Abstract:
The effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in evaluating endorsed brand is one of the
timely needed research notions in Sri Lanka depending on its significance remarked in
both knowledge and practice related perspectives. Sri Lankan consumers have been
exposing to different celebrity endorsed brands including some of the over
endorsement cases too. It is noticed that services sector brands intensively depend
on celebrity endorsement strategies in a noticeable trend. The psychological bond
exists between celebrities and the fans, whom were targeted as potential consumers
for the endorsed brands, has been referred in the proposition of Celebrity Worship
Motives. However, this notion has been less studied in Sri Lankan context to examine
how it does affect the consumers to evaluate the brands endorsed by celebrities whom
they prefer. Alongside, this concept paper attempts to build theoretical explanation to
present research propositions on examining how the role of celebrity worship motives
effect on the perceived effectiveness of celebrity endorsement which result in the
perceived brand evaluation. It has followed the theoretical review method to template
the content in building rationale on how celebrity worship motive shapes consumer
evaluation towards the endorsed brand. As per the theoretical analysis, the study
suggested Brand Love, Brand Trust and Brand Attitude as some of the prominent
contexts of perceived brand evaluation. Finally, this paper presents research
hypotheses to study the impact of celebrity worship motives on the relationship
between the perceived effectiveness of the celebrity endorsement and the different
contexts of perceived brand evaluation by highlighting the knowledge gaps and
practice-related significance in Sri Lanka.
