Marketing Review Bulgari’s Mai Troppo campaign <strong>2020</strong>, featuring spokeswomen Lily Aldridge, Naomi Scott, and Zendaya Brand Ambassadors: MORE THAN FACE VALUE Celebrity endorsements have been part of the marketing playbook for decades – but in the context of current consumer behaviour, is it a case of diminishing returns? IAN COOK and ARABELLA RODEN investigate.
BY THE NUMBERS Endorsement Insights R ecruiting a high-profile celebrity to provide public testimony for the worth of a consumer product is a longstanding marketing strategy. From Michael Jordan and Nike to Charlize Theron and Keira Knightley in any number of perfume ads, the recipe appears to be simple: take one consumer brand, add a famous face to offer their endorsement, publicise the union on TV and in print, and voilà! You have achieved better brand recognition, a higher level of perceived credibility, and – hopefully – increased sales of your product. In 2011, Dr Marc Brennan, then a lecturer at Sydney University’s Department of Media and Communications, told <strong>Jeweller</strong>: “Brand ambassadors are there in the hope that consumers have a respect for that celebrity, and that respect will become associated with the products. “It’s about the meaning that’s attached to the celebrity suddenly becoming attached to the product.” Brennan’s emphasis on meaning cannot be underestimated and in previous decades, the celebrity strategy seemed straightforward – yet by the 2010s, it was no longer such a simple formula. A study by Los Angeles-based advertising analytics agency Ace Metrix found that – as far as TV advertising is concerned, at least – using celebrities could hurt a brand more than helping it. On average, ads without celebrities earned higher scores than those with celebrities in the categories of likeability, desire for the product, watchability and the ad’s power to hold a viewer’s attention. Reasons for the failures of the ads featuring celebrities included confusion about the product being endorsed, a dislike of the celebrity – many stars are polarising – or simply that viewers found the ads to be boring. “No amount of celebrity endorsement can replace a wellcrafted message and execution,” Ace Metrix chief executive Peter Daboll said. “It’s the message and how it resonates with consumers that matters.” Granted, not every watch and jewellery brand is necessarily investing in the high-cost, high-impact TV campaigns that proliferate in industries like fashion and perfume, but one important fact holds true across the board: consumers are changing, and the mere presence of a celebrity will no longer necessarily yield positive results. These insights were later affirmed by an analysis of celebrity 20-25% proportion of advertisements that include a celebrity endorsement University of Vienna analysis, 2017 4% estimated sales increase from appropriate celebrity endorsement American Journal of Advertising $9.7b estimated value of social-media influencer marketing industry, <strong>2020</strong> State of Influencer Marketing <strong>2020</strong> Benchmark Report, Influencer Marketing Hub 600 daily advertising messages to which consumers are exposed Microsoft analysis $22.5m value of publicity earned by Nike from Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters win Apex Marketing Group endorsement effectiveness by researchers at the University of Vienna – albeit with some caveats. They found that celebrity endorsement could positively impact attitudes toward the endorsed product if there was a clear ‘match’ between the celebrity and the product. Actors performed best as endorsers, followed by athletes, TV hosts, models and musicians. Notably, male celebrities evoked “substantially stronger effects” when compared with female celebrities, which was attributed to their greater perceived prestige, expertise, and credibility. Even more significant was the fact that consumers appeared to respond better to implicit endorsements, rather than explicit ones. “Often, celebrities are used simply for perceived endorsement,” Andy Wright, then-general manager of consultancy firm Interbrand Australia, explained to <strong>Jeweller</strong> in 2011. “The desired consumer outtake is, ‘If a celebrity is willing to put their name on a product and it’s good enough for them, then it’s good enough for me.’ “Brands need to try harder; simply taking pictures of the ambassador with the brand or product is no longer enough.” ‘Trying harder’ involves thinking about the relevance of the ambassador to the brand, and even more vitally – as Daboll said – making sure they stick to the message of what the brand is about. If these two factors are missing, consumers will not respond kindly to the marketing of the brand regardless of how famous the celebrity may be. They’re only human The other major hazard that advertising executives and brand managers need to negotiate is, of course, the fallibility of celebrities. Tying a brand to the public image of a celebrity is a high-risk endeavour. “The biggest potential pitfall comes from the fact that celebrities are people,” said Brennan. “Even though they can be very tightly managed, they can – and do – fall from grace. Lindsay Lohan is an example of someone for whom brand value changed dramatically in just a few years.” This point was reaffirmed by Wright: “Celebrities are so powerful because of their influence and omnipresence – but they’re just as destructive for those same reasons.” Indeed, US celebrity endorsement data firm Spotted recently developed a specific index to help brands take out ‘disgrace insurance’ – a policy that financially protects them if a contracted celebrity displays “scandalous behaviour”. <strong>September</strong> <strong>2020</strong> | 31
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