Central European Business Review 2014, 3(3):16-22 | DOI: 10.18267/j.cebr.89

The Risk of Vampire Effect in Advertisements Using Celebrity Endorsement

Tetyana Kuvita¹, Miroslav Karlíček²

¹ Tetyana Kuvita, M.A. in International Business, University of Applied Sciences, Mainz, Koenigsgartenstrasse 1, 55583, Bad Muenster-Ebernburg, Germany, tetyana.kuvita@gmail.com

² Assoc. Prof. Miroslav Karlíček, Ph.D, Marketing Department, University of Economics, Prague, Nám. W. Churchilla 4

In the race to get the attention of the target audience, advertisers often use special attention-getting devices. This in turn exposes them to a higher risk of creating a vampire effect when the core message about the brand or a product is "eaten up" by such devices. The concept of a vampire effect in advertising appears to be under-researched in the current literature. Therefore, this paper provides deeper insights into the vampire effect occurrences in printed advertisements using celebrity endorsement. The paper is based on a qualitative study with an eye-tracking device with 12 participants and on the following experiment with 60 university students. The research found that a significantly higher risk of creating a vampire effect exists when using an unrelated celebrity as an attention-getting device than when using a related celebrity or no celebrity at all. Marketers are advised to use related celebrities if choosing to stick to this attention-getting approach. However, the concept of "relatedness" should be pre-tested prior to launching an advertising campaign.

Keywords: vampire effect; celebrity endorsement; attention-getting device

JEL classification: M37

Received: July 15, 2014; Revised: September 14, 2014; Published: September 30, 2014  Show citation