Celebrity Endorsement: Developing A Brand Image in Housing Ads

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the celebrity endorsement strategy used to communicate brand image messages in housing advertisements. Even though there is a lot of literature about celebrity endorsement, no research has been made up to now about how this method is used in the housing market. Within the scope of the study, first housing advertisements published from 2001 to 2016 have been scanned. Hurriyet newspaper was selected as the source as it is the newspaper with the highest circulation. After all the advertisements published on Hurriyet newspaper have been scanned, advertisement where a celebrity was the spokesperson was determined. This research, which tries to explain celebrity endorsement widely used for marketing of housings with the "meaning transfer model" of McCracken, showed that in transferring cultural meaning of the celebrity to the product or housing, traits of attractiveness or credibility is exploited in general. However, it was seen that other meanings of the celebrity-modern, traditional, etc.-along with his/her credibility and attractiveness are effective in determining the image of the housing project marketed.