Celebrity brand Endorsement - The basics you need to know.

Introduction

In india, celebrities are not treated as mere mortals, they're Idolized, especially the ones from the fields of Cricket and Bollywood. Hence in India, brands go out of their way to associate themselves with such celebrities. No wonder nearly 50% of the ads in India feature a celebrity endorser. Below are some answers to the basic questions that a brand manager might come across when it comes celebrity endorsements for the brand.

Why does a brand need a celebrity? Can I do without celebrity?

Currently, in every category in any given market, be it urban, semi-literate or non-urban, there's a very high proliferation of local, regional and international brands, who are jostling for space, fighting to get one-up over its competitors. At such times, celebrity-brand association provides the brand to:

1. Break the clutter, stand out visually and create a distinct differentiation
2. Enhance or change a brand's existing positioning
3. Gain fresh equity, credibility or generate sudden interest in the market.
4. Help consumers remember ads.

Especially in a country like India, where celebrities are an obsession and every man, woman and child tries to emulate and aspire to be like one of their idols, celebrity endorsement can ensure a huge upswing in the sales performance of a brand.

How to find a brand-celebrity match?

The basic principle here states that for a successful collaboration, the credibility of the celebrity is very crucial. Here credibility is the celebrities' perceived expertise and trustworthiness. It's this credibility of the celebrities which acts a s a cue and enables the brand to break the clutter and stand out in the segment, and also greatly influences the consumer to buy the brand.

The greater the compatibility between the brand and celebrity in terms of the identity, personality and positioning in the market, greater will be the success of the brand-celebrity endorser collaboration. Every celebrity that a brand signs, must come with a few compatibility factors that the brand must leverage in order to maximize the ROI from the celebrity-brand collaboration. It is usually very difficult to find a celebrity that fits all the above criteria and there's not a single celebrity who can fit all brands. A brand manager has to select a celebrity who can match and fit the image of the brand and the brand promise. For example, the Bollywood actress, Vidya Balan cannot be chosen as the celebrity endorser for Real Activ fruit juices, whose brand positioning is for health, fit and diet conscious people. In such a case, the actress Bipasha Basu is a better choice, who is known to be a health and fitness freak.

Which is a better option? Famous personalities or Category specific celebrity?

To be very honest, there's no exact answer to this above question. The choice between a a famous personality with mass appeal or a category specific celebrity boils down to two main criteria:

• The marketing budget set aside for investing in a celebrity endorser
• the target audience for the brand

Usually brands that are present in nearly all markets, with a high proliferation of competitive brands prefer choosing a celebrity with mass appeal and high credibility, who can help increase the brand's value and reach. For example, soft drink companies in India, such as PepsiCo and Coca Cola prefers using actors and cricketers, such as MS Dhoni and Unmukt Chand, and Salman Khan and Sachin Tendulkar respectively for their aerated brands.Since these well known celebrities command such high mass appeal, they also demand a huge sum for lending their names and faces to the brands. Also, a collaboration with such celebrities will definitely help the brand break the clutter and guarantee an addition of certain amount of brand value. But not necessarily lead to a successful collaboration between the two, if the brand is positioned to engage with a specific category/segment of society. In such a case, it is better to find a celebrity who is more category specific and are known to have common interest in that specific category. These celebrity endorsers are perceived to have specialized skills and are considered experts in that specific category. Also, these celebrity don't create a huge dent in the marketing budgets of the brand, as compared to celebrities with mass appeal. For example, Sanjeev Kapoor, a well known chef, is the brand endorser for various kitchen related brands. Taking a category specific celebrity like him helps when the brand promise is very sharply defined.

Luxury brands and Celebrity endorsers

Celebrities are very crucial to luxury fashion brands. They wield enormous power in fashion circles and contribute to making and breaking brands. Hence, Fashion designers pamper them and brand managers recognize their potential to brands and utilize them effectively. When it comes to luxury brands, celebrity endorsement however doesn't start and end with shooting and printing the photos in a fashion magazine.There are several factors and dimensions involved in choosing a celebrity to endorse a fashion luxury brand. Celebrity endorsements of such luxury brand is important for the following reasons:

• It's a great brand awareness creation tool for new luxury brands.
• It's contributes to sustaining a brand's aura
• It helps to position and re-position brands.
• It helps to generate extensive PR and opportunites for the brand.
• It helps to create global brand awareness
• It helps promote the brand's appeal

Will having a celebrity endorser ensure brand success? How do you measure the ROI ?

