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"If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language in which they think."

- David Ogilvy

1. Introduction

If the world were full of all wise men and all wise women; we would have never heard of a term called "advertisement". And then good products would have found the right customers and grown to prosperity. Firms would have worked out a mathematical formula to sell and succeed. But the buying process isn't rational; and so is this world.

Today, the business firms are trying out different ways in advertisement to increase their sales. Indians are die-hard movie and sport buffs; and this aspect of the consumers has invited the concept of "Celebrity Endorsement" to the world of advertisement. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of Celebrity Endorsement in the process of brand-building by taking appropriate examples from the advertising landscape.

2. Branding & Celebrity Endorsement

Indian firms have been juxtaposing their brands with celebrity endorsers in the hope that celebrities may boost effectiveness of their marketing and/or corporate communication attempts. Today, use of celebrities as part of marketing communication strategy is fairly common practice for major firms in supporting corporate or brand imagery.

2.1. What is a Brand?

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, once said, "Our most valuable assets are our intangible assets." The intangible asset he was referring to is a brand. The Dictionary of Business & Management defines a brand as: a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify goods or services of one seller or a group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitor.

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* Contributed by -
Sohag Sarkar,
IBM Global Services (India) Pvt. Ltd.,
Bhopal (MP).