Relationship between Celebrity Endorsement and Brand Attitude: With Reference to Financial Services Sector Brands in Sri Lanka

Abstract

This study is focused on Sri Lankan service sector which has remarked a significant position in the local economy. The concept of Celebrity Endorsement has been tested in this study to evaluate on how it does relate with Brand Attitude towards financial services brands in Sri Lanka. It has followed a deductive approach in justifying the variables to conceptualize the variable relationships and measures were rationalized accordingly. Reliability was tested to verify the internal consistency of the variables. It has selected 160 respondents followed by stratified random sampling technique and hypotheses were tested by using correlation analysis via 2 tailed test. It revealed that celebrity characteristics namely Trustworthiness, Expertise and Attractiveness are highly correlated with Perceived Brand Attitude, and Similarity was found as weakly correlated factor with Perceived Brand Attitude. The characteristic of Respect was found as moderate level factor being correlated with Perceived Brand Attitude. It has proposed the propositions for the future studies referring to the research gaps found in Sri Lankan service sector followed by conclusion and notions for managerial implication at the end of the paper.