Overview of Celebrity Endorsement

This is my last blog post and to finish them off I wanted to basically summarise everything I’ve recently found out about celebrity endorsement. Alongside doing these blog posts I’ve also been carrying out an investigation to discover the influence celebrity endorsement has on consumers purchasing habits.

First of all, I want to give my opinion on celebrity endorsement. I think this is an incredibly useful PR tool – as long as it’s used properly. The brand and the product/brand need to match up. There is no point picking a random celebrity that has no interest in what you’re selling. As well as this, the target market for the product needs to be interested in the celebrity. This is the first stage of being successful. The second stage is also to do with who is picked. Celebrities with good reputations will only bring positive coverage to your brand, however if they slip up at any point and receive any form of bad press, this could impact the brand and quite frankly damage it due to the relationship with the celebrity.

From the research I carried out for my investigation I did three forms of observation, these were on social media, magazines and TV. The findings were actually quite interesting. Although carried out for the longest period of time, social media had such an obvious large amount of promotion tweets, that I see daily without even properly realising. I didn’t even go out looking for them on accounts I just used what I saw on my newsfeed when I checked like I normally would. I was surprised by the amount in magazines as they are a bit sneakier with their endorsements. There are the obvious ones such as adverts and interviews speaking about what celebrities are up to. But there’s also such sneaky ones such as in a column written by Amy Childs about her pregnancy she speaks about the different products she uses just in a sentence. Although it doesn’t seem like a big deal this is a celebrity endorsing their products. 

As well as these observations, Marks and Spencer’s use of celebrity endorsement was also looked into. This was quite interesting to look at as they’ve used so much different celebrities for so many different kinds of markets. In my opinion there most successful one was the use of Alexa Chung, especially since that was targeting towards a younger audience to try and change their image as a lot of young people view it as old fashioned and more for older people. Alexa was a good pick for the brand as she could kind of relate to both target markets of young and old and she still fitted with the brand. 

I feel like after writing all these blogs and carrying out a whole investigation on the topic, I’m always going to look out more for celebrity endorsement. I already have as I was basically trying to carry on my social media observation after it finished as I kept seeing more and more promoted posts!

I’ve actually really enjoyed researching this topic and writing these blogs so will be sad to see them go! However, my campaign twitter, not so much…

Hope everyone who has read these has enjoyed reading them and learnt something new about celebrity endorsement.

The Influence of Teenage Girls

From carrying out focus groups for part of another college project it’s become obvious that there’s a difference between how celebrity endorsement influences boys and girls. From what I’ve gathered it definitely influences girls more but I don’t think they actually notice it.

One of the biggest endorsements that teenage girls are inspired by is Ivy Park. And quote from an article states “If anyone can motivate young women to jump to their feet, it’s Beyoncé.” Although its meant to be an active wear line I see more people wearing it generally such as out shopping or to college. Although they probably don’t realise it but subconsciously it’s to associate themselves with Beyoncé. It’s hard to say that wearing her clothes will make you like her because realistically no one will ever come close to Queen B, but girls wear this type of clothes because of the sense of hoping to be like her. Also, the fact its sold in a high street store that most girls shop in day to day anyway further encourages them to buy it. The clothes aren’t really any more expensive than the rest of the shop so why associate with Topshop the brand when you can associate with Beyoncé? 

Someone else I’ve noticed who has quite a big impact on teenage girls (including myself) is Charlotte Crosby from Geordie Shore. I absolutely adore Charlotte and without sounding cringy, Id genuinely say she’s my role model and I look up to her. She’s such a normal girl who’s done so well for herself and gone through so much in the public eye such as her whole relationship with Gary (also from Geordie Shore) and her ectopic pregnancy. I think a lot of other girls also see her as a normal girl which is why they find her so relatable. Charlotte’s got a range of different endorsements including her own fitness DVDs called 3-minute belly Blitz and 3-minute bum blitz which I guiltily own due to it being made by Charlotte Crosby. She also endorses an online company called ‘In the Style’ which I only ever started shopping with because I saw her speaking about it. 

Other woman in the public eye that girls aspire to be include people like Kendall and Kylie Jenner. These are girls who’ve grown up in the public eye and are well known for their looks. Kylie has her own range of lip kits which has expanded with her collaborating with her sister Kim. These are something girls thrive to own. There’s a big hype to make sure people know if you have a Kylie Jenner lip kit. I think girls thrive to be like her especially because she’s the youngest sister, so she’s the closest to the age of teenage girls and she’s done so much for herself for such a young age. Girls aspire to be like her and live her life, so by owning a make-up product she uses gives them that inkling of being like Kylie Jenner. 

In my opinion, young girls are the most affected by celebrity endorsement due to the competition between young girls these days. You’re always thriving to be the best and have the best things and this comes from the fact these celebrities are encouraging them to have the best things by selling them themselves. It’s quite intoxicating but I don’t think young girls realise it, especially within the social media life they live in these days!

My next blog will unfortunately be my last in which I give my views and opinions of celebrity endorsement as a whole and whether or not its effective. This will look at the big picture of endorsement and how much we consume it on daily basis!

Endorsement In Sport

This blog will definitely be my hardest to write as it’s the one I know least about! But hey, got to start somewhere. So this one is about celebrity endorsement in sport. Sport being the key word as to why I know least about this. I hardly even know what sport is let alone know actual sports stars and their endorsement deals. Not even going to deny it I’m only going to cover sportsmen I know, and guaranteed you will know too. This includes, a footballer, golfer and tennis player.

So let’s start with someone I’ve already spoken about. David Beckham. I’m sure you won’t be complaining to hear about him again. Beckham teamed up with Adidas in 2003 signing a contract for £124 million lifetime contract. While searching for facts about this endorsement I found articles from today announcing the relaunch of Predator Manias from Beckham and Adidas. Apparently David made these shoes famous as he wore them while playing football, but they stopped being made when David retired. However due to the demand, they’re back and Beckham’s the face of them. Due to this recent re-launch its proving difficult to discover other campaigns with Adidas but from what I’ve gathered this is one of the biggest endorsements of all time, especially that Beckham is tied into it for life, and earning a hefty amount of money for it. 

The golfer that’s going to be discussed is Tiger Woods, of course. Woods has many endorsements with different brands and I’ve also talked about him previously due to being dropped after his cheating scandal. Woods has been with Nike since turning into a professional golfer in 1996 signing a five-year contract for apparently $40 million. Since then Woods has clearly stayed with Nike and created various golf shoes, with the Nike Golf president raving about his innovation with the brand. Last year Nike announced that they were going to stop making golf bags, balls and clubs. This led to questions about what will happen with Woods and their endorsement. It was shortly after confirmed that Woods would stay “one of the global icons for Nike and Nike Golf”. This meant he would continue to create shoes and wear their clothes but no longer use Nike clubs.

The tennis player which I absolutely adore the most is definitely Andy Murray. Although he may not always look like the happiest person on the tennis count, I idolise him for being a genuine sportsman. Murray teamed up with Under Armour and signed a four-year contract for £15 million. This involves him wearing their merchandise while playing on the courts and feature in their adverts. However, Murray was reportedly in trouble with the brand after they spent a LONG time making one of a kind shoes for him to wear on the tennis court, which he did… for a while. Murray ended up going back to his Adidas shoes which proved controversial after Murray previously had an endorsement deal with the brand before signing with Under Armour. However, Murray claims he’s honoured to help them tell their story globally.

Although I was actually dreading writing this blog, I’ve genuinely enjoyed finding out about these endorsements with three well known sportsmen! Learn something new every day don’t you?