more memorable, irrespective of
there is no such use of the product at that time. Marketers use this technique to make
consumer learn the even unnecessary information so that can be repossessed at the time of
shopping (Jeyapalan, 2015).
The representation of data will be covered in different headers. Defining specifications is
important which includes the subject area, type of data and how the data is acquired, data
format, experimental factors, data source and accessibility. Demographics; gender, age bracket,
education will include. Experimental methods, design and materials will be shown in order to
give better understanding of applying descriptive, correlation and regression statistical tests
(Ibidunni, 2018).
Research Methodology:
The Study will be conducted as descriptive research for the perception of people of Pakistan regarding
the celebrity (Cricket players) endorsement impacts on the buying decisions of consumers. The main
factors of methodology will be covered as:

Data:
Primary Data:

Primary Research will be collected by well-structured Questionnaire. The Questionnaire includes:

 Disclaimer
 Demographics
 Main body, for which Likert scales will be used for scaling the questions.

Secondary Data:

Whereas, the Secondary Research will be collected through internet, existing literatures, journals and
research thesis.

Variables:
The variables that we will conduct in this study includes independent variable, that is celebrity
endorsement, and dependent variable that is consumer behavior.

Inclusion Criteria:
 Sample must be in normal mental stage.
 He / She must not be from the owners of this research.
 He must not be from such lower class who don’t have the power and excess to buy a
brand.
 He must be from Pakistan or live in Pakistan for a long time, so that he must aware of
the celebrities that Pakistanis admire and the buying behavior.
 He and She must be above 14.

Sample and Sampling Technique:

The study will have a sample size of about 100. And the sample includes mostly students,
Corporate personal, Engineers, Doctors, Housewife’s etc.
Sampling Technique that could be used are Convenience Sampling and snowball sampling.
Statistical Technique:
Regression Analysis

1. Demographics Data

gender

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

female 52 49.5 49.5 49.5

Valid male 53 50.5 50.5 100.0

Total 105 100.0 100.0

age

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

<18 8 7.6 7.6 7.6

18-28 72 68.6 68.6 76.2

29-38 19 18.1 18.1 94.3

Valid
39-48 4 3.8 3.8 98.1

>48 2 1.9 1.9 100.0

Total 105 100.0 100.0

Greatest factor

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative

Percent

price 30 28.6 28.6 28.6

brand 21 20.0 20.0 48.6

celebrity endorsement 12 11.4 11.4 60.0

need 40 38.1 38.1 98.1

other 2 1.9 1.9 100.0

Total 105 100.0 100.0

A total number of 105 respondents answered the questionnaire, out of which 52 were female and 53
were male.

It was important to get the opinion of all age classes therefore; the questionnaire was distributed to a
diverse age group.
The questionnaire was distributed in offices, universities to doctors, teachers and other working and
non-working men and women.

The statistical data above, gives the representation of the respondents age and gender.

The pie chart below represents the greatest factor people consider while buying a product.

GREATEST FACTOR
other
2%

price
29%

need
38%

celeb. brand
Endorsement 20%
11%

2. Cronbach’s Alpha analysis

There were two constructs with 5 items each. Each construct’s items needed to be tested to ensure the
validity of the questionnaire.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

.588 5
Item Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N

ce1 3.40 1.080 105

ce2 2.36 1.145 105
ce3 3.08 1.246 105
ce4 2.81 1.153 105
ce5 2.68 1.369 105
The above table shows the Cronbach’s alpha analysis of celebrity endorsement. 0.588 is a
satisfactory result, signifying that the items regarding Celebrity endorsement are valid.

The second construct to be tested is consumer behaviour. The Cronbach’s alpha analysis for
consumer behaviour is shown below.

Reliability Statistics

Cronbach's N of Items
Alpha

.793 5
Item Statistics

Mean Std. Deviation N

cb1 2.06 1.300 105

cb2 2.52 1.169 105
cb3 2.35 1.168 105
cb4 2.52 1.161 105
cb5 2.34 1.358 105

Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.793 corresponds to a high level of validity in the items of
questionnaire.
Cronbach’s alpha values validate our questionnaire and therefore it was circulated among the
sample to gather information on the research topic.

3. Regression

Ho: β=0
There is no impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer behavior
HA : β ≠ 0
There is impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer behavior

Linear Regression was applied with independent variable Celebrity endorsement(CEmean) and
dependent variable Consumer behavior(CBmean).
The output of the analysis is shown below.

Variables Entered/Removeda
Model Variables Variables Method
Entered Removed

1 CEmeanb . Enter

a. Dependent Variable: CBmean

b. All requested variables entered.

Model Summary

Model R R Square Adjusted R Std. Error of the

Square Estimate

1 .608a .370 .364 .72948

a. Predictors: (Constant), CEmean

ANOVAa

Model Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.

Regression 32.180 1 32.180 60.472 .000b

1 Residual 54.811 103 .532

Total 86.990 104

a. Dependent Variable: CBmean

b. Predictors: (Constant), CEmean

Coefficientsa

Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized t Sig.

Coefficients

B Std. Error Beta

(Constant) .241 .285 .845 .400

1
CEmean .758 .098 .608 7.776 .000

a. Dependent Variable: CBmean

As mentioned in the above Model summary, it can be observed that the value of R is 0.608 which
corresponds to a high degree of correlation.

The R2 value indicates how much of the total variation in the dependent variable (Consumer behavior)
can be explained by the independent variable (celebrity endorsement). In this case it is 37% which is
satisfactory.
By analyzing the ANOVA table it can be predicted that the regression model predicts the dependent
variable significantly well.

Sig value=0.000

Since 0.000<0.05

Therefore, we fail to accept null hypothesis.

From the above regression analysis, it is quite evident that there is impact of celebrity endorsement on
consumer behavior at a significance level of 5%. The null hypothesis was rejected.

Regression equation

CBmean = 0.241 + 0.758(CEmean)

 CBmean represents Consumer behavior

 CEmean represents Celebrity(cricketers) endorsement
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