Keywords

Attractiveness, Celebrity Endorsement, Consumer Switching Behavior, Expertise, Respect, Trustworthiness.

Introduction

In recent years celebrity endorsement has become a veritable tool by marketers to promote a brand, product/service or a program. Businesses have realised that using celebrities to promote offerings influences the purchase behaviour of the target market. This is premised on the belief that people will love what the celebrities love (Kotler & Armstrong, 2013). Specifically, the service industry makes use of celebrity endorsement primarily due to the intangible nature of the product sold and here emphasis is on the Telecommunications Industry in Nigeria.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), that is responsible for issues that concern information and communication technologies, estimated that 51.2 percent of the global population, or 3.9 billion people were using the Internet as at the end of 2018 (International Telecommunication Union, 2018). Statista (2016) expected that by end of 2019, the global revenue made from telecom services would almost reach 1.2 trillion Euros.

In Nigeria the total subscriber base stands at One hundred and seventy-three million (173 million) with four (4) GSM competitors, viz: MTN, Glomobile, Airtel and 9mobile (Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), 2019). The Industry is a red ocean (Aithal & Acharya, 2016)as such it is very competitive where every player tries to outperform each other to grab a greater share of the existing or potential demand. The Market Leader is MTN with 37.84% while 9mobile, that barely changed its name from Etisalat (Ubabukoh, 2017), controls 9.66% with an approximate active base of Seventeen million (17 million) subscribers. 9mobile, being the late entrant has scrambled to gain more subscribers which in turn impacts on revenues and this is reflective in the port-in (switching) data where 9mobile controls about 52% of the total ports taking an average from a cohort of port-in data from September 2018 to February 2019(Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), 2019). Mobile number portability (MNP) loosely called porting, is a service that allows a customer to change telecom operator and keep the same phone number (Metha, 2016) for instance an MTN customer with number 0803000000 moving to 9mobile but still retaining the number making and receiving calls but quality of service would be handled by MTN mobile forthwith. All players in the industry have explored celebrity endorsement as a strategy to gain market share.

MTN has used Afeez Oyetoro popularly known as “Saka” during an aggressive port-in drive with “I don port o” (Okon-Ekong & Obioha, 2013); Glo has used Anthony Joshua, Richard Mofe Damijo (RMD), Chinedu Okoli better known by his stage name ‘Flavour’ or Flavour N'abania amongst others. Airtel has used Idowu Philips (popularly known as Iya Rainbow), Abdulateef Adedimeji (Nwabueze, 2017) and most recently Teni Apata for the new Airtel theme song “Gele”(Apata, 2019); 9mobile, when Etisalat, had used Genevieve Nnaji and currently uses Eniola Badmus as its celebrity endorser. These endorsements cost money and it is imperative to assess the effectiveness by evaluating the impact the endorsement has on switching and or purchase decisions/behaviour.

As part of driving top of mind awareness, brand saliency, stimulating and increasing in revenues, the players in the telecoms industry endorse celebrities for various product offerings. The cost of engaging celebrities is quite expensive (Han & Yazdanifard, 2015) and can be channelled into other areas of marketing or marketing communication initiatives. It usually ends up as a trade-off amongst promotion alternatives. The effectiveness of advertisement as well as measurement has always been a subject of debate. What then is the most effective channel in a very competitive market, can celebrities as part of the overall advertisement strategy sway more customers to an operator. It raises the question of source of credibility and attractiveness of celebrity endorser such that the celebrity scale assumes that credibility and effectiveness of celebrity endorser is associated with given characteristic dimensions. These dimensions are attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise, respect and how the lack thereof can impact on consumers’ wanting a product or service.

Objectives of the Study

The broad aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in driving top of mind awareness or porting behaviour. Specifically, the study investigates the relationship between the attractiveness of the celebrity endorser and consumer switching behavior; examine the relationship between trustworthiness of the celebrity and consumer switching behavior; and determine the relationship between the expertise of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour. In line the study objectives the following research hypotheses are formulated as follows:

H1 There is no significant relationship between the attractiveness of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour.

H2 There is no significant relationship between the trustworthiness of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour.

H3 There is no significant relationship between the expertise of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour.

Review of Related Literatures

Conceptual Model

The conceptual model is the roadmap of the study. Conceptual model is used to set the objectives of the study; define the research questions and develop the hypotheses of the study (Chun-Yen & Brady, 2017). The model for this study takes leanings primarily from the source credibility and source attractiveness theory with given characteristic dimensions like attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise; the concept- respect was added as part of the characteristics primarily due to the fact that for media and entertainment users, the “character influencer” has to some extent garnered “respect” to stimulate interests. This is articulated in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1 Celebrity Endorser

Source: Adapted from McCuthceon, et al (2002). Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the endorsement process . Journal of Consumer Research, 16(3), 310–321.

