Abstract:
Advertisers believe celebrity endorsement is an effective marketing tool for building brand recall and
recognition most importantly, brandawareness. The article aims at identifying how celebrity
endorsement in advertisement creates brand awareness. A qualitative in-depth interview is conducted
among 30 respondents (15 from London, UK and 15 from Chittagong, Bangladesh) aged 18- 35
years or more on 4 selected TV advertisements (2 advertisements from UK, 2 advertisements from
Bangladesh) to judge consumers’ responses towards celebrity endorsement in advertisement and how
it stimulates brand awareness. Thematic analysis has been used for analysing data. Findings indicate
though respondents can recall the advertisement which uses attractive, trustworthy, high profile
celebrity, it will not be an effective marketing tool in the mature and saturated market like UK. The
in-depth interview shown celebrity endorsement within the advertisement is a highly influential
emotional driver in Bangladesh whereas UK respondents are indifferent to celebrity endorsement. To
increase brand awareness, advertisers in Bangladesh should engage high-profile celebrity with
positive image, credibility, trustworthiness who matches appropriately with the brand endorsed.
Contrarily, advertisers in UK should combine information with other emotional appeal and drivers in
advertisement to provide unique selling proposition and enhance brand awareness. It is expected that
this cross-country research will solve existing literature gap and provide a comparative review on
consumers’ responses towards celebrity endorsement used in advertising to stimulate brand
awareness in developed and developing country perspective
