DOES THE USE OF CELEBRITIES IN ADVERTISEMENTS INFLUENCE CUSTOMER BUYING DECISIONS?

Many big brands make use of the concept of celebrity endorsement as a marketing communication tools. We see/hear celebrities in television, film, radio, magazines and on the web where celebrity endorsements get millions and billions of Naira yearly and are highly recommended in the dreamy world of advertisements to promote products. This paper aims to find out whether advertisements backed by celebrity endorsement stimulate customers buying behaviour or not among students in Gombe state university. The online survey methodology is adopted and data for the study is generated through structured questionnaire designed on Google Docs and the generated link sent to respondents through various social networking platforms, including WhatsApp, Face book, Tweeter and regular emails. The data generated is analyzed and explained in a simple descriptive statistics using percentages, averages, variances and quantiles. Three hypotheses are formulated and tested for the study using the Chi-squared (X2) methodology. The study finds that celebrity endorsement significantly encourages consumers to take positive action in buying products/services among students in Gombe State University. Moreover, the study finds that there is statistically significant association between gender, marital status and decision to buy products backed or endorsed by celebrities. It is therefore recommended that marketers should consider gender and marital status when using celebrities in advertisement, as the decisions to buy celebrity-endorsed products/services is found to be affected by gender and marital status. It is also recommended that organizations should pay careful attention to the quality of their products/services as most consumers notice products because of their quality.