The Finch Post

The Falling Star of Celebrity Endorsement - Part 1 of a 4 part series

Legendary art director, George Lois,  mused that “enlisting a celebrity to sell cat food, an airline, off-track betting, an analgesic, or a lube job would seem to be a delusionary strategy fraught with irrationality. But let’s face it, it’s a star-struck world.”

Sure, it’s a star-struck world, but with exorbitant high costs, bad behavior, and questionable credibility plaguing celebrity endorsements, is it any wonder that businesses are starting to look within to inspire campaigns and develop brands? 

This four-part blog examines the changing face of the spokesperson from gregarious celebrity to unassuming everyman, and how this shift in audience preference allows businesses to bolster their brand by celebrating the people behind their products.

Celebrity Losing its Fizz

 According to recent marketing research, one out of every four advertising campaigns in the US features famous faces. From magazine spreads to Twitter, television commercials to Facebook, the advertising industry is clogged with celebrity and is in desperate need of Draino.

Although most of us believe that our voracious appetite for celebrity is a relatively recent speedbump in social evolution, actors and athletes, musicians and models have been peddling products to eager audiences for centuries.

In ancient Rome, popular gladiators received handsome sums to endorse various products and services. In the 1700s, Josiah Wedgwood capitalized on the popularity of his products with royalty by promoting himself as “Potter to Her Majesty.”

At the height of the Cola Wars, PepsiCo also used ties to aristocracy to promote their carbonated product. The history-making partnership with the King of Pop made Michael Jackson the richest pitchman on planet Earth. With his unmistakable flair, Jackson touted the beverage to his fans as the choice of a new generation, resulting in Pepsi earning $7.7 billion in sales and edging out its competitor as the King of Soda Pop for 1984.

Throughout the ten-year commitment, Jackson earned tens of millions of dollars, while Pepsi enjoyed sole sponsorship of his concerts. Allegations of child abuse in 2003, however, burst the campaign’s bubble, and Jackson was quickly released from his contract.

Pepsi’s ill-fated promotion is one of many examples of star powered endorsements losing their shine. Although hitching an advertising campaign to a Hollywood cash cow can prove beneficial at first, it is wise for businesses to remember that if the spokesperson gets stuck in the mud, then so too does the brand tied to them.

Time for B2B to Jump on the Brand Wagon

Like the Elephant Man who passionately proclaimed, “I am not an animal! I’m a human being,” so too are B2B buyers. This is not a new topic. It has been written about by many different people over the years, but compliance in the B2B community remains poor, so this is a message worth repeating.

Companies serving corporate accounts exist in a world where branding matters, even for them. In order to remain viable, they need to jump on the brand-wagon and connect with customers on a more personal level.

Sure, selecting from among companies isn’t akin to “Sophie’s Choice,” but that doesn’t mean that emotion doesn’t factor into the process. Contrary to popular belief, business customers do not purchase strictly on the basis of rational considerations such as pricing, specifications, performance, etc. Most purchase based on brand.

Whether they realize it or not, their decisions are frequently made long before the buying process is completed. The reason for this is simple: business buyers are still people, and people are governed by their emotions.

No matter how disciplined the buyer, most are overwhelmed with information and choices. Few can evaluate the various vendors and countless queries inherent in a typical business selection process without relying to a degree on instinct. The resulting decision process often entails buyers subconsciously justifying their initial emotional inclinations. In other words, your brand figures heavily in B2B buying verdicts, so give it the attention it deserves.

In a market characterized by gray uniformity, branding offers the best way for businesses selling to other businesses to add some color. Develop the right brand and you’ll help your salespeople close deals before they even start selling.

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5 Marketing Missteps

We’ve all done it—especially after one too many cocktails—promoted an idea that, in hindsight, is just as ill-conceived as drunk-dialing your ex. When companies exhibit questionable ad campaign judgment, we’re left with unfortunate (although often hilarious) results. Here is a list of our personal favorites:

 

1)      Receptacle-ready underwear from Bic

The throwaway titans at Bic are still scratching their collective heads over what went wrong with this launch. After all, the new product line was in keeping with their brand platform as a provider of disposable products ranging from razors to ballpoint pens. Moreover, as anyone knows who has ever spent time with or been a teenager, sometimes it’s simpler to just use a shovel to clear away and discard forgotten undergarments than painstakingly retrieve them from among the clutter and put them in the wash. Nevertheless, this idea never found a foothold in the market and, to the chagrin of Bic executives, the product wound up where it was ultimately heading anyway, straight in the trash.

