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The naked truth of celebrity endorsement

Department of Retailing and Marketing, The Business School, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK, and Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK
Keywords Celebrities, Advertising, Supermarkets, Image Abstract This case study examines the use of celebrity endorsement in the formation of the retail image of leading European grocery distribution group J. Sainsbury, in particular, the process of transference of celebrity images to the product's image. The incorporation of Jamie Oliver (well known as television celebrity The Naked Chef) into the promotions of one of Britain's leading grocery chains involves a high profile campaign that has been adopted in order to imbue the company's products with an image of quality. The success of the campaign has been replicated in New Zealand by another grocery retail ``giant'', Foodstuffs, who have also adopted The Naked Chef to endorse their products. The case draws on field research with consumers and key informant interviews with advertising agency personnel who identified the criterion for the choice of Jamie Oliver. The extent to which the market place recognises and consumers associate themselves with the image Jamie projects as a celebrity endorser for J. Sainsbury is explored.

Angela Byrne and Maureen Whitehead Steven Breen

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Company background J. Sainsbury is one of the European's leading grocery distribution stores. Founded in the UK in the 1870s it has retained the family name and reputation for quality. Towards the end of the 1990s this reputation for premium quality came under increasing pressure as competitors both improved the quality of their offer and at the same time adopted new price positioning strategies. Additionally, consumers' awareness of value and search for value-driven offers increased thus leaving the company facing competitive pressures in terms of price and quality. At the same time, Tesco, a major rival, started to dominate the UK market, and Asda, the US owned grocery chain pursued an aggressive price reduction strategy. This left J. Sainsbury in the position of having to compete on a price platform or adopt a brand strengthening strategy. In response, the company chose to spend 25 million on a brand building exercise through the use of celebrity endorsement. The Jamie Oliver campaign Jamie Oliver, otherwise know to British households as The Naked Chef through his popular television cooking series, bases his approach to audiences on informality, friendliness and an easy-going, relaxed format. The television series The Naked Chef involves Jamie out and about shopping for ingredients and cooking for friends who arrive at his home to share the meal in a relaxed, informal setting. The style of the program is more of a fly on the wall documentary where viewers look in on the private life of a young chef at home

British Food Journal Vol. 105 No. 4/5, 2003 pp. 288-296 # MCB UP Limited 0007-070X DOI 10.1108/00070700310477086

entertaining friends and family or cooking alone in his own kitchen while The naked truth talking all the time to camera (and an anonymous female . . . ``darling'') at the of celebrity same time as running round the kitchen preparing fresh ingredients. Easily endorsement prepared fresh food that can be cooked quickly is The Naked Chef's appeal. His recipe collection supporting the series appears regularly in the top ten books' list not only in the UK but also across Europe. The celebrity endorsement strategy is a cornerstone of Sainsbury' s strategy 289 to rebuild market share at a time of intense competition amongst the major multiples and eroding brand loyalty amongst consumers. The campaign reflects the image projected by Jamie Oliver by using the same approach as used in The Naked Chef in that Jamie is seen out shopping with family in Sainsbury's stores. Typical campaigns have been a Christmas campaign where Jamie is seen with his grandma buying Christmas gifts. The current campaign features Jamie post Christmas endorsing Sainsbury's low fat products when he calls in on his mum for a curry as he wants a change from his wife's low fat cooking, only to have the same products used by his mum without him recognising their low fat content. The reason for adopting this strategy was in the words of the campaign's agency because:
Celebrities can build, refresh and add new dimensions. What celebrities stand for enhances brands and they save valuable time in terms of creating the credibility a company has to create in order to build its brands by transferring their values to the brand. When consumers see a credible celebrity endorsing a product they think the company must be OK (Abbot et al., 2001).

