Pros and Cons of Celebrities in Marketing Campaigns - Essay Example

? Pros and Cons of celebrities in marketing campaigns Thesis ment The celebrity endorser is a ubiquitous feature of modern marketing and millions of dollars are spent annually on celebrity endorsements contracts. There are often three types of endorsers: the celebrity, the professional, and the typical consumer. For celebrities, it is often a huge victory for them when they are under a contract with big corporations. However, if the celebrity is involved in a scandal of any nature, the company might find itself between a rock and a hard place, such that it might find it difficult to manage the situation and determining whether to cut ties with the celebrity or not. As a result, there are pros and cons when a company decides to contract a celebrity to be the face of its product or service. Celebrity endorsers are individuals who are known to the public for achievements in areas other than that of the product-category endorsed. The individual enjoys public acknowledgement and who uses this acknowledgement on behalf of a product or service by appearing with it in an advertisement. As well as promoting established brands, celebrity endorsers are used to promulgate new brand images, reposition brands or introduce new ones (Pride, 2013). The use of celebrities has become a common practice for companies competing in today’s cluttered media environment, with one in five marketing campaigns now featuring celebrities. The use of celebrities as endorsers tends to create, attempts to create positive effects in the minds of consumers, operating alongside consumers’ owned culturally formed meanings. Companies invest large sums of money to align their brands and themselves with endorsers. The rising popularity of this phenomenon is due to increasing consumer consciousness and new product proliferation, and encouraging marketers to use attention-creating media stars to assist in product marketing. Initially, the use of celebrity endorsers seemed to be an all-gain/no-risk situation, but as with any dynamic marketing communication strategy, there are potential hazards (Dietrich & Livingston, 2012). Hence, before a company embarks on the process of hiring celebrity endorsers to market its product and services, it ought to critically analyze the pros and cons of using this kind of marketing strategy. Nike is one of the companies that have enlisted the services of celebrity to market its new elite speed mercurial vapor playing boots currently worn by Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Pros of celebrity endorsers Celebrity endorsers can create positive buzz and attract both new customers and investors. The exposure companies can get by associating by their products with a celebrity is such a lucrative opportunity such that businesses often give away products in the hope of attracting celebrity interest. Furthermore, celebrity endorsers help to increase mainstream exposure. Most companies are aware the Western culture is infatuated with celebrities. Hence, for a company that has just gained a foothold of the market, the use of a celebrity figure will enable the company to drive a lot of eyeballs towards its product or service. The use of celebrity endorsers will help to increase the credibility of the product. Even though there are celebrities that have developed a love to hate relationship with members of the public, their appearance in various products can help to generate the appearance of credibility for both developing and established companies. A lot of consumers prefer to use that product or service that has a celebrity on it since it signifies that the product has something worth checking out. The use of celebrity endorsers tends to generate compelling content, which has often, proved to be an elusive aspect for content-driven businesses. As a result, the use of celebrities will enable the company to produce the type of content that can hardly be bought regardless of the amount of money that the company intends to use in marketing the product or service. Celebrities can help, create and maintain consumer attention to an advertisement. In addition, celebrities help advertisements to stand out from surrounding clutter, such that they help to improve communicative ability by cutting through excessive noise in the communication process. There are a number of difficult problems that come with global marketing while in the process of finding new markets in foreign countries. These problems might be as a result of cultural impediments such as space, time, language barrier, relationships, masculinity, femininity, power risk et cetera. However, the company should consider employing the services of celebrity endorsers since they are often considered to be a powerful device when a company would want to establish a foothold in foreign markets (Bruce et al, 2004). Cons of celebrity endorsers Much as most people are infatuated with celebrities, there are consumers who do not care what the celebrities are doing. For this reason, these consumers shy away from products or services that have been endorsed by celebrities because they often feel nauseated by the presence of celebrities. This leads to decreased credibility of the product or service because, for this set of consumers, too much involvement of a celebrity on a particular product or service is a real turn off. Companies have limited control over celebrities in comparison to non-celebrities, whose characters they develop to create a spokesperson. Marketing campaigns that use celebrities face a potential risk because they have little control over the celebrity’s future behavior. Any negative news about a celebrity may reduce the celebrity’s allure, and therefore, the appeal of the brand that the celebrity has endorsed. Therefore, celebrities can be involved in scandals that might be outside the control of the company. This might force the company to terminate the contract of the celebrity if at all their presence might have a negative impact on the product or service. In this case, companies should always devise a contingency plan should anything go wrong. Celebrity endorsements are expensive. Depending on the status of the celebrity, remuneration could run into millions of dollars for several years. Overall, use of celebrities as spokespersons in advertisements constitutes a significant investment in intangible assets by the sponsoring firm. In order to cater for these costs, the, management must hope to offset the cost of hiring the celebrity with greater future sales revenues and profits. It is often said that celebrity is the next thing that dwindles faster than external beauty. Thus, companies that market their products on the back of celebrities might find it hard to remain relevant in the market for an extended period of time. Thus, these companies should develop an extra source of relevance that will enable them to remain connected with the consumers for a long period of time. Even though the use of celebrities is an effective marketing strategy, it would not be prudent for a company to have its product or service revolving around celebrity status as this does not often lead to long-term success (Kirby &Marsden, 2006). In conclusion, it is evident that the use of celebrities in promoting products or services should aim to deliver measurable brand benefits, and that means response, not just eyeballs. Hence, the use of celebrities is an extremely valuable addition to any brand’s overall marketing communications activity, and to the bottom line. On the other hand, advertising managers need to investigate the cost of hiring a celebrity and balance this with celebrity trustworthiness and controversy risk. Prior endorsements and celebrity, familiarity and likeability are important factors of consideration along with the risk of celebrities overshadowing the brand, and the stages of the celebrity’s life cycle. References Bruce, M. et al (2004). International Retail Marketing. Brooklyn: Routledge. Dietrich, G. & Livingston, G. (2012). Marketing in the Round: How to Develop an Integrated Marketing Campaign in the Digital Era. USA: Que Publishing. Kirby, J. & Marsden, P. (2006). Connected Marketing. Oxford: Elsevier. Pride, W. M. (2013). Marketing 2014, 17th ed. USA: Cengage Learning. Read More