I confess I was absolutely intrigued when I came across this item…
Apparently, Mike is not the ideal brand ambassador…
“He doesn’t have a job, he’s not someone girls want to date because he doesn’t treat them well, and guys don’t want to be him. He doesn’t fit the ‘hot boy-next-door’ image.”
I think Mike could be on to something here! Imagine the possibilities…
“That’s a nice prestige brand you have there. Be a shame if some scumbag told the world how much he loves it and caused you lasting damage, eh?”
We’ll see, I guess!
It makes sense in our celebrity obsessed and image-conscious world that as a marketer you don’t want the “wrong” kind of people associated with your company or brand.
Burberry had a problem of a similar nature a few years back when certain less-than-upstanding members of society took a shine to their distinctive baseball caps.
Another case in point, in the recent London riots, many of those involved were very stylishly dressed in sportswear from some very high profile brands.
The problem is that marketers don’t always have control over who adopts their products. And marketers play a risky game sometimes, flirting with the edgy and the controversial if they perceive an advantage in doing so.
Using celebrity endorsements is a long-standing marketing tactic and here are some further interesting thoughts on the whole issue…
“Why pay a celebrity not to wear your clothes?”
But just how effective are celebrity endorsements? Given the billions of dollars marketers pay out to celebrities each year, they obviously think it’s worth while.
But do they know it’s worth it?
In most (not all) cases, celebrity endorsements are found in the realm of conventional, brand-type, advertising and marketing. And in most of these cases, results are not directly measured.
So it’s interesting to see what the great marketer and advertising man David Ogilvy had to say about the subject in his book “Ogilvy On Advertising”…
1. Research shows that commercials with celebrities are below average in persuading people to buy products.
2. Testimonials from celebrities get high recall scores, but I have stopped using them because readers remember the celebrity and forget the product. What’s more, they assume that the celebrity has been bought, which is usually the case.
3. Testimonials by celebrities are below average in their ability to change brand preference. Viewers guess that the celebrity has been bought and they are right
4. Don’t use testimonials by celebrities unless they are recognized authorities, like Arnold Palmer on golf clubs.
All of these insights were based on the results of testing. I wonder how many of today’s marketers have actually tested the results from using costly celebrities?
And costly they are…
… even for our unfashionable friend Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino.
You see, it’s estimated that last year (I assume 2010) he made around $5 million from endorsing brands of trainers, vodka and vitamins.
More about celebrities in an upcoming post when I’ll discuss the use of “celebrities” in direct response marketing.