Previous celebrity endorsement campaigns Academic researchers have examined the effects of celebrity endorsement on product image in the context of manufacturing (Kamins, 1990; Till, 1998; McCracken, 1989), however, the impact of celebrity endorsement on retail brands is less well documented. The level of maturity in the retail brand concept has directed retailers in recent years towards the use of specific brand image building strategies such as celebrity endorsement (Burt, 2000). Tesco, the UK's leading grocery chain, were the founders of this trend with their campaign featuring the British film star Dudley Moore, which was then subsequently challenged by a successful campaign by J. Sainsbury in 1994. This first J. Sainsbury venture into using celebrities to endorse their brand was initiated by the ``recipes'' campaign in the early 1990s. Celebrities used within the campaign included Delia Smith, the famous British cook, whose fame has resulted in her inclusion into the Oxford English Dictionary as a result of her expertise which has led to the expression ``doing a Delia''. The Delia recipe campaign achieved enormous success for the company as it integrated on-screen recipes, prepared by Delia, with in-store recipe cards to be collected by customers whilst purchasing their ingredients. A less successful attempt at celebrity endorsement was undertaken by J. Sainsbury following the Delia campaign through the use of John Cleese, the British comic actor who achieved success in his roles within the Monty Python team and Fawlty Towers comedy series, in the ``value to shout about'' campaign

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in 1998. These advertisements involved Cleese jumping out of aisles and using a loud hailer to shout about special offers within store. The campaign was very much in the mould of a Fawlty Towers scene, possibly aiming to appeal to an age group who would be familiar with the series, however, the approach was disliked by many of Sainsbury's core customers. Employees and customers alike felt that Cleese was not the right personality to personify the supermarket's quality image. Many felt that the comic connotations associated with Cleese and the brash, loud approach of the advertisements alienated a mainly conservative target audience and patronised in-store employees. Clearly the use of humour in celebrity endorsement campaigns is not always appropriate in conveying positive product images. Interestingly, the successful use of Prunella Scales (best known for her role as Sybil Fawlty) by Tesco in their celebrity endorsement campaign may lie in the fact that Sybil's character within Fawlty Towers was the one who was always right and took control of matters. In contrast, Basil Fawlty (Sainsbury's less successful ``value to shout about'' campaign), Sybil's blundering husband, was consistently wrong and refused to see the error of his ways. The transfer of meaning of these personae to audiences probably lies at the root of the relative success of their respective endorsements. In terms of likeability of the endorsers, the Tesco campaign achieved greater success than the Sainsbury's campaign. The chain has now turned their attention to re-emphasising quality through the use of Jamie Oliver, The Naked Chef, in what is a campaign believed to be costing over 25 million, with Jamie Oliver receiving an estimated 1 million for the endorsement. Andrew Ground (Director of Brand Marketing at Sainsbury's), states the reason for choosing Jamie Oliver as:
Jamie stands for making great food he's the embodiment of what we are trying to say about Sainsbury's.

This quote encapsulates the strategic reasons for the use of a celebrity within a campaign, in that the prime objective is to imbue the brand with a personality and values. The challenge, therefore, for retail brands is to find a credible endorser who will provide the brand with such recognition. Celebrity endorsement Celebrity endorsement has been defined as:
Any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement (McCracken, 1989).

A consistent theme emerging in advertising models is that both cognitive and behavioural responses under low-involvement situations can be facilitated by source cues that the consumer identifies with. Celebrity endorsement has become one of the communication strategies employed by marketers in an attempt to build a congruent image between the brand and the consumer. Endorsers can be of many types, including the typical consumer, e.g. the use of

Prunella Scales (best known as Sybil Fawlty in the Fawlty Towers series) by The naked truth Tesco, the product class expert, the company president, and the celebrity. of celebrity There is great value attached to companies using a created spokesperson for endorsement endorsement, as the company has greater control of its image:
The company can build characters that are congruent with their brands and target audiences. Companies have very little control over the celebrity's persona, as this has been created over the years (Tom et al., 1992).

