The Two Sides to the Coin of Celebrity Endorsement
Celebrity branding thrive on getting consumers to identify products with certain personalities who have achieved success in particular fields. Today, the link between product and celebrities may be more tenuous but it’s as effective as ever. And the fact is that celebrity branding is the in-thing now in Nigeria – whether in the world of business, social life or politics. Celebrities like Kanu Nwankwo, Funke Akindele and Banky W are lending their star power to brands to create an identity and image in the minds of consumers. Yetunde Ogundipe, in this piece, takes a cursory look at the issue of celebrity endorsements in Nigeria at a time when experts are considering its pros and cons.
The inherent benefit of attaching a celebrity to a brand is that the brand literally has a face, name and personality that immediately project an image of a living, breathing, credible person as opposed to a faceless corporate entity. The downside is that individuals are not as stable or as easily controllable as corporate entities. As fame comes and goes, so goes the brand that rides only on a celebrity’s fame. However, with this upside and downside, the strategy is still being used by companies to promote their products.
When Glo came into the telecom market, it had to contend with MTN and Econet who were already enjoying a head start in the segment. In other to warm itself into the mind of the consumer, it devised an aggressive market entry strategy (per second billing) that immediately endeared the network to the mass of price sensitive subscribers, thereby dominating the lower segment.
However, in a bid to enter the more lucrative upper segment, Glo created ‘Glo Premium’ and launched a campaign using celebrity endorsement. It is now a common phenomenon for Glo to hire groups of A-list and some not-so A-list entertainment celebrities as its brand ambassadors. Amongst Glo’s newly signed-up ambassadors are Rita Dominic, Monalisa Chinda, Funke Akindele, Chioma Akpotha, Ramsey Noah and Desmond Elliott. While some of these celebrities are in good light, some are saddled with one controversy or the other.
M2 gathered that while it is convenient to argue that Glo’s sales and revenues have not been affected, the future might not be so promising. In a market where the functional benefits of service are almost the same, competition is fierce and the imitation of service offerings and promotional initiatives is even fiercer, the brand is all you have got.
On the other hand, when Etisalat made its debut into the highly competitive Nigerian telecom market in 2008, it was faced with the reality of breaking into the market where three major GSM players – MTN, Zain and Glo dominated. But Etisalat’s launch into the market took a spectacular turn of events. The issue of Banky W made it interesting because the arrangement wasn’t like an endorsement. According to Steve Babaeko, the Business/Creative Director of 141-Worldwide, the idea started out as most big ideas start – small.
In his words, “We contracted Cobhams Asukwo to do a sound track for a commercial and Cobams, being the genius that he is, suggested that the new voice to use will be Banky W’s, which we did use. Then, we decided to take it further because we had already developed a TVC for the sound track to be used and the main character for that TVC was supposed to sing the song in the commercial. So we thought, since Banky W has done an excellent job with the sound track, why should we get somebody else to sing on his behalf? He looks the part of the character we wanted in the commercial anyway. So Banky W became the face on the TV commercial. And that blew up from him being a character on the commercial to the face that hooked our target audience.”
According to brand experts, the use of Banky W in the Etisalat advert has been effective. The concept, advert editing effects and Banky W attracted the youth to it. There was this chemistry and it further cemented the relationship between the Etisalat brand and the youth segment. So both parties came out winners in the deal.”
Scholars think it is instructive that the celebrity being used must ideally fit the brand that is being projected. Therefore, factors such as physical charm, charisma, credibility, acceptability, emotional connection between the celebrity and the target consumers are fundamental and cannot be waived aside – if brand owners must generate customers’ interest in their products. And this is where Nigerian brands miss it most times.
However the challenge of celebrity branding is that sometimes, the celebrity falls into bad waters and this ultimately affects the brand. This means that, while the marketers relish in the benefits of using these supposed icons to leverage their brands, they should also not forget to put in place a crisis template, per chance something goes wrong with the icon, so that the organisation will not be caught napping or the brand left with a slur. The same positive value a celebrity can bring to a brand in a twist of a moment can turn negative if the celebrity gets involved in something shady.
