Celebrity Endorsements: Insight

What makes a successful celebrity endorsement?

“Whether it’s an existing celebrity (e.g. Coleen Rooney) or a celebrity created by a brand (e.g. the Meerkat) the temptation is to see ‘brand characters’ as a quick fix for any problem. The strength lies not in the celebrities themselves, but in their character. Do they share a value system, a personality with the brand? When you look through this filter it’s clear what’s right and what isn’t. Girl-next-door Coleen Rooney seems to fit the brand character of Littlewoods in a way that Marco Pierre White just never will with Bernard Matthews.

Obviously, demographic fit is one consideration. I’m sure Nintendo used Helen Mirren because they see an opportunity to sell consoles to ladies of a certain age. But it shouldn’t be the only consideration: people are just as likely to identify with an endorsement because of what they represent. The Dos Equis ‘Most Interesting Man In The World’ campaign is a case in point: it’s a beer targeting young men, but using an old guy who has seen it all. 

There was definitely a time when a celebrity’s role was simply to give a campaign stand out. This still goes on today with some big supermarkets throwing megabucks at anyone who happens to have a week free in their schedule. The most interesting development is the way campaigns, such as Old Spice and Comparethemarket, have created their own celebrities and used interactive mediums to build deeper relationships between consumers and their icons. 

I think the future will see a move from ‘celebrity endorsement’ to ‘celebrity involvement’. This will either be in the form of brands creating their own celebrities that people can interact with, or by involving actual celebrities in a campaign as Fallon is doing with Spots Vs Stripes. We have celebrities (in the form of athletes) involved in the campaign, but they’re actually taking part: playing the games, uploading content, rather than simply ‘fronting’ the product. I hope there’ll be less ‘fronting’ moving forward. But I doubt it: there’ll always be a turkey brand out there somewhere that needs a celebrity chef and a housewives’ favourite 80s pop star.”

Gareth Goodall, head of planning, Fallon London

Inside Intel’s relationship with will.i.am

“We were not seeking a relationship. There was no list of potential stars and innovators we were planning on approaching. Will came to us with his management and said: “Hey, could we do something?”. It became clear early on that his creative mind worked in a very similar way to an engineer’s. He has a tremendous enthusiasm for technology. Symbiotic is probably a good way of describing our relationship. We had a meeting together yesterday and it felt like we were all genuinely feeding off each other’s ideas.

Will brings his insight into the art and entertainment world, which is something that a lot of our engineers just haven’t experienced before. They always have a lot of questions. And equally, Will is curious about the engineering side of things. It’s very rewarding when we’re all talking together.

The biggest surprise has probably been how well-connected Will and the engineers are. There’s no division, no celebrity status. I don’t think we could achieve the same impact if there wasn’t that human aspect.I do think that there probably are interesting relationships possible between athletes or musicians and brands. They could work in a similar way if the passion points are there and the talents on each side are equally represented. I just don’t think a lot of marketers have thought about it. You have to start in a different place and think holistically. You can’t just bring together some random celebrities. There has to be shared passions.

I’ve been working in marketing for a while and in that time I’ve had the very great honour to have been involved in building up endorsement relationships for the likes of McDonald’s. But really, this has nothing to do with endorsement. If anything, it’s Will’s endorsement of technology.

That doesn’t mean that we won’t have classical advertising with Will endorsing products we’ve developed together in the future, but we’re approaching this from a very different angle. We don’t even have a piece of advertising yet. I’m sure we will at some point but there’s no urgency. The priority is innovation.”

Johan Jervoe, VP Digital Media, Intel