Do celebrity endorsements work? Yes, they do. Otherwise, we wouldn’t see advertisements with celebrities every day, would we? Catherine Zeta-Jones’ endorsement deal with T-Mobile was reportedly worth 20 Million. Subsequently, T-Mobile’s national sales jumped 25% during the campaign. Celebrity endorsements are now on Twitter, too!
Why does celebrity advertising work?
Celebrity advertising works on 3 different levels:
- Familiarity – we see hundreds of advertisements on a daily basis, so the ability to differentiate an advertisement is key and celebrities can provide that. Catherine Zeta-Jones definitely made folks pay a little closer attention than the Verizon guy!
- Emulation – we’re a driven (shallow) society and the dreams of wealth and fame influence us. Seeing someone we hope to be like or are attracted to is a strong advertising tactic. No doubt that Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey (sigh) drove millions of new users to Twitter… now they can make some bucks on it!
- Reputability – being recognized as a reputable business is key to a business’ growth. Customes rarely do business with another business unless they trust that the business is legitimate. A celebrity endorsement can definitely speed the time it takes for your business to be seen as reputable.
With the launch of , you can purchase sponsored tweets via Izea’s system. No joke here – you can get everyone from Kim Kardashian to Bob Vila! I signed up today and have the outlandish price tag of $25 per tweet. I supposed that’s ok… given that Kendra’s price tag is too much to publish on the site! (I’m not sure Kendra will be driving sales of my e-Book or increase traffic to the blog)… I digress.