Attractiveness speaks to the quality of being very pleasing in appearance or causing interest with the potential to make people want to do something (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Intense attachment with celebrities has effect people, motivates and attracts them to follow the celebrity commonly known as “endorser”. The focus would be “familiarity” and or likeable as well as the physical appearance.

Trustworthiness speaks to the ability to be relied on as honest or truthful. It is the quality or fact of being able to be trusted. The celebrity is someone who is reliable and believable in the mind of the public. Expertise addresses an expert skill or knowledge in a subject area. The celebrity is an expert who has a prolonged or intense experience through practice and education in a particular field of life.

Respect may be used interchangeably with esteem. The term ‘respect’ depicts action or positive feeling shown to someone considered important with high regard or something held in high esteem. It is a sense of admiration convey for valuable or good qualities. It is also expressed as the process of honoring someone by exhibiting care, which consists of consideration for their needs or feelings or concern (Cambridge University Press, 2019). Respect was added primarily due to the power distance dimension for Nigeria with a high score of 80 (Hofstede, 2019). It implies that people accept a hierarchical order in which everybody has a place, this needs no further justification as such a reverence for celebrities suffices. Hofstede (2019) explained power distance as the extent to which the less powerful members’ expectation are denied or accepted by the more powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country that power should be distributed unequally. Respect for a celebrity endorser represents the quality of being admired because of one’s personal qualities and accomplishment in the society. Celebrities are usually respected for their unique personality, athletic skills, acting ability and political arguments attract respect. At this juncture, it is important to shed light on the theories which was used in anchoring the study.

The Implications for Celebrity Endorsement

The affective disposition theory highlights the link between celebrity fantasy and the emotional investment in terms of media entertainment narratives and experiences and how they influence endorsed brand attitude.

The Elaboration Likelihood Model

The Elaboration Likelihood Model in persuasion research was a response to “a mystifying diversity of findings” on how people form and change their attitudes. The model addresses differences in the way consumers process and respond to persuasive messages.

ELM model was developed to explain the processes by which advertising as a persuasive communications tool lead to persuasion that influence attitudes of consumers. The attitude formation or change process according to ELM model depends on nature of elaboration or processing and the amount of relevant information that occurs in response to persuasive message. Petty, Cacioppo and Schuman (1983) explained that it is high elaboration when the receiver engages in thinking, careful evaluation of the information, arguments or consideration of information contained in the message. On the contrary, when the receiver makes inferences about the position being advocated in the message, does not engage in thinking or active information processing based on simple positive or negative cues, low elaboration occurs (Petty, Cacioppo, & Schuman, 1983).

Motivation and ability to process the message is a function of two elements that the ELM shows. Factors which depend on involvement such as personal relevance, individual needs and arousal levels influence the process of message (Stephenson, et al, 2001). The individual’s knowledge, intellectual capacity and opportunity to process the message depend on ability of celebrity endorser. There are two basic routes to persuasion or attitude change, according to the Elaborated Likelihood Model. These routes are peripheral routes to persuasion and central routes to persuasion.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

When the message receiver is deemed as lacking the ability to process information, the situation is referred to as peripheral route to persuasion which implies that the receiver is not motivated and may not likely engage in detailed cognitive processing. In this case, the receiver relies on peripheral cues that may be incidental to the main arguments rather than accurately evaluate the information presented in the message. How the receiver evaluates these peripheral cues determines his or her reaction to the message. Stephenson, et al (2001) explained that the consumers rather than carefully evaluate arguments presented in the message of advertisement, sometimes use several types of cognitive shortcuts. In the advertisement, if the endorser is likable, attractive and viewed as an expert, favourable attitudes may be formed, especially when the consumers like the imagery, the music or certain aspects of the advertisement and the way it is made. However, peripheral processing emanating from favourable attitudes is usually temporary in the minds of consumers. In this regard, favourable attitudes must be maintained with continual repetitive advertising exposure to the peripheral cues (Heath, McCarthy & Mothers Baugh, 1994). For advertisements that advocate extreme positions but not well executed, use endorsers who have credibility problems and are not well liked peripheral cues can lead to message rejection. This message rejection may be as result of lack of any consideration of message arguments or information.

