Celebrity Marketing

Celebrity marketing is a technique that implies hiring a famous person to endorse a brand’s product or service. It covers different types of promotion: an opinion leader using and recommending a specific product or an influencer in the image of the brand. A brand uses a celebrity’s reputation to establish trust, awareness, and recognition among this person’s following.

In this article, we’ll uncover why to attract celebrities for advertising and how to get celebrity endorsements. We’ll also review some great examples of successful celebrity marketing campaigns.

Why attract celebrities for advertising?

Brands often involve celebrities to showcase products and influencers to recommend them to draw attention immediately and establish brand awareness. Influencers and opinion leaders can generate buzz around a company, increase exposure, and attract more people.

Since celebrities have the power to influence customer decisions, companies use them to their advantage. According to statistics, 37% of consumers trust the recommendations of social media influencers and discover new products from their videos, photos, and stories. You can often see large brands with opinion leaders as brand advocates. They become salespeople, showcase products, and encourage customers to purchase. With influencers' help, companies reach new audiences and enhance credibility and visibility. Moreover, celebrity endorsements enable brands to stand out among competitors. If an opinion leader uses a specific brand and recommends it, people trust and buy its products.

Influencers can use different techniques to draw followers’ attention: create tutorials, guides on product usage, before and after stories, posts, etc. They call out to people through different marketing channels and help companies attain their conversions, sales, and revenue goals.

Now that you know why brands partner with opinion leaders, let’s proceed to the next section to find out how to encourage endorsements.

How to get celebrity endorsements?

Unlike endorsements in TV and print advertisements, modern celebrity marketing establishes a connection between an endorser and a customer. Brands are serious about choosing an influencer and don't rely solely on that person's fame. They look at a career, hobby, lifestyle, and other aspects. Customers should associate this opinion leader with themselves. So finding a great fit isn’t an easy task. In this section, we’ll show you how to do it.

1. Determine your budget. First, you should do is to decide how much money you are willing to spend. The budget depends on the celebrity you want to invite and the contract. You might consider famous personalities (models, actresses, influencers, entrepreneurs, etc) if you have a big brand. However, if you are starting a business, you can work with micro-influencers on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
2. Ensure you know your target audience. Before selecting a celebrity, analyze your target audience to learn their needs, hobbies, interests, and desires. Create a buyer persona to have a clear understanding of your ideal customer.
3. Find the right candidate. You can choose a basketball player, makeup artist, popular singer, or a famous actress for your promotion. However, remember about finding a celebrity related to your product and with a passion for promoting your product. Searching for the most popular celebrity isn’t always a good strategy. Find someone who fits perfectly with your brand's mission, values, and ideas. If the influencer shares your vision and ideas, they will sound more persuasive to customers.
4. Ask micro-influencers for help. If you are starting your brand, consider collaborating with influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers. It’s a cost-effective way to reach more people and gain exposure. They can be even more effective and dedicated to your product promotion than singers, models, and actors. Moreover, micro-influencers are more trustworthy and share information within their niche industry. For example, travel influencers post about hotels, tickets, special clothes, apps, etc.

Now that you know how to get endorsements, it’s time to explore some powerful celebrity marketing campaigns.

Examples of Celebrity Marketing Campaigns

Celebrity marketing is considered one of the most effective marketing strategies that help achieve key business goals. In this section, we’ll review some examples to see what influencers have brought to world-known brands.

Shaquille O’Neal & Papa John’s

Perhaps every American knows Shaquille O’Neal as a sports analyst and one of the greatest basketball players. Yet it’s not the full list of his professions and achievements. In 2020, Shaquille O’Neal partnered with Papa John’s pizza chain. The collaboration aimed to create a specialty pizza – The Shaq-a-Roni pizza. The campaign brought stunning results to the brand. They managed to sell more than 3 million pizzas and collect 3 million dollars for charities. Shaquille O’Neal and Papa John’s raised this money in two months. After the campaign, the famous basketball player became a board member of the company.

Eva Longoria & L’Oreal

American actress, producer, and director Eva Longoria endorsed L’Oreal, a French personal care company. The attractive actress with long beautiful hair was a perfect fit for the brand’s product. In 2020, the actress released a series of useful how-to YouTube videos with L’Oreal aimed at the brand’s product promotion.

Congrats, now you know what celebrity marketing is and why it’s essential. Hope that our successful examples will serve you as inspiration when you decide to develop your celebrity marketing campaign.

Last Updated: 22.03.2023