Assignment: The Effectiveness of a Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising

Many marketing companies know the value and importance of celebrity endorsement in advertising as a marketing communiqué tool. Corporations hire celebrities because they are individuals who are well-recognized and popular.

In promotion for advertising, an endorsement means a person’s written or verbal statement praising the good features of a product. The term “testimonial” applies mostly to the sales pitches attributed to ordinary citizens, whereas “endorsement” is usually applied to sales pitches by celebrities.

The awareness and association celebrities portray to consumer firms hope this branding transfers to the product they are selling.

When very large companies approve a celebrity, they are taking the risk that the spokesperson may become involved in events that can have harmful effects on the company and the product, they are advertising. “

A celebrity’s popularity and reputation are used to promote a company or product through celebrity endorsement, sometimes referred to as celebrity branding or celebrity advertising.

Nonprofit groups that exploit a celebrity’s popularity to promote a cause or collect money for it are examples of other use cases. Instead, event marketers may use a celebrity’s notoriety and appeal to generate buzz and prestige for their virtual or hybrid event.

It’s not necessary for your chosen celebrity to be a movie star. Excellent branding efforts have been created by brands using musicians, athletes, social media celebrities, or even made-up characters like cartoon characters.

History of Celebrity Endorsement

The earliest instance of a celebrity or athlete supporting a product or service is baseball great Babe Ruth endorsing the soft drink manufacturer Red Rock Cola in the late 1930s.

Companies frequently use celebrities and sportsmen to draw in potential customers, bolster their marketing messages, polish their brand images, and open doors to new geographic markets.

The main reason why businesses continue to support athletes and celebrities is an enhanced Return on Investment (ROI). Sales are predicted to rise by an average of 4% when a business signs a celebrity or athlete (Olenski, 2016).

In the past, the athlete or celebrity would appear in TV ads, participate in business events, and sport the brand’s merchandise (Lear, Runyan & Whitaker, 2009). Nevertheless, with the development of digital technology, endorsees are now required to do more, with a significant emphasis on social media.

Along with being more affordable, social media also makes it simpler to track the success of campaigns than it does with more conventional techniques.

KPIs like click-through rates, page views, and conversion rates are simple to access in the Social Media Analytics area, giving businesses a rapid understanding of what material is effective and whose endorsees in particular get the most attention.

Social media gives fans access to details about the daily lives of sportsmen and celebrities (Bradic, 2015). This makes the content more relevant, which might increase the credibility of the product endorsement.

Since they ultimately appeal to consumers more than the brands themselves, companies leverage athlete and celebrity endorsements.

For instance, soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo has more Twitter fans than McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks together! (Sprinklr, 2013). In order to broaden their audience and appeal, businesses are supporting athletes and celebrities and promoting content on their Social Media platforms.

Effectiveness of a Celebrity Endorsement in Advertising

Celebrities are prominently featured on TV, social media, publications, and wherever you can see an advertisement. However, there may be certain disadvantages to take into account before picking a celebrity to represent your company. Following are some benefits and effects of celebrity spokespeople on the product they are advertising.

Advertisers have attempted to justify the use of celebrities in their marketing campaigns by evaluating the celebrity’s public appeal and relevance to a brand’s image and the famous celebrity’s influence on consumer buying attributes.

Social media such as Twitter have become increasingly popular mediums for celebrities to endorse products for influencing purchasing behavior. Advertising and marketing companies sponsor celebrities to tweet and influence millions of their admirers to buy brand products.

Celebrity endorsements have proven very everywhere where increasing consumerism makes the purchase of an endorsed product a status symbol. Testimonials from customers who are not famous have been effectively used in marketing for as long as marketing has existed

Benefits

Increases Credibility

Celebrities are loved by their admirers and are often regarded with a high degree of trust. It establishes confidence in your brand and demonstrates to their followers that your product is worth using.

Consumers are additionally reassured of your product’s quality when they see a celebrity endorsing it. If the celebrity promoted a subpar product, it would be possible for their reputation to suffer.

Distinguishes Your Brand

Using a famous person to represent you may assist set your business apart from rivals. Also, it can increase ad recall by helping people recall your advertisement and the fact that your company is associated with their favorite celebrity.

Introduces New Markets

The correct celebrity choice might expand the market for your company. For instance, Nike teamed with Michael Jordan when it wanted to branch out from solely supporting tennis and track. This cooperation has been so successful that it has grown into its own subsidiary firm.

Drawback

Celebrity Personas Shift

When you hire a celebrity to promote your business, you hire them and everything else that person brings. While doing so typically results in part of their fan following becoming consumers, it may go horribly wrong if a scandal breaks.

Tiger Woods in 2009 is a prime example of this when corporations started to abandon him as a sponsor to prevent customer reaction following accusations of his adultery. He was not immediately dropped by Nike as a sponsor, and as a result, Nike lost business.

They Could Sully Your Reputation

If a celebrity is too well-known, their appeal may quickly eclipse your brand. Consumers may not recognize the brand if the advertisement places an excessive amount of emphasis on the celebrity.

If a celebrity is promoting many items at once, this may also become an issue since consumers may recognize the celebrity and link them to a different brand.

Testimonials

An existing or previous customer presents a formal “word of mouth” testimonial that a business can use in marketing and build confidence among future customers.

Testimonials are incredibly effective when believed to be true, but a challenge is having the audience believe that testimonials presented by a business are given by real people, not fabricated by the business itself.

Even so, testimonials, reviews, and case studies are still considered by most marketing experts to be the most effective means of marketing and gaining brand trust by small- and medium-sized businesses. Testimonials have reached an all-time high in importance as the internet is now a plethora of reviews

Websites such as Google and much more have become important sites for individuals to go to who are seeking other customers’ reviews/testimonials about a particular business to put the growth of this industry into perspective.

There have also been allegations that review sites themselves are prepared to manipulate reviews in return for companies buying advertising subscriptions.

A private company that began third-party testimonial and review verification in the mid-2000s was awarded an independent business award for their ability to automatically discern with a claimed 90+% accuracy the difference between a legitimate review and a fake review, which displays great progress towards the prevention of fake reviews and testimonials on the internet.