When companies hire celebrities to endorse their products, it brings a lot of benefits but at a cost.  When you bring a celebrity into the mix you are opening up your product or service to a whole different market.  Like if you have a athlete, or an actor, those are two complete different markets right their and the people who view your marketing campaigns will be a diverse audience of people.  When you bring a athlete or actor into your campaign it opens up the demographics of an audience and it can strategically help get the name of your product out to the public.  Putting a professional or celebrities name on a product gives the people who view it the sense of credibility and reliability to trust the product because they see someone with a notable name representing it.  

A huge successful marketing campaign which used a big name celebrity to endorse their product was Coca-cola.  This marketing ad was back in 2014 but it was one of the most successful ads of all time.  The celebrity singer, Taylor Swift, who at the time had 15 million social media followers, which was a lot for the time being it was the beginning of social media, participated in a 33 second ad commercial where she endorsed diet coca cola.  With seven grammy awards, and five studio albums already released at the time, Taylor Swift was a global superstar with a huge platform that many demographics of people followed.  The name of the marketing campaign was, “Get a Taste”.  In the ad she is shown drinking a glass bottle of diet coca cola, and after she drinks it it shows that it had brightened her day as she starts to play with her cute little kitten.  But what makes this add very interesting, is that for the ad, the commercial decides to used a unreleased track off of Taylor Swifts new album at the time named, 1989.  Not only does this ad promote coca cola, but Taylor Swift herself will be getting exposure as her new song is catchy and will lure in the viewers to question what song they are hearing in the commercial.

Diet Coke and Taylor, who began a multi-year partnership with the brand in 2013, also are partnering to bring fans opportunities to win concert tickets and to meet Taylor.  Having rewards like that will lure viewers in even more.  The No. 1 no-calorie sparkling beverage also is bringing fans closer to Taylor during the week of her album launch.  Taking a singer, and putting her song in a commercial promoting a soda drink is helping both the soda company and the singers musical career.

Using a catch phrase for a company or service is always a good way for customer recognization.  But having a celebrity use a companies catch phrase, gives it even more attention.  For the company PokerStars, they had a very unique way of marketing their “Game on” and “Keeping your cool,” catch phrases.  Instead of making just an ordinary commercial, they decided to get celebrities to see who can “Keep your cool”. 

Kevin Hart, is a worldwide known famous American comedian who decided to team up with PokerStars, and wanted to make poker more appealing to people.  Hart, who was already a lover of the game of poker brought attention to himself while playing poker at famous casinos around the world and the PokerStars company noticed it themselves and decided to offer him a partnership.  One of the main reasons why Hart wanted to team up with this company is because he thought the game of poker was missing something.  It was dull.  It was boring.  Hart made it clear by saying, “I love to live, love and laugh. I want to bring this energy to the game of poker. And when I do this, poker will be elevated.”  PokerStars have publicly expressed their interest in Hart because of the attraction of people his comic relief could bring to their poker company.  

Using his comedy could be a great way to attract people who have no idea about poker to the the game.  PokerStars had Hart start giving funny tutorials on the game and even if people didn’t watch the videos to learn how to play poker, they just watched them because Kevin Hart was in the video.  When the team pro of PokerStars, Daniel Negrean, was asked about the addition of Hart, he said “Just his presence in poker gives the game a new vibe.”

With just a few sponsored advertisement videos on instagram and facebook, the PokerStars partnership has blown up their brand.  Even if people don’t play poker or gamble, seeing Kevin Hart in a video makes them want to see what he’s doing.  For an example, Hart, and gold medalist olympic athlete Usain Bolt made a bunch of videos for PokerStars making funny skits for poker terms, like “bluffing”, and “staying cool”.  PokerStars used a very smart strategic marketing plan by g getting people to watch a famous comedian use jokes and make people laugh about poker.  It draws people in and makes them interested. 

So, i’m sure some of you have already heard of the recent story about Fyre Festival, but for those of you who haven’t, your in for a funny one.  Our generation has grown up becoming huge fans of live concerts and festivals.  In our modern day of age, with the technology and visuals that go behind concerts, people are willing to spend crazy amounts of money to see their favorite artists, DJs and bands.  With the demand for these artists, DJs and bands, these performers are booked for clubs and arenas all over the country almost daily.  In 2017 alone, over 66 million music tour tickets were sold worldwide, marking the highest total in recent years.  The live music industry is valued at over 9 BILLION dollars.

