With more and more companies wanting to combine their products into the lives of
celebrities, today seems aforementioned a good happening to take a fireman warrant at Celebrity Product
Placement, exposit trinity ordinary approaches, and outline what steps crapper be taken
to sign results.
The constituent \\\"Celebrity Product Placement\\\" is used to exposit individual related
techniques, but its definition applies to each: free products are distributed to
celebrities in expectation of a promotional benefit. Unlike the more overt, paid-for
endorsement, it offers a distinct advantage. It crapper appear aforementioned a creation choice
made on individualist preference.
Most marketers are unaware of their options in this collection (one modify features
contracts with celebrities, guaranteeing performance and allowing marketers to
actively assets take patrons in the media) and therefrom whatever overlook a very
powerful influencer-marketing technique.
In this article, I will exposit apiece of the trinity important approaches and discuss their
relative merits by listing their pros and cons. I also wish to subjugate any
misconception that Celebrity Product Placement has to be a gamble, and exhibit you
how best to bonded a convey on assets (R.O.I.).
But first, a lowercase history...
Celebrity Product Placement (sometimes named \\\"Celebrity Seeding\\\") has been with us
since the daybreak of marketing. Centuries before traitor Schwarzenegger stepped into
his prototypal Hummer, an 18th century potter named Josiah thrower began supplying
his commodity to England's Queen Charlotte. Being presented the denomination \\\"Potter to Her Majesty\\\"
led to a Brobdingnagian amount of message for thrower which he took nonnegative of using
the constituent \\\"Queen's Ware\\\" wherever he could.
It wasn't until the 20th century that marketers keyed-in on America's \\\"royalty\\\":
Hollywood. But more ofttimes than not they met with unsatisfactory results. Some
companies responded exclusive to creation requests for products (\\\"gifting\\\"), while
others prefabricated half-hearted attempts to distribute them without prototypal devising a means
to sign results (\\\"seeding\\\"). In the end, most companies naturalised creation \\\"to the
wind\\\" and unsuccessful to grow anything of value.
Those efforts that did succeed, however, were so successful that independent
specialists emerged to hold companies find better results. But the services they
offer vary and so do the results.
What's It All About?
Marketers impact daylong famous the noesis of take to impact consumer-
purchasing decisions. The constituent \\\"borrowed equity\\\" has been used to exposit how a
celebrity publicity crapper bestow upon a creation special attributes and store it
might not otherwise have.
The aforementioned concept applies to Celebrity Product Placement. But desegrated celebrity
endorsements, where a highly compensated personality appears in commercial
advertising, Celebrity Product Placement offers marketers a more subtle and highly
effective means of reaching the open - via the media they consume by choice.
Indeed, Celebrity Product Placement is as much most placing products with
celebrities as it is most effort stories most those relationships into the press.
Regardless of the approach, Celebrity Product Placement strategies impact a common
aim: to tie celebrities (thought-leaders, influencers) with consumer products in the
public consciousness.
Three desegrated techniques center trinity desegrated levels of curb over that placement:
gifting-the-talent (this commonly involves supplying products for heritage bags at live
events); creation seeding (products are distributed more widely in hopes of securing
a promotional morality and apprize off a trend); and, swop relationships (individual
celebrities agree to apprize in custom programs in mercantilism for valuable
products).
Let's take a warrant at apiece member in greater detail.
GIFTING-THE-TALENT
\\\"Everybody\\\" knows that celebrities possess all the coolest stuff, and substantially before
everybody else. Celebrities travel the concern and every minute handle of their daily
lives pervades the media. As style-leaders, they are perhaps our most powerful
influencers. It's no astonishment then that companies are lining up to remuneration them the latest
gifts and gadgets for free.
One method to do this is named \\\"Gifting-The-Talent.\\\" This generally involves
supplying free creation for intromission into \\\"goody bags\\\" which are bimanual out as
'thank you' gifts to take presenters and take nominees at the now-countless
awards shows and benignity benefits that extend the recreation landscape.
At terminal year's Academy Awards, for example, member of member Best Actress gift-bags
featured Gucci sunglasses, a Sprint PCS phone, faith Tse 18-carat gold Iris
earrings, and more. The Best Actor bag featured Gucci eyewear, a Maurice Lacroix
Swiss watch and desegrated added goodies. According to programme reports, the retail value
of member much group of bags at the Oscars exceeded $110,000 each!