Central Route to Persuasion

The receiver under the central route to persuasion is seen as very actively involved participants with ability and motivation to attend in the communication process, evaluate messages and highly comprehend. When central processing of an advertising message occurs, the consumer pays close attention to message content and looks deeply into the message arguments. An advertisement’s ability to persuade the receiver when a high level of cognitive response processing occurs primarily depends on the receiver’s evaluation of the arguments quality presented. Source bolsters and support arguments which lead to positive attitude change or persuasion lead to favourable changes in cognitive structure as well as favourable cognitive responses to message. In other hand, counter arguments or source derogations results in unfavourable cognitive responses and negative attitude change. Subsequent efforts should be made to resist unfavourable cognitive responses or attitude change that occurs and is relatively enduring through central processing demands.

Theoretical Framework

1. Source Credibility Theory: The source credibility theory as propounded by Hovland, Janis and Kelly (1953). It states that people or receivers are more likely to be persuaded when the information source presents itself as credible in the mind of the audience. Hovland and Weiss (1951) studied the influence of sources in persuasion. Using same persuasive message Hovland and Weiss (1951) compared credible and non-credible sources to test if the sources seen as credible could influence opinions change in the message receivers more than the non-credible source. The result confirmed that credible sources tend to create the desired impact on the audience as assumed.

On a similar, McCroskey et al. (1974) noted that communicators with high credibility tend to have respect in the eyes of message receivers and their words more readily are accepted. Brook’s (1974) findings in addition showed that differences in receivers’ attitudes have a bearing on source credibility. In communication theories, there is obvious uniformity that ethos that emits knowledge, moral standards, goodwill towards the message receivers relate source credibility to the communicator’s favourable character. Loosely put, favourable senders’ ethos equals credibility and believability. Having the highlighted in context, there are two (2) most commonly visible elements which positively influence source credibility and they are: perceived expertise and trustworthiness of the source.

Expertise: This construct highlights the impact of a company hiring an individual to recommend a brand or a product; especially when it is assumed that the individual promoting the product is experienced and knows much of what the product is all about (Till & Shimp, 1998). If there seems to be some disconnection between the celebrity’s endorser knowledge and what the product information or values is talking about, all credibility goes down the drain. Likewise, the consumer tends like celebrity endorser the more when perceived as experts in a particular product category (Buhr, Simpson, & Pryor, 1987).

Trustworthiness: This speaks to the celebrity’s sincerity. This is an overarching component that answers whether the consumer is actively engaged in the product and brand being endorsed by the celebrity, or if celebrity endorsers simply consider product endorsement to be an irrelevant marketing ploy (Seno & Lukas, 2007). It was observed that behavioural changes and positive attitudes is closely associated with high credibility. Therefore, marketers tend to meticulously sort through celebrities to select endorsers base on the notion of high level credibility of celebrity for the brand or product (Craig & McCann 1978).

2. Source Attractiveness Theory: This component speaks to the celebrity’s appearance. Source attractiveness model, a “source valance” component of the model is mainly based on four dimensions; which are (i) “familiarity” implying knowledge of source through exposure, (ii) “likeability” meaning affection for source based on its physical appearance or behavior, (iii) “similarity” indicating resemblance between the source and the audience, and (iv) “attractiveness” (McGuire, 1985; Mccracken, 1989). Accordingly, the effectiveness of the message depends on these dimensions. More attractive and persuasive are seen as a function of familiar, likeable and/or similar sources (Ohanian 1990). Likeable and familiar people are more successful at changing believes, attitudes and generating purchase intentions and evoke positive stereotypes, are as a result physically attractive communicators (Caballero and Pride, 1984; Chaiken, 1979; Lord, Lee, & Sauer, 1995; Till and Busler, 2000).

Several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of source attractiveness model in consumer persuasion. Source attractiveness theory suggests that for an advert to persuade the consumer and the advertisement send an effective message; the source must be likeable and familiar to the consumer (Till & Shimp, 1998). Physical appearance induces positive feelings from consumers as such the consumer will grasp the message and more likely be cognitively engaged in the advertisement. Buhr, Simpson, and Pryor (1987) recalled that Brad Pitt (Chanel) and Scarlett Johansson (Calvin Klein) are good examples of celebrities who successfully endorse brands with their good looks.