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Celebrity endorsers have been found to produce more positive responses towards advertising and greater purchase intentions than a non-celebrity endorser (Atkin and Block, 1983; Petty and Cacioppo, 1983). Other studies have measured the impact celebrity endorsers have on a firm's profitability finding them to be effective. Furthermore McCracken (1989) found that celebrity endorsers represented an effective way of transferring meanings to brands:
Used in this way, the role of the celebrity endorser transcends that of simply being an executional device which might be most appropriate under low-involvement situations and becomes a powerful tool for managing brand equity (Petty and Cacioppo, 1983).

From a theoretical perspective, therefore, celebrities are effective endorsers because of their symbolic aspirational reference group associations (Soloman and Assael, 1987). The use of aspirational groups is also a feature of celebrity endorsement in other sectors. Sports personalities have been used to endorse sports manufacturers' products, e.g. David Beckham's endorsement of Adidas. In order to understand how these celebrity endorsers are able to transfer their personality to products it is important to understand what attitudes an endorser must exhibit in order to successfully influence a company or product image. Kelman (1961) identified three key attributes that are fundamental to successful transference: credibility, attractiveness and power. Credibility is the extent to which the recipient sees the source as having relevant knowledge, skill or experience and trusts the source to give unbiased, objective information. The choice of John Cleese by J. Sainsbury for the ``value to shout about'' campaign meant that the character he is best known for in the UK, namely Basil Fawlty, are the characteristics conveyed to the audience. Basil Fawlty consistently got things wrong, was rude, prejudiced and offensive to members of the public and did not care for convention. Two important dimensions of credibility are expertise and trustworthiness. The effectiveness of a message then depends on the perceived level of expertise and trustworthiness in an endorser, e.g. Carol Vorderman, British mathematical presenter of the television show Countdown endorsing Benecol, a spread that claims to reduce cholesterol. Information from a credible source influences beliefs, opinions, attitudes and behaviour goes through a process called internalisation, which occurs when the receiver adopts the opinion of the credible source, since their information is accurate. High credibility becomes yet more important when recipients hold a negative view of the brand, because the credible source inhibits counterarguments, resulting in acceptance and persuasion. Although source credibility is an important factor for advertisers in

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selecting endorsers, since credibility has proved to have a significant and direct effect on attitudes and behavioural intentions, it is not the only factor that should be considered when selecting celebrity endorsers (Erdogan, 1999). Attractiveness encompasses similarity, familiarity and likeability (Triandis, 1971). Similarity is the supposed resemblance between the source and the receiver; familiarity arises through knowledge of the source via repeated exposure. Likeability occurs from affection for the source due to their physical appearance, behaviour or other personal characteristics. Source attractiveness leads to persuasion through a process of identification the receiver is motivated to seek a relationship with the source and adopts a similar position in terms of beliefs, attitudes, preferences or behaviour (Belch and Belch, 1995). Advertisers have chosen celebrity endorsers on the basis of their physical attractiveness to gain from the dual effects of celebrity status and physical appeal (Singer, 1983), e.g. Carol Vorderman's dual role as expert and attractive presenter of the benefits of Benecol. There is no doubt that attractive celebrity endorsers enhance attitudes towards advertising and brands, but whether they are able to create repeat purchase intentions is less clear. Source power is the final dimension. This occurs when a source has the ability to administer rewards or punishments. As a result of the power, an endorser may be able to induce another person to respond to the request or position the source is advocating. Kelman refers to the process of compliance, which occurs when the endorser has been perceived by the receiver to have power. As a source characteristic, power is very difficult to apply in advertising. This attribute is most commonly used for spokespersons. Belch and Belch (1995) cite the example of Charles Bronson who appeared in public service campaigns commanding people not to pollute or damage natural parks. The success arose from the connection of Charles Bronson as an authoritative figure in the film roles he had taken. Advertisers must match the product or company's image, the characteristics of the target market, and the personality of the celebrity, in order to establish effective messages and the determinant of the match between celebrity and brand depends on the degree of perceived ``fit'' between brand (brand name, attributes) and celebrity image (Misra, 1990). Messages conveyed by celebrity image and the product message should be congruent for effective communication (Forkan, 1980; Kamins, 1990). Special attention should also be paid to employ celebrities who have a direct connection with their endorsed product and who are perceived to be experts by the target audiences (Till and Busler, 1998). If there is no congruency, then the audience remember the celebrity and not the product. This has been termed the ``vampire'' effect, where the celebrity has sucked the life-blood of the product dry (Evans, 1988). The lack of congruence between John Cleese in terms of his idiosyncratic behaviour as he endorsed J. Sainsbury in his persona as Basil Fawlty and J. Sainsbury's customer base is a clear example of how a lack of source attractiveness serves to alienate both customers and employees.

