Celebrity endorsement is a commonly used marketing tactic around the world. So it is not a surprise that you will see ads showing, for example, a sports star wearing a tuxedo selling cooking pans. It can be pretty bizarre at first glance, but then it may well be the campaign that helps to boost the sales for the product. So, is celebrity a guaranteed winning formula for brands?
A study shows that there is at least one ad in every three ads using some celebrity. They can be pop stars, musicians, sports stars, actors or actresses, fashion models, news anchors, corporate leaders, or even politicians, not to mention the increasing popularity of KOL.
1.Celebrity helps to achieve market cut through
In an increasingly compressed market with a shortened product life cycle, manufacturers are not only competing with other brands; they are competing with time as well. Celebrity can help to grab an audience’s attention and may help to achieve market awareness faster. To find a celebrity with good skin as its spokesperson is almost a prerequisite for any new skincare brand entering the market.
2.Celebrity adds credibility
Consumers have their way of decoding marketing messages. For example, if a brand can afford to use superstars, it may be seen as a big brand and is probably more trustworthy. This helps reduce the psychological risk of using this brand in front of peers as it has already received the celebrity’s endorsement.
3.Celebrity enhances the entertainment value
No consumers like boring communications. They want to be amused and entertained. This is especially true in social media when a commercial message is regarded as a disruption to the consumption of the preferred content. Celebrity can gain permission from the audience, and it may provide a more potent reason why the audience should even bother paying attention to the brand message.
4.Celebrity strengthens the brand personality
What makes a brand different and attractive is its personality. Therefore, if the right celebrity is chosen, a positive association can possibly be achieved. As a result, the brand message will be more positively retained by the audience, according to the “match-up” hypothesis advocated by Kahle and Homer (1985).
There are always two sides to a coin. There are apparent advantages of using celebrities as stated above, but there is also baggage or even danger of associating the brand with celebrity:
1.Celebrity costs money
The more popular the celebrity, the more expensive it is to engage them. If brands start to trade down and use less well-known figures, it almost defeats the purpose of adopting the celebrity endorsement approach. In some cases, the brand owners themselves are not so sure about the celebrities to the extent that they even spell out the names of the celebrities in their communications. Even for those corporates with a deep pocket, will the money be better spent elsewhere?
2.Celebrity can be a defector
Is the celebrity genuinely fond of your brand, or is the celebrity endorsing your brand purely because of the commercial contract? One famous case study is the Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho openly consumed two cans of Pepsi at a press conference when Coca Cola hired him to be the spokesperson during that period.
3.Celebrity can get out of hand
The brand owner has no control over the celebrity’s personal life, and things sometimes get out of hand, including misbehavior, scandal, or even involvement in extreme ideological movements.
The arrest of the Canadian Chinese pop star Kris Wu in China on suspicion of rape triggered numerous luxury brands such as Bulgari, Porsche, and Louis Vuitton to cut ties almost immediately with the controversial “rapper”.
The other disastrous case was the comment made by Sharon Stone during her interview about the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 when she referred to the tens of thousands of casualties as “karma”.
If Dior had not immediately ended its relationship with Sharon Stone, who was the brand’s endorser at that time, it is almost certain that the brand would have been kicked out from China by the consumers
4.A celebrity endorsing multiple brands
Unless the brand has an exclusive contract preempting the celebrity from engaging with brands of the other categories (which is highly unlikely), the same celebrity can be endorsing other brands simultaneously with different brand values and perhaps sending conflicting messages to the market.
To further investigate how to manage this double-edged sword, please refer to the article next month on celebrity and branding titled “Is celebrity the answer to all marketing problems?” and learn from brands like Rolex and Nike how to master the game of celebrity endorsement.