Previous

Page - 8

The Vampire Effect: This terminology pertains to the issue of a celebrity overshadowing the brand. If there is no congruency between the celebrity and the brand, then the audience will remember the audience and not the brand. Examples are the campaigns of Dawn French-Cable Association and Leonard Rossiter-Cinzano.
Both of these campaigns were aborted due to celebrities getting in the way of effective communication. Another example could be the Castrol commercial featuring Rahul Dravid.

Inconsistency in the Professional Popularity of the Celebrity: The celebrity may lose his or her popularity due to some lapse in professional performances. For example, when Tendulkar went through a prolonged lean patch recently, the inevitable question that cropped up in corporate circles - is he actually worth it? The 2003 Cricket World Cup also threw up the Shane Warne incident, which caught Pepsi off guard. With the Australian cricketer testing positive for consuming banned substances and his subsequent withdrawal from the event, bang in the middle of the event, PepsiCo - the presenting sponsor of the World Cup 2003 - found itself on an uneasy wicket.

Multi Brand Endorsements by the Same Celebrity would Lead to Over-exposure: The novelty of a celebrity endorsement gets diluted if he does too many advertisements. This maybe termed as commoditisation of celebrities, who are willing to endorse anything for big bucks. For example, MRF was among the early sponsors of Tendulkar with its logo emblazoned on his bat. But now Tendulkar endorses a myriad brands and the novelty of Tendulkar-MRF campaign has scaled down.

Celebrities Endorsing One Brand and Using Another (Competitor): Sainsbury’s encountered a problem with Catherine Zeta Jones, whom the company used for its recipe advertisements, when she was caught shopping in Tesco. Similar case happened with Britney Spears who endorsed one cola brand and was repeatedly caught drinking another brand of cola on tape.

Mismatch Between the Celebrity and the Image of the Brand: Celebrities manifest a certain persona for the audience. It is of paramount importance that there is an egalitarian congruency between the persona of the celebrity and the image of the brand. Each celebrity potrays a broad range of meanings, involving a specific personality and lifestyle. Madonna, for example, is perceived as a tough, intense and modern women associated with the lower middle class. The personality of Pierce Brosnan is best characterized as the perfect gentlemen, whereas Jennifer Aniston has the image of the ‘good girl from next door’.

Next

* Contributed by -
Saurbh Katyal,
Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies (SIMS), Pune.