Over the decades, the use of celebrities in advertising has increased. Research suggests that in western countries between 20% and 30% of all advertising used celebrities in the late 1990s. During the past 10 years, however, the use of celebrities in advertising has plunged. This paper discusses why advertisers are turning away from using major celebrities in their campaigns, and what alternative individuals may be used instead of the celebrities.

Research indicates growth in the use of celebrities as endorsers in the US advertising from around 15% in the 1970s to 25% by the end of the 1990s (Erdogan, 1999; Hsu and McDonald, 2002; and Stafford et al., 2003). Similarly, in the UK, the percentage of advertising that features celebrities increased from 11% in 1994 to 17% in 2002 (Pringle and Binet, 2005). Thus, most of the academic literature ascertains that the number of celebrity campaigns has increased markedly and steadily over the years (Kamins, 1990; Erdogan et al., 2001; La Ferle and Choi, 2005; Carroll, 2008; Till et al., 2008; Lord and Putreveau, 2009; Eisend and Langner, 2010; and Törn, 2012), and that in Western societies, for example, in the US or UK, between 20% and 30% of adverts and commercials feature celebrities (Hsu and McDonald, 2002; White, 2004; Mehulkumar, 2005; Choi and Rifon, 2007; Amos et al., 2008; Carroll, 2008; Till et al., 2008; White et al., 2009; Upadhyay and Singh, 2010; Ding et al., 2011; and Törn, 2012). As a result, the authors report that “these days, it’s nearly impossible to surf the Internet, open a newspaper or magazine, or watch television without seeing a celebrity selling something” (Creswell, 2008), that “the perception across markets is that there are more celebrities who are being used more and more and by more brands” (Pike, 2012), and that “the use of celebrity endorsers continues to grow” (Chung et al., 2013).

The rise of celebrity endorsements over the past decades may be explained by the declining effectiveness of other marketing communications (Keller, 2003; Bondé and Roozen, 2007; and Roozen and Clayes, 2010). Differentiating products through their specifications and features has become very limited since it cannot be assumed that consumers are interested in a product because of some combination of basic ingredients (Onkvisit and Shaw, 1987; and Carroll, 2008). Mature brands are in an ‘image stage’, in which the functional advantages have eroded and the symbolic values have become more important (Murphy, 1990). Celebrities provide such symbolic values, which can be transferred to a brand through compelling advertising (McCracken, 1989).

Consumer Behavior, Significant Decline in Celebrity Usage, Advertising