But how trenchant is this practice? If the noesis of Celebrity Product Placement is to get
press coverage, crapper we measure the continuance of gift-bag placements? What types of
products are suitable and which are not? And what take of curb does this strategy
offer marketers both in outlay of demographics and reach?
There is no denying the continuance of being related with these glitzy events, and by
extension, the celebrities who modify them. On the nonnegative side, they center a rare
opportunity to intend near to the large stars in the world. On the harmful side, the
marketer has no curb in matching up celebrities who hold eject over their
particular demographic. They impact to endeavor the cards they are dealt.
Gifting-the-talent at take shows virtually guarantees mentions in the celebrity
press at the happening of the event; but without authorisation to associate the celebrity's
name and icon with the product, marketers don't impact the discrepancy to truly
leverage those relationships in their possess apprize activities.
Gifting-the-talent in this artefact has added limitations: first-movers snap-up desirable
categories and, of course, not all products are deemed appropriate. You won't find
an intensiveness have in these bags.
PRODUCT SEEDING
Product Seeding offers marketers more curb over whom to post products with
but, conversely, inferior curb over how (or if) those products intend used. And, while
virtually any creation - from bottled water to consumer electronics - crapper be seeded
with celebrities, marketers are playing the ratio here. But the payment crapper be Brobdingnagian if
the seeding is supported by a fictive strategy.
Product Seeding is the oldest modify of Celebrity Product Placement. Products are
distributed more widely. They crapper be aimed at celebrities who are most compelling
to your demographic. And they crapper be delivered directly to the take without the
filters imposed by events. Of course, working with a doc who crapper intend your
product directly to celebrities becomes preponderant here. Film and television product
placement agencies are NOT ordered up for this practice.
Taken by itself, Product Seeding is a gamble. If you shine enough freebies to
Hollywood but you don't impact a fictive strategy, a take strength be photographed
using your creation or evangelizing it on a talk show. But if member looks at Product
Seeding as member manoeuvre in a larger Celebrity Product Placement effort, it crapper clear big
dividends - specially in identifying celebrities who impact a true relation for your
product.
Energy Brands, makers of the Glaceau Vitamin Water line, unconcealed this in 2004.
As a conclusion of its long-time strategy to \\\"home deliver\\\" the vitamin-enhanced drink
to celebrities (including Sean \\\"Puffy\\\" Combs and Tom Cruise), the interact gained a
fan in 50 Cent. Having mentioned his alternative for the creation in a series of
interviews, the Hip Hop grapheme - who is substantially famous for his fitness-centered call -
became an obvious choice for sort spokesperson.
Speaking to Ad Age magazine, Energy Brands' VP of marketing, Rohan Oza, said
\\\"We've seen that when 50 Cent incorporates [Vitamin Water] into his lawful routine ...
the sort gets on the airwaves and we create a assemblage of trial.\\\" Making vitamin water a
visible conception of the rapper's healthy call worked so substantially the interact launched a
new \\\"Formula 50\\\" difference named for the artist.
Such \\\"organic\\\" relationships crapper grow from Product Seeding. Not exclusive crapper marketers
benefit from apprize mentions, but the impact crapper be used to uncover promotional
opportunities and, in whatever cases, identify the most saint creation endorsers.
Product Seeding remains a adventure but, if executed properly, member substantially worth taking.
Relatively speaking, it is a very low-cost marketing program. And the convey on
investment - though difficult to forecast compared to swop relationships discussed
below - crapper be big. But what if your noesis is limited to effort apprize mentions? Can a
publicist hedge his or her bets in this category?
One of the enthusiastic things most Product Seeding is how fictive you crapper get. For
Trident White chewing gum, the interact commissioned a Harris enquiry asking the
public to balloting on the best \\\"celebrity smiles.\\\" My company, which specializes in
celebrity creation placement, delivered heritage baskets of the creation to the Top 6
winners, allowing Trident to country the celebrities in their apprize materials.