C. Empirical framework

There have been different studies and papers on the topic of celebrity endorsement. This article examines three (3) research papers. Uttera Chaudhary and Ankita Asthana (2015) wrote on the “Impact of celebrity endorsements on consumer brand loyalty: Does it really matter?”. Uttera et al (2015) study carried out an exploratory research aimed at assessing the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumers’ purchasing decisions. This study was meant to determine the effects of a celebrity “big name” on brands and further carry out analysis of consumers’ perception towards effectiveness of such endorsements on brand loyalty.

To understand whether celebrities play any significant role in influencing the purchase decision of consumers a sample of 70 consumers were taken and investigated to make reasonable. Primary and secondary data were adopted for collecting the data. Secondary data was collected from the internet, articles from scholarly journals and books to have in depth understanding of the subject matter. The researchers concluded that the use of celebrities to endorse a marketing offer are perceived to enhance the awareness, responsiveness and brand image of products and creates a connection which forces a consumer to patronize a product. The study was limited primarily as it captured only 70 respondents from NCR in Delhi, which cannot be representative of the large Indian population and the focus was more on consumer brand loyalty.

Exploring paper about celebrity endorsement carried out in Turkey, Ermec Sertoglu, Catli and Korkmaz (2014) examined the effect of endorser credibility on the consumers' buying intentions adopting empirical study in Turkey which was intended to test whether source credibility affects buying intention as well as measure the perceived credibility differences between a created spokesperson and the celebrity endorser. The research shows that the three dimensions (expertise, attractiveness and trustworthiness) of a celebrity are positively related with purchase intention for the celebrity endorser and created spokesperson.

The study also included the analysis of differences between the perceived credibility levels of celebrity endorsers and created spokespersons. The results indicated that created spokespersons are perceived to be more trustworthy than having more expertise, whereas where celebrity endorsers’ attractiveness level is higher than of created spokespersons’, consumers perceive celebrity endorsers to be more trustworthy. The limitation of the research was primarily the focus on a comparison of the celebrity endorser versus the “created spokesperson” highlighting each persona via three dimensions (expertise, attractiveness and trustworthiness).

Dix, Phau and Pougnet (2010) in a published article, “Bend it like Beckham”: the influence of sports celebrities on young adult consumers"; aimed at investigating how sports celebrities can influence young adult consumers' purchase decision, behavioural intentions and be perceived as role models. It also sought to examine if the influence differs between males and females. The methodology was a self-administered questionnaire using established scales. A convenience sample was drawn from students in a large university in Western Australia. The findings from the research showed athlete role model endorsers have a positive influence on young adults' product switching behaviour, complaint behaviour, positive word-of-mouth behaviour and brand loyalty. Dix, et al. (2010) concluded that sports celebrities can have significant impact on purchase intentions and are important socialisation agents.

Research Methods

The study is intended to assess the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer switching behaviour in MTN mobile. The survey research design was adopted in gathering data in order to reach a valid conclusion. This design was appropriate for gathering uniform data from respondents required for the study. Surveys provide ways of selecting an amount of people from a population who have the same distribution of personal and social characteristics as the population itself and can serve as a representative sample. In order to streamline the research, the study is restricted to MTN mobile Nigeria port-in subscribers and the study related variables outlined.

The study population included the mobile network subscribers who joined MTN mobile from other Networks (Glomobile, 9mobile, and Airtel) from the Month of January - October 2019 which stood at five thousand, eight hundred and sixtyone-5,861 subscribers(Nigerian Communications Commission, 2019).

A total of three hundred and seventy-four (374) respondents were selected for the study. The sample size chosen was to allow for precision in the data analysis. The researcher adopted purposive sampling technique in selecting the respondents needed for the study. This was based on availability and willingness of the respondents to cooperate with the researcher. The simplified formula is

Where N is the total population under consideration, in this case the total port-in subscribers into MTN Nigeria, which is calculated to be 5,861α is the level of precision, or significance for this study, 5% is adopted as the level of precision.

The main research instrument for this study was questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed by the researcher to assess impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer switching behaviour in the service industry, with a focus on MTN Nigeria Communication. The questionnaires comprised of two sections. The first section assessed the demographical information of the employees under study. The second section contained items that were constructed to elicit responses from the respondents regarding the four research questions postulated to guide the study.

In terms of validation and reliability of the research instrument, the instrument was given to the researcher’s supervisor to ascertain the face and content validity of the instrument. Items not suitable as identified by the researcher supervisor were removed or modified based on the comments by the researcher’s supervisor. Using split half method and Cronbach Alpha, the researcher ascertained the internal consistency of the items in the questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaires was checked through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences using the Cronbach Alpha test to check if the internal consistency of the questionnaire. In this study, 0.7 was used to indicate the reliability of the questionnaire and the result for all the items are summarized show alpha coefficient of .812 indicating that the instrument items have high internal consistent and therefore reliable.

