Impact of Celebrity Endorsement on a Brand chillibreeze writer — Saurbh Katyal (REF: http://www.chillibreeze.com/articles/Celebrityendorsement.asp accessed on 20 August 2012) "A sign of a celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.” - Daniel J Boorstin INTRODUCTION The motif behind total branding may be decocted as an attempt to amalgamate diverse activities to win customer preference. Apropos to this context, the topic “Impact of celebrity endorsement on overall brand”, is a significant one. The crescendo of celebrities endorsing brands has been steadily increasing over the past years. Marketers overtly acknowledge the power of celebrities in influencing consumer-purchasing decisions. It is a ubiquitously accepted fact that celebrity endorsement can bestow special attributes upon a product that it may have lacked otherwise. But everything is not hunky-dory; celebrities are after all mere mortals made of flesh and blood like us. If a celebrity can aggrandize the merits of a brand, he or she can also exacerbate the image of a brand. If I may take the liberty of rephrasing Aristotle’s quote on anger, “Any brand can get a celebrity. That is easy. But getting a celebrity consistent with the right brand, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way... that is not easy.” Celebrity endorsements are impelled by virtue of the following motives: Instant Brand Awareness and Recall. Celebrity values define, and refresh the brand image. Celebrities add new dimensions to the brand image. Instant credibility or aspiration PR coverage. Lack of ideas. Convincing clients. The scope of a celebrity on the incumbent brand: Simply stating, a brand is a differentiated product and helps in identifying your product and making it stand out due to its name, design, style, symbol, color combination, or usually a mix of all these.