On added occasion, Electrolux - maker of a newborn high-end, super-quiet vacuum
cleaner - desired to reorient their creation with celebrities. We identified 6 celebrity
moms who had firm presented birth and - touting the fact that these vacuums would
not wake a unerect child - prefabricated gifts of the creation to each. Here again, the
company was healthy to have celebrities to entertainer apprize programme for its product. And
they were healthy to meaning these celebrities because they were stating facts (a gift
was prefabricated to...).
But what if you poverty tighter combining with celebrities? Suppose you requirement to
forecast a convey on assets in order to intend hold for a Celebrity Product
Placement campaign? And what if you poverty celebrities to remuneration feedback about
your creation and authorize have of their obloquy and likenesses as conception of your press
campaign?
BARTER RELATIONSHIPS
Barter is, perhaps, the exclusive artefact to sign performance on the conception of the
celebrity. Unlike added forms of gifting, this is a quid favoring quo relation whereby
the take agrees in face to apprize in the marketer's promotional activities
- in mercantilism for priceless product.
Celebrity Product Placement campaigns of this type impact best for big-ticket items
such as consumer electronics and (the give of) cars. But with fictive approaches,
special creation questionnaires and big \\\"Right of Publicity\\\" agreements,
marketers crapper have the celebrity's name, icon and opinion as conception of their public
relations campaigns.
Celebrity Product Placement - via swop agreements - is also among the most
affordable ways to have celebrities. For the toll of a whatever products, and sometimes a
token honorarium, companies crapper combine testimonials into their PR materials and
create customized take noesis for their websites.
They crapper refer numerous stars in a apprize crusade for inferior than the outlay of a
single paid take spokesperson. It is member of the most under-exploited tactics
available to marketers today.
A Case Study: Sony Electronics
The Sony CD Mavica - at the time, the exclusive digital camera offering a built-in CD-
Rom - had unsuccessful to penetrate the increasingly packed market for digital imaging
products. This was troubling for Sony because the CD Mavica offered clear
advantages over its competitors; namely, immunity from wires. But that message had
failed to accomplish the public.
Sony desired to refer celebrities with their products and for that involvement to
influence the open in a meaning way. They desired a high-profile circumstance -
preferably benefiting benignity - upon which to launch a yearlong apprize crusade in
time for the Christmas shopping season. The focus: to promote the naivety of
CD-based photography.
The budget was limited. But, having scholarly that the latest Sony products could be
made acquirable to heritage the talent, The Hollywood-Madison Group planned a
Celebrity Product Placement campaign. Each take would be asked to take a
picture of what \\\"Freedom\\\" means to them, and those photos would be auctioned off
for charity.
Such an artistic challenge, connected with the prospect of receiving free Sony product,
not exclusive served to festinate celebrities to participate, but offered us an extraordinary
opportunity: to skirt these pictures and mount an assemblage which upraised money
for charity. Indeed, the benignity factor attracted higher-caliber celebrities and
provided the \\\"hook\\\" to entertainer media attention.
We successfully placed the Sony CD Mavica digital camera with fifteen crowning stars
including Eric McCormack, Alyssa Milano and Dennis Hopper. The photographs were
then offered for sale on eBay as conception of Wired magazine's punctuation benignity auction,
and locate on display at a star-studded circumstance in Los Angeles.
Fifteen crowning celebrities demonstrated the applicatory have of Sony's creation and
authorized the have of their names, likenesses and opinions most the creation for
press and marketing purposes (for member year). Sony conventional free business for its
product in print and online for trinity months (worth an estimated $100,000), as well
as 3.6 meg webpage impressions (auction as a whole) and domestic press
coverage including Entertainment Tonight.
You crapper feature more most this project on our website>celebrity_projects>influencer
campaigns.
Conclusion
Celebrity Product Placement offers marketers an elating artefact to influence
consumer-purchasing decisions. Properly executed, it crapper be a low-cost, high-
return proposition. As such, it should be conception of every consumer-marketing
program.
Three desegrated approaches center trinity desegrated results: gifting-the-talent (narrow
focus); creation seeding (broad focus) and, swop relationships (one-on-one focus).
But, as we impact seen, a tightly desegrated take creation orientating campaign,
combining elements of each, crapper meliorate results and have an impressive return
on investment.
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