 

2)      From Netflix to Please Fix

We wrote about this brand bumbling before, but it bears repeating. After first alienating many of its customers by announcing that the company would split its DVD and movie streaming package into two distinct services, Netflix swiftly declared their plans to create a new affiliated company. Like Smokin’ Joe’s 1-2 combination, this follow-up move left many consumers dazed and off-balance. The new company, Qwikster, would manage all DVD renters while Netflix would retain streaming video customers. After considerable customer criticism that the new model complicated the process and increased the cost for users of both services who would now need to maintain accounts on two separate websites, Netflix abandoned its plans. “We just moved too fast,” explained Steve Swasey, Netflix’s Vice President of Corporate Communications. This is a perfect example of how pursuing an idea without fully considering how it will be received by your customers will always wind up with you in over your head. Perhaps a more apropos name for Qwikster would have been Quicksand.

 

3)      Como se dice “cultural blunder”?

Hindsight may be 20/20, but that sentiment provided little comfort to these companies that succumbed to the ultimate cultural language translation trap. Naming is arguably the cornerstone of branding. From these monikers consumers first begin to equate characteristics to particular products and companies. When businesses fail to account for regional differences, however, they often end up with some unintended implications, such as what occurred in English-speaking countries with IKEA’s release of the “Fartfull” desk. Other examples include:

• Gerber baby food, which you won’t find on the shelves in France, likely due to the fact that there it translates to “vomiting”, and
• U.S.-based Wang Computers’ “Wang Cares” campaign in the UK, where it was pulled after public consensus that it sounded too similar to the expletive “wankers”.

 

4)      Complex solutions for simple problems

There’s an old Cold War story about American ingenuity versus Soviet resourcefulness. In zero gravity standard ballpoint pens don’t work. After an exhaustive and expensive investment in research and development, NASA came up with a pen that writes in space. The Soviet Space Program’s solution? Use a pencil. Likewise, two similar products, the Xenote and the Sony E-marker, were launched to solve the age-old dilemma of hearing a song you like on the radio, but not knowing what it is called or who performs it. These devices would bookmark the song and match it to an auditory lineup. Who knew that someone would come along and put out radios that display song names, making the Xenote and E-marker obsolete?

 

5)      He who smelled it DELL-d it

Similar in concept to the Smell-O-Vision, the unfortunately-named iSmell was a computer peripheral device developed by DigiScents in 2001. Designed to replicate natural and man-made odors and emit “theme-appropriate” aromas when users visited websites or opened emails, the iSmell was recognized in 2006 by PC World Magazine as one of the 25 worst tech products of all time. Makes you wonder, though, what type of scent it would have produced for IKEA’s “Fartfull” desk.

 

Failure to Compute

It is said that history is written by the victors of battle. Those who compete but lose, be it nation or brand, are often doomed to obscurity. The very fact that you are reading this blog on anything other than an Osborne laptop proves this point. Osborne Computers first introduced the world to the laptop in 1981, but failed to integrate their brand with their product. As a result, Osborne couldn’t compete with rivals such as IBM and Compaq, who launched their own versions of the laptop in 1984 and 1988 respectively.

Companies that stay in the forefront of consumers’ minds don’t merely survive, they thrive. You must build a strong foundation, base it on the principles you live and breathe, and construct and fortify each subsequent layer of your business like a besieged army defending its last stronghold. Doing so will not only earn you customers from the top down, but help you escape being just another footnote in the annals of business history.

Thanksbranding

Hear the word “Thanksgiving” and chances are images of piping hot turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie flood the brain. It doesn’t make any difference that the historical record is vague when it comes to the type of wild fowl originally served, or that cranberry sauce didn’t make its debut until about fifty years after the first Thanksgiving feast. We are happy to gobble down the Norman Rockwell version of our nation’s pilgrim past. That’s the power of branding. 

Strong brands are authoritative and tell compelling stories. They’re the reason why Everlast packs a punch, other ergonomic chairs take a back seat to Herman Miller’s Aeron, and why you don’t picture trout and apple sauce for Thanksgiving (forgive the shameless promotion of our clients).

While we all prepare to break out our sweatpants and feast on festive favorites, take a minute to ask yourself these questions: What images come to mind when people hear your company name? What story does your brand tell? Draw a blank, and you will have more to contend with over the next week than a healthy dose of heartburn. Companies that don’t know their proper brand positioning are like holidays without all the traditional trimmings and tantalizing tales—neither will hold the public’s interest for long.

Brand Castration

The iconic coke bottle with its highly visible, instantly recognizable contour shape epitomizes the power of packaging. Now imagine the same soft drink housed by a no-frills plain glass bottle sitting on the shelf, nestled next to its competitors, all without a single, distinguishing shape or label as far as the eye can see.

