The Meaning Transfer Model

The Meaning Transfer Model

McCracken (1989) explained the effectiveness of celebrity endorsers by assessing the meanings that the consumer associated with the endorser and eventually transfer to the brand by suggesting a three stages meaning transfer model. First, when a celebrity endorses a product in an advertisement, the audience forms associations. The meaning associated with the famous person moves from the endorser to the product or brand. The meaning attribute to the celebrity becomes associated with the brand in consumer’s mind. Eventually, in the consumption phase, the meaning is transferred from the product to the consumers.
Stage three explicitly showed the importance of consumer decisions in the process of transferring the meaning to brand or company. This is an interesting part as there is neither automatic transfer of meaning nor any automatic transformation of the self. Consumer must claim the meanings then work with them. As the celebrity provides certain meanings in material form, consumers are keen to build a self from them.
The concern here is the audience or consumer. The main objective of the marketing communication programs is to touch the audience hearts and minds while creating an image of success and prosperity for them when they use the products. Hence, the communication programs chose must convey the information in the form, space, and time that audience expects. And it needs to make them feel good about themselves and their life, in general. This idea is shared by Kambitsis, Harahousou, Theodorakis, & Chatzibeis (2002), who found that the personality of athletes as being an important factor in influencing specific target groups where the personalities are easily recognize and much admired.

Celebrity spokespersons are useful in marketing because they provide a set of characteristics that supports consumers in evaluating the presented brand (Martin, 1996). Hence, it is important for company to select the celebrity who has the...