Annotated Bibliography

Communication surrounds us constantly, and we often don’t take notice as it part of our everyday life. With monotonous television advertisements, advertisers need something that will capture the audience’s attention. This annotated bibliography will analyse celebrity endorsement, using three mediums of an online column, news article and blog, surrounding an online journal.

The authors of the European Journal of Marketing are Amanda Spry, Ravi Pappu and T. Battina Cornwall. All are associated with universities in Melbourne, Australia, Brisbane, Australia, or Michigan, America. With university connections to their name, the labels are considered high-class and their credibility is already solid. The journal researches impact of celebrity endorsement of a product and how the credibility of a celebrity can have an effect. Research found “endorser credibility has an indirect impact on brand equity,” (Spry, Pappu, Cornwell, 2011) and the piece continues to explain how this research was performed. This is where celebrity endorsement seems to pay off, as “even a moderately low credibility endorser proved to be able to build the brand.” (Spry, Pappu, Cornwell, 2011) In explaining what was done to find results, the authors were quite specific about the process. This is to ensure the audience can follow exactly how the information was gathered, and to trust that the findings have a backbone. Analysed below are three different pieces also relating to celebrity endorsement. All pieces are attempting to evaluate endorsement within advertising, with some more credible than others.

Chris Philpott, author of Celebrity Endorsements: Do They Work?, is a regular blogger from New Zealand. Although himself he does not hold much credibility, he has done his research and has statistics and quotes from people with high reputations. Philpott refers to Brian Edwards, whose company “teaches people how to interact with the media and manage their public persona.” (Philpott, 2012) He quotes “Brian’s Law of Endorsement means that the less you have to lose in terms of reputation, the less you will lose.” (Philpott, 2012) This is explaining how the more famous a celebrity, the less likely they will be to endorse a product. Celebrities are offered more money the more their face is worth, which is discussed in Rahul Parikh’s blog. Philpott refers to two studies, conducted by Ace Matrix and Journal of Advertising Research, who both hold high ethos and any type of formal research makes a credible point. With evolving media and news outlets, bloggers are now considered a worthy source when news is breaking. They are often the majority of sites that appear when a situation is typed into Google. Able to access news everywhere, bloggers can combine information to create a worthy news source.

Rahul Parikh, author of Proactiv’s Celebrity Shell Game, is a weekly online columnist, focusing mainly on health. The reason celebrity endorsement has been recognised is the use of it within Proactiv advertisements. “It’s annual sales, $1.5 billion tower over the rest of the acne treatment industry.” (Parikh, 2011) With Proactiv winning in the skincare range, it introduces the point of celebrities as a positive promotion. Parikh refers to published author Robert Cialdini’s principles, in particular “how easy it is for someone we don’t know but think we like – a celebrity for example” (Parikh, 2012) to influence an audience. This seems to pay off, with Justin Bieber “getting paid $3 million for two years.” (Parikh, 2012) Using dollar amounts, Parikh is cementing his theory of how celebrity endorsement pays high, both in the bank and out. An article from Brisbane Times suggests witnessing companies like Proactiv cash in with celebrities, other companies may begin to do the same.

Julianne Dowling’s article, The Power of Celebrity Endorsement, similarly addresses the cost of a famous endorsement. The Brisbane Times is a highly respected news source and prides itself on reporting the facts. With new media replacing traditional media, in particular newspapers, Brisbane Times use an internet site to manage the news. The mentioned author may not have had high credibility alone, but publishing with Brisbane Times creates much higher credibility. However, this piece isn’t much of a hard hitting story, proving how newsworthiness has evolved. This article was created because the public has a curiosity and Brisbane Times could help that. Public interest is a key factor for what is published – after all, the audience will not read it if they don’t care. Although this is mainly a human interest article, research was still done to make the point credible. Half of the article is full of quotes of credible people in the field of celebrities. The article ends with a “Pros and Cons of Celebrity Endorsements” (Dowling, 2009) list, possibly to ensure there is no bias message being taken and to prove Dowling can see both sides of the issue.

It is obvious celebrity endorsement creates a buzz for any business. The audience the products want are generally interest in celebrities and although we may not buy the product immediately, it holds more significance because a celebrity has been involved. A topic that is quite light-hearted is still in the news, and Chris Philpott, Rahul Parikh, and Julianne Dowling have all analysed this with both opinions and facts from people who are highly credible. While all articles follow the European Journal of Marketing piece, the academic journal carries the highest credibility with the authors doing their own primary research. That’s what good journalism is – digging deep so you have original breaking news.

Reference List

Dowling, J., (2009) The Power of Celebrity Endorsement. Retrieved from http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/executive-style/management/the-power-of-celebrity-endorsement-20091216-kvsl.html

Parikh, R., (2011). Proactiv’s Celebrity Shell Game. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2011/02/28/proactiv_celebrity_sham/

Philpott, C. (2012, March 26) Celebrity endorsements: do they work? Retrieved from http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/blogs/on-the-box/6635277/Celebrity-endorsements-do-they-work

Spry, A., Pappu, R., Cornwell, T. B., (2011) Celebrity Endorsement, Brand Credibility, and Brand Equity, 45, 882-909. Retrieved from http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.library.uq.edu.au/journals.htm?articleid=1926001&show=html

Bad Ethics..or Just Tacky?

This week we learnt all about ethics - the good, the bad, and the ugly.

It came as quite a surprise to me that there's more to ethics than just right and wrong. Something can be ethical, but just made with bad taste. It seems there's a fine line between unethical and bad taste. We were shown a series of advertisements during the lecture, and asked where we thought each belonged in the table of good taste, ethical, bad taste, and unethical. Most images I guessed were unethical. However, they were actually considered purely bad taste.

After we were given explanations of ways to tell, I began to understand how to spot the difference.

In the world of communication we follow Deontology. This is the rules, principles, and duties.

Basically, we do the right thing by following the rules.

When it is put into one straight forward sentence, it is pretty easy to understand. Ethics, just like anything else, has a code of rules. Here are just a few:

• MEAA
• PRIA
• AFA
• AANA

The following is an advertisement we were asked to analyse during the lecture. I won't tell you which category it falls into: what do you think?