Can online shopping benefit from celebrity endorsements?

What do K-pop group BLACKPINK, footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, actresses Fann Wong, Michelle Chong and Carrie Wong have in common?

They’re all popular celebrities in Singapore and have served as brand ambassadors for various e-commerce platforms – including Shopee, Lazada and Qoo10.

But are endorsements by popular media personalities useful in encouraging Singapore consumers to online shop more?

Should e-commerce brands rope in celebrities to provide endorsements?

Latest data from YouGov Profiles suggest that celebrity endorsements can encourage greater e-commerce spending in Singapore. Celebrity-influenced buyers – consumers who agree that celebrity endorsements have an effect on the things they buy – are more likely to prefer shopping online than the average consumer in Singapore. While slightly more than half (52%) of celebrity-influenced buyers prefer making purchases over the web than in physical stores, just over one-third (35%) of Singapore consumers in general prefer buying things online than offline.

How should e-commerce brands target celebrity-influenced buyers?

Additionally, as of March 2022, one in two celebrity-influenced buyers (50%) say that social media advertisements are better at getting their engagement compared to regular webpage advertisements. In contrast, less than one in three consumers (30%) in Singapore as a whole say they are more likely to engage with ads on social media platforms than those on regular websites.

Further, celebrity-influenced buyers are more likely to agree that receiving electronic and printed marketing mailers from brands can influence their purchasing decisions. In the case of marketing emails, half of celebrity-influenced buyers (50%) say these can influence what they buy, compared to less than one third of Singapore consumers (31%) in general.

In the case of printed mailers, about two in five celebrity-influenced buyers (41%) say these can influence what they buy, compared to over one in five consumers (23%) in Singapore as a whole.

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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data for Singapore is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender and race. Learn more about Profiles.