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Asian Brand Strategy simple. Customers tend to believe in the knowledge of the dental association. By the same token, a well-known appliance expert can be effective in endorsing refrigeration equipment, as would be a well-respected health practitioner for health-related products. Expert endorsement is more feasible for products with high functional and physical values. Products with such characteristics are most likely to be of high involvement, where the diligent consideration of information and evaluation of the true merit of the product are essential.11
Celebrity endorsement The top left quadrant represents products which provide social benefits without high involvement. As social benefits include emotional and self-esteem benefits, consumers would like to see and emulate some well-known personalities who use those products that they want to purchase. By having a celebrity endorse these categories of products, consumers are provided with a strong personality and a persona to emulate. A celebrity can be defined as an individual who is well known by others and for whom most people have well-developed, trait-based impressions.12 The South Korean cosmetics brand ETUDE used to be perceived as a brand at the lower end of the spectrum. Then actress Song Hye Gyo, who is famous Love started to endorse across Asia because of the popular TV series Endless Love, it, and the brand achieved greater recognition, enabling the company to charge better price premiums.13
A celebrity can also be a person who is widely known to the public for his/her accomplishments in his/her respective field, be it the movies, sport, music or politics. Sometimes, however, the celebrity endorses a product or product class that has no match with his/her accomplishments or achievements. Some of the better known examples are Tiger Woods endorsing Accenture and Tag Heuer, the Bollywood star Amitabh Bachan endorsing Cadbury chocolates in India and Yao Ming endorsing McDonald’s globally. Despite this mismatch between the celebrity and the product class, companies still continue with such endorsements as these celebrities help to pass on their charisma and personality to the products they endorse.