Abstract:
In today's consumer world, it is what said is that sells. Advertisement is an age-old practice and
is currently part and parcel of commercial marketing strategy. It is used by producers to drive
consumer behavior to its commercial offering and increase consumption of its product. Companies
and marketers today place a greater emphasis on branding and marketing than on real products
and use a variety of strategies to persuade consumers to purchase their goods and services. When
these advertisements are false or intend to deceive consumers, they impair the economic behavior
of the consumers and cause injury to their rights to exercise informed choice. Celebrities are
increasingly being used to create a larger-than-life image and pique the interest of consumers.
They play the role of magnets, which attracts consumers and makes them buy the product and the
product has become alike with the face value of the celebrity endorsing it. Currently, in Ethiopia,
the popularity of such celebrities is being used to entice consumers into buying products or
availing of services and their advertisements are often deceptive, as they are flamboyant
exaggerations. As a result, the study investigated the liabilities of celebrities that participate in
commercial advertising under the laws of Ethiopia by using doctrinal and non-doctrinal research
methods and found that no comprehensive legal and institutional approach establishes the
liabilities for the false and misleading endorsement of celebrities. Thus, the study recommends
developing comprehensive legal and institutional frameworks that regulate and establish the
obligations and liabilities of advertising celebrities including the mechanisms that introduce and
attribute the liabilities of celebrities to compromise celebrities' advertising rights and consumer
rights to be informed. And also, it has to provide the rights of the consumer to bring allegations
against celebrities in case of sustained damage by goods and services acquired because of
misleading endorsement, and the investigation and prosecution powers of the concerned institution
have to extend to advertising celebrities in case of their misleading endorsement.
