Introduction

Modern day media plays a very important role in people’s daily lives, as its level of penetration is very high. The general public is surrounded by commercials of all forms: television advertisement, billboard imagines, and even cinema showings that all deliver powerful visual messages that gradually form people’s own ideologies of living. In particular regard to the consumption of fashion products, the media serves as a highly effective marketing channel for fashion brands to influence their customers purchasing decision making process. There are many ways that a fashion brand produces its commercials to promote products, among them celebrity endorsement is becoming increasingly popular in recent decades.

This essay studies how celebrity endorsement widely adopted by popular fashion brands influence the consumers’ purchasing behavior. With the example of Brad Pitt’s recent partnership with Chanel to market the brand’s prestigious No. 5 perfume, this essay illustrate how exactly seeing a celebrity presenting his keen appreciation of hence the close association with a particular fashion product can cast a significant impact on an ordinary person’s decision to purchase the same item.

Fashion as A Way of Life

Over the years, as general living standard gradually increased, many fashion products are now being considered as an integral part of people’s life, rather than a type of luxury pursuit that was once exclusive to the society’s very elites. Even some of the high-end luxury brands have gradually diversified their product ranges, having acknowledged the sustained purchasing power and growing taste for fashion of the middle class, to reach out to a larger selection of customers, in the attempt to retain continued market growth as well as profits.

Nowadays consumers make purchases of fashionable items of all type for a wide range of purposes for a combination of elements. These do not only relate to the actual functionality but also the associated values in terms of perceived brand image that often implies a certain social as well as financial status, and a particular attitude towards life in general.

Such comprehensive buying motivation is derived gradually from brand images of large fashion manufactures. These fashion brands have always incorporated certain messages into their lines of products to differentiate from competitors, to attract customers and to keep them loyal. In turn consumers’ individual preferences as well as the particular taste and demand of certain social groups have driven fashion brands to further devise effective ways to make their own product stand out from the completion. Celebrity endorsement is one of the options that brands take to make full advantage of public’s perception of the chosen celerity, in terms of their personality as well as style, to generate more sales from existing customers and to expand their market shares.

In summary, fashion has already evolved to become a symbol that represents the particular chosen life style of their consumers as well as a reflection of social status. As a result it is increasingly important that any elements associated with the product need to match that overall profile. This is indeed what brands are doing through media, especially with celebrity endorsement.

Selling a Personality and Life Style through Celebrity Endorsement

Solomon (2009) stated that about 20 per cent of US advertisements feature celebrities, and that in other counties such as Japan and the UK this figure is even higher. Much academic research work has been done to reveal the reasons that celebrity endorsement work as a way to persuade consumers to make purchases. In particular, the most direct effect is that celebrity appearances tend to capture more attention form the viewers (Buttle, Raymond, and Danziger 2000). This is fairly easy to understand as visual impacts are often strong and a well-known face certainly works well to raise the level of interests of