For as long as there was marketing and advertisement, there have been organisations that use celebrities to endorse their product or service. Getting the right celebrity with the right background and with the right character can do wonders for your brand image. Jin and Phua, (2014) defines a celebrity endorser as “any individual who enjoys public recognition and who uses this recognition on behalf of a consumer good by appearing with it in an advertisement”

Friedman and Friedman, (1979) suggested that celebrities are more effective than other types of endorsers. Consumers tend to be generally attracted to celebrities as part of their social self and to the objects associated with them, therefore aligning their interest with those of a celebrity who they look up to and use that to promote a brand can be very persuasive (Dwivedi, McDonald and Johnson, 2014).

Selecting the right celebrity for a brand

Popularity is a large selling point when it comes to companies choosing you to be part of their campaign, therefore if you have a large following on social media, then your reach will also be greater. This is what companies look for, so that their brand, product or service will reach a large and wide audience. Jin and Phua, (2014) gives an example where the most-followed Twitter accounts as of 2013 belong to pop stars, including Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry (each with more than 30 million followers). The more followers one gains on Twitter, the greater perceived social influence one has. This is because tweets are broadcasted to each and every follower, who may then retweet these posts on their own profiles, which are then rebroadcast to thousands of other Twitter members. This would be the same for other social media sites like, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram which especially ideal way of endorsing products, because of the visual aspect of it.

In 2006 alone $2 billion was spent on celebrity advertising in the United States alone and in 2011, Nike spent $2.4 billion on celebrity endorsements. Companies invest in celebrities to improve brand recognition and trustworthiness and to create positive attitudes or distinct personalities for the endorsed brand. An example of this would be those consumers who aspire to be as successful and confident as Roger Federer, who endorses Gillette fusion razors. From this the consumer may engage in tennis and use Gillette razors and become motivated to enhance their own self-image by identifying themselves through that celebrity reference (Dwivedi, McDonald and Johnson, 2014).

Instagram

Instagram has become a huge tool where celebrities can post a picture or a short video of them using or experiencing a product or service provided by a company for them to endorse.

An example would be Gigi Hadid, because she signed a major contract with Maybelline in early 2015 (Wagoner, 2015).

Audience:

• Facebook: 2,816,711 likes
• Twitter: 1.96 million followers
• Instagram: 17.1 million followers

However, celebrity endorsement can be done badly giving off a bad image to the brand for example this sprite endorsement with LeBron James, it is obvious with staged imagery, bad photography and unrelated hashtags, marketing the drink so obviously it almost could be deemed offensive. Celebrity endorsements can be perceived as fake through the overuse of promotional hashtags, product placement and mock enthusiasm.

Snapchat

Snapchat even though its new to social network market, it has been making strides in being successful in celebrity endorsements. Companies that want to snag millennial eyeballs turn to Snapchat for obvious reasons, Using the essence of stories to build up a creative story through the use of celebrities. Earlier this year, Snapchat found that 60% to 70% of users stopped watching ads on the app just three seconds in. Coca Cola have been able to turn that around through their snapchat account, being able to tailor its ad content to the messaging app. It’s important that If you’re hiring influencers for your campaigns, give them full control. Don’t censor your influencers; let them create content they know will be resonate with your audience. Cody Johns is a social media star who takes over Coca-Cola’s Snapchat from time to time. In a recent campaign for the beverage brand, he was given the keys to the account to help market their sponsorship of a NASCAR race.

Watch on @CocaCola's @Snapchat as @Cody takes #ChaseHappiness to a new level during the #AAA500! pic.twitter.com/F1lThRTqoT

— Coca-Cola Racing (@CocaColaRacing) November 8, 2015

And recently Singer Selena Gomez took over the profile showing backstage footage of her revival tour, all while promoting the Coca Cola brand.

.@SelenaGomez is taking over our Snapchat, giving a peek at her @RevivalTour rehearsal. Add CocaCola & watch now! pic.twitter.com/YYSmLL6k85

— Coca-Cola (@CocaCola) April 28, 2016

DJ Khaled has recently been asked to endorse a book by Arianna Huffington, called ‘The Sleep Revolution’, its clear to see that this celebrity has been asked to be seen reading this book within his snapchat story, as his fanbase reach is wide and large, and this is a good way to get your book advertised to millions of viewers.  However this somewhat does seem disingenuous as those that view DJ Khaled’s snapchats are aware that he does not show that he enjoys the company of a good book within his snapchat story, therefore this is can be an example of poor product placement. 

 

Vine

Viner’s can make a lot of money by endorsements depended on their fan base, Curtis Lepore was one of the first users to get an endorsement, from clients like Virgin Mobile, Aquafina and Jolly Rancher. Lepore told the magazine he can make $1,000 for re-Vining someone’s video, similar to retweets on Twitter, or $8,000 through product placement in a six-second clip of his own (syracuse.com, 2016).

Therefore, the overall benefits of celebrity endorsements are that they help you to tap into new markets by adding a known face automatically attracts new target audience. It also helps to personify your brand; the attributes of the celebrity automatically get transferred to the brand. Finally, it builds trust and credibility for your brand.

There are also some downfalls however, once the celebrities’ popularity decreases so does your brand so you need to make sure that you revive with new celebrities to endorses the products to keep the market growing. Celebrities may also overshadow your brand because they focus more on how big they are and have absolutely no brand recall. Finally, celebrity endorsements are hugely expensive, so keep in mind that you might need to spend millions of your company’s revenue, to keep them on board.

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References

Friedman, H.H. and Friedman, L. (1979), “Endorser effectiveness by product type”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 19, October, pp. 63-71.

Hung, K. (2014). Why Celebrity Sells: A Dual Entertainment Path Model of Brand Endorsement. Journal of Advertising, 43(2), pp.155-166.

Dwivedi, A., McDonald, R. and Johnson, L. (2014). The impact of a celebrity endorser’s credibility on consumer self-brand connection and brand evaluation. J Brand Manag, 21(7-8), pp.559-578.

Seno, D. and Lukas, B. (2007). The equity effect of product endorsement by celebrities. European Journal of Marketing, 41(1/2), pp.121-134.

Jin, S. and Phua, J. (2014). Following Celebrities’ Tweets About Brands: The Impact of Twitter-Based Electronic Word-of-Mouth on Consumers’ Source Credibility Perception, Buying Intention, and Social Identification With Celebrities. Journal of Advertising, 43(2), pp.181-195.

Wagoner, M. (2015). Exclusive! Gigi Hadid Is the New Face of Maybelline. [online] Vogue. Available at: http://www.vogue.com/8088203/gigi-hadid-new-face-of-maybelline-new-york/ [Accessed 4 May 2016].

Fast Company. (2015). How Coca-Cola Cracked Snapchat. [online] Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3052407/behind-the-brand/how-coca-cola-cracked-snapchat [Accessed 4 May 2016].

syracuse.com. (2016). Vine celebrities can make $8,000 with a 6-second video, ex-Syracuse singer reveals. [online] Available at: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/05/vine_celebrities_money_ads_curtis_lepore_videos_jessi_smiles.html [Accessed 4 May 2016].