CELEBRITY BRAND ENDORSEMENTS: IS IT REAL VALUE FOR MONEY?

     

A marketer’s brand is its most valuable asset. In order to gain a market share, marketers try to use celebrities or famous people in the enhancement of a particular brand.Celebrity endorsement has been established as one of the most popular tools of advertising in recent time. It has become a trend and perceived as a winning formula for product marketing and brand building. It is a tactic by which a celebrity acts as the brand’s spokesperson and certifies the brand’s claim and position by extending their personality, popularity, stature in the society. In simple terms it is a concept by which marketers pay famous people to a huge sums of money just to use their product conspicuously, with the anticipation that the celebrity’s fans will see it, want it and buy it. Marketers who would rather spend thousands and millions of dollars just to reach out to their audience could be wasting money. 

The evolution of technology has made it extremely possible to be proactive and creative in establishing a genuine connection with a target even more cost effectively. I see celebrity endorsements as a waste of money. The richest.com show cases some of the biggest celebrity endorsement deals. Actor Brad Pitt earned $6.7 million for one ad for Chanel No. 5. Soccer player David Beckham has a lifetime deal with sporting brand Adidas worth over $150 million. In fact, Beckham earns approximately $55,000 per day for his endorsements with companies that include, but aren’t limited to: H&M; Diet Coke, Armani and Samsung. It’s hard to understand why 

marketers spend millions on a method that is neither a source of credible information nor a financially efficient tactic. Recent findings on the effectiveness of celebrity brand endorsements by Ace Metrix indicates that the presence of celebrities in an advertisement in itself does nothing to improve the creative effectiveness of the advertisement. Simply put with or without the celebrities, a good, creative advertisement is has equally or more potential to very effective in promoting a brand. Choosing a celebrity is quite easy but most marketers fail to establish a strong association between the product and the endorser and the impact of celebrity endorsement on consumer's buying behavior as well as how consumer makes brand preferences. In a case where a celebrity endorser sometimes misbehaves, the endorser’s poor behavior can damage the brand’s reputation. This can be very detrimental with all the money invested. Celebrities are often associated with both positive and negative meanings. For example, American consumers typically like Jessica Simpson and consider her sexy, but also ditsy. Similarly, many see Lady Gaga as creative, but also weird.  Are celebrity endorsements giving marketers the real value for their money?