Call In The Experts

How many times have we seen companies use celebrity spokespeople to promote their product? I would almost guarantee that in the past week you have seen some product endorsed by a celebrity user. Whether it’s Katy Perry for Proactive, Jared for Subway, or Queen Ltifa for Covergirl there are hundreds of products in the market today that exploit celebrity endorsements in major advertising campaigns.

Many of these companies have seen returns based on their use of celebrities in their marketing schemes, but recent research suggests that a campaign’s effectiveness is based on more than simply associating random celebrities with products. Using complex neuromarkting research techniques some European scientists have offered a new aspect in the use of celebrity promotion – Expertise. At first glance, this idea may seem too anal in the whole marketing process, especially when considering that there has not only been research to confirm that celebrity endorsements help product and service sales, but also that these celebrities are not what we would consider to be “Experts” about the products they endorse. Afterall, it’s not like Katy Perry is in the research labs with Proactiv scientists saying “You know, maybe we need to adjust the chemical mixture in our product to get rid of more zits.”

But, think of products in terms of consumer use, “Jared was a very fat person. Jared ate a lot of Subway subs. Jared is now skinny. Jared must have some level of expertise in eating.” It makes sense, right? I guess it may be easier to evaluate this when thinking about an extreme example of no expertise. If Paris Hilton became the spokesperson for Encyclopedia Britanica, and said that she swore by them, I think that we may see yet another bankrupt company (not caused by the recession). Now it becomes clearer that companies may not only want to focus on celebrity looks and personal images when selecting a candidate, but also expertise.

Dr. Vasily Klucharev’s study revealed that many people remember celebrities with expertise about a product for a longer time than the non-experts. Dr. Klucharev said, ”Our results show that a single short exposure to an expert results in long-term modulation of memory and attitude for an object following the expert shortly after.” The study recorded responses from twenty-four female participants using celebrity pictures viewed next to different objects. Over 180 photos of products and celebrities were shown for a specific period of time, followed by a series of questions to evaluate the memory of each participant.

This may be a beneficial new aspect for companies to consider when looking into having a celebrity endorsement. In any instance, I think it would be best to use a celeb with at least some expertise, especially when considering my previously mentioned Paris Hilton example.


Source:
Klucharev et al., 2008 V. Klucharev, A. Smidts and G. Fernández, Brain mechanisms of persuasive communication: How “Expert Power” modulates memory and attitudes, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 3 (2008), pp. 353–366.