Celebrity Puppets
The concept of using sports stars to market non-sport items has soared to new heights. Every corporation in the world is trying to get the edge over their competitors. The classic example is that of the “Cola Wars.” During the 1980s, Pepsi and Coca Cola began an advertising slugfest, in which Pepsi emerged victorious by using Madonna and Michael Jackson as puppets in their commercials. These two companies, as well as thousands of others, have taken advantage of exposing celebrities in their commercials and advertisements. This is done as a means to persuade the public that these products are worth buying.
As the years went by, marketers began to realize that in America, sports imagery constituted the most popular
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This is how companies view their celebrity endorsers and partners: the companies see that it can bring in a profit from the celebrities on field successes. To make it look as though these celebrities are not being used, the companies pay them a small dividend as a thank you. In essence, the companies are controlling said celebrities. In the case of Mr. Owens, by dangling him in front of the public eye, the company holds him by the strings to make him do as they wish through a pay-off.
The last decade has seen the emergence of a new breed of celebrities onto the marketing scene. These celebrities are not involved in sports that society easily recognizes. Instead, they are the bowlers of the PBA Tour and the drivers of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. As late as the early 1990s bowling tournaments were named after their specific location and bowlers were viewed as just that, bowlers. Advancements in bowling ball technology created a more competitive field of bowlers and a new and younger generation of marketers has realized that these bowlers are a great source of advertising for their products. As a result, today’s PBA bowlers wear patches with their sponsors on them. Some have even gone as far as placing their major sponsors’ logo on their spare balls. These sponsors include Odor Eaters, Pepsi, Miller High Life, Holiday Inn, and Baby Ruth, to name a few.
NASCAR, the nation’s fastest growing sport, has received sponsor money since its creation.
With the cost of celebrity endorsement deals reaching astronomical highs, one has to address the effectiveness of such
The association makes sense – Do people have to read the copy or listen to the whole commercial for them to understand why the athlete is endorsing the product? If so, it may not be a good fit.
The product is revealed as a daily pleasure that makes every day more special through 10 different television commercials and at least 100 campaign images exemplifying the slice-of-life message style (“Coca-Cola Announces…”). The prime television commercial, “Anthem,” portrays ice-skating with friends, a first date, a first kiss, and a first love; all unified by the consumption of a Coca-Cola. The product is enhanced by a new audio signature conveying the enjoyment of the experience, including the pop of the cap, the sound of the fizz, and the refreshing effect (“Coca-Cola Announces…”). Another example of the slice-of-life message is the advertisement, “Under Pressure,” which focuses on taking time to relax from daily stress, and enjoy the moment with a Coca-Cola refreshment. Some commercials in previous years have utilized the celebrity appeal technique in which a celebrity acts as an authority figure in an advertisement. For instance, at one time Taylor Swift was the spokesperson for Diet Coca-Cola. However, this technique has been proven to be risky. If they fall out of favor with the public, then it renders the advertisement ineffective. In addition, the spotlight on the celebrity detracts from the product message, affecting the consumer desire and subsequent action. The slice-of-life style is more effective because it follows every aspect of the AIDA model: awareness, interest, desire, and action. In contrast, the celebrity appeal style only fulfills the awareness and interest
It is known to be true that the best endorsements achieve a deriving ideas, style and taste between the product and the celebrity. Giving a brand an appearance is more than just a marketing strategy to increase sales; it is a decision that can change the outcome of the brand for the
Product placement in music videos is quite a fruitful source of money for artists who approve it. The content of many commercial pop songs, the imagery displayed in music videos and the conspicuous consumption apparent in the lifestyles of pop stars all reinforce the idea that mass consumption will lead to happiness.
The use of specific athletes in marketing campaigns really began to show promise when athletes like Jordan began wearing their own brands of shoes. The idea to consumers or fans of the NBA that they could wear the same shoes as Michael Jordan, and somehow play like him was an easy sell by Nike. Today it is now common for marketable athletes in almost all sports to wear their own style of shoes, spikes, or skates. An interesting point to make is that through Nike Michael Jordan eventually launched his own clothing line called Jumpman23 that makes everything from socks and underwear to winter coats. Even though Jordan has been retired since 1999 the Jumpman23 company has continued to release a new shoe every single year that are simply called “Jordan 24”, an increasing corresponding number to the number of years the shoes have been produced. The new Jordan shoes still retails at over $150 a pair even though Mike hasn’t stepped on the court in 11 years! After retirement and becoming the CEO of the Jumpman brand Michael Jordan has been able to court other famous athletes from a variety of sports to wear his brand. A few examples of the athletes include Derek Jeter (baseball), Dwayne Wade (basketball), Jason Taylor (football), and April Holmes (track and field). The wide range of athletes in all different sports who now market a brand for arguably the greatest athlete of all time truly shows the money, power, and influence an athlete can experience
Commercial advertisements create a strong presence in the media due to the power of persuading the audience to buy a certain project. The commercial is promoting the use of diet coke and using Taylor Swift to do so. Diet Coke is a sugar free, soft drink that is very popular, it is promoted and distributed worldwide by Coca- Cola. Coca- Cola spends nearly $3.499 billion in advertisements yearly (Investopedia, 2015, 1). This ad catches the eye of the audience with the use of Taylor Swift and the adorable kittens. In this commercial, it is clear that with every sip the pop-culture singer takes of the Diet Coke, more kittens seem to appear in the apartment until the whole apartment becomes invaded with the tiny kittens. This advertisement efficiently delivers the point to the audience during the commercial video by encouraging them to drink their product Diet Coke while trying to increase the consumption of their product, attract more viewers, and sell more of their product.
