Celebrity Endorsement Advantages And Disadvantages

Celebrity endorsement, which refers to an advertising strategy whereby companies use people of public recognition as spokespersons for their products and services (Ateke, Onwujiriri and Nnennanya, 2015), has been widely used in competitive marketing environments. Companies spent billions of dollars on celebrity endorsement to create positive awareness of their products. Nash Paints, a manufacturer and distributor of paints in Zimbabwe, adopted celebrity endorsement in the recent years. Notably, Nash Paints is a new player in the paints industry with less than 10 years of existence. Nash Paints’ range of products includes an assortment of automotive paints, decorative paints, industrial paints and woodline paints. Nash Paints also provides specialised paints such as primers, intermediate coats, finish coats and stripe coats

Nash Paints endorsed Alick Macheso and Tryson Chimbetu, popular Sungura musicians in Zimbabwe, as ambassadors of its products and services. Nash Paints, as has been the case with a number of companies in other sectors of the economy, endorsed these artists as part of its strategy to reach out to the market and create the much needed brand awareness for its products and services. This was a result of fierce competition from other established and dominant paint manufacturers and distributors such as Astra Paints and Deluxe. The competition had been exacerbated by the informal sector players who sell imitations of the Nash Paints brands at reduced prices. Not