When You Wish Upon A Star
Posted by anastasia on 03-05-2007
When I was at the Youth Power Canada conference, Warner Music was pitching the brands in attendance on the power of associating their brand with music, or more specifically artists popular with teens and tweens. I asked sort of half joking what happens when your the pop star you've aligned yourself with has a meltdown and shaves their head? The answer was that it's always good to give your products to several artists vs. being solely identified with one. Associating any brand with a celebrity spokesperson is risky. Young celebs are going through tons of changes and many can't handle the pressure of being in the spotlight. And even older celebs can screw up or do something that jeopardizes their image/brand (think: Martha Stewart). What made me think about this today was this Reuter's story about Christian Chavez, from the pop band RBD, who told fans he was gay after photographs were published on a gossip Web site purporting to show him tying the knot with his partner in a ceremony in Canada.
Who knows if RBD will be able to recover its more conservative Mexican fans, but as far as Britney goes, America loves nothing more than a good comeback story. And look at "Cocaine Kate Moss," somehow her bad girl ways made her even more appealing to certain sponsors.
The bigger question before deciding to bank on a celebrity is how affective using celebrities is with young people in general. According to this article, "researchers at the University of Bath in the U.K. and the University of St. Gallen, in Switzerland have released a study that says when it comes to selling products the average Joe or Jane could actually carry more clout." More from the story:
A group of about 300 undergraduates, in Germany, were shown a magazine advertisement for a digital camera which included an endorsement by a fictional student who labelled the camera “hot” and called it his “preferred choice.” For round two students were shown the same ad only this time a German celebrity was hawking the product.
The students were asked how much they cared about whether the products they buy make a good impression on their peers. It turns out that students, both male and female, who bought products to impress others were much more likely to be influenced by the student over the celebrity.
Just over 56 % of the pack who say they buy products to impress others were strongly influenced by the student. Just 20 % were influenced by the celebrity.
“They like to make sure their product is fashionable and trendy among people who resemble them, rather than approved by celebrities like David Beckham, Penelope Cruz, Brad Pitt or Scarlett Johansson,” says Professor Brett Martin, of the University of Bath’s School of Management on the University’s website.
“Of course there are key tools to calibrate the match between a celebrity and a product and when these tools are used, it can work very well,” he says.
“But in terms of this research, if people are influenced by peer pressure then it’s the people who offer the social approval who count.”
What celebrity/brand combos do you think have worked well and which do you think have bombed?
