Hey, Who's That Over There?? 👀

Have you ever seen your favorite celebrity on that box of cereal you eat in the morning? Chances are you probably have and the reason for that is because of celebrity endorsements! In Figure 1 below, shows an example of the Wheaties cereal brand endorsing Michael Phelps to help them promote their product. Celebrity endorsements are a type of advertisement that puts a well known face to a product to gain more publicity. If you can't remember the last time you saw a celebrity advertisement, know you probably see up to 3,000 advertisements a day (2)! These types of advertisements are very effective and have been coming a long way since the use of technology has been increasing.

Figure 1: Michael Phelps promoting Wheaties on a cereal box

Celebrity endorsements are unique and allows audiences like you to engage in them almost every day. If you go on Instagram, Twitter, or even Facebook the possibilities of celebrity endorsements you see are endless. By putting the faces of people like Selena Gomez, Arianna Grande, or Zac Efron on an ad catches your eye a lot more than a nobody. As you see in the picture below (Figure 2), Selena Gomez is helping to promote Coca Cola just by her posting and Instagram picture of her drinking their soda. Simple! With 4.7 million likes and over 100,000 comments on the picture shows just how much publicity these endorsements can get!

Figure 2: Selena Gomez endorsing Coca Cola

While social media is a popular medium for celebrity endorsements, you can also see these endorsements cover your television screen. From Super Bowl halftime performances, to a Subway commercial, celebrities of all types try to gain a spot in these roles. By putting a celebrity's face to these products will help make the content more appealing, but for it to be effective the match between the celebrity and the product has to be perfect (1). Seeing that celebrity endorsements are all around us, it is easy to see how they also come in different forms from movie stars to athletes. When is the last time you've seen a sports star like Steph Curry on your television screen? Probably very recently. Star athletes are a very popular form of celebrity endorsements because they can work well with an audience of any age.

You may be wondering why companies pay money to get celebrities to promote their product and that is because these celebrities can make them more money in the long run! Now, who wouldn't want to make more money?! Studies show that one endorsement can increase sales by 4% almost immediately (2). So, the more celebrity endorsements companies have, the more money they can make. While it seems like it's just the companies and celebrities who get a good deal out of this, it actually affects you too! When you use the same product a celebrity endorses and actually uses there is a tendency to feel a connection to that celebrity, which leads to you feeling as if you are as fortunate as that celebrity (1). 

Now that you know what celebrity endorsements are and how they affect you, go out and see how many you can find and always know...

maybe one day that could be YOU on that cereal box.

References

(1) Bradic, L. (2015, September 30). Celebrity endorsements on social media are driving sales and

winning over fans. Social Media Week. Retrieved from https://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/09/brands-using-celebrity-endorsements/

(2) Olenski, S. (2016, July 20). How brands should use celebrities for endorsements. Forbes.

Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveolenski/2016/07/20/how-brands-should-use-celebrities-for-endorsements/#6908f2dc5593