Who do you get to promote your jewelry or watches in a world where celebrities are such loose cannons? This is probably a question that several brands are asking themselves in light of the antics of celebs like Charlie Sheen, Tiger Woods, Lindsay Lohan, and now the addition of the latest debacle with insensitive tweets coming from Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of Aflac. In my last post, I spoke of the potential pitfalls, today, let’s talk about the future of endorsements.
So what happens now when you are looking to attach a celebrity to a luxury brand? Are these endorsements still as effective as they once did before? Is there a better way to move forward? These are the questions that have been rolling around in my head since the wheels came off of Charlie Sheen’s wagon.
While there are certainly cases where this kind of endorsement is highly effective, it is hard to deny that the landscape is quickly changing. The web is making it easier for us to peek behind the curtain. Shows like Access Hollywood show us how brands are literally shoving free goods at celebs with massive swag tents and excessive gift bags surrounded each red carpet event. Sure, we all know this is the way that is has always been, yet it is very “in or faces” these days. I’m just starting to get the feeling that people are getting fed up with brands paying a popular person to “pretend” they love something for a big paycheck (unless we are talking about Beiber or Oprah, that is just money in the bank).
I was fascinated by the findings of an Ad Age article titled Celebrities in Advertising Are Almost Always a Big Waste of Money posted in January of this year. They claimed they studied every single nationally televised ad for the first eleven months to determine the effectiveness of endorsed brands by celebrities versus others. The biggest take-away from the article was this statement:
“Today’s consumer is a totally different animal than the consumer of even five years ago, meaning that what was effective and influential five years ago is not necessarily so today, as today’s consumer is more likely to be influenced by someone in their social network than a weak celebrity connection. Today’s consumer is informed, time-compressed, and difficult to impress, and they are only influenced by ads that are relevant and provide information. They don’t want to have products pushed at them, even from a celebrity. In fact, the data show that relevance and information attributes were key missing ingredients from most celebrity ads”.
It reinforces my growing belief that relevance plays a bigger role than ever in today’s world. The ability to share our opinions and passions with our peers is starting to have a far greater impact than the actions of the celebrities we admire. We already trust our friends and now technology like Twitter and Facebook have made it so easy for us to see their interests or better yet, ask their opinion. That said, there is still hope in the world of celebrity endorsement, but things are changing and brands need to find the right balance of relevance and popularity.
A perfect recent example of leveraging a “celebrity” platform is the Old Spice YouTube campaign. For those who missed it, the campaign involved their spokesperson, Isaiah Mustafa going on a three day tear creating custom videos for both celebs and everyday people like us. In that brief but prolific time he would field as many consumer questions and answers back in the form of a brief branded video. This campaign decided to talk to us in between messages to Christina Applegate and Alyssa Milano. The campaign went far enough to make several people feel as if they were the celebrity, something that I believe we will see a lot more of going forward
Just like Old Spice, it is time for us to start reinventing the way we go about endorsements. It is time for us to start expanding the definition of celebrity and perhaps its even time for us to start creating some of our own. If we can’t count on celebs to keep it together or for the technique to be nearly as effective as it once was, we may want to start shining a spotlight in a new direction… Right onto those who are already loving and spreading the word about our brands.
