CHOOSING THE RIGHT CELEBRITY PARTNER FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN
By Megan Rose, Managing Director
There’s no doubt that a celebrity endorsing your campaign is one way to generate a lot of exposure for any business. However, choosing the right fit can be a tricky thing. Whilst the right personality can add a lot of credibility and value to a brand, the wrong choice can either be an expensive waste of time, and in the worst scenario, actually cause embarrassment or devalue your business. Not something you ever want to think about!
It’s therefore imperative when choosing a celebrity partner for your campaign that you consider the following things:
1. Your audience: Who is your primary target market, who do they connect with, and who inspires them?
2. Your target market’s interests and preferences: What is your primary audience watching, reading and listening to?
3. Celebrity authenticity and connection to the product:Before committing to a celebrity partner, it’s vital to ensure they are ‘on brand’ and have a genuine interest in the product or topic so they can talk about it passionately.
4. Social reach: With social media channels now so important, an ideal celebrity choice is someone with an already established and popular online social media presence who can amplify a campaign through their own channels. Some celebrity partners may tick the household name and media appeal boxes but may not have high social reach and engagement. Whilst this may still be okay, you need to be clear on your objectives first.
5. Brief clearly: Once you engage a celebrity, ensure they are clearly briefed and get to experience the product or service so they understand exactly what they need to deliver via key messages.
Case Study: MLA’s Greatest Butcher on Your block campaign
For this campaign for Meat & Livestock Association (MLA), we worked in tandem with leading shopper agency The Mix Agency. We were briefed to recommend celebrity partners for MLA’s Greatest Butcher on Your Block campaign which encouraged consumers to reconnect with their independent local butchers. Whilst it was initially suggested a celebrity chef or cook to engage, we thought outside the box and offered an alternative suggestion that we felt would get a stronger maximum reach.
As a key part of the campaign involved sharing the stories of some of Australia’s top butchers, we strongly recommended media personality and self-proclaimed ‘crap housewife’ Jessica Rowe as our first choice. Why? Not only does Jessica appeal to women young and old and have a strong social media following, but media also love her.
As a seasoned journalist we knew Jess could interview butchers around the country more than capably for an online video series and share their stories. We also encouraged her to learn as much as possible from the butchers when it came to understanding more about cooking meat. Jessica delivered above and beyond with the campaign and spread the message far and wide that butchers are a crap housewife’s best friend – trust me I know!
The next time you are considering partnering with a celebrity for your brand, if you need more ideas or are still unsure talk to us – we get it.