Abstract:
The mobile telecommunication industry has become an extraordinary part of today's
dynamic and modern world. As the market becomes more mature, mobile
communication services become more homogeneous and the increasing competition
for acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers to maintain and to
improve their market share and profitability. On the other hand, the mobile
telecommunication industry is one of the industries which possess high rates of brand
switching. Therefore, all industry players in the telecommunication industry trying to
retaining the existing customers and attract new customers to increase their customer
base, to achieve these, aims marketers are spending a huge sum of money on celebrity
endorsement. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the impact of celebrity
endorsement towards brand switching behavior of the mobile telecommunication
industry in Badulla district. The researcher has been used to TEARS model measure
weather impact celebrity endorsement on customer switching behavior..
This research has one independent variable and four dimensions namely celebrity
endorsement, trustworthiness, expedise, attractiveness, and respect. The samples are
collected from customers who are using mobile telecommunication services in the
Badulla district. 320 questionnaires were used to collect data and those 320
questionnaires divided into 80 for Mobitel, Di,'log, Airtel, and Hutch. Here, the
researcher adopts Descriptive statistics, Correlation analysis, and Regression analysis
to test the research questions. This study found that there is a moderate level of
contribution to celebrity endorsement, trustworthiness, expertise, attractiveness, respect
of the celebrity endorser on brand switching behavior of the mobile telecommunication
industry. Also, found a strong positive relationship between celebrity endorsement,
trustworthiness, expertise, attractiveness, respect for brand switching behavior of the
mobile telecommunication industry. Another finding was celebrity endorsement,
trustworthiness, expertise, respect is significantly impact of brands switching behavior
of mobile telecommunication industry in Badulla district, also found that there is no
significant impact on attractiveness of the endorser fbr switching behavior of the
customer in mobile telecommunication industry.
