- How to get celebrities to promote your product – where to focus?
- Published 14/08/2023
- 6 min Read
- Written by Anastasia Zaichko
Table of contents
Celebrity endorsements are not a novelty – they go back to the age of kings and queens when merchants were looking for their approval. Those supported by the royalty received the greatest attention of purchasers.
Contemporary celebrities are not usually members of the royal family, however the approvals of rich and famous people are actual as always.
In this article, we’ll shed some light on how to get celebrities to promote your brand, what are the pros and cons of their support, and, most importantly, how to choose the right celebrity for your influencer marketing campaign.
CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS TODAY: WHAT ARE THEY?
Traditionally, celebrities are well-known personalities such as famous movie and TV stars, musicians, professional athletes, best-selling authors, and business leaders. However, the celebrity world has changed over the last few years as a lot of talented content creators saturated the industry gaining thousands and millions of their engaged fans. So, if recently most celebrity endorsements were TV commercials, articles in newspapers and magazines, and other traditional media, today it’s more popular and effective to make celebrity promotions on social media platforms.
In terms of influencer marketing, celebrities are classified as macro-influencers (who have 100,000-1,000,000 followers) or mega-influencers (having over 1,000,000 followers).
The ultimate influencer marketing report by BuzzGuru
You can see from the chart that, despite the tendency to work with micro-influencers, demand for macro-influencers is very high as well. As far as A-list celebrities are concerned, it’s natural that they cost a lot thus not every business can afford such cooperation. But bigger brands with large budgets on influencer marketing would rather invest in a single celebrity endorsement than 100 lesser known content creators.
PROS AND CONS OF GETTING A CELEBRITY TO PROMOTE YOUR BRAND
Studies say that businesses can look for an average 4% increase in sales thanks to celebrity endorsements. Apart from surge in sales there are other obvious advantages of celebrity-driven marketing campaigns.
Leveraging the amount of “starlight”
A celebrity possesses particular emotional characteristics that can be translated to your brand. If you are lucky to create the right emotional connection then your audience will associate your brand with their favorite star for long.
Increasing brand loyalty
If a celebrity endorses your product or service it can legitimize your brand reputation, creating a sense of trust towards your business. When people see a celebrity with a certain product, they perceive it favorably since famous people are a sort of style-makers. This works best especially when a famous person supports a product relevant to their profession. For example, a professional athlete promoting sporting equipment, or a well-known stylist endorsing some cosmetics brand.
Enhancing brand awareness
Successful and creative celebrity endorsements can really make a “splash” among your target audience producing instant recognition and increasing brand awareness in a positive way.
Driving your sales
Just because people, consciously or unconsciously, want to imitate celebrities’ behavior, they tend to buy or use the products endorsed by celebrities – to become a part of their success and prosperity.
Remember to be prepared for the increase in sales after a celebrity endorsement. You should have enough goods to satisfy the growing demand. But it wouldn’t be so bad to put customers on a waiting list – it can even increase the value of your brand.
At the same time celebrities’ approvals of your product may not directly lead to a surge in sales. This is not always a point to worry about because there are still many positive moments of brand-celebrity partnerships. Though, it goes without saying that you should carefully prepare for your celebrity-driven marketing campaign so that your efforts would entail the results you’re aspiring for.
Possible pitfalls
Like any other marketing instrument, celebrity endorsements have its controversies. Just because one brand’s partnership with a celebrity was very successful doesn’t mean that the same will work for your brand. Therefore it’s critical to choose the right celebrity.
A star outshines the brand
If a brand doesn’t correspond to a chosen celebrity, consumers may memorize the star and not the product promoted. In other words, your brand also needs to be worthy of celebrity endorsement.
A celebrity promotes products not relevant to their lifestyle
It’s very odd when a rich and famous person promotes very cheap products. Consumers won’t believe such an advertisement. It’s usually not natural for an olympics champion (who most likely eats healthy food strictly by the hour) to support a new snack bar chain, the same as for a model with green views to promote a new collection of fur-coats.
