The effects of celebrity endorsement on the consumers’ perceptions towards global brands

Brands are those lifestyles which consumers chose to buy in order to gain the value offered by the company, in order to be part of the community created through the brand equity elements and validated in the purchase of the products. Companies have understood how important it is to build a strong brand and many of them spend millions on aligning the brand with the design and style of the products, projecting the face and values of the company into the advertising campaigns. One of the most popular methods is through endorsement, placing a renounced celebrity and leveraging on the positive feedback of those customers that also follow the activities of the star whose face is on the cover of the marcom campaign. Celebrities have been used for a very long time to promote brands, sell products and services. Research has shown that those spokesmen of a brand who are more attractive can improve the statistics of recall and appeal more interest to the promotion campaign, as well as influence more on customer’s intention of buying the product (Kahle and Homer, 1985). The main purpose of this research is to investigate how celebrity endorsements influence the brand equity dimensions (brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality and brand associations) as well as stimulate consumers’ word-of-mouth through brand identification, growth in interest and the advertising memorability. The hypotheses were tested with the aid of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) in the PLS (Partial Least Squares) software. The survey is comprised of a target group of 589 respondents, from three countries – Brazil, Moldova and Portugal. Results evidence that the Attitude towards the Celebrity influences different Brand Equity dimensions and affects brand identification, growth in advertisement interest and advertising memorability, generating positive word of mouth (or negative, depending on the type of advertisement and reputation). Based on these findings we suggest further investigation in this area with the possibility to gain more data about the different fields of marcom and the different types of CE which are more appropriate for the given type of business.

Exploring the impact of celebrity endorsement and product class involvement on advertising effectiveness: an eye tracking approach

Celebrity endorsement has increased in popularity over the past decades and companies are willing to spend increasingly excessive amounts of money into it. Even though multiple studies support celebrity endorsement, further research on its impact on advertising effectiveness is called for. Fur-ther, the role of consumers’ product class involvement in advertising needs to be further studied. The purpose of this study is to explore if consumers’ product class involvement and exposure to celebrity endorsers affect consumers brand recall. Supported by earlier studies, brand recall was used as a measure for advertising effectiveness in this study. In general, a psychological approach was chosen for building the theoretical framework. Concept of classical conditioning was presented in order to understand why people act how they do. Balanced theory and meaning transfer model were presented in order to study how celebrities can be used effectively in advertising context. Further, the importance of product class involvement in advertising effectiveness was evaluated. Hypotheses were formulated based on a literature review of the existing research. Because of the versatility of the research design, a mixed methods approach for this study was adopted. Empirical part of the study was conducted in three stages. First, a pre-test was conducted in order to choose suitable product endorsers for the advertisement stimuli used in the experiment. Second, an eye-tracking experiment with 30 test subjects was conducted in order to study how people view advertisements and whether the familiarity of the product endorser and consumers’ product class involvement affects brand recall. For the experiment, a fictional brand was created in order to avoid bias on brand recall. Third, qualitative interviews for 15 test subjects were conducted in the post-experiment stage in order to gain deeper understating of the phenomenon and to make sense of the findings from the experiment. Findings from this study support celebrity endorsement by suggesting that a famous spokesperson does not steal attention from brand information more than a non-celebrity product endorser. As a result, the use of a celebrity endorser did not decrease brand recall. Results support earlier research as consumer’ higher product class involvement resulted in a better brand recall. Findings from the interviews suggest that consumers have positive perceptions of celebrity endorsement in general. However, the celebrity–brand congruence is a crucial factor when creating attitudes towards the advertisement. Future research ideas were presented based on the limitations and results of this study

Populist hand-book for Kansas; a compilation from official sources of some facts for use in succeeding political campaigns.

Mode of access: Internet.

Predictors of political orientation among US-born Mexican Americans: cultural identification, acculturation attitudes and socioeconomic status

With each passing election, U.S. political campaigns have renewed their efforts in courting the “Latino vote,” yet the Latino population is not a culturally homogenous voting bloc. This study examined how cultural identifications and acculturation attitudes in U.S. born Mexican Americans interacted with socioeconomic status (SES) to predict political orientation. Individuals who held stronger Mexican identity and supported biculturalism as an acculturation strategy had a more liberal orientation, while belonging to a higher SES group and holding stronger assimilation attitudes predicted a less liberal orientation. Mexican cultural identification interacted with SES such that those who held a weaker Mexican identity, but came from a higher social class were less liberal and more moderate in their political orientation. Weak Mexican identification and higher SES also predicted weaker endorsement of bicultural acculturation attitudes, which in turn, mediated the differences in political orientation. The acceptance of one’s ethnic identity and endorsement of bicultural attitudes predicted a more liberal political orientation. In light of these findings, political candidates should be cautious in how they pander to Latino constituents—referencing the groups’ ethnic culture or customs may distance constituents who are not strongly identified with their ethnic culture.

