How celebrity advertising works

Why should firms use celebrities to advertise their products? A new paper uses MRI scans to cast light upon this.
The researcher got a group of Dutch women to look photos of pairs of shoes alongside pictures of various female celebrities, or non-celebrities of equal attractiveness.
They found that the subjects were no more likely to buy the shoes pictured alongside celebrities than with non-celebrities. This suggests that mere association with celebrity doesn’t work.
However, this was true only because subjects thought that some shoes were owned by the celebrity and so were out of their class. Subjects were more likely to buy shoes which were pictured alongside the celebrity if they thought she didn’t own them.
What’s more, subjects found it easier to remember shoes that appeared next celebrities than next to non-celebrities. Such pairings excited more activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex than other pairings. This, the researchers say, suggests that celebrity endorsements work because the positive affect generated by the celebrity helps people’s memory.
There are a couple of messages here for advertisers.
1. It’s possible for a product to be too aspirational. If people think something is out of their league - even wrongly - they’ll not want it. Sour grapes will affect their preferences. You should therefore be careful about associating celebrities with up-market products, for fear of making them seem too upmarket.
This might explain why we don’t see celebrities in car adverts, but do see them endorse more mundane, available things such as Iceland, razor blades or haircare products.
2.  Choose a celebrity people associate with happiness, as this’ll generate more of the positive sentiment which helps memory.
This explains why Iceland dropped Kerry Katona after the shocking revelations of her coke-taking; because  they generated negative affect in Iceland’s target market.
It also explains why advertisers use women of middlingish attractiveness (Eva Longoria, Davina McCall from the front) rather than genuine stunners - because the latter would arouse envy from women.
In this context, I’m surprised at some of the celebrities advertisers use. Why, for example, do Nike use Wayne Rooney, when he arouses bad memories for people who don’t support Manyoo? And why do Firstplus use Carol Vorderman when women envy her attractiveness and men might associate her with memories of watching Countdown whilst being unemployed? Why, except in voiceovers, aren’t comedians used more in advertising?

Comments

[Conrad Barwa]

Interesting, explains some things about how advertisers think at least. Most people consider Longoria to be v attractive (not me though) so not sure how that works. Also for men, a reasonable down-to-earth beauty can seem more attainable and inspire positive feelings than some girl totally out of their league.

Also it should be 'Manure' and not 'manyoo' ;)

[Tim Almond]

Vorderman is shorthand for "scientist". It's like people will trust that she's obviously crunched the numbers on these loans so you know they're OK. She also flogs a load of books for kids, too.

[Paul Sagar]

1. Rooney plays for England as well as Man U. And he's a "lad", so other "lads" presumably wish to emulate him.

2. Carol Vorderman is not attractive (you weirdo).

[charlieman]

The soft porn people have known this for years. Every man knows that it is inconceivable that they'll get the chance to bonk anyone as good looking as any month's Playboy Playmate. Which is why the competition (who provide 99% of the dying market) don't play that game; they feature attractive women who you might meet in real life.

[charlieman]

CD: "Why, except in voiceovers, aren’t comedians used more in advertising?"

ASA rules on taking the mickey of competitors are strict. Taking the mickey of your own product as a promotion act is very difficult to pull off. Consequently, comedians are unlikely to feature in adverts.

However, comedians tend to have distinctive voices, nuance and timing. Ideal for the tag line.

[ortega]

"...men might associate her with memories of watching Countdown whilst being unemployed?"

Who said those are bad memories? Being paid for watching tv seems a good deal to me.

[Jonathan]

Damning admission, but as an academic economist I have two problems with stuff like this:
1. Although increasingly it features in conferences, gets into journals to me it simply isn't economics.
2. As I'm not Dutch maybe I shouldn't care, but what possible justification is there for public funds supporting research like this? Presumably it would be useful to advertisers and thus the sort of research they can fund themselves. I can't see a public good here that justify public funding.

[John Terry's Mum]

ortega

The unemployed are paid just enough to keep them poor.

[timojappinen.blogspot.com]

A great post, thank you.

David Ogilvy, probably the world's most famous adman, also recognized this dilemma in his early days. He paid Eleanor Roosevelt to appear in his clients ads for margarine, only to realize that people will remember the celebrity, but not the product.

In some cases using relevant sponsorships with celebrities still work for advertising purposes. Think about Jordan and sports apparel.

In most cases, using celebrities it doesn't help if it is not credible. Nowadays, for how many products has David Beckham given his face? Poster boy? Yes. Believable? No.

If you are interesting in digging deeper about how advertising works read "Ogilvy on Advertising" by David Ogilvy.

Keep on rocking,

Timo

[rolex yachtmaster]

And a lot of it reflects a switch from bank deposits to securities; foreigners “other investments” in the UK, http://www.watchgy.com/ mostly bank deposits, fell by £143.2bn in Q1. And of course there’s no guarantee such buying will continue.
http://www.watchgy.com/tag-heuer-c-24.html
http://www.watchgy.com/rolex-submariner-c-8.html

[pletcherhhn]

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