Reputational risks
As soon as you sign a contract with a celebrity, your reputation will depend on the image of this personality to a great extent. Any scandals or controversies, careless statements on social media will have an impact on your brand reputation.
High costs
Cooperation with mega-influencers will definitely cost you a lot of money. If you’re not quite a big brand, it’s worth considering other talented content creators with solid following to make a difference. You can turn to our full-cycle influencer marketing agency where professional industry experts will consult you about costs of celebrity endorsements. The Famesters team of experts can create the best celebrity-driven campaign for your brand, minimizing possible risks and effectively allocating your budget.
STEP BY STEP GUIDE ON HOW TO GET CELEBRITIES TO PROMOTE YOUR PRODUCT
The first step will definitely be determining your budget. You should think not only about the part of the budget that would go to the compensation package of macro- and micro-influencers. Most often brands send their products for free to get them in the hands of celebrities. Think about the affordable amount you can present celebrities with. After the budget is approved, continue with solving the following issues.
Define the target audience of the planned influencer marketing campaign
After defining the characteristics of your target audience, the first question you need to answer is whether they are more receptive to a well-known personality, or a more niche influencer. Then, what is the attitude of your target audience towards a potential celebrity for your campaign? It can be found out by means of focus groups and small opinion polls. You should properly define your audience and their attitudes before entering into any agreements.
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Make a short list of celebrities you would like to work with
As far as you know the attitudes of your target audience you can choose potential candidates for further analysis. Study the candidates thoroughly, trying to answer the following questions:
- Are they already endorsing some brand, product, or service, and how are they doing it?
- What are the attitudes of their followers to any kind of promotion?
- What are their posting patterns and levels of engagement?
Examine a celebrity’s profile carefully, taking genuine interest and engaging with thoughtful comments. You should answer for yourself the most crucial question: does a celebrity’s image live up to your brand mission and values?
Make in touch with the celebrity of your choice
After finding the relevant celebrity it’s time for communication. The best scenario for you would be to find the one who already knows and adores the product or service you provide. Another way is to start off by sending a celebrity a free product sample or invite to try your service.
Unfortunately, it’s not alway easy to contact a celebrity, especially an A-list one. High-profile people usually have representation, so the following task is to determine who to contact with your proposition. The ‘gatekeepers’ you may encounter include agents, managers, assistants or publicists. Your first outreach should be polite and patient but nevertheless be persistent and make your ‘ask’ as clear as possible. It would be ideal to have a detailed brief with the campaign goals, your expectations from the partnership, compensation package, etc. You must demonstrate how well you know the celebrity, and also convince a celebrity’s representative that the potential partnership is a win-win cooperation, not only for your business but for the celebrity’s image as well.
How to make a celebrity choose your brand?
Money doesn’t solve everything, and celebrity influencers are also concerned about their image and reputation. Remember when the main character in the “Kate and Leopold” movie refused to endorse a fat-free margarine and act in the commercial? He found the product disgusting, and didn’t want to participate in that fraud.
So, a brand-celebrity partnership will be fruitful only if a brand and a celebrity match each other. Not only does a brand choose a celebrity influencer, but also a celebrity is considering whether or not to endorse your product or service. Remain true and authentic to your brand, and you’re sure to find the best fit.
SOME CLOSING REMARKS
Today’s digital world makes it possible for any brand to find their place under the sun. But social media promotion of only branded posts takes a lot of time before producing any results. Still, there’s one effective influencer marketing strategy that can really make your brand stand out instantly – that is by getting influencer celebrities to promote your brand. If applied correctly, celebrity endorsements can positively influence your sales, brand visibility and credibility. Thanks to enormous celebrities’ reach, there’s a great chance to pull your brand to the top of its industry, and stay ahead of the competition. But if you don’t have a solid brand strategy and enough passion and persistence it will be difficult for you to be heard.
If you desire to partner with a celebrity influencer and make a difference to your brand, contact Famesters influencer marketing agency, where talented experts definitely know how to earn the best celebrity exposure for your brand.
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