Which brings me to THE Fyre Festival.  Exotic, lavish, and a VIP is experience is what Fyre Festival was promised to be.  But it was none of those.  Some will even say it was the complete opposite.  But this all became a idea to reality once the mad man behind the festival, Billy McFarland wanted to promote his image without it being realistic.  Once it was announced, it seemed to be everything and even more to what someone can dream of at a festival on a exotic island in the Bahamas.  Not only did the promotional video show a beautiful island with a great spot for a weekend long festival, but they were using well known names in the video to attract a young crowd to the event.  There were famous models, musicians, and social media brand ambassadors who seemed to be living lavish on this island where this concert was apparently gonna be.  Why would you not want to come to this concert.  This festival idea was offering villas, housing and infrastructures for rent which never even existed.  This man Billy McFarland created this whole idea thinking he would get nobody to actually buy tickets and come to this event.  The planning that went behind the scenes to make thus festival happen was never even remotely close to being able to pull off successful festival.  

BALL LIKE MIKE

Michael Jordan, debatably the best basketball player to ever play the game and one of the most iconic brands to ever come from sports. Michael Jordan is more than a former athlete, he is and Icon. Jordan was an active NBA player from when he was drafted in 1984 by the Chicago Bulls and played until 2003. Michael Jordan was a special talent from a young college player and was one of the most hyped athletes in the sport. In 1985, Jordan signed a five-year endorsement deal with Nike, for $2.5 million which was a a lot of money for a who hadn’t proved himself at the professional level yet. From there one of the most iconic marketing tactics in the history of sports had begun.
In 1985, Peter Moore designed the Air Jordan 1 shoe. Once the design came out and it was known to be Jordan’s signature shoe, the NBA quickly banned the original design because of their strict rules on uniforms and colors. While the shoe was banned from the NBA, Nike still wanted the promotion of their new athletes shoe to be marketed. While the headline news of the shoe having a $5,000 fine per game he wore the shoes, this was a unique marketing opportunity for Nike. Jordan continued to wear the shoes while Nike happily paid the fine. While Jordan was playing so well and still getting fined for wearing his own shoes, really showed people he was a unique athlete. The news of Jordan wearing his signature shoe and getting fined for it, was sports news all over the world while it brought attention to the Air Jordan brand. Jordan wearing his shoes and playing so well at the professional level made people want to “ball like Mike.” People thinking these shoes made you play better and be able to ball like Mike they even made a movie called “Like Mike.” The movie revolved around a young boy who was in foster care and found a pair of Michael Jordan’s game used shoes, and when he put them on he got superpowers and played basketball amazingly like Michael Jordan. That movie even marketed the Air Jordan brand more and made people want to wear the Air Jordan shoes to play good like Mike.
The marketing of this Air Jordan brand has been hyped up the brand over the years. The resell value on his shoes are ABSURD, and people pay crazy amounts of money for his rare shoes. The brand has been marketed so well over the years through other athletes and celebrities wearing them that everyone that likes shoes and sports, NEEDS a pair of Air Jordan’s. The brand has evolved so much that the Air Jordan brand now has 33 styles of the Air Jordan’s. Michael Jordan being one of the most hyped athletes of all time has built up a BILLION dollar brand and EVERYONE knows about his shoes and wants them so they cal Ball like Mike.

In this new era of technology and social media, there are a lot of new trends in marketing communication. As traditional marketing strategies like newspapers and magazines ads are starting to fade, electronic and social media advertisements are starting to take over the marketing world. With over 2 billion active users of social media networks throughout the world, social media networks are a great platform for companies and services to market to their audiences. Companies have been needing to find new ways to stand out and relay their message and get customers attention. Social media networks like Instagram and Facebook has so many active users that active celebrities and athletes get millions of followers. Companies have realized the audience these high profile people attract on social media and have found ways to market through them.
Whats great about social media marketing is that it brings the brands closer to the buyer. Brand ambassadors, who are usually celebrities, models, or athletes on Instagram get absurd amounts of money for advertisement posts. According to Social Media Revolution, 78% of consumers trust social peer recommendations. For a young person who follows their favorite singer or athlete on a social media network and sees a post of them promoting a brand or service, they feel like they can trust that high profile person they follow to try the product or service because they like them. It might sound dumb, but our generation is so quick to jump to conclusions and go through with things they see infant of their face.
Advertising brands used to be more simple than on electronic platform, but now these brands need to be present in lots of different places due to the younger generations short attention span. Through social media, celebrity culture has a image on the online world which has high expectations. People see it, and they need it. In our society now, everyone feels the need to fit in and be better than one another. Seeing a celebrity post a style or a brand doesn’t only promote a brand, it brings pressure to those who see it to get it, wear it, and use it just like the celebrity they saw with it. Social media opens the doors for companies to get their brand seen by people like never before. We all might think its dumb, but lets be honest, we all see a celebrity and want somethings there wearing or doing. Thats just the truth.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton