Business Studies

Promotion Topic 2 Q2 Discuss why companies use their founder, president, or CEO as an advertising spokesperson. What are the pros and cons of this practice for both major corporations and smaller companies, such as a local retailer?

ANSWER

Using Executives as Advertising Spokesperson

Why do companies use their Founder, President, or CEO as an Advertising Spokesperson.

The high priced advertising strategy has changed for many companies from celebrity advertisements to CEO, President and founder as the advertising spokesman. Considerably, a company needs to choose the right spokesperson to communicate its brand services to the target audience. Using the President, CEO or Founder is considered an internal endorsement that offers the most effective spokesperson when sharing the stories of how the business has grown and the benefits of its products in the market (Zeitoun, Michel and Fleck, 2020). Advertisement has changed into sharing the business story with the consumers, which creates trust and emotional connection. The target audience has believed in a brand that relies on a trustworthy communicator that understands a brand’s influence. It’s the ultimate goal of a company to express its commitment to customer service and quality to the target audience, which can only be done best by the Company’s CEO, Founder or President.

Pros and Cons

Using the executives creates some resonances, which consumers highly appreciate. Ideally, consumers are attracted by sincerity and simplicity before engaging with a company. They want to feel being closer to the brand with more emotional levels. Executives create brand credibility since the marketing is perceived as trustworthy and believable. Ideally, executives have professional knowledge and authority, which offers credibility in the endorsement, thus creating consumer trust (Pai, 2013). The presence of executives generates positive attitudes and emotional links towards endorsement. However, one of the cons for using executives as a spokesperson for advertising is that not all were created as effective endorsers. Therefore, the use of executives may fail to yield the expected benefits. The fact that a person is an executive does not mean that they are automatically perceived as a persuasive and credible spokesperson. Under certain conditions, some executives fail to possess the credibility linked dimensions.

References

Pai, F. Y. (2013). Ceos and spokesperson-product fit. Review of Global Management and Service Science, 3.

Zeitoun, V., Michel, G., & Fleck, N. (2020). When brands use CEOs and employees as spokespersons: A framework for understanding internal endorsement. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal.