The Role of the Celebrity Endorsements in Media Communication - Term Paper Example

Celebrity endorsement in media communication Affiliation: What is the role of celebrity endorsement in media communication? Abstract The essay is examining how celebrities being endorsed by different companies play a huge role on media communication. The definitions of the terms and explanations of them are addressed as they form a huge part of the literature review. Examples of some of the success stories in celebrity endorsements are provided as well. The recommendation section tackles how to avoid the celebrity endorsements leading to negative consequences in the media communication. Introduction Celebrities have been on the television, bill boards, internet and even social media majorly in the recent past as a result of being endorsed by many different companies and corporations to advertise their products and introduce different brands to the market place. The essay will examine the role of these celebrity endorsements to the media communication and how all these can be of benefit to the companies and the general public. Literature Review a) Celebrity Endorsement Endorsement is the act of picking up an individual to promote a particular brand using different media channels. This is majorly used as a marketing technique but what matters most is the media channel used to carry out the endorsement communication. If the wrong form of media is chosen such as radio and which many people do not listen to, whatever is being endorsed is bound to fail to attract the targeted people (Okorie, Oyedepo & Akhidenor, 2012). Celebrities are being endorsed to carry out the advertisements. Their use is much more effective than regular people as they have large followers worldwide. These celebrities include athletes, movie stars; reality shows stars, famous business personalities and musicians among other celebrities. It is guaranteed that with their endorsement, they are bound to attract an even larger following and whatever they have endorsed will accepted by the people. When choosing the celebrities to use to endorse whatever product is being advertised, it is important to look at their media usage and the following they have on each of these media particularly the social media. This is important because celebrities are endorsed with a lot of money even millions of dollars and hence it is important to know that the people are getting their money’s worth. According to research by (Chan, Leung Ng & Luk, 2013), most companies target young adults as they are the ones who are most likely to identify with the celebrities and they find these celebrities appealing. b) Media Communication Media communication refers to exchange of information from one person to another or to a group of people for the purpose of passing on a message. In order for the information to reach many people and elicit the necessary feedback, it is important to identify and use the best media communication channel. The other important thing to remember is what the target group is and hence identify which form of media communication is appropriate (Malik & Sudhakar, 2014). In this age and era, the most influential mode of media communication is the social media. This media has no age group limitation and people of all ages from the young to the old have joined the various forms of social medias available and are using them to communicate or even get the latest information in the news or even latest gossip in the social entertainment scenes. The most common of these social media include facebook, twitter, YouTube, instagram, whatsapp among many others (Spry, Pappu & Cornwell, 2011). The other common forms of media communication are using televisions and the internet. Majority of the people are always spending a lot of time on the internet whether working or carrying out research or even studying and hence when advertisements are made online, they are bound to see all these advertisements and the message they are trying to pass across. TVs are mostly watched in the evenings when people are relaxing or when there are sports matches and hence the best time to pass on the necessary messages. The use of bill boards is also widely utilized throughout the globe. Bill boards of celebrities endorsing different products are the most common and they are strategically placed on highways and busy roads where traffic jams are likely to occur hence giving a lot of time to study them and whatever message they are passing across. c) Brand Communication The right form of media communication to promote a brand which is endorsed by the celebrities is very important. Brand communication is the use of a popular media and celebrity to promote a particular product or company that is up coming. Celebrities in this case play the most important role in promotion of a brand as it is their high status and people liking of them that will determine whether the brand being promoted will succeed or not. When it comes to brand communication and promotion, the use of the right celebrity is much more important than any other thing in the whole campaign as the consumers who identify with the celebrity will accept, purchase or join whatever is being promoted just in a bid to identify with their celebrity who in most cases is their role model. The most successful of the celebrity endorsement is on the fashion arena. Celebrities’ wardrobe is very influential on how their followers will dress as well. Individuals emulate celebrities’ dressing; their fashion products as well as their beauty products advertised on fashion magazines are widely bought. These brands and fashion statements are communicated through postings in fashion TVs, fashion blog sites as well as in fashion magazines and these are highly consumed (Carroll, 2009). d) Examples of endorsements Examples of the most successful of the celebrities endorsements which have proven to be successful because of the media communication used are going to be explained below. The first is the advert by Justin Bieber on Proactiv cream for acne. This advert widely used on the internet and the TVs has increased the sale of this product immensely with the teenagers topping up the sale of this product. The fact that the correct celebrity was endorsed who is at the right age bracket of the acnes and is widely loved by the teens topped up with advertisements on social media and TV has contributed greatly to the sale of the product. Another celebrity endorsement is that of Pepsi being advertised by Britney Spears. The fact that this advertisement was run non-stop in televisions and more so during world cup led to the company and the celebrity earning millions of dollars in returns. TV during this sporting period was highly watched and hence any advertisements made during this time on the TV were highly successful (Greenman, 2014). David Berkham one of the most celebrated footballers featured in an advert in the TV and the internet of his H&M bodyline brand of t-shirts and even underwear which got not only the male interested but also the female watching. It became especially successful when the advert aired during the 2014 Superbowl games (Greenman, 2014). It is obvious that the perfect celebrity endorsement is what drives the media communication to be used and in turn leads to the high returns. Roles of celebrity endorsement a) Increased productivity Most role models of people are celebrities whether on the business or entertainment world. People tend to follow all that the celebrities do and purchase the products they use and become loyal to the brands they advertise. In this case therefore, once these celebrity role models are endorsed, they ooze their popularity towards what they are endorsing which translates to the rest of their followers endorsing these brands and products as well. In this case therefore, once the products or brand is endorsed and taken to the media to be communicated to the people, the general public will start purchasing the product and in large numbers for that case as long as the communication in the media is on-going. This is bound to increase productivity of the brand and the product and increase the profit gained in the long run (Mwendwa & Mberia, 2014). This explains why some companies always endorse celebrities in their product advertisements as this will always ensure that the products remain marketable throughout the entire campaign period such a Pepsi during the world cup season and other energy drinks during the Superbowl season. With increased productivity, there is continual usage of the media communication channel by other companies as well. b) Visibility and awareness It is quite obvious that people are curious about celebrity lives and news on everything about them. It is for this reason that once celebrities are endorsed and the campaign of their endorsement taken to the media, curiosity of their followers is raised. It is this curiosity of what their endorsement is about that lead to the people getting awareness of the product, Visibility is created by the celebrities once endorsed and the campaign taken to the media to be communicated to the general public (Malik & Sudhakar, 2014). The awareness and visibility is what will drive people to seek these products, purchase them and get to experiment what these celebrities are trying to communicate to them. The same applies to the fashion. The celebrities once endorsed by fashion houses showcase the latest fashion trends creating awareness of what is new in the fashion world which then the people tend to go check out and in the long run purchase. If the products were to be advertised in the media by regular people, it will not matter which media communication channel they used but the visibility of the product will remain minimal. Celebrities bring the product to the spotlight which is their life (Carroll, 2009). c) Brand Promotion New brands seek celebrities and the best form of media communications to advertise themselves as well as any new products they may be bringing to the market. Celebrities endorsement has been known to work even better and become even more successful is different forms of media communication are used. In this age and era, social media communication is combined with television and print media to get wider access and coverage as well as widespread promotion. It is important that during brand promotion to maximize campaign in the media the celebrity endorsed uses the most and has majority of the following. If a movie star for example is endorsed for a campaign, the best media communication is TV as that is where the celebrity has majority of the following. This will ensure that the communication channel chosen will fully support the celebrity whom they follow majorly and hence gain maximum brand promotion (Chien, Cornwell & Pappu, 2011). With the celebrity’s popularity in the media, a brand has higher chances of being promoted effectively and gaining customers, visibility as well as increasing productivity in the long run. Widespread promotion means more customers and hence higher chances of sustainability of the company and brand being promoted. Recommendations The benefits of the celebrities being used in media communication of marketing and brand promotion are numerous. There are however cases when the celebrity endorsements have experienced epic failures and the results of the campaign being negative. This has been attributed to lack of proper media channel being used to communicate the campaign or the wrong celebrity being used for the particular brand promotion (Thwaites, Lowe, Monkhouse & Barnes, 2012). The advice provided to avoid such negative case scenarios is carrying out in depth research on the celebrity factoring in any media scandals that may have arisen in the past or their level of popularity for all the right reasons. The correct celebrity for the media communication should be chosen. A sports communication and marketing should seek an athlete while a fashion one should seek fashion-moguls like reality stars celebrities and actors. This will avoid endorsing the wrong celebrity for a job which the people fail to identify with hence failing to be persuaded to purchase the product (Okorie, Oyedepo & Akhidenor, 2012). In order to make the endorsements and communication successful, it is important to choose the best media communication depending on the following of the celebrity endorsed as mentioned earlier. This will ensue that the information being communicated reaches the target group whether it is the young, middle age or older population. The key however is in endorsing the right celebrity for the job. Conclusion The role of the celebrity endorsements in media communication as presented in the discussion is to promote a brand, create visibility and awareness of the product in the market as well as increase the productivity of a brand or product in the market. All this is possible through the use of the celebrity’s popularity status as well as their large following in the social media and internet. The recommendations above will ensure that the media communication will lead to positive results only. Reference Carroll, A. (2009). Brand communications in fashion categories using celebrity endorsement. Journal of Brand Management, 17: 146-158. Chan, K., Leung Ng, Y. & Luk, E. (2013). Impact of celebrity endorsement in advertising on brand image among Chinese adolescents. Young Consumers, 14(2): 167-179. Chien, P., Cornwell, T. & Pappu, R. (2011). Sponsorship portfolio as a brand‐image creation strategy. Journal of Business Research, 64(2): 142‐149. Greenman, A. (2014, September 10). 10 Most successful celeb endorsements of all time. Retrieved from http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-influential/10-of-the-most- successful-celeb-endorsements-of-all-time/2/ Malik, A. & Sudhakar, B. (2014). 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