In 1984, Pepsi uses celebrity endorsement strategy to help advertise their products such as during the commercial, a celebrity can be seen holding a Pepsi can and drink it in a refresh way. Celebrity endorsement is when a famous person uses the company’s products to help sell a product or service. In this case, Michael Jackson was featured in Pepsi 1984 ad. During the video, Michael Jackson saw a young kid drinking Pepsi and danced like him on stage. The celebrity approached the young kid as Michael Jackson sang,
New employees in the career of sports marketing lead by example from some of the most successful products such as the Red Bull energy drink and Skullcandy products. The most efficient way to be successful is to promote products with several sponsors. For example, everyone knows what Red Bull is, a sports drink known for its burst of energy right when we need it. The company has had great success taking a new approach on sponsorship. Conway argues in his article “A Sports Marketing Success Story” that “Red Bull wants to own teams and events. The company has a huge focus on brand management and ownership allows it to completely control how its brand
Whether you’re from the North or the South, Whether you call it Soda, cold drink or Pop, we all enjoy these lavishing carbonated beverages at some point. With or without someone's influence. They are delicious no doubt about it. The fizz when you first open them. The rush you get when that first taste hits your taste buds. Commercials are made to get a product know and some even use celebrities to show the audience a familiar face. “They get more publicity and often a big paycheck”, says an article by Justin O’Neill. It is debatable if these celebrities should be allowed to be a face for these products because they can be unhealthy.
In this source Jeremy Gregg discusses the reasons for the increase in the popularity of sports sponsorships, providing statistics to show how Herbalife’s athlete sponsorships have resulted in the business’s increase in revenue. The article makes it clear that sports sponsorships are growing at a faster rate than other types of marketing, such as advertisements, and public relations. Jeremy Gregg makes note of the fact that by Herbalife securing its logo on the jerseys of a multitude of famous sports stars, it has put Herbalife branding before millions of sports fans around the world. Gregg argues that sports sponsorships being an indirect form of marketing expose potential customers watching a game, to the business’s branding, without them having the choice of viewing it as they would have had in branding done over an infomercial. Marketers have found that Herbalife has grown too large to rely primarily on its distributors to market the company and hence has shifted their chief form of marketing to a more credible form of marketing than
Watching the Muppets when I was younger inspired me to romanticize what I thought my puppeteering career would be like. I knew when I was younger I would join the puppeteering at my church, because my sister and brother both participated in the Joyful Noise Brigade. This meant throughout my childhood I waited to become a puppeteer and the only way to quench my puppetry thirst was by watching the Muppets. The genius behind Kermit, Steve Whitmire, began puppeteering at a similar age to me, which overjoyed me when I was younger. The star of the Muppets also received his puppeteering start at a young age and he worked incredibly hard to reach the goals he set for himself (Plume). At the age of the ten when Whitmire received a response from his
Celebrity endorsements are one of the most famous methods of marketing used today. Celebrity endorsers are being used in about 25% of all the advertisements that we can see on the television. Marketers are investing large sums of money to have a contract with the celebrities as they believe that celebrities can affect the chances of success of a product. (Erica Weintraub Austina*, 2008) Kiakati
Celebrity endorsement is a billion dollar industries today (Kambitsis et al., 2002) with companies signing deals with celebrities hoping that they can help them stand out from the clutter and give them a unique and relevant position in the mind of the consumer. According to Solomon (2002), the reasons for using celebrity endorsement involves its potential to create awareness, positive feelings towards their advertising and brand. Research has shown that celebrity endorsement can have an impact on the consumer’s attention, recall, evaluations and purchase intentions (Atkin and Block, 1993), Celebrity endorsement is a widely used tactic in marketing and much research
Furthermore there are other researches as well which suggest that the approach of using a celebrity to endorse a product can not be viewed as a general practice of using any celebrity for any product endorsement. Pornpitakpan (2003), while discussing match-up hypothesis, describes the results of a study by Erdogen et al (2001) which suggests that "British advertising agency managers considered various criteria like celebrity- target audience match, celebrity-product match, overall image of the celebrity, cost of hiring the celebrity, celebrity trustworthiness, controversy risk, celebrity familiarity, celebrity prior endorsements, celebrity likeability, risk of celebrity overshadowing the brands, celebrity expertise, celebrity profession and celebrity physical attractiveness". A match between the target market and the endorser is important for effectively transmitting right message to target audience. For example, the advertisements which are produced by Pepsi, are mostly targeted for youths and so the celebrity endorsers that they use in their advertisements are young personalities. The match up hypothesis goes true for the multiple celebrity advertising as well. A good example of this is the Pulse Polio campaign taken up in India to eradicate the polio