Healthy Food Behavior and Celebrity Endorsement for Healthy Food Brands : A Study of Indian Housewives

Use of celebrity to endorse brands is a concept that has been well applied by a number of players. The celebrities have a rub-off effect on the brand and help in attaining the desired position in the mind of the consumers. The paper explores how celebrity endorsers can be employed by the healthy food industry to influence the customers. The healthy food industry in India is still at a nascent stage but is showing huge potential. Marketers of these healthy food brands have targeted career men and women offering them relief from lifestyle-induced diseases. There are a myriad of products that cover consumer’s nutrition needs from breakfast to dinner. The paper is focused on the Indian housewives and how they are influenced in their purchase decision regarding healthy food. To study this, the first part of the paper explores the attitude of the housewives towards healthy food brand purchase. The second part of the study attempts to ascertain the ideal celebrity for endorsing healthy food through the respondent’s perception of the celebrity’s healthy food consumption behavior. The third part delineates some of the celebrity endorsers whom the housewives would prefer to endorse the healthy brands on the basis of their perception of the celebrities. The findings of the paper will enable marketers to target housewives more effectively and design a communication strategy that effectively convinces them to purchase the brand