Reasons Why Celebrities Are the Face of Most Products - Essay Example

Celebrity Branding al Affiliation) Recently, most commercials are endorsing celebrities in promotion of their products.Musicians, film stars, models, sports celebrities, and other celebs are now the face of energy dinks, cosmetics, nutritional supplements, and other products. These celebs are a common approach to suitably break the confusion and ensure that the audience pays attention. Once they are attentive the will tend to employ higher processing order of the commercials (Sengupta 2005). Companies willingly pay huge amounts of to the celebrities with the hope that the popular celeb will lure his fans into buying the endorsed product (Sengupta 2005). For most products, celebs are mainly creating a rapport with audience. However, there are many reasons to why celebrities are the face of most products. One of the most common reasons why celebrities are the face of a product is targeting the consumers psyche. Once a consumer sees her favorite celeb, on a commercial first she will be attentive and most of all excited (Burns 2009). This way she will directly connect everything to do with the product to the celeb. For example, the quality of a product, if for good instance it is beauty care product and the face of the product have good skin, then the fans at the audience will buy it(Andrews 2013). All because the audience will relate the celebs’, good skin with the product (Burns 2009). They will go with go with the notion; she uses it and it makes her skin look great then I can use it too. This is clear endorsement where the audience equates a celebs star quality to the product. Star quality is another major reason for the wide spread use of celebrities on commercials and advertisements. This is the transfer of personal characteristics of a celebrity to a product on a commercial (Roll 2005). For example, an edgy celebrity can useful to promote the image of a new product. Memo ability is another major reason for the use of celebrities in promotions of products. A famous face on the TV will capture attention and stick in the mind of the audience. A good example is the crunchy nut promotion with the face of the famous Rob Brydon. Celebrities are associated with recall and demarcation thus when a consumer is in surfeit of a product he can easily remember and end up choosing it (Burns 2009). The sophistication and charm that celebs have is the backbone for using them on commercials. In addition, use of celebs is a great way to start of a new product since it is influential to the young minds (McCracken 2005). Product positioning will be easier that way since many people will be attracted to the product since they are of famous faces. Use of celebrities to advertising brands has its own pros and cons. Their main advantages are increase in sales and market share. By influencing consumer purchases through recall, endorsements and other reasons sales of a product go up (McCracken 2005). Celebrities an also turn around a failing brand through creation of interest to a product leading to an increase in the sales (Stadtler 2011). A great challenge that companies face is attracting new users. A glance at a celebrity can attract a new consumer in a fraction. Thus, celebrities seem to have great influence on the attraction of new customers. Another great advantage of celebrity endorsement is the positioning of a brand. This is placing a brand in the best reputation in terms of the target group (Stadtler 2011). If a celebrity has the right impact on the target group, then positioning the brand will not be difficult. However, the use of celebrity branding is not entirely positive. The audience today is more intellect with technology. Celebrity scandals can negatively impact sales in addition some businesses such as burger king had a turnaround for endorsing celebrities in their advertisement (McCracken 2005). However, the overall result is the rise in obese individuals. The celebrities used to advertise the junk food are perfectly in shape. The consumer will only perceive in literal relation when buying the product with countless calories. Negative information is mostly transferrable from the celeb to most of the products during advertisement. The society is in turn subject to the horrible results of the negative interpretation of celebrity branding. A good example for this is the use celebrities to advertise junk. Another great risk with endorsing celebrities is that with the current technology gossip websites are accessible (McCracken 2005). Endorsing a celebrity who is in a scandal will only shy customers from buying the product. Since celebrity, branding is all about relating the celebrity with the brand. This will only make the sales of the product to dwindle. Celebrity branding five years ago and now have a great difference. Today the consumer is more informed and will not easily buy just because of a famous face in an advert. Today’s consumer knows what revolves around the celebrities life thus pleasing the consumer won’t be easy (McCracken 2005). Sometimes the sellers become more of the celeb and in the long run do not engage the consumer at all. This confuses the audience since they are not sure if the advertisement is about the celebrity as an individual or about the product (Pingle 2004). Both Ace Matrix and Branding Strategy Insider reveal the worst of 2010’s celebrity branding. The table below shows the statistics of dwindling sales of some products despite the use of celebrity branding. Celebrity Endorsed Brand