The Finch Post

The Falling Star of Celebrity Endorsement - Part 2 of a 4 Part Series

Part 2: Hail to the Geeks

One of the best examples of companies selling their unique corporate culture along with a product or service is The Geek Squad. Formed in 1994 with a flimsy $200 endowment, founder Robert Stephens wanted his company to be more than just another IT consulting and repair service. He was well aware that competitors could deliver equally as effective technical support. He also knew that IT professionals were stymied by stereotype. How did Stephens separate himself from the high-tech herd? Simple: he embraced the qualities that made geeks different and in doing so differentiated The Geek Squad.

To achieve this, the geeks in Stephens’ squad had to BE the brand, eating, sleeping, and dreaming his singular vision. Each “agent” was given a 1950s-inspired geek chic uniform consisting of black pants, short-sleeved white dress shirt, and skinny black tie. To add dimension to the company’s whole retro police detective schtick, Stephens also outfitted his staff with cast-metal badges manufactured by the same company supplying local law enforcement with their bling. 

After looking the part, The Geek Squad had to act the part. One famous case of theatrics involved The Geek Squad staging a SWAT team mission in order to win an account. The farce was so effective that the prospective client actually thought it was a legitimate police operation.    

From custom-designed shoes with a reverse imprint logo on the sole, to die-cut oval shaped business cards offering computer tips, Stephens never missed an opportunity to showcase his brand. An eye for detail, sharp self-awareness, and passion for promotion fueled The Geek Squad’s rocket-like ascent into the hearts and minds of consumers. Like mother always said, “be yourself and people will love you.” 

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.

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.

 

Brand Evolution in Action

Modell’s Sporting Goods, the nation’s oldest family-owned sporting goods retailer, has been in business since 1889. They’ve grown from an original store in lower Manhattan to over 140 retail locations clustered around major cities in the northeast. As emerging consumer trends and aggressive big box/specialty competitors brought price and perception pressures and weakened its position, Modell’s chose to explore how to advance its own brand evolution. In 2008 they brought in Finch Brands.

We leveraged comprehensive research initiatives which enabled us to design a brand platform with an invigorated vision, mission and position enhanced by core customer archetypes. In response to ever-increasing national competition, we repositioned Modell’s as the trusted, intimate community-based sporting goods retailer of choice. Then, we worked with Modell’s to understand the plan by which the brand strategy would be executed across the whole company, from internal organization and merchandising to store experience and marketing.

With a rejuvenated and definitive brand strategy, Modell’s management team has been able to build an aggressive internal mindset with a clear mandate dedicated to the company’s progressive evolution. As they approach their market with a clearer message and a stronger roadmap for setting standards and improving their overall brand experience, Modell’s re-launched its brand in early 2010 as a unified and focused business ready to fight for market share. See the results in action: 

 

iVerizon.

Now that the iPhone will soon be available through the Verizon network, let’s take stock of how this may impact the smartphone marketplace. It’s not clear whether or not the AT&T exclusive was a net gain for the iPhone – the product has made a major impact, accumulating 25%-28% smartphone share plus the big bucks paid per subscriber to Apple per month. Yet there is evidence that the exclusive arrangement has protected and emboldened competitors – the Android platform has grown to 25%+ market share very quickly and nurtured a comparable app store, due in large part to its manufacturer and carrier-agnostic strategy – and both still trail BlackBerry.  Microsoft, at 9%, is aggressively marketing its new platform across a host of devices.

Furthermore, AT&T has been on the defensive for several years against Verizon in terms of network coverage and other carriers in terms of price – and a case can be made that the perceived/actual weakness of the AT&T network has hurt the iPhone brand/sales and led to device defection (and switching costs in the form of long-term contracts that will prevent win-back).  So, while the Verizon iPhone will ameliorate many carrier concerns, Apple faces much stronger competition than it might have had it chosen wide distribution initially.

Among the key questions are these:

·     How many prospective iPhone customers are tethered to other devices or carriers in a way that will inhibit switching and suppress demand?

·     Now that consumers can evaluate the BlackBerry, Android, Microsoft and iPhone platforms in a truly side-by-side way, who will win?

·     How aggressive will AT&T, still a major player, be in marketing the iPhone now that the financial rewards are not as great and they have access to a host of other devices?

·     How aggressively will Verizon, who championed Android and other platforms in conjunction with device manufacturers, be in marketing the iPhone in the promotional way to which the market is accustomed?

·     Ultimately, will the iPhone brand pass this test of strength or will significant product newness be required to activate latent demand?


This is somewhat new territory for Apple in its recent areas of focus – iPod became an industry standard in the MP3 market and muscled out competitors like Rio, Sony and others in part on the strength of brand, simplicity of iTunes and commitment to the category.  Now, iPhone is playing for keeps against real competition in a market in which they are not the first or necessarily the biggest mover.  Verizon is a huge partner to leverage, but time will tell the outcome.