Celebrity Endorsement - Through the Ages

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Celebrity Endorsement - Through the Ages

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in Reebok's television ads. Observers believe that such deals are quite risky for brands. In addition to the risk of the player not becoming a champion in the future, brands would have to hike the endorsement fee for current and future athlete endorsers. Lynn Merritt, a Nike marketing executive justifies Nike's decision by saying, "We have to spend the money or we'll regret it the rest of our lives.20 Commenting on Nike's deal with LeBron James, Bob Williams said that marketshare and competition considerations aside, the deal"is very risky. It's just so hard to dominate in today's NBA. His is going to be either a brilliant move or a terrible move for Nike. I don't see any in-between21 The FRED Principle Not all celebrity endorsement deals have been successful. One of the earliest failures of endorsements was that of theAmerican ex-First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt's commercial for Good Luck Margarine."The new Good Luck margarine really tastes delicious",

she told viewers and was paid $35,000 for it. It proved unsuccessful for both the company and herself as was evident from her words:"One half was sad because I'd damaged my reputation. The other half was happy because I'd damaged my reputation."²² A case of mismatched celebrity was evident when Toyota signed on pop singer Britney Spears to endorse its sedan, Soluna Vios, which was best used by family men and women with kids.²³

"At the end of the day, it is about identifying a problem, and then finding the right solution to solve the problem. Many celebrity endorsements fail because they identify a celebrity they like in an emotive and unresearched manner, and then try to create advertising to force-fit the celebrity into the creative concept. Often, the finished advertising is at best contrived, and often, simply laughable. At the end, the brand suffers from a mismatched concept and celebrity, and millions of dollars are flushed away. If this company is publicly listed, imagine the disservice the company has done for its shareholders,"²⁴ said Dr Seamus Phan, Asia's famous published author and analyst.

After studying cases of successful and unsuccessful deals and interviewing 30,000 people, Amy Dyson and Douglas Turco of Illinois State University attempted to evaluate the feasibility of a celebrity and offered the FRED principle. FRED stands for Familiarity, Relevance, Esteem and Differentiation. In brief:²⁵

• • Familiarity: The target market must be aware of the person, and perceive him or her as empathetic, credible, sincere and trustworthy.

• • Relevance: There should be a meaningful link between the advertised brand and the celebrity endorser, and more important, between the celebrity endorser and the defined target market.
• • Esteem: Consumers must have the utmost respect and confidence for the celebrity.
• • Differentiation: The target consumers must see the endorser as a cut above the rest.

Creativity in Endorsement Advertising

Over the years, endorsing has moved from a celebrity giving an express approval of the product to a subtle demonstration of its benefits by the celebrity featuring in carefully crafted story lines. Apple Computer, for example, introduced its anodized Aluminum range of Powerbooks, the 12-inch and the 17-inch models, with actor Verne Troyer (from movie "Austin Powers" as "Mini Me") and Houston Rockets center player Yao Ming.²⁶ Instead of using these celebrities as mouthpieces for the product, Apple used the very tall Yao Ming and the very short Verne Troyer to demonstrate the difference in size between their small and large Powerbooks.

Advertisers also found that ads that brought out the human side of a celebrity were generally successful. They believed that advertisers needed to show audience different facets of a celebrity. Nike's ad featuring Jordan admitting his mistakes, for example was considered one of its most memorable ads. In the ad, Jordan says, "I missed more than

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20]Badenhausen, Kurt, "Slam Dunk", www.forbes.com, February 16th 2004
21]Fisher, Eric, “James $90M deal poses huge risks for Nike, industry”, The Washington Times, May 23rd 2003
22]op cit “Resorting to celebrity acts”, http://www.marketing.ie
23]Dr. Phan, Seamus, “Does celebrity branding always work?”, www.allaboutbranding.com
24]ibid
25]Bong R. Osario, “Celebrity endorsers: is the huge investment worth the risk & rewards?”, www.newsflash.org, April 16th, 2002
26]op cit “Does celebrity branding always work?”