Advertisement title Fall in slaes (percentage) Donald Trump Macys Making Timmy a Mogul 24% drop Dale Earnhardt Jr. Nationwide Auto Insurance Coverage at the Right Price 27% drop Kenny Mayne Gillette Good Segment 28% drop Lance Armstrong Radio Shack No emoticons 28% drop Tiger Woods Nike Did you learn anything 30% drop The most popular reasons for the fails in promoting adverts through celebrity is first a figure of dislike and is doing the promotion. If the celeb has scandals, he will affect the promotion (Stadtler 2011). Confusion on what product the celeb is promoting for instance David Beckham is advertising; audience will tend to focus on the celeb rather than the brand. Overexposure of a celeb can also cause consumers not to gain interest in a brand an example is Tiger Woods he has become a monotonous screen figure (Pingle 2004). It may seem that celebrity’s sale a brand but most of the celebrities do not effectively market the product. In cases where the brand sales it is only because the celeb is an specialist with the brand and not because they are the face of the product (Ramesh 2009). Center for media research reports that celebrity promotion had lower ratings due to misconceptions compared to true genuine non-celeb ads. Their research continues to show that a celebrity who is an expert with a product can advertise for it and better sales will be realizable. For example, a sports man for athlete wear, a race driver for a race car and so on. In addition, University of Winscosin shows a research of brands that do not sell because of sex content used in it. For example a celebrity who is trying to sell a non-sexy product by trying to be sexy. This will only kill the sells since the audience will respond negatively (Ramesh 2009). Some customers find it offensive that the advert is sexual, both the product and company will look cheap for trying to sell through sex, and other will forget since they do not see any benefits. In the end, non-celeb ads are less risky and have more sales at the end of the day (Stadtler 2011). Ace Matrix reveals data that celebrity branding has a 20% negative impact on advert effectiveness. It is clear that a good advertisement without a celeb can stand out and have more sales. Since such a commercial is straight to the point, simple with nothing complicated. The past year has a lot of starring celebs in commercials but not all of them had a positive impact on the advertising. Compared to non-celeb commercials, they were unproductive and did not fulfill the desire promises. Products such as Hermes are a good example of succeeding brands with use of celebs for their advertisement. Such products base their distribution on popularity and appeal of the celebrity to the brand. Asia has many successful developing brands through celebrity promotion (Andrews 2013). India also has many celebrities promoting products, which is working well so far. However, the endorsing of Tiger Woods for Nike in 2010 did not work out well. Instead, sales were at a negative. Celebrity branding can have complications when it is difficult to create credibility if a celebrity is trying building his name or genuinely marketing the product. It is therefore the responsibility of public relations to avoid such a crisis during endorsement dealings in marketing (Ramesh 2013). However much the dealings with celebrities are about buying them, the brand company should have a solid rapport with the celebrity. This way it will be easy for the company to figure out if the celebrity understands the business imperatives. A company may succeed with the use of celebrities or fail terribly with their endorsements. Before investing in a celebrity, it is good idea to consider all areas of advertising (Scott 2013). What is the direct relation of the celeb to the product? Is he or she overused in commercials, does the celeb have a good reputation, does the celeb appeal to the target group. All these in consideration can help up the sales (Scott 2013). Conversely, at the same time companies should consider that celebs are humans and are prone to making mistakes. It is better off to have a unique, simple and non-celeb related commercial. This way many inconveniences and risks can be at bay. Having a definitive lead to branding to avoid unnecessary loses. Even though having a definitive plan to branding is important risks such as a celeb involvement in scandals is unavoidable (Andrews 2013). References Andrews, J. C. S. T. A. (2013). Advertising Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning. Burns, K. S. (2009). Celeb 2.0: How social media foster our fascination with popular culture. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger/ABC-CLIO. McCracken, G. D. (2005). Culture and consumption: 2. Bloomington [u.a.: Indiana Univ. Press. Pringle, H. (2004). Celebrity Sells. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Ramesh, K. D. (2009). Consumer behaviour and branding: Concepts, readings and cases. New Delhi: Pearson Education. Roll, M. (2005). Asian Brand Strategy: How Asia Builds Strong Brands. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Scott, S. K. (2013). Mentored by a millionaire: Master strategies of super achievers. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley. Sengupta, S. (2005). Brand positioning: Strategies for competitive advantage. New Delhi [u.a.: McGraw-Hill. Städtler, R. (2011). Celebrity Scandals and their Impact on Brand Image: A Study among Young Consumers: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation. München: GRIN Verlag GmbH. Read More