The Fairness of Media Coverage in Question: An Analysis of Referendum Campaigns on Welfare State Issues in Switzerland

The mass media are assigned an important role in political campaigns on popular votes. This article asks how the press communicates political issues to citizens during referendum campaigns, and whether some minimal criteria for successful public deliberation are met. The press coverage of all 24 ballot votes on welfare state issues from 1995 to 2004 in Switzerland is examined, distinguishing seven criteria to judge how news coverage compares to idealized notions of the media's role in the democratic process: coverage intensity, time for public deliberation, balance in media coverage, source independence and inclusiveness, substantive coverage, and spatial homogeneity. The results of our quantitative analysis suggest that the press does fulfil these normative requirements to a reasonable extent and that fears about biased or deceitful media treatment of ballot issues are not well-founded. However, some potential for optimizing the coverage of referendum campaigns by the Swiss press does exist

State Political Parties in American Politics: Innovation and Integration in the Party System

What role do state party organizations play in twenty-first century American politics? What is the nature of the relationship between the state and national party organizations in contemporary elections? These questions frame the three studies presented in this dissertation. More specifically, I examine the organizational development of the state party organizations and the strategic interactions and connections between the state and national party organizations in contemporary elections.

In the first empirical chapter, I argue that the Internet Age represents a significant transitional period for state party organizations. Using data collected from surveys of state party leaders, this chapter reevaluates and updates existing theories of party organizational strength and demonstrates the importance of new indicators of party technological capacity to our understanding of party organizational development in the early twenty-first century. In the second chapter, I ask whether the national parties utilize different strategies in deciding how to allocate resources to state parties through fund transfers and through the 50-state-strategy party-building programs that both the Democratic and Republican National Committees advertised during the 2010 elections. Analyzing data collected from my 2011 state party survey and party-fund-transfer data collected from the Federal Election Commission, I find that the national parties considered a combination of state and national electoral concerns in directing assistance to the state parties through their 50-state strategies, as opposed to the strict battleground-state strategy that explains party fund transfers. In my last chapter, I examine the relationships between platforms issued by Democratic and Republican state and national parties and the strategic considerations that explain why state platforms vary in their degree of similarity to the national platform. I analyze an extensive platform dataset, using cluster analysis and document similarity measures to compare platform content across the 1952 to 2014 period. The analysis shows that, as a group, Democratic and Republican state platforms exhibit greater intra-party homogeneity and inter-party heterogeneity starting in the early 1990s, and state-national platform similarity is higher in states that are key players in presidential elections, among other factors. Together, these three studies demonstrate the significance of the state party organizations and the state-national party partnership in contemporary politics.

Are celebrities mediators for negative spillover? An empirical study

The aim of this research is to investigate if a celebrity can be a mediator between two brands so that a negative event happening to one brand can spill over to a completely unrelated brand, which shares with the first brand only the celebrity endorser. Even though celebrity endorsement is a popular marketing strategy and celebrities often endorse multiple brands, so far there has not been any systematic study on this topic. Drawing on Associative Network Theory and the Meaning Transfer Model as theoretical framework, this research finds out that negative publicity about a brand can spill over and thereby not only hurt consumers’ attitude toward the celebrity endorser but also toward a second brand that is endorsed by the same celebrity. An unexpected finding is that celebrities can act as a protective shield for brands by weakening the direct impact of negative publicity.

Polítics i xarxes socials durant la campanya del 20-N : L'experiència dels ciutadans a Twitter i Facebook

Anàlisi de la campanya 2.0 dels partits polítics espanyols a les eleccions generals del 20-N des d'una perspectiva qualitativa, a partir d'entrevistes als ciutadans.

Open Environmental Information Upon Disclosure Request in China: The Paradox of Legal Mobilization

