Years ago, a celebrity endorsement could make or break a company, but it appears that those days are over. Whereas businesses used to pull out their wallets to pay the hottest celebrity of the moment to be in their commercial or ad campaign, the “average Joe” is now in much higher demand. This can be most recently seen on TV commercials for Ford (interviewing actual customers in a mock-press conference) and Febreze (placing blindfolded subjects in smelly situations). Even a 2011 study conducted by Ace Metrix found that celebrity ads scored much lower than non-celebrity ads in terms of effectiveness. This is likely due to the more modern perspective of celebrities as individuals with differing motivations and unrealistic biases such as personal trainers, stylists and financial incentives.
This news is, of course, extremely beneficial to your bottom line. Without the financial tension and pressures to hire a celebrity to endorse your products/services you are free to maximize your ad spend by exploring new avenues and multi-faceted campaigns. There is no need to only place one expensive, celebrity-filled magazine ad, when you can diversity your campaign through social media, direct mail, outdoor banners and a magazine ad at a reasonable cost.
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