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Celebrity Endorsement Using well-known and admired people to promote products is a widespread phenomenonwith a long marketing history. Even the late U.S. president Ronald Reagan was a celebrityendorser, pitching several different products, including cigarettes, during his acting days.Some American actors or actresses who refuse lo endorse products in the United States arewilling to do so in Japan, including Meg Ryan for Dingo autos. Leonardo DiCaprio forSu/uki Wagon R. Jodie Foster for Morinaga Caffe 1 -itie. and Harrison Ford for HondaLegend. Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis have actually done a scries of commercials overseas fora number of different brands.The rationale behind these strategics is that a famous person can draw attention to abrand and shape the perceptions of the brand, by virtue of the inferences that consumersmake based on the knowledge they have about the famous person. The celebrity must be well enough known toimprove awareness, image, and responses for the brand.In particular, a celebrity endorser should haxc a high level of visibility and a rich set of potentially usefulassociations, judgments, and feelings.** Ideally, he or she would be credible in terms of expertise, trust worthiness,and liability or attractiveness, as well as having specific associations that carry potential product relevance. Marketing KvaluationsfFYQ Inc. conducts surveys to determine Q Scores for a broad range of entertainers and other public figures like TV performer., news and sports anchors and reporters,athletes, and modcK. Each performer is rated on ihc following scale: One of My Favorites. VeryGood. Good, Fair. Poor. and Never Seen or Heard of Before. The sum of the Favorite through Poor ratings is 'Total Familiar. The One of My Favorites rating is an absolute measureof appeal <>r popularity, since it is based on 100 percent. Because some perlormers are not very wellknown and would have a low Favorite rating, the Q Score is a ratio of the Favorite rating to the Familiar score. It addresses the question. How appealing is this figure among those who do knowhim or her? 0 Scores reflect the potential of lesser-known personalities and provide an equivalentbasis lor comparison with more established personalities. As of 2004. Negative Q Scores (the ratio of Ihc Fair plus Poor ratings to the Familiar score) arc being published as well, in order to reflectthe proportion of the population that dislikes a particular personality. Figure 7-4 displays some of Marketing Hvaluation's recent familiarity scores. Q scores, and negative Q scores for popularentertainers.A number of different brands have created strong associations to celebrities that have tCTVCd assources of brand equity. For example, down-to-earth sportseaster John Madden has been a long-timepitchman for Ace Hardware. NFL football players such as Donovan McNabb and their real-life mothershave been a winning combination in ads for Campbell's Chunky Sour) — sales increased from $200 millionin 1998 when the ad campaign began to S500 million by 2005. D AVE T HOMAS AND W ENDY ' S Founder and chairman Dave Thomas was an effective pitchman f»»r his Wendy's restaurant chainbecause of his down-home, unpretentious, folksy style and strong product focus. Rccogni/cd by over90 percent of adult consumers, he appeared in hundreds of commercials over 112-year period. Abean attack scare in 1997 forced Wendy's executives to contemplate life after Dave — a scaryprospect given their belief that nothing else builds traffic and moves product as well. and a realitythey had to face with his death early in 2002. Their follow-up campaign created a fictitious character.Mr. Wendy, who served as unofficial spokesperson. Seen as largely ineffective, it was replaced byan ad campaign in 2005 that focused on more prominently positioning Wendy's food and heritage of quality. 21 Potential Problems There are a number of potential problems with linking a celebrity endorser to a brand. First, celebrityendorsers can endorse so many products that they lack any specific product meaning or arc seen asopportunistic or insincere. Anna Koumikova leveraged Iter good looks off the tennis court to signendorsements worth millions of dollars with a wide variety of brands, including Adidas. Bcrlci lingerie.Charles Schwab. Lycos. Microsoft's XSN Sports. Multiway Sports Bra. Omega watches. Pegasus cellphones, and Yoncx racquets.It could be argued that Michael Jordan, as talented a basketball player and as likable a person as he might he. lost effectiveness as an endorser when he was associated with so in.:ii\ brands andproducts, starring in ads for Nike athletic shoes. Gatorade sports drink. Bijan fragrances. Hancs underwear.McDonald's restaurants. Ball Park Franks. Rayovac 0 Ranking of Performers < Aanng Percentage 'iixvaj of Total NegativeRank Performer Familiar Q-Score Q-Score1. Tom Hanks 93 57 5Mel Gibson 90 52 53. Bill Cosby 94 49 114. William Petersen 43 46 85. Sean Conncry 87 45 86. Eddie Murphy 91 40 107. Julia Roberts 86 39 148- Robert De Niro 86 39 109- Harrison Ford 87 38 810. Will Smith 86 38 1011. Jack Nicholson 82 38 1112. Maurice Benard 18 37 2313. Steve Martin 87 36 1314. Jerry Orbach 44 36 815. Jorja Fox 39 36 916. Jim Carrey 92 35 1617. George Eads 42 35 1018. Mariska Hargitay 41 35 719. Anthony LaPaglia 34 35 1120. Adam Sandler82 34 2021. Danny Glover 81 34 922. Doris Roberts 66 34 1123. Toby Keith 59 34 19 24. Christopher Meloni 38 34 925. John M. Jackson 28 34 13.v*B?^t i- T 2 M -r- Sourer. Marketing tvjlu*ttoro/TvO. mc. W«Wi 2004 F *fform«r Q Study. Courteiy ol TVQ. l«t. Mifketing Ev*lu«Uore. Inc. batteries. Wheaiics cereal, and MCI WorldCom long-distance tclccommunicaiions. He evensupported his own brand in (he form of Michael Jordan men's cologne and. later, the Nikesubsidiary Jordan brand.Second, (here must he a reasonable match between the celebrity and the product. Manypast endorsements would seem to fail this test. A classic mismatch occurred when the CEO of Bristol-Myers insisted on using his favorite Western actor, rugged John Wayne, as thespokesperson for Datril pain reliever. Oddly, tennis star John McEnroe was an earlyspokesperson for Bic disposable razors despite his trademark two-day stubble. George C. Scott,an Oscar winner for his patriotic movie portrayal of Ration, seemed to be a curious choice toendorse the French Renault car. Some better matches in recent years include actor Paul Hoganof CfOCodlU Dundee fame for Subaru's line of Outback sports utility vehicles and LanceArmstrong for Bristol-Myers Squibb's cancer medicines.Third, celebrity endorsers can get in trouble or lose popularity, diminishing their marketingvalue to the brand, or just fail to live up to expectations. In 2005. American Express decided tofocus its U.S. Open tennis advertising and promotion campaign on top American star AndyRoddick. The ad theme of Have You Seen Andy's Mojo? took on new meaning, however, whenRoddick tumbled out of the tournament in the first round in straight sets. Thus, linking thebrand to a celebrity results in a certain lack of control. A number of spokcspcoplc over the yearshave run into legal difficulties, personal problems, or controversies of some form thatdiminished their marketing value such as O.J. Simpson. Martha Stewart, and Michael Jackson.