Owing to the dispersed nature of the consumers, the researcher adopted the online survey method to distribute the questionnaire all over the country. The researcher retrieved the email addresses and phone contacts of respondents from Subscriber Directory Number (SDN) of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), (2017) and accordingly copy of questionnaire was sent through an online survey. This method actually helped in maintaining the social distance rule imposed by covid-19 pandemic. The researcher gave two weeks for the filling of the online survey, after which the researcher closed the portal and conducted the analysis of the received questionnaires.

Based on the variables/construct associated with the research objectives, appropriate analytical techniques were employed to analyse the data collected for this study. Specifically, data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Frequency tables were drawn, regression analysis carried out with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 software. The analysis constituted both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Inferential statistics included Simple regression for individual hypotheses and multiple regression analysis for all the research variables.

The hypotheses were tested using regression analysis: The research variables in the hypotheses were estimated a regression model which describes the relationship between a dichotomous response variable and a set of explanatory variables. Thus; the regression model is Y = α0 + β1X1+ β2X2+ β3X3 + ε

Where:

Y = Consumer Switching Behaviour

α0 = represents Constant

X1 = Attractiveness of the Celebrity

X2 = Trustworthiness of the Celebrity

X3 = Expertise of the Celebrity

ε = Error Term

β1, β2, β3 represents Regression Coefficients for Independent variables

Data Analysis and Results

The data collected was via a primary survey of three hundred and seventy-four (374) copies of questionnaires distributed online to the respondents. However, 286 copies were duly filled and returned. This reflects a response rate of 76.47%. The presentation and analysis were done; using frequency distribution tables to present the respondents’ demographic data; analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to run simple regression analysis for testing of the research hypotheses. All the aforementioned were carried out with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 20.0).

Demographic Characters

This section of the chapter shows the frequency distribution of respondent demographic questions of the 286 copies of questionnaire with variables gender, age bound, academic qualification, and years of using 9MOBILE in Table 1.

Data presented in Table 1 above shows that 174 respondents representing 60.8% which also has the highest frequency are Male while 112 respondents representing 39.2% are Female. The table demonstrates diversity across sex of respondents’ data collected and analyzed.

Data presented in Table 1 above shows that 28 respondents representing 9.8% are within the age grade of 18- 30, while 210 respondents representing 73.4% are between 31-40 years and 46 respondents representing 16.1% are between 41-50 years and 2 respondents representing .7% are 51 and above. However, the lowest number of respondents is in ‘50 and above’ age grade group while the highest number of respondents is from the ‘31 – 40’ age group. The table further demonstrates diversity across age of respondents’ data collected and analyzed.

Table 1 shows that 32.2% of the respondents were single, 46.2% of them were married, 15.4% of the respondents were either divorced or separated, while 6.3% of the respondents were widowed. This implies that majority of our respondents are married. The table demonstrates diversity across marital status of respondents’ data collected and analyzed in Table 2.

The data presented in Table 1 above shows those respondents having a Bachelor’s Degree /HND qualification representing 64.3% is the highest; 96 respondents representing 33.6% were having a Masters qualification. While 2 respondents representing .7% were PHD holders and 4 respondents representing 1.4% said they have other qualifications not listed. The table demonstrates diversity across educational qualification of respondents’ data collected and analyzed.

The data presented in table 1 show that 26 respondents representing 9.1% have been with 9mobile for at most 4 years while 173 respondents representing 60.5% which is the highest have remained loyal to 9mobile for 5 to 10 years and 87 respondents representing 30.4% have stayed with 9mobile for 10 years or more. Therefore, data collected can be regarded as balanced and reliable for the purpose of this study.

Data Processing and the Results

The research hypotheses for this study were tested using of simple regression analysis with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). This helped in determining if a statistically significant relationship exists between the study variables.

The Attractiveness of the Celebrity and Consumer Switching Behavior

H1: There is no significant relationship between the attractiveness of the celebrity and consumer switching behavior.

Regression

[DataSet0]

A simple regression was calculated predicting subjects’ Consumer Switching Behaviour (AC) based on Attractiveness of the Celebrity(CSB). A significant regression equation was found (F(1,106) = .359, p > .000), with R2 of .003. Subjects predicted ‘Consumer Switching Behaviour’ equal to 4.426 + .084 of Attractiveness of the Celebrity. Subjects’ average ‘Consumer Switching Behaviour’ increased .003 for an increase in ‘Attractiveness of the Celebrity’. This result suggests that there is a positive relationship between attractiveness of the celebrity and consumer switching behavior. The result affirms that there is significant relationship between celebrity attractiveness and consumer switching behavior in Nigerian telecommunication industry.

