brandknewmag.com
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Meanwhile over at Cannes
Every June, this French Riviera town attracts the cream of the advertising world. This year, Lee Clow, Shelly Lazarus,
George Lois and others. You might have expected the media to report on what these legendary executives had to say
about an industry that last year, according to Nielsen, invested $557 billion in advertising.
But no. Much of the news out of Cannes were the “celebrities” in attendance. According to USA Today, “Celebrities at this
year’s ad festival, the industry’s largest trade show and awards event, include hip-hop artist Sean Combs, lifestyle expert
Martha Stewart and comedian Jack Black.”
The same article also mentioned Conan O’Brien, who poked fun at the audience with his comment, “Advertisers are
scum.” Also, singer Michael Bublé who demonstrated his favorite app, the SleepStream 2, and the band Fun., who
boasted about “We Are Young,” a song used in recent Super Bowl commercials. Jack Black promoted his new web series,
“Ghost Girls.” And Sean Combs touted Revolt, his new music-oriented cable TV channel.
But no mention of Clow, Lazarus or Lois.
Just being a celebrity is not enough.
Martha Stewart has 2.8 million Twitter followers, an impressive number
considering that Barack Obama has 33.9 million and the King of the
Twitter world, Justin Bieber, has only 41.6 million.
So what has all this Twitter effort brought Ms. Stewart?
Not much. In the past ten years, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has
had only one profitable year -- 2007, when the company made $10.3
million.
Last year, sales were down 10.7%. In 2011, sales were down 4.1%. In
2010, sales were down 5.7%. In 2009, sales were down 13.9%.
In ten years, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. has had revenues of
$2.4 billion and managed to lose $256.3 million.
Martha Stewart is one of the most famous women in the world, with a sterling reputation as a “lifestyle expert.” Yet in a
decade, the company she represents has managed to lose more than a quarter of a billion dollars.
Celebrities don’t listen to non-celebrities. Therefore, I hesitate to suggest this to Martha Stewart, but any company
incorporating the word “omni” in its name is headed in the wrong direction. A company needs to stand for “something,”
not for “everything.”
Celebrity chimpanzees
Celebrity worship is not just a human trait. In his book Brain Bugs, Dean Buonomano tells the story of a chimpanzee
colony where the dominant male had hurt his hand and was limping. Soon the juvenile males of the group started to
imitate his limp, a form of flattery that would have been unlikely if a non-dominant male had been injured.
In another case, rhesus monkeys were given a choice between a lot of juice or just a little juice plus a peak at a headshot
of another monkey. Strangely, they preferred the latter. But this was only true if the headshots were of dominant males.
They were willing to sacrifice some juice for pictures of individuals above them in the social hierarchy, but not below them.
Humans do the same. They sacrifice money to look at pictures and read news of the rich and famous in magazines
devoted to celebrity watching. If People magazine were a magazine ab