Some marketers also use celebrities who have nothing to do with the industry sometimes e.g. Kerry Katona for the Iceland advert and also Coleen Rooney for the Asda Advert. The key thing however in using celebrities to endorse products is that the celebrity used is someone that can be looked up to, admired and also has a good reputation, where a celebrity endorsers image has been tainted it could tend to affect the brand that is why marketers have to be careful.
Nowadays celebrity endorsement is highly targeted at the young and middle-aged consumers. With the use of music videos to advertise their products. E.g. The British group Suga Babes using a Nokia phone in one of their music videos. The growth of celebrity endorsement is so vast that nowadays it branches into social networks. An example of this branch out is the social network blog Twitter where people join in order to follow celebrities. It is now one of the most popular websites and also the 7th among other social networking sites in the UK.
Below is a section from an article from the telegraph:
By Claudine Beaumont
Last Updated: 4:20PM GMT 10 Feb 2009
“Hit wise, the web analytics service that released the figures, said that there had been a "noticeable increase" in visits to the Twitter website since the micro-blogging platform had started to receive more widespread mainstream media attention.
Stephen Fry, the second most popular person on Twitter after US president Barack Obama, recently discussed the service with fellow user Jonathan Ross on BBC1, causing a leap in traffic.
"Over the last 12 months traffic to Twitter.com has increased 27-fold," wrote Robin Goad, a research director at Hitwise, on his company blog. "However, the service is likely even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website.”
3.0 Analysis of the main reasons for this increase and the advantages and disadvantages of using celebrities as endorsers
The way in which manufacturers and marketers advertise products has evolved over the last 100 years, as initially it has been a more old style type of advertising and has recently changed to a modern method. Celebrities are constantly being more and more used in advertising; this is evident in the high price that companies are willing to pay for the celebrity to appear for their product. There are suggestions that the recently large increase of celebrity endorsements means that it is an effective method, for the manufacturer when branding their products.
The celebrity endorsements is perceived by marketers as useful because it has a heavy influence on the brand, in which the company is trying to advertise, often consumers feel a they have some sort of similarity with the celebrity. Often when a consumer perceives a celebrity they relate themselves to the celebrity in a certain way. Addiontally celebrities have “the ability to transfer their image to a specific product that is being advertised” (Wheeler, 2003)
There are many advantages and disadvantages of using celebrity endorsements. This includes, as often the celebrities used in are credible and attractive to consumers. They often help to increase awareness of firms advertising and enhance both the company’s image as well as the brand attitude. Celebrities often represent cultural meanings as they symbolize important categories such as status and social class as well as gender and age and even personality status. The effectiveness of celebrities as communications sources often depends on their perceived credibility; there is a growth in the young consumers. However the lack of people interested in celebrities has generally decreased, people are now questioning if the celebrities actually are interested in the products they are advertising, or are they simply involved for the money? Additionally there are many celebrities who endorse too many products, often known as ‘serial advertisers’. The use of advertising has changed from classical to modern.
The disadvantages of celebrity endorsements include, the reputation of the celebrity may deteriorate, as often the product they are endorsing is high profile. Since the behaviour of the celebrities reflects the brand, celebrity endorsers may become liabilities to the brand they are endorsing. Often the ‘vampire effect’ occurs, this is common when the celebrity overshadows the brand, if there is a lack of congruency between the celebrities and the brand, the consumers often remember just the celebrity and not the brand. An inconsistency in professional popularity of the celebrity may occur, in which the celebrity may loose his/her popularity due to a lapse in professional performance. A multi brand endorsement may occur in which the celebrity has overexposure, this occurs where celebrities are willing to endorse any product. Often when a celebrity is endorsing a product it is expected that they are using or consuming the actual product they are advertising, however the competition often occurs when the celebrity is using the alternative competing product. In certain circumstances there is a mismatch between the celebrity and the image of the brand, the celebrities manifest a personal for the audiences.
There are many advantages to using a celebrity to endorse a product as well; these include high profile celebrities helping advertisements to stand out from any surrounding clutter, thus improving communicative ability. Furthermore the endorsement of a product by a celebrity applies a sense of trust amongst the consumers, when the company is launching a new product, this is often required to boost the brands identity. Additionally with the endorsement of products a consumer target group guarantees celebrities attention. The large PR coverage that occurs through celebrity endorsements is an advantage for the celebrities as well as the brand.
Celebrities ensure attention of the target group by breaking the clutter of advertisements and making the ad and the brand more noticeable. A good example of this type of celebrity campaigns is one of the World’s leading pop groups, the Spice Girls, who have originally appeared in advertisements for Pepsi, but also they have an endorsement with product launching and PR events. When a consumer views a celebrity they are more likely to recall the celebrity in relation to the brand, thus providing a boost for the brand, as the recall of the celebrity often means a boost for the sales, an example of this is actress Catherine Zeta-Jones is used by T-Mobile and Elizabeth Arden for their campaigns.
When the celebrity endorses a brand there is often a credible message behind their endorsement, therefore the sales of a product often mean that as well as the celebrity benefiting from this the company that is branding the product will also benefit. When a company has lost credibility and sales have slumped often a celebrity endorsement can boost their loss in sales. For example last year, when the pesticide issue shook up Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, which resulted in a large amount of negative press for the company, both the soft drink manufacturers put out high-profile damage control ad films featuring their best and most expensive celebrities. Often an emotional aspect occurs, where the company plays on the consumer’s emotions to put their point across. Many of the consumers idolize the celebrities that are being used to advertise products, the companies as well as the celebrities can use the stars to capitalize on the consumer’s feelings and sway the fans towards using the brand being advertised. Many of the celebrities being used have a universal appeal to both young and old, men and women, as well as different cultures, therefore these celebrities often have an advantage as they are universally admirable and appeal the product they are endorsing to the consumers. When a product has lost its ‘shelf life’ often the introduction of a famous face to brand the product adheres consumers to the product, and thus taking the attention away from other products.
