Three’s Company
Celebrity
endorsement:
The trigonometry
of talent
Author(s): Jeff Chown and Mick Carter | Source: Admap
Identifying the right celebrity for brands is part-art, part-science. Six key variables can determine the best fit that
maximises consumer engagement and brand objectives.
It’s been said that poetry is as exact a science as geometry. Or was it trigonometry? Whether you agree or
disagree with that assessment, for years, marketers have approached celebrity talent buying as artists rather than
scientists. And while there is an art to it, we’re getting better at the science.
In fact, our business has evolved to the point where identifying the right celebrity for a brand marketing campaign
is based less on supposition and more on statis tics. Clearly, a marketer’s experience and instinct still matter
greatly; only now, we have tools that can better guide our judgements.
Using celebrity talent in a marketing initiative is an expensive proposition, making it even more critical to identify
talent that will achieve the stated objectives (sales, awareness, preference, etc.). Unfortunately, for most marketers,
it’s something that’s been done without a lot of data or rigour behind it.
But it’s more than a financial consideration. Campaigns featuring big-name celebrities frequently elevate to the
C-level, with the CMO getting involved and even the CEO taking keen interest – and for good reason. For most
brands, a celebrity-driven campaign can have major, long-term implications for how a brand is perceived in the
marketplace.
When working to match the ideal celebrity with a brand, we begin where most marketers begin when handed a
brief; by immersing ourselves in the brand. What’s the brand strategy? What are the product attributes? What are
the key consumer insights? And, perhaps most important, what is the brand trying to achieve with this campaign?
What are the objectives? Only after we’re comfortable with what the brand stands for, who the target is and what
we want to achieve, do we turn our attention to the talent. Specifically, we’re aiming for talent synchronicity.