A Critical Analysis of Consumer Evaluations of Trust, Expertise and Attractiveness: A Study of Celebrity Endorsed Cosmetic Products

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate consumer perceptions of the attractiveness, trustworthiness and expertise of celebrity endorser who endorse cosmetic products. The study also aims to explore potential gender differences in perception and the effect that celebrities have on consumers’ self-concept. This approach takes a subjective, inductive, interpretivism, qualitative approach, which is carried out on twenty undergraduates at Cardiff Metropolitan University.To do so, this study adopts the data collection methods of a pre-existing five point likert scale by Ohanian (1990), and semi-structured interviews to gain reasoning of consumers’ perceptions.