With advertising being such an influential part of modern life have you ever stopped and wondered why there’s a footballer promoting felt-tip pens, a film star telling you about credit cards or an ex-boxer selling you a portable grill? Celebrity endorsements have become the norm since they first appeared in 1863 when figures such as Queen Victoria and Pope Leo XIII gave their name to Vin Mariani European beverage, which later went on to be adapted into Pemberton's French Wine Coca or as its more widely known Coca Cola.
Therefore are endorsements by celebrities actually more effective than any other type of advertising? In order to investigate this more I have chosen to look at two journals to find out if this is in fact true.
“Star Gazing” by Hamish Pringle
This article addresses the growing use of celebrities being used in advertising to endorse products. This journal came after research done into this area by Millward Brown showed that campaigns featuring a famous face are no more or no less successful than those featuring a made up character, product comparison or techniques such as humour. The journal’s objective was to show how the use of celebrities is common in advertising but does not guarantee success by any means.
Pringle analyzed a number of cases where celebrities have been used to promote products that are both relevant and irrelevant to themselves. Such examples that were given were David Beckham for Adidas football boots, however this was one of only few that were relevant to the celebrity. There was a wide berth of advertising that was in no way connected the celebrity to the product. For example Jennifer Aniston’s Barclaycard advert and Ray Liotta’s appearance for Heineken, they were used not because of their wide knowledge of the product or association with the product beforehand but because they had power as international stars to make the companies seem, like them, international and therefore able to branch into different markets.
The journal looks at how a celebrity with a positive reputation can be mirrored onto an unrelated product simply because their the one endorsing it. There is also the case that if a celebrity’s image changes then so does the products either for better or for worse. There is a good example from 2004 where Wayne Rooney is shown driving a Ford Ka Sport, this car although usually aimed towards women did very well amongst men due to his good performance in the European Cup.
The author mainly looks at campaigns featuring celebrities rather than those using created characters however skims over the most successful ones that have created celebrities from them, such as Halifax’s Howard Brown and the 118 118 men who have became instantly recognisable. There could possibly be more insight into these areas as the abstract leads us to believe that both types of advertising would be addressed.
The message that is being put across is that there are a number of factors that are important if a products to be successful. Using a personality won’t simply be enough if the consumer can’t relate to them. Sainsbury’s provides two extreme opposite cases of advertising. They display a point that Pringle tried to express that a bad script is generally the reason for failure not the celebrity. A campaign featuring John Cleese as Basil Faulty almost ruined Sainsbury’s as a large amount of customers couldn’t relate to the character as a person. They therefore didn’t feel connected to the brand as a result of a bad script rather than the celebrity. However Jamie Oliver’s adverts have risen their profile dramatically and won a Silver IPA Effectiveness Award for advertising as people can relate to a chef and food because there’s a connection there.
Many good points are expressed here as the author tries to address the subject from all angles. If this topic wasn’t looked at from so many views it could perhaps seem like he was sliding towards the view that celebrities aren’t needed or either that it is mainly their influence that sells the product, nevertheless he has managed to stay relatively unbiased even if it did seem like he set out against the use of celebrities in the beginning.
“Celebrity Endorsements Verses Crated Spokespersons In Advertising: A Survey Among Students” by DLR van der Waldt, M van Loggerenberng & L Wehmyer
This journal looks at depth into the use of celebrity endorsements against created spokespersons in advertising and reports on the benefits and downfalls of each. Later in the article a survey documents which of the two is a more effective way of advertising.
The article begins by stating that “some authors still doubt that endorsements are effective”. This seems to be a common theme as there is very little that can prove that endorsements are actually any more effective than created spokespersons. Nevertheless both have their good and bad points. This piece of writing gives a completely unbiased account of both sides as it tries to get to the roots of why either method should be preferred, the authors cite over 30 reports taken worldwide between 1990-2008 in an attempt to differentiate between the two.
It is stated that the use of endorsements can provide a number of benefits to advertising, for example: celebrities are seen to give credibility as they are viewed as experts on the product, thus making customers feel more safe or they can project their image onto the product. Evidence has shown that specified target markets generally have positive feelings towards celebrities. They avoid the need to tell a story as the right celebrity can establish a new product on the market or reinvent another. There are of course disadvantages to endorsements as private actions can negatively affect an organisation and should a celebrity choose not to endorse a product any more or state that they would never use this product again then the company could suffer.
In terms of using a created spokesperson although it has as many problems like celebrities, there aren’t the same type of risks. The authors outline a number of problems such as: a created spokesperson doesn’t have the same initial pulling power of a celeb and they won’t create the same short term lasting memory, although they do have a number of positives. A created spokesperson can be used if the right type of person cannot be found and can be created as a symbol in the mould of the company. They are less expensive, have longevity that can’t be promised with celebrities and can adapt to changing circumstances.
A study is taken in the article using a wide range of people of different ethnicities, gender and age, they were shown a mixture of adverts involving local as well as worldwide celebrities and created spokespersons. The goal was to see which they would score higher as experts on the product, who was most trustworthy and what looked more attractive. The survey proved to be in keeping with previous results in this area, with their views on expertise and trustworthiness being equal and the celebrities being marginally more attractive. This would seem to show that there is a not a great deal of difference in the two.
When looking back and comparing the two journals, the second seems to have a much deeper insight into both sides of the argument with the first just mainly looking at celebrities in endorsements. Although I originally set out to just look at celebrities in endorsements, I found that the comparison between them and created spokespersons gave a lot more detail into why celebrities are used. It seems that a celebrity gives a company an easy way into the market by hiring a famous face that will instantly catch the eye of consumers and create a buzz. However the money that is spent on this surely could be saved by using a created character that could arguably do more for a brand in the long run than any celebrity could do, as they can be sculpted in any way to reflect the brands image.
The thing that initially attracted me to celebrities being used in advertising was David Beckham’s peculiar Sharpie advert and the logic behind companies using stars to promote products unrelated to them. These types of adverts have been shown to neither be a format for success or failure but continue nonetheless to be one of the main forms of advertising. Journal 1 was in many ways a lot more helpful in understanding the how unrelated products and celebs can be a success, if the person can connect with the audience in the right way, like Wayne Rooney’s Ka advert for example, then there is a link. Journal 2 however seemed to be more about the theoretical side, without giving examples of the thing it was talking about, which was at times off putting. Despite this it did prove to be the only article that could put any weight in favour of celebrity endorsements even if only slightly.
From looking at other sources such as Alissa Quart’s “Branded” it can be seen that the use of celebrities roles in advertising and modern culture are a worryingly important if not overbearing part of teenagers lifestyles. People look for guidance and feel they need to be told what looks good or what’s in this season. It brings up questions such as are having celebrity advertisements everywhere pressuring people from all age groups to act or conform a certain way. In journal 2 it raises a point that endorsers should explain why they choose to represent the products they do. Would this change people’s opinions or would the celebrities question their motives for doing so?
Bibliography
Pringle, H (2004), 'Star Gazing', Creative Review, vol. 24, pt. 8, pp. 58-60, Aug. 2004, 0262-1037
Quart, A (2003), 'Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers, Perseus Books 2002', 0738206644
van der Waldt, DLR, van Loggerenberng, Wehmyer, M&L (2009), 'Celebrity Endorsements Versus Created Spokespersons in Advertising: A Survey Among Students', South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences 12 (1): 100-114 Mar 2009,1015-8812