4.0 Advising the company of a selection of an appropriate celebrity and how they should decide what is more important, source of attractiveness or source of credibility
It is a reasonably long process picking out an appropriate celebrity to use for a forthcoming advertisement. It is very important for the success of the advertisement that the right celebrity is used to represent the company or the organisation’s brand. It is also important to make the right choice because there is a huge financial aspect involved which is why the right celebrity should be used at the end. The first thing that has to be done is to have a list of potential celebrity to use for the brand. After there is a list of the potential celebrities, a research should be done looking at the celebrities back ground, history and the way the live their lives. (EBSCO, 2008) This is to try and identify any relations to what they are trying to do or to try and see if their personalities and lifestyles fit the objectives of the campaign. It is easier to have a celebrity that can relate to the roles of the campaign.
After some careful consideration and good evaluations, the celebrities with the most in common with the objectives of the campaign are then contacted. They are contacted to see if they are able to be involved with the campaign.
It is critical that the celebrities on the short list or the ones that are contacted are willing to do the work and are ok with doing it. The organisation should make sure that their selection will be one that will benefit them the most because they can always adjust their campaign to the celebrity if need be. (EBSCO, 2008)
After the selections and the call back has been made, the organisation has to go through the contract with the celebrity making sure that everything is clear between them. The terms and conditions have to be laid out clearly and precisely to avoid a lot of disagreements in future. Meeting up to talk about the contact also gives the organisation a good idea of what the celebrity they have picked is like. If the celebrity is going along with a lot of the terms and conditions and also the campaign it means that they agree with what they are going to represent and they don’t mind doing it as well. (KEYNOTE, 2006) This also means that they feel positive about the campaign and that they are confident in it. If there are a lot of disputes and disagreements in the meeting then it is worth reconsidering the choice just in case that choice is not the right one because negativity at the beginning can also mean negativity throughout the campaign and thereafter.
It is important for both attractiveness and credibility to be considered when picking out a celebrity to be part of a campaign. If it is possible it is better to try and get and get a celebrity who is attractive and also has the right credibility to fit the campaign. The two are almost as equal as each other in the sense of importance when it comes to picking a celebrity for a campaign but sometimes it depends on the campaign. For some campaigns it might be more important to focus on attractiveness and sometimes credibility is more important. In some cases it is more important to look for a celebrity that has more credibility than attractiveness.
It’s very important to plan a campaign using a celebrity with the credibility. If the celebrity’s lifestyles and surrounding relate to the campaign or project in hand, that celebrity could be very useful. This is important to look at because celebrities are well known people. Their lifestyles are open to the public to look at and judge which should tell the marketers that it is important to pick the right one. The celebrity that is chosen has to at least have a good reputation and will bring some sort of benefit to the organisation. The fact that the celebrities are constantly in the public eye can ruin a campaign and a ruined campaign is a waste of time, money jobs.
If at the time a particular celebrity is appearing everywhere for bad things for example smoking weed, it is not a wise thing to get then to do a campaign involving not smoking or having a smoke free country, the target audience will not take it at all serious and definitely disregard the campaign. These reasons are why credibility is very important.
Attractiveness is also important but not as important as credibility. Having a celebrity that is really attractive is a good thing but as long as that particular celebrity is having bad press or a bad reputation, potential customers are most likely to look the other way. As long as the brand is an associated with the beautiful or handsome celebrity with bad reputation customers will look for an alternative. In the same breath it can also be argued that for campaigns for things such as hair products, as long as customers are guaranteed good looking hair, they might look the other way ignoring the fact of the bad reputation celebrity used in that campaign.
5.0 Conclusion
In conclusion from the research that has been conducted there has been prevalence in the endorsements of celebrities both in the UK and Worldwide. As there is an economic advantage to using the unknown celebrities, the use of these celebrities has grown in recent times. Because of the high profile nature of these celebrities the, brands often stand out from the other competitors. The use of celebrity endorsements, when used in the right way can justify the high costs incurred from celebrity endorsements, however in the current UK economic downturn, it is exceptional for this to be justified. If celebrity endorsements are used effectively, the brand can stand out and an instant awareness is created, in order for the manufacturer to achieve this brand must employ the right type of celebrity who has a unique factor in selling. From the essay both source of attractiveness and source of credibility as important as one another. A celebrity is a means to an end, and not an end in himself/herself.
6.0 REFERENCES
Websites
Accessed 26/02/2009
Accessed 27/02/2009
Accessed 28/02/2009
Accessed 23/02/2009
Journals
Journal of consumer research, EBSCO www.journals.uchicago.edu/
Journal of research for consumers, EBSCO
Journal of advertising research, EBSCO 2008, vol 48 issue 4, p573-582
McCracken, G. (1989), "Who is the celebrity endorser? Cultural foundations of the endorsement process,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 16 No.3, pp.310-21.
Seno D., Lucas A. B., “The equity effect of product endorsement by celebrities: A conceptual framework from a co-branding perspective,” European Journal of Marketing Volume 41 Number 1/2 2007 pp. 121-134.
Books
Dubois, B. (2000) Understanding the Customer. London: Prentice Hall
Evans, M. et al. (2006) Consumer Behaviour. West Sussex: John Wiley
Luthans, F.(2008) Organisational Behaviour. 11nth ed. New York: McGraw-Hill
Martin, J (2001) Organisational Behaviour. 2nd ed. Hull: Thompson Learning