McCracken (1989) developed a model based on meaning transfer that is of The naked truth particular significance. In McCracken's model the process of celebrity of celebrity endorsement takes place in a series of stages. In the first stage the celebrity endorsement draws meaning from their public persona. In the second stage this meaning is transferred from the endorser to the product and the process of creating a product personality takes place, based on the symbolic properties conveyed by 293 the endorser. In the third stage these meanings are transferred to the consumer who identifies with those symbolic properties and the process of transfer of meanings from endorser to product/brand to consumer is complete. This model looks at how the culturally acquired meanings that the celebrity endorser brings to the process are transferred to the consumer through a meaning movement process and this process can be clearly seen when examining the success of the Jamie Oliver campaign. Atkin and Block (1983) and Friedman and Friedman (1978) also found that celebrities were appropriate for high-involvement situations, where social and psychological risk were high. Other researchers have found that celebrities influenced consumers when products were inexpensive, low involving and few differences perceived among existing brands (Callcoat and Phillips, 1996). Both of these buying situations are relevant in the context of grocery purchases for routine re-purchases of low-involvement products and for highly visible consumer products which are on show in the consumer's home. These findings lead both McCracken (1989) and O'Mahony and Meenaghan (1997) to the conclusion that advertising is a powerful mechanism for meaning transfer such that virtually any product can be made to take any meaning. This process involves a conventional path for the movement of cultural meanings in consumer societies. The process involves three stages: the formation of celebrity image, transfer of meaning from celebrity to product or service offer, and finally from product to customers. The image transference process
Celebrities draw powerful meanings from the roles they assume in their television, film, military, athletic, and other careers. Each new dramatic role brings the celebrity into contact with a range of objects, persons and contexts. Out of these roles, meanings are transferred that then reside in the celebrity (McCracken, 1989).

The consumer must then recognise the essential similarity between the message elements and the product in the advertisement, and perform meanings transfer from celebrity to product (Tom et al., 1992). At this point, an advertising agency must first determine the symbolic properties sought for the product, and then choose a celebrity who approximates or represents the relevant symbolic properties. In the case of Jamie Oliver, Abbot, Mead, Vickers, the advertising agency in charge of the campaign, felt that:
We wanted to create a brand strategy and develop a vision for the brand. Essentially we wanted to re-emphasise the brand's focus on quality and position the brand as a leader in the field in terms of quality. Therefore using Jamie Oliver who is renowned for quality would help

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us reposition on quality and that is what the adverts are conveying to the customer. In essence what we are doing is borrowing his values and transposing them to the brand.

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Once the meanings have been transferred into the product, they must then be moved to the consumer. The movement of meanings from the product/brand to the consumer is then accomplished through the efforts of the consumers who must take possession of the meanings and put them to work in the construction of their self-image (McCracken, 1989). Typical consumer comments, gleaned from focus groups about the Jamie Oliver campaign were as follows:
The Jamie Oliver adverts are good because of the age we relate to him. Yeah, you relate to him because of the age, basically he is likeable and he puts it over that it is cool to shop at Sainsbury's. I think because of his own personality he appears to be a darling to the housewives, for a young chap he is for young people, free and easy so they will identify with him.