The Trustworthiness of the Celebrity and Consumer Switching Behaviour

H2: There is no significant relationship between the trustworthiness of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour.

Regression

[DataSet0]

A regression analysis was calculated to access the subjects, “Consumer Switching Behaviour (CSB)” based on “Trustworthiness of the Celebrity (TwC)”. A significant regression equation was found (F(1,106) = 19.172, p > .000), with R2 of .153. Subjects predicted ‘Consumer Switching Behaviour’ equal to 3.275 + 0.272 of ‘Trustworthiness of the Celebrity’. Subjects’ average ‘Consumer Switching Behaviour’ increased 0.272 for an increase in ‘Trustworthiness of the Celebrity’. This result suggests that there is significant positive relationship between Celebrity Trustworthiness and Switching Behaviour of Consumers. It further implies that there is significant relationship between the trustworthiness of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour in Table 3.

The Expertise of the Celebrity and Consumer Switching Behaviour

H3: There is no significant relationship between the expertise of the celebrity and consumer switching behaviour.

Regression

[DataSet0]

A simple regression was calculated predicting subjects’ Consumer Switching Behaviour (CSB) based on Expertise of the Celebrity (EC). A significant regression equation was found (F(1,103) = 11.201, p >0.001), with R2 of .522. Subjects predicted ‘Consumer Switching Behaviour’ equal to 2.752 + .321 of ‘Expertise of the Celebrity’. Subjects’ average, “consumer switching behavior” increased .321 when ‘Expertise of the Celebrity’ increase. This confirms that there is positive relationship between ‘Expertise of the Celebrity’ and Consumer Switching Behavior. This result confirms that there is significant relationship between celebrity expertise and consumer brand switching behaviour in Table 4.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The result of data analysis shows that the attractiveness of the celebrity, though weak has an impact on consumer switching behavior. It was observed that physical appearance, likeability, familiarity and personality match between the celebrity and the product/brand endorsed, all have influence on consumers switching behaviour. The more appealing the celebrity is; the more likely the potential for the consumer to switch. The study found a strong relationship between celebrity trustworthiness and consumer switching behavior in Nigerian Telecommunication Industry. The research highlights the sincerity of the celebrity endorser can influence use of the product. It also shows that celebrities that display characteristics of honesty can impact switching behaviour. It was observed that the claims about a product or service made by the celebrity endorser are believable as well as most consumers found products endorsed by a celebrity trustworthy; though some of the consumers were a bit undecided on whether the products were in actual sense trustworthy.

The study further found that the expertise of the celebrity has a major influence on consumer switching behavior. The celebrity is seen as a subject matter expert. This attribute speaks to a well-informed celebrity endorser, quite knowledge, with an in-depth intellectual prowess for which all have a part to play in building affinity as well as triggering stickiness to the product endorsed.

The respect for the celebrity endorser has an impact on consumer switching behavior though weak. A celebrity with high-esteem, admired and a reflection of the celebrity’s achievements may not necessarily influence consumer porting. This is despite the high-power distance score of 80 in Nigeria. It is worthy of mention other extraneous factors like effective advertising, great service quality and perceived value in terms of right pricing combined with celebrity endorsement would be veritable in encouraging switching behavior.

Sequel to the research findings and the conclusions drawn in the study, it is recommended that Companies should ensure that the celebrity reflects critical characteristics like expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness in that order, since it is deemed important for expertise and trustworthiness to lead in the celebrity selection. This can be done via extensive research quantitative as well as qualitative to ensure the celebrity endorser radiates the values as perceived by the consumers. A celebrity’s attractiveness may not necessarily translate to the endorsed product attractiveness as such companies should not make it a priority in selecting a celebrity for endorsement.

Some congruence should exist between the celebrity and the product for endorsement as there is a tendency for a disconnection, if the product and the celebrity are not in sync. Celebrity endorsement as a promotional tool should not be done in isolation, the quality of service or product offered, right pricing as well as effective advertising which all speak to an integrated marketing communication mix is integral in ensuring the product and celebrity is positioned right in the eyes of the consumer. It is also recommended that considerations be given to the target audience, the product and the consumers’ perception before firms engage a celebrity endorsement program.

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