INFLUENCE OF BRAND AMBASSADORS ON BUYING BEHAVIOR OF SOFT DRINKS: WITH REFERENCE TO BELGAUM CITY

Today 'Celebrity Endorsement' has fascinated enormous debate on whether it really contributes to the brand building process or whether it is just another lazy tool to make the brand more visible in the minds of the consumers. Although it has been observed that the presence of a well-known personality helps in solving the problem of over-communication that is becoming more prominent these days, there are few undesirable impacts of this practice on the brand. Firms invest huge amounts as advertising expenditure for hiring the right celebrity. Consumers perceive the brand as having superior quality because it has been endorsed by a credible source. The present paper tries to look behind the obvious benefits that whether the consumers buys the soft drinks just because it is endorsed by their favorite and well known personality or it is just needy that they have to buy the product or its just situation. And researcher has selected 100 respondents as a sample in Belgaum city and all respondents’ falls under age between 17 to 35 years. Data have been collected from both the primary and secondary source. For the primary researcher has used questionnaire. Author has also formulated few hypothesis and used Z test to find out the major findings. Finally researcher could able to found the reasons and influence of the brand ambassadors and their impact on consumers buying behaviour.