It also became evident that consumers could closely associate with Jamie in particular with his reputation for quality:
You cannot separate the two because he is the Naked chef on TV and you associate that with him in the adverts. Well Jamie Oliver advertises quality meals. The quality of ingredients must be good because he is using them. He's a top chef isn't he, so he's probably using the brand for his cooking, you know top quality at cheaper prices.

An initial concern of the advertising agency was that Jamie would not appeal to the 45 plus age group. However this has not proved to be the case as his style, which is seen as informal, is one that everyone can relate to. He is seen as being an everyday person, one you can easily relate to. The way consumers take possession of these meanings that the celebrity has transferred, is probably the least understood part of this process of transference. McCracken's model is therefore a useful theoretical concept that helps to explain how celebrity endorsement transfers meanings to consumers and can be seen in the case of The Naked Chef through his source attributes and the success of his campaign. Conclusion Whilst the process of celebrity endorsement is quite clear cut for manufacturers, an issue for retailers is that of the physical in-store properties and experiences. Unless the store image reinforces the attributes conveyed by the celebrity endorser then in-store personnel will reduce the campaign's effectiveness, such as ingredients or products being out of stock or lack of knowledge. Quality perceptions need to be reinforced by levels of staff knowledge, e.g. one of the products endorsed by Jamie Oliver was buffalo mozzarella. If in-store employees are unaware of the product it is unlikely that a consumer would ask for the product a second time if greeted with a complete lack of recognition upon first request. The case study therefore highlights the

need for retailers to reinforce their in-store attributes to support their use of The naked truth celebrity endorsers within a campaign. The process of celebrity endorsement of celebrity becomes more complex in a retail context as any lack of congruence between endorsement the physical attitudes of the store and the values projected by the endorser will reduce the effectiveness of the campaign. For manufacturers the process is a more linear process whereby the celebrity transfers their attitudes to the products. In a retail context, in order for a celebrity to successfully endorse a 295 retail image, the company must ensure staff are aware of the campaign, ingredients are in stock and customers are not kept waiting in long queues. Overall, the advertising campaign needs to be clearly mirrored in an integrated in-store consumer experience. Internal communication strategies, stock replenishment, customer service must reinforce any endorsement otherwise the source credibility will decline and in contrast to the ``vampire effect'', a poor retail experience may damage the influence of the endorser. Clearly the Jamie Oliver campaign has met with significant market success as the source attributes associated with Jamie Oliver are easily recognised by consumers and the process of transference has taken place successfully. The successful format of The Naked Chef series provided the perfect platform on which to model advertisement scenarios within a context relevant to Sainsbury's desired image. Jamie is seen within Sainsbury's buying fresh ingredients to use with the recipes that he prepares for friends he later entertains at home. The campaign mirrors seasonal variations, such as preChristmas purchases for entertaining followed by January reinforcement of healthy eating through Sainsbury's ``be good to yourself'' range. It can be seen therefore that the use of this format is flexible and provides mileage for a longrunning campaign for the grocery chain. The challenge for other grocery chains within the UK and internationally, lies in their acquisition and matching of the best celebrity to endorse their products and brand. A key element in this matching process at an international level is to use endorsers who have international credibility that is recognised across world markets. Typically such endorsers have stemmed from the field of sport or music and have endorsed single product brands. Consumers need not be aware first hand of the endorsers' skills but recognise that others regard them as leaders in their field e.g. Michael Jordan in the field of basketball. The main task of the marketer then becomes ensuring that the international endorsers' brand image does not become overstretched or overpower the product image. Questions for discussion (1) Discuss the extent to which international celebrity endorsers can imbue brands and retailer brands with their own personalities and values. (2) What are the potential limitations that can arise from retailers using celebrity endorsers to advertise their products and brands? (3) To what extent do Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury's synergistically fit together. Offer an alternate celebrity to endorse the brand, providing justification for your suggestion.

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