Having a celebrity endorser will not necessarily ensure brand success or consumer loyalty. The consumer tends to look at a product from various aspects:

• Is the quality of the product good?
• Will the product meet the consumer's needs?
• Whether the product is being produced by a well known manufacturer?
• Whether the product is affordable and easily available?

To win the consumer's trust, the brand must convince the consumer with continuous positive delivery of the quality of the product. Even without the dependence on celebrity endorsements, some brands have etched their image on the consumers's psyche. These can be strongly observed in the following cases:

• Beverages and drinks like Tata tea, Lipton tea, Bisleri, etc.
• Washing powders and detergents like Ghadi, Tide and Ariel.
• TV sets like Onida and Samsung
• Cosmetics brands like VLCC products and Lotus
• Body care products like Himalaya and LG

Most of these above products are received by consumers based on their consistent quality and performance. Their attractive advertising campaigns and tag lines too play a major role in influencing consumers to buy their products.

When it comes to measuring ROI, there's no standard practices or formulas to calculate the direct effect of celebrity endorsement. It's mostly based on the brand managers experience and gut instinct to get it right. However, in some cases, brands do have a few parameters in place that help them to judge consumer's response to a celebrity. For example, the number of times consumers mention/tag the celebrity's name along with the brand on social media, etc. Some brand also conduct audits from time to time justify their celebrity usage.

What is the difference between a celebrity endorser and brand endorser?

The terms brand ambassador and celebrity endorser are commonly used interchangeably. But there is a vast difference between the two. A celebrity endorser is one, who for for monetary gains promotes the brand on various media channels. It's not necessary that he uses the product of the brand too in his personal life. A brand ambassador on the other hand is one, who not only believes in the brand and uses the product but also persuades people to use the product, not necessarily for a monetary compensation. A brand ambassador can be a company spokesperson or a domain expert, in a sense, every loyal consumer of a brand is, by default, an ambassador. A celebrity endorser however is always a known face, who has been compensated/hired to be the 'face of the brand' for a certain period of time.

Do I have other options other than celeb endorser?

Brands can be successful without a celebrity association, as mentioned above, by delivering good quality products, and with the support of creative, and innovative advertising campaigns and tag lines.There are many such instances, such as Amul, Flipkart, Fastrack, which don't have a celebrity endorser but are still able to consistently churn out memorable communication.

What is Surrogate rub-off effect?

This is an excellent approach for brand which have a serious budget constraint, but still would like to create and image of the brand being associated with a famous celebrity. Through this technique, brands enjoy the benefits of celebrities endorsing their products without actually spending big bucks and associating with the celebrity. In other words, it's like 'endorsement by proxy'. For example, Axis bank benefited hugely when Amitabh Bachchan prominently displayed their cheques on 'Kaun Banega Crorepati', even without actually associating with Amitabh Bachchan.

What are the risks of celebrity endorsers?

Even though a celebrity is a good fit for the brand, an association always comes with it set of risks.

1. If a celebrity makes a mistake and is in the news for all the wrong reasons, the image and credibility of the endorser in the minds of the consumer starts dropping, along with the sales of the brand. For instance, when Tiger Woods' infidelity with numerous women became 'breaking news' all over the world, brands like Gillette and Accenture dropped him immediately. Nike, decided to stick around and saw a major drop in revenues.
2. One of the risks involved with celebrity endorsement is also when the celebrity overshadows the brand. Advertisers usually tend to feature the celebrity more prominently than the brand on all their brand messages. In such an instance it confuses the mind of the consumer whether to remember the brand or the celebrity.
3. With celebrities endorsing multiple brands at a time, they run the risk of being overexposed. When celebrities are associated with too many brands, consumers start doubting the credibility of the endorser as they feel, he/she will endorse any brand on the face of the earth to make a quick buck.
4. When it comes to youth targeted brands, celebrities age is a big consideration. Since the young consumers, no longer consider these celebrities as youth icons. Due to which they in turn, fail to connect with the brand. Also a youth targeted brand having an aged celebrity endorser would send confusing signals to the consumers. For example, PepsiCo, discontinued the contracts with Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan, once they realised that they had aged and were no longer considered as youth icons.
5. Sometimes, though rarely, a brand-celebrity collaboration is so successful that, it continues for a prolonged period of time. But as they say, all good things come to an end. So when the new endorser is hired, the consumers find it difficult to accept as the brand communication as easily as before.

Sources: afaqs.com, frog-dog.com, brandchannel.com, financialexpress.com