This barren branding landscape is not merely a business’ worst nightmare, but the reality facing one industry. After years of increasingly stringent regulations, the Australian government has recently introduced legislation that has Big Tobacco fuming. In an effort to discourage smoking, new cigarette carton packaging rules have extinguished tobacco companies’ ability to brand their products.

Packs now bare an identical look, with no brand adornments whatsoever. Product names are required to be in a uniform, small font unobtrusively placed on the bottom of the carton.

Legislators enacted these new laws with one clear objective in mind: to seriously hurt tobacco companies’ capacity to thrive in the market by removing the differentiators that package branding provides.

This Australian ambush on nicotine is the perfect reminder of how powerful branding (or in this case, brand castration) is to maintaining or losing market share. If it’s been a while since you’ve polished your brand persona, it’s time you revisit this integral investment. Ignore it and you will be ignored.

2011 – A Brand Odyssey

A former U.S. Secretary of Defense cautioned us to remember that “there are things we don’t know we don’t know.” Politics aside, when it comes to business, there is much truth to that statement. In fact, sometimes situations change so quickly that the things that you know as accurate one day no longer are the next. Since our name derives from the finches that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution, we’re going to use a similar, but more current, evolutionary example that exemplifies this point—our chimp cohorts.

If you’re like us, the thought of spear-wielding chimps evokes images of your family fighting over the last morsels of turkey during Thanksgiving dinner. If you enjoy a more refined pedigree, then it probably reminds you of Stanly Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the Planet of the Apes film franchise. Either way, the assumption that this striking scene is anything more than mere monkey business is simply bananas, right?

During a study partially funded by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration, researchers observed this movie magic firsthand—chimpanzees on an African savanna fashioning sticks into spikes to hunt smaller mammals. Our chimp cousins had officially evolved from silver screen standouts to spear-wielding superstars!

We bring this up because at Finch Brands we are not only fans of handy hominids, but because we also like stories with morals. This account beautifully illustrates one of the fundamental principles of marketing: what you know today might be obsolete tomorrow, so you should never stop testing your assumptions. Sure, it’s a simple enough lesson, but one whose significance is routinely downplayed. 

We all like to think that we have a smidgen of psychic ability when it comes to predicting external factors that will impact our businesses, but the harsh reality is that sometimes there are unanticipated developments. You put yourself at a disadvantage if you rely solely on your company’s current performance as a barometer for its future success. Waiting until an obvious risk presents itself, like a new product launch that steals some of your market share, is akin to standing idly by while Bobo sharpens his spear in preparation for a brutal biped barrage. Winning brands are ones that look for ways to bolster their image even in the absence of an imminent threat.

Reality Sucks

“Reality Sucks”, and sometimes, so do marketing campaigns. General Motors, while targeting college students, managed to insult a rather large group of people. Besides being an insult to an ever increasing cycling community, an image that equates owning a bike to being a loser doesn’t so much evoke a desire to drive a car as it does to watch a teen flick from the 80’s. GM removed the ad after a bombardment of complaints, but one has to wonder how this ad even came about. With its tagline of “Stop pedaling…start driving” they’ve not only insulted those on bikes, but have ignored the environmental pleas that have been promoting the exact opposite.  According to the blog community of bikeportland.org the general college public viewed the campaign as an attack on the environment, fitness and everyone that rides a bike. (Full article found here)

Ads should speak about your product, represent your brand, and of course identify with your target market.  GM has wisely listened to complaints and has taken on the difficult challenge of apologizing to the World Wide Web community.  We can all be reminded of the issues which arise when a company thinks of creativity as a stand-alone tactic. The most successful creative tactics are those which fully account for your brand and all that encompasses, and embraces the mind-set of the intended market. While the impact of an ad may be powerful, it may not always be positive. 

Great Interview Answer Reveals the Truth About Brands

In a recent interview to fill a new position, I asked a candidate who had spent a lot of time working with non-profits whether or not he would find the same value in working on behalf of some of our corporate clients such as Modell’s Sporting Goods or WWE.  He replied that nothing could be more rewarding than selling the baseball glove that enables a boy and his Dad to have a catch, or the ticket to a memorable event that puts smiles on the faces of an entire family.

While not only a great interview answer, he hit at the core truth of what we do – whatever the role our clients’ products play in the professional or personal lives of their customers, winning brands accomplish something meaningful.  Those who work in our business must always respect the importance of what we are selling to the person who is considering whether or not to buy it.