Product endorsement on Slovak TV: Generation Y’s recall of celebrity endorsements and brands

Abstract

ABSTRACT Theory and practice supports the use of celebrity marketing, as celebrity endorsements can generate significant publicity and attention. In this way, communication and marketing goals are met for a variety of businesses. In fact, studies investigating celebrity marketing find that in the USA and Great Britain, 20–25% of TV commercials use celebrities. However, there is a dearth of research stemming for some other countries such as Slovakia on this topic. Therefore, this study specifically investigated what the younger range of Generation Y (i.e. Millenniums) could recall about celebrity endorsements, and specifically if they could connect the celebrity endorser to the product line. We found a rather high level of spontaneous recall for celebrity endorsers by the respondents. The dominant representation was found in four categories: Sports (29%), Television Personalities (25%), Actors (19%), and Musicians (18%). Combining the level of recall of celebrity endorsers with the professional background of the celebrity, and the product we were able to quantify the recalled celebrity endorsers on a continuum. We found that generally international celebrities scored higher on recall levels than Slovakian.