Abstract:

The importance of celebrity endorsement as a positioning strategy has increased in recent years within the Nigerian telecommunication industry. One argument against celebrity endorsement is consumer skepticism on benefit positioning. Studies on celebrity familiarity have considered the impact of benefit positioning on consumer behaviour but give little attention to its relationship with brand association and by extension brand equity. Descriptive research design was adopted to obtain the opinion of customers.  The study population consists of selected students in the three tertiary institutions selected in Lagos State. A multiple sampling technique was adopted and a structured questionnaire was developed to collect quantitative data from four hundred (400) subscribers of MTN, Globacom, and Airtel brands. Data was analyzed using the PROCESS macro Version 3. Results from a parallel mediation analysis indicated that celebrity familiarity is indirectly related to brand association through its relationship with benefit positioning strategy. The results pointed that celebrity familiarity is a significant predictor of benefit positioning strategy β = .292, SE = .451, p < .05, and that benefit positioning strategy is an important predictor of brand association, β = .164, SE = .044 p < .05. These findings corroborate the mediational hypothesis that celebrity familiarity is a significant predictor of brand association after controlling for the benefit positioning strategy, β = .099, SE = .0436. About 6% of the variance in brand association was accounted for by the predictors (R2 = .057).