To Celebrity or Not to Celebrity?

Who can forget Scarlett Johansson’s straw-sucking Super Bowl SodaStream advertisement?

The tongue-in-cheek “viral” play was rather well received, until the delightful Ms. Johansson got caught up in a political wrangle with Oxfam, which completely overshadowed, and tainted, SodaStream’s otherwise cute campaign. 

Now I’m not suggesting most marketing directors are about to sign up a Hollywood A-lister to promote their products, but online endorsers, influencers, and opinion leaders are becoming increasingly powerful weapons in the marketing armory. 

In fact, a recent Nielsen study in the U.S., found that 64 percent of adults who follow a celebrity online also follow a brand online. And incredibly, a celebrity follower is four times as likely to follow a brand than the average U.S. adult online.

And it gets better – you don’t have to make a big-budget TV ad in order to reap the rewards of celebrities or influencers.

Here are some areas to be aware of when considering using online royalty.

Budgets

For sure, high-profile international or local celebrities are going to cost. They have massive online followings on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms. So if budgets are tight, look for influencers rather than celebrities.

Pick out bloggers and users on forums, who have a solid following and a good feedback ratio. These people are often amateur experts or fanatics (or both) in their given area, and by showing you recognize their knowledge, and respect their opinions, you can often enlist their help for free, or a little more than the cost of a free product trial.

Here are some dos to get you started:

• Make them feel special, bring them in, and show them the product and associated campaign. Give them access to background information that the general public doesn’t have. 
• Give them the product BEFORE you want them to write about it, but do make sure you at least give them the product! 
• Be prepared to quickly address any feedback or questions they might have. Give them a point person to do this. The tricky thing with these influencers is payment – you’ll have to judge if they expect it, or might be offended by such an offer, and an affront to their impartial views! 

The next group to consider is the real celebrity.

In my experience, real celebrities are great if the brand target and fan base have been carefully researched and overlap. But they can be a nightmare if you are dealing with a starstruck marketing director or CEO, who wants to mix it up and be seen hanging out with celebrities.

Our beloved soap actors, singers, models, and sports stars are not experts in brands, products, or sectors, so along with commanding big budgets, they will also need hand holding, and some input from the legal department in handling the relationship. Here are my top celebrity endorser dos:

• Don’t just go on gut feel and anecdotal evidence; get some hard facts from research into their fan base fit, to your target market. The basics of age, gender, and activity should all be readily available across platforms.
• Just because a celebrity appears in a campaign (TV, etc.), do not assume their online commitments have also been tied down. Get in early, and outline what is required online, and get it included in a contract. 
• Write content for them – they are most likely short on time and background.
• Give them a precise content posting calendar to tie in with other campaign elements.
• Try and get a follow-on option put into the deal, i.e. you have first option to re-use them as an endorser, at no more than a 10 percent increment.
• Link back and forth from their social media to the brand site or page, and vice versa.
• Make sure they adhere to all advertising standards on social media in your country or region. This can be a grey area, and can backfire if their fans feel they are being duped.

If done well, celebrity online endorsements can deliver huge benefits, directly introducing products to thousands of rabid fans willing to try anything their heroes see fit to mention.

A great example is courtesy of that naughty pop star from Canada, Justin Bieber, with a lesson in sweet tweeting – 75,000 retweets with his Mother’s Day endorsement of a flower service: