CELEBRITY ENDORSMENT:
Having a celebrity endorse your brand is a proven success formula for achieving brand attention and brand lust for marketers.
Celebrities whether on stage, rock bands, on the sporting field or the catwalk command the biggest pay checks for their said talent.
From this vantage point, Hollywood can be symbolic in terms of all forms of entertainment. According to the BBC News article it also states that “analysis of the past 20 years shows the number of ads featuring celebrities in some way has doubled and now stands at about one in five”.
Hiring a celeb face can be “one of the fastest and most effective ways of giving a brand a touch of stardust,” he says. “The right star brings compelling imagery, relevant characteristics and motivating associations that engage customers and intensify the brand communication.“
Instant Brand Awareness and recall.
Celebrity values define, and can refresh the brand image.
Celebrities add new dimensions to a brands positioning. Instant credibility or aspiration PR coverage.
The scope of a celebrity on the incumbent brand:
Simply stating, a brand is a differentiated product and helps in identifying your product and making it stand out due to its name, design, style, symbol, colour combination, or usually a mix of all these ingredients.
What is a brand images/values:
Experience of use: This encapsulates familiarity and proven reliability.
User associations: Brands acquire images from the type of people who are seen using them. Images of prestige or success are imbibed when brands are associated with glamorous personalities.
Belief in efficiency: Ranking from consumer associations, newspaper editorials etc.
Brand appearance: Design of brand offers clues to quality and affects preferences.
Manufacturer’s name & reputation: A prominent brand name (Sony, Pepsi, Lenovo) transfers positive associations.
The celebrity’s role is the most explicit and profound in incarnating user associations among these mentioned points. To comprehend this, let us analyse the multiplier effect formula for a successful brand: •S=P* D*AV –the multiplier effect
•Where S is a successful brand,
P is an effective product.
D is Distinctive Identity
and AV is Added values.
The realm of the celebrity’s impact is confined to bestow a distinctive identity and provide AV to the brand; the celebrity does not have the power to improve or debilitate the efficiency and features of the core product. Thus, we are gradually approaching an evident proposition claiming,
“The health of a brand can be greatly improved with the use of the correct celebrity endorsement.”
An appropriately used celebrity can prove to be a massively powerful tool that magnifies the effects of a campaign. But the aura of cautiousness should always be there. Correct research, advise and consultation are essential.