Celebrity Endorsements - the Importance of Celebrity Endorsements?

Celebrity Endorsements

The importance of Celebrity Endorsements?

The most important aspect of celebrity endorsement has been finding the right synergy between celebrity and product. It's about selecting a spokesperson whose characteristics are congruent with the brand image. It is insufficient simply to add a well known face to a food label and trust that there will be enough devotees of that celebrity to generate sales. The consumer does not buy premium priced products more than once on that basis, and so unacceptable quality cannot be masked by a celebrity presentation. There's one fact that advertisers need to keep in mind when using celebrity endorsements--never let the celebrity become your brand. If so, you'll run the risk of killing the brand no sooner has the hype and hoopla around the celebrity faded. It's also important to be clear about why a brand should use a celebrity. Is it to boost sales or to boost image? Or is it just to keep the brand alive? If it's to increase sales, the celebrity should be used for short-term promotions and brand activities. If it's to boost image, the celebrity can be used for a longer period of time, so that the brand can derive the benefit of the celebrity's image on its own. Lastly, one must not rely too heavily on the fame of the celebrity. One must look more for the genre of consumer that he/she represents, as eventually all celebrities are what they are because of a set of consumers thinks they are that way. One must also build the brand not on a transient celebrity but an enduring one. ( Strategic Brand Management 2003).

Why do companies use celebrity endorsements?

It can increase consumers' awareness of the ad, capture their attention and make ads more memorable. Respondents indicated that the biggest challenge in marcoms nowadays is how to stand out--break through ever increasing media clutter. As can be seen in Table-2, consistent with the academic literature, managers considered that celebrity endorsers enable messages to overcome this challenge due to their fame and high profile.

Table-2 Managers' reasons for utilizing celebrity endorsers

Standing out or shorthand

Awareness or attention getting

Celebrity values define, and refresh the brand image

Celebrity add new dimensions to the brand image

Instant credibility or aspiration

PR coverage

Desperate for ideas

Convincing clients

An agency CEO stated that every time advertisements appear in television or press, they interrupt a program or an article. Therefore, they are an intrusion and very few people positively welcome advertisements though many do not reject them. People see advertisements as a part of their normal life. But, as an advertiser you have got to stand out from the crowd and celebrities can potentially achieve this. It was disclosed that the recent campaign for Ford Puma involving Steve McQueen generated instant awareness. Actually, the same spot won the best famous person usage award in the 1998 Creative Circle Honours (Campaign 1998).

Ten out of twelve managers indicated that celebrities could build, refresh and add new dimensions to brands by transferring their values. They argued that what celebrities stand for enhances brands. Many managers cited the Bob Hoskins and BT relationship as a great example of celebrity values transferring to the brand. A planning director claimed that Bob Hoskins brought his charisma, gentleness, and warmth to BT which had had none of these qualities. Another relationship which was mentioned frequently was between Jack Dee and John Smiths Bitter. Managers argued that the company has transferred Jack Dee's smart, cool, laid back, no non-sense characteristics to the brand.

Although most academics have argued that celebrity endorsements work because celebrities are credible and attractive, only 50 percent of the respondents mentioned these qualities as reasons. A possible explanation for this discrepancy between scholars and practitioners could be that most advertising agency managers may perceive a celebrity as a gestalt, and do not differentiate attractiveness and credibility characteristics. Indeed, one of the respondents claimed that when a person is famous, people forget about what the person looks like as everyone knows the face, it is hard to judge whether the person is pretty or ugly.

Managers believed that celebrities save time in creating the credibility a company has to build into products. They argued that when consumers see a credible celebrity endorsing a product, consumers think that the product must be at least 'OK'. However, it was revealed that Nanette Newman was used by Fairy Liquid for years because she was perceived as trustworthy, believed in, and motherly.

Four out of twelve advertising agency managers mentioned PR coverage as another reason for using celebrities. Managers perceived celebrities as topical, which created high PR coverage. Indeed, celebrity-company marriages are covered by most media from television to newspapers (e.g. The Spice Girls and Pepsi). This particular reason has not been mentioned in the academic literature previously to the researcher's knowledge. (Erdogan & Baker 1999)

History of Celebrity Endorsements.

Since 1870 when the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher appeared in an advertisement in Harper's Weekly endorsing Waltham watches, companies have used characters of note to help market products to consumers. Entertainment personalities were first employed by the cigarette industry in 1905 when Murad Cigarettes used comedians Fatty Arbuckly and Harry Bulger in its ads. Since then, celebrities such as Fred Astaire, Ethel Barrymore, Jack Benny, Henry Fonda, Lou Gehrig and Mrs. John W. Rockefeller, Jr., to name but a few, have appeared in cigarette ads. In 1934, Lou Gehrig became the first athlete to appear on a Wheaties box; he has since been followed by the likes of Babe Ruth, Johnny Bench, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods. The Victor Talking Machine Company acquired the American rights in 1901 to the painting of Nipper the dig listening to "His Master's Voice". Nipper has since become one of the long list of famous but fictional celebrity promoters that includes the Green Giant, the Marlboro Man, Joe Camel, Tony the Tiger and the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Famous folk have had their names and images attached to products for more