CONSUMERS' PERCEPTION ON CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENT ACCORDING TO THEIR AGE

Celebrity endorsement is a modern marketing communication tool. Celebrities are often present in advertisings, so that this phenomenon has become a trend today. This type of advertising has a high potential because consumers are attracted to the celebrities. They are overwhelmed by their everyday life, so they need ideals and role models. That's the reason why using celebrity brand ambassadors in advertisings, is a very good marketing strategy of the producers. In the era of information and ads, the testimonials have the power to catch the consumers' attention in an advertising and to increase the visibility of the advertised product. This happens thanks to their fame, glamour, beauty and charisma. For this reason, the marketers are looking for famous, beautiful, successful, popular testimonials to drive the image of a company and their products. So, the celebrity brand ambassadors play an important role for the advertising and image of a brand, but also for the lives of the consumers. The everyday life of the stars, their behavior, the products they use, influence the consumers' orientation in life and the buying decision. The objective of this paper is to determine if celebrity endorsement works for all the people or the perception on this trend is different according to the age of the consumers. Two categories of consumers were asked about celebrity endorsement if their presence in advertisings influence their decision and buying intention of a product or not. The results of the research have shown that there really are differences in the perception on celebrity endorsement between the two groups of consumers, younger and older than 40 years. All of them think that advertising is very important and that they often change their options according to the commercial of a product. The difference is that older people tend to believe more in celebrity brand ambassadors and in their positive impact on the promoted product than the younger ones, which are more realistic and reticent with this phenomenon.