Is the Love Affair Between Celebrities and Brands Over?

Posted by Sheila Shayon on January 17, 2011 04:15 PM

Every day brings more news of brands signing up celebs as the face and ambassador of their product or service. But with Fifty Cent making almost $8.8 million from a single tweet — if that estimate is to be believed — it has to be asked if the power of celebrity endorsements still holds true. The Kardashians' kollective future is riding on it!

In terms of assessing celeb power, Forbes’ recent list of 10 Most Influential Celebrities, based on data from E-Poll Market Research, incorporates 46 personality attributes — plus likability and awareness to break potential ties. That list places Steve Spielberg (rating: 53%) at #1, surpisingly, above second-place (but also tied at 53%) Oprah Winfrey at #2.

Then there's celeb endorsers, for which we turn to Ad Age’s “2010's Worst Celebrity TV Ads by Negative Lift (Sink)”, which brings bad news for celebrities and brands counting on endorsement deals to boost their respective fortunes.

Not pulling any punches, Ad Age's headline reads, "Celebrities in Advertising are Almost Always a Big Waste of Money."

The worst celebrity endorsement deals of last year, according to Ad Age's analysis:

1. Tiger Woods for Nike: Did You Learn Anything? -30%
2. Lance Armstrong for Radio Shack: No Emoticons -28%
3. Kenny Mayne for Gillette: Good Segment -28%
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. for Nationwide Auto Insurance -27%
5. Donald Trump for Macy's: Making Timmy a Mogul -24%

The article also comments, “Adding a celebrity to an ad with an already poor creative message is like rubbing salt in the wound.” Ouch. That's enough to make even Tiger lick his paw.

More about: Celebrities, Personal Brands, Gillette, Macy's, Nationwide, Nike, Radio Shack, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Donald Trump, Fifty Cent, Kardashian, Kenny Mayne, Lance Armstrong, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Tiger Woods

Melbourne Dating says:

Not by a long shot.. If you see the kind of endorsement celebs are doing on Social Media like Twitter .. see Kim Kardashian for example. If she tweets " .. ooh I got a new shoes from Armani and adds a picture .. it gets retweeted by 1000s of follows ( maybe more ) and that is a great way to market your product. But agree with you on things like having Tiger Woods coming up on TV and saying he use Gillette's shaving kit is more or less a waste of money IMHO.

January 17, 2011 06:46 PM #

alfredo muccino says:

Interestingly, this is one of the topics in our upcoming Brand Summit (www.liquidbrandsummit.com) on March 1, 2011 in Palo Alto. We will be discussing he potential and the pitfalls of celebrity branding with Page Murray, the Sr. VP of Integrated Marketing at HP....and we will publish the results. In the meantime, it seems to me that when celebrities do more than just lend their names to a brand the opportunities become much more authentic and interesting. For example, it was interesting to see Lady Gaga participate in the product development cycle at Polaroid as their new "Creative Director"...not just a spokesperson. Her credibility as an innovative artist, adds value to the Polaroid brand in a much more meaningful way than just as a "celebrity endorser".

January 18, 2011 08:35 AM #

S. Shayon says:

Good point. Name-only commitment is just that...but personality brand+product can yield a worthwhile collaboration.
Will be interested to hear the results of your Brand Summit.
Thanks,
S. Shayon

January 18, 2011 08:43 AM #

Ruth Simmons says:

Recently I had the opportunity to review first hand some scientific research that investigated the cognitive effect vs the emotional effect of commercials that featured key celebrities. If advertising prides itself on engaging their customers on an emotional level then someone somewhere is kidding themselves. And whilst I have always been amazed by the disparity of the budgets available for using celebrity endorsement as compared to those available for music use I now wonder if there is some mystery scientific calculation that celebrity agents produce to support the fees that they quote or is quite simply that someone in the organization is star-struck. As a Music supervisor I guess I sometimes feel like Rob Reiner's mother in 'When Harry Met Sally' - I 'll have what she's having" for however it works it is definitely big business.

January 19, 2011 11:52 AM #

Ha!
Why do you think non-celeb audio/sonic branding remains a step-child?
Especially as it's big business.

January 22, 2011 01:08 PM #