Taking a realist view that law is one form of politics, this dissertation studies the roles of citizens and organizations in mobilizing the law to request government agencies to disclose environmental information in China, and during this process, how the socio-legal field interacts with the political-legal sphere, and what changes have been brought about during their interactions. This work takes a socio-legal approach and applies methodologies of social science and legal analysis. It aims to understand the paradox of why and how citizens and entities have been invoking the law to access environmental information despite the fact that various obstacles exist and the effectiveness of the new mechanism of environmental information disclosure still remains low. The study is largely based on the 28 cases and eight surveys of environmental information disclosure requests collected by the author. The cases and surveys analysed in this dissertation all occurred between May 2008, when the OGI Regulations and the OEI Measures came into effect, and August 2012 when the case collection was completed. The findings of this study have shown that by invoking the rules of law made by the authorities to demand government agencies disclosing environmental information, the public, including citizens, organizations, law firms, and the media, have strategically created a repercussive pressure upon the authorities to act according to the law. While it is a top-down process that has established the mechanism of open government information in China, it is indeed the bottom-up activism of the public that makes it work. Citizens and organizations’ use of legal tactics to push government agencies to disclose environmental information have formed not only an end of accessing the information but more a means of making government agencies accountable to their legal obligations. Law has thus played a pivotal role in enabling citizen participation in the political process. Against the current situation in China that political campaigns, or politicization, from general election to collective actions, especially contentious actions, are still restrained or even repressed by the government, legal mobilization, or judicialization, that citizens and organizations use legal tactics to demand their rights and push government agencies to enforce the law, become de facto an alternative of political participation. During this process, legal actions have helped to strengthen the civil society, make government agencies act according to law, push back the political boundaries, and induce changes in the relationship between the state and the public. In the field of environmental information disclosure, citizens and organizations have formed a bottom-up social activism, though limited in scope, using the language of law, creating progressive social, legal and political changes. This study emphasizes that it is partial and incomplete to understand China’s transition only from the top-down policy-making and government administration; it is also important to observe it from the bottom-up perspective that in a realistic view law can be part of politics and legal mobilization, even when utterly apolitical, can help to achieve political aims as well. This study of legal mobilization in the field of environmental information disclosure also helps us to better understand the function of law: law is not only a tool for the authorities to regulate and control, but inevitably also a weapon for the public to demand government agencies to work towards their obligations stipulated by the laws issued by themselves.

Estelle Cuffe Hawley fonds, 1852-1999, n.d.

Estelle Cuffe Hawley (1894-1995) was an educator, businesswoman and politician, who became the first woman alderman on the St. Catharines City Council. She began her career as a teacher in Peterborough in 1913, and later taught in St. Catharines at Connaught School and St. Paul’s Ward School, where she served as Principal for six years. In 1928-29, she worked as an exchange teacher in Edmonton, Alberta. This would be Estelle’s last year in the teaching profession. She moved back to St. Catharines in 1930 and began a career in business, as an employee of Sun Life Assurance Co. She remained in this profession until around 1952. It was during this period that she became very active in the community and local politics. In 1934 she was elected to the St. Catharines Board of Education, where she advocated for the improvement of teachers’ salaries, the introduction of nursing services in schools, and the inclusion of music in the curriculum. She served as a member of the school board until 1937. The following year, she became the first woman elected to the St. Catharines City Council. As an alderman, she worked to improve the community's social welfare services, serving consecutively as chairman of all committees. She established comprehensive health services (including medical, dental and nursing), in the public, separate and secondary schools of St. Catharines, the first program of its kind in Canada. She was also instrumental in establishing minimum housing standards and engaging the public in local government by arranging a series of lectures by city officials. She remained a member of City Council until 1943. The following year she campaigned unsuccessfully for the mayoralty. In 1953 she married Hubert Hawley and moved to Orillia. She continued to remain active in the community, serving as President of the Ontario Recreation Association from 1950-1953, and editor of their Bulletin from 1955-1961. During the 1960s, she worked with various groups, including the Voice of Women, the Mental Health Association and the Freedom from Hunger Campaign. In addition to this work, Estelle wrote poetry and short stories, some of which were published in the Peterborough Review, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Churchman. Some of her short stories (often about her childhood experiences) were broadcast on the CBC, as well as her experiences as a Town Councillor (under the pseudonym Rebecca Johnson in 1961). She also broadcast a segment that was part of a series called “Winning the Peace” in April 1944. Estelle was a sought-after public speaker, speaking on topics such as peace, democracy, citizenship, education, and women’s rights. In 1976, Brock University conferred an honorary Doctor of Law degree to Estelle for her leadership as an educator, businesswoman and a stateswoman. Her husband Hubert died that same year, and Estelle subsequently moved to Mississauga. With the assistance of an Ontario Heritage Foundation grant, she began work on her memoir. She later moved back to Orillia and died there in 1995, at the age of 101.

Contribución del eslogan "mano firme, corazón grande" al triunfo de la campaña política a la presidencia de la República de Colombia de Álvaro Uribe Vélez en el año 2002

Esta monografía busca mostrar como el eslogan "Mano firme, corazón grande" contribuyó al triunfo de la campaña de Álvaro Uribe para la Presidencia de la República de Colombia en el año 2002, al ser un ejemplo de la aplicación de la formula de marketing comercial propuesta de valor.