What influences most: Celebrities, Influencers, or Mascots?: Investigating the effectiveness of different Endorsers in Consumer Communication

Abstract: This thesis aims to bring insights into the field of endorser marketing. Celebrity, mascot, and influencer endorsements, especially with the rise of social media, are very popular and often-used by marketers in B2C marketing. Endorser marketing is believed to provide a higher degree of appeal, attention, and customer recall ability, in comparison with when an endorser is absent. In this study, a quantitative experiment (n = 366) was completed through a survey, where participants were shown an advertisement featuring one of the three endorsers mentioned, accompanied with questions regarding purchase intention, brand attitude, brand recall, to find out which endorser is the most effective in consumer communication. We also investigate how this consumer behavior is mediated through the source attractiveness and source credibility model, and whether the fit between the product and endorser matters. Our results showed that the mascot and the celebrity of the used design had greater levels of purchase intention and greater levels of brand attitude than the influencer of the design. All mediators except one had no statistical support. Celebrities were also perceived as the most trustworthy out of the three endorsers.