It used to be that you had to be a bonafide celebrity to land a celebrity endorsement deal. Win a gold medal, release a gold album, or star in a blockbuster movie and advertisers would line up asking you to pitch their products. The association principle of advertising works by associating a brand, product, or service with an intangible, but desirable, positive attribute. And celebrity status is a particularly attractive association that many brands crave.
Things have changed. Celebrity endorsements have given way to influence marketing. If you have influence, no matter how you’ve earned it, you can cash that in for…well, cash. You’ve got thousands reading your [insert hobby here] blog on a daily or weekly basis? …great, how about mentioning our brand and we’ll send you some free product. One hundred thousand subscribers to your beauty secrets YouTube channel? Fantastic…how’d you like to represent our product line for a nice monthly salary? A million or so followers on Twitter? We need to talk!
The reason why this is such a thing is because of the power and reach of social media. At the same time, traditional advertising has been suffering from shrinking audiences and diminishing credibility. We’re more likely to believe a friend’s recommendation than an advertising pitch-man’s exaggerated promises. Word of mouth (or online word of “mouse”) is where it’s at. This graphic is from an informative post by Aaron Orendorff on the Mashable website.
The title of this blog suggests that this new form of marketing is not just for celebrities anymore. Maybe the point is that the barrier to becoming a celebrity is much lower in this digital, social-mediated landscape. However, if you want to play, you need to know the rules. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently published guidelines governing endorsement deals and has been cracking down on influencers engaging in unethical behavior.
