Madden brothers

Celebrity Sell Outs

Easy selling 101: Use a Celebrity. Everything they touch turns to marketing gold, whether it is a bottle of mineral water or a Tag Hauer watch.

We’ve all seen more than our fair share of celebrity endorsements – Hugh Jackman for Lipton, Nicole Kidman for Chanel, Leyton Hewitt for Quiltex. While this can work wonders for some brands, for others it can cause nothing but controversy – whether it’s because of the choice itself or because of mistakes made by the supposedly glamorous brand advocate.

This year has seen some interesting cases of where it has and hasn’t worked out:

Doubling Down

Every fast food chain is trying to become your artery clogger of choice over the summer break. Maccas has their 50s inspired summer campaign full of hip music and surf scenes and KFC for some strange reason has the Madden brothers (of Good Charlotte and reality TV fame) asking Aussies to tell them how to have a good time.

As it turns out, these two fine American born and bred ‘gentlemen’ have been major opponents of KFC back in their native land of the free. The social media world exploded with excitement over the absurd level of hypocrisy on their part and the utter ignorance of KFC for never realising who they had chosen to spruik their brand.

Despite this controversy, the TV ads and billboards featuring our two tattooed friends are still everywhere, encouraging us all to indulge in some greasy good times. This willingness to stick with the Madden brothers is more than likely tied into the fact that their fans and lovers of KFC really don’t care about the hypocrisy or the likelihood of heart attacks.

Shock Jocks

2012 has been the year that taught brands throughout Australia to steer clear of using radio personalities as advocates. First there was Kyle Sandilands his rather derogatory remarks about a female journalist – a slip of his forked tongue which ended up eroding the credibility of his station (2DayFm/Austereo) as well as undercutting their otherwise lucrative sponsorship deals.

This debacle was followed up by the king of radio spin himself, Alan Jones, aiming his trademark vitriol at our lady PM – causing brands ranging from Coles to Mercedes Benz to run for the hills, hoping to escape the damage his idiocy might cause to their image. In this case the boycott by brands lasted longer, particularly due to the high degree of consumer backlash via social media.

And lastly and most tragically, 2DayFM made a repeat appearance in the headlines for incidentally playing part in the suicide of a British Nurse. What was meant to be an otherwise harmless prank call ended up turning into global media frenzy, vilifying the radio presenters and station – giving associated brands every reason to flee.

In all three instances, the advertisers have been willing to come crawling back so long as the ‘guilty’ parties have been superficially conciliatory enough in front of the media. For Sandilands and Jones, the audiences came back and sponsor brands were happy. As for the latest debacle, only time will tell.

In the Pitts

Here we have a tale of two brothers, one named Brad, the named Doug. The world-famous, handsome one of the two cannot spruik a brand to save his life, while the otherwise plain and boring one turned out to be one of the best brand advocates of the year.

For the former, Chanel No5 decided to break away from tradition make Brad Pitt their first ever male spokesperson. Unfortunately for them the gamble did not pay off – Brad’s attempt at deep and meaningful prose turned out to be one of the worst ads in the brand’s history. In the long term this means little for one of the world’s most prestigious brands, with them more than likely to go full steam ahead as if all was normal.  In terms of the latter, the unfortunately named Doug Pitt became the face of Virgin Mobile, talking about how you don’t need to be a star (his brother) in order to get great deals. This campaign has been lauded for its ingenuity and earned Virgin free press all over the world.

The Strange and the Wonderful

So far we’ve generally spoken of how brands need to be wary of who they choose – seeing as the results can so often be detrimental to their short term sales and image. But the world of celebrity endorsements and glamorous brand advocates isn’t all doom and gloom. As with the Doug Pitt example before, there are some truly inspired instances of using a known face to push your brand, whether it simply caused confusion or hilarity – it worked.

In the past year we had classics such as:

If there is a lesson to be learned from any of this it’s that you need to choose your brand advocates wisely. Whether you go with radio presenters, Joe Average or a so-called celebrity, make sure they match your brand and their regular behaviour is relatively risk free.

Or, there’s always…