CELEBRITY BRAND ENDORSEMENT
CELEBRITY BRAND ENDORSEMENT
Thursday, 31 July 2008 03:31
By Richard Mukoma
One way to get attention for your brand is to use celebrity endorsement. The most popular endorsers are sport, music and movie celebrities. The premise behind this is that the celebrity’s mass market fame shall cause consumers to love your brand more.
However, simply selecting a celebrity because of their fame may not optimise your strategic objectives. The criteria of a celebrity association must be rooted in your brand’s positioning. Further more the association must be in line with your brand’s values. One of the trickiest aspects of celebrity endorsement is that you expose your brand or company to any negative behaviour by the individual. To minimise the uncertainty your selection process should be thorough, ensuring that the selected individual is in line with your brand character. Further to this you should ensure that the celebrity understands the brand’s values and is committed to upholding them always.
Another way to avoid issues with the behaviour of individual celebrities is to use a group. For example as opposed to endorsement from one player, Emirates have used the Chelsea team. Barclay Card have gone a step further and taken up the entire English Premier league. Such moves minimise the chances of negative impact from any one individual’s behaviour.
In some cases the brand can be overshadowed, with consumers tending to remember the celebrity as the hero in an advert. This occurs when the selection of the celebrity is based primarily on his fame with little consideration of compatibility with the brand. A brand celebrity relationship which is based on a well considered strategy will complement and enhance both the brand and the celebrity. The role of a celebrity within a marketing mix is a potentially successful one where the combination can generate enormous mutual advantage.
However, it is important to remember that the direct cost of securing a celebrity to endorse your brand is not sufficient to optimise the relationship. Like any other sponsorship you must be prepared to leverage the association across all brand communication so as to maximize the relationship. So, you must plan well and have a budget that is sufficient to achieve your objectives.
Furthermore, when planning you must be clear as to your objectives for the association and this is possible when you are clear about your brand’s positioning. Also, be clear about your brand values, such that you can judge whether the association supports them. Advance consideration of the potential hazards that can arise from the association will help you deal with issues better when they arise. Finally you must be prepared to invest a sufficient budget so as to optimize the relationship.
The writer is the Chief Executive Officer of Interbrand Sampson East Africa , a strategic brand consultancy firm.
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