Influence of Celebrity Endorsed Advertisement of Financial Corporation on Chinese Consumers’ Attitude toward the Brand and Their Investment Intention: The Case for Ping an Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd.

Abstract

Celebrity endorsement is a common used by marketers as a communication strategy to increase marketing share and build brand image. Even financial corporate would like to pay millions of dollars to employ celebrities endorse the financial products/services, which are rational and knowledgeable. This study aims to figure out the influence of celebrity endorsement on Chinese consumers’ attitude toward financial corporation and their investment intention by using Ping An insurance as a case study and measures with four factors of celebrity endorsement including attractiveness, trustworthiness, expertise and celebrity-product congruence. Quantitative approach was used to describe and analyze the effects of celebrity endorsement on insurance consumers’ attitude toward financial corporate and purchase intention. Two-hundred respondents have participated in this survey by using random questionnaire. The Multiple Regression and Simple Regression approach were used for data analyzing with the significance level of .05. The main findings of this study indicated that celebrity endorsement has effect on consumers’ attitude and purchase intention for their insurance selecting process. Furthermore, trustworthiness is the most important factor of celebrity endorsed advertisement. In addition, expertise and celebrity-product congruence attributes effects on consumers’ attitude and purchase intention. Attractiveness seems not the main factor of celebrity endorsement on purchase intention, however, attractiveness of advertisement endorsed by celebrity do affect consumers’ attitude and financial purchase intention.