Early 2003, when I worked in the banking industry, “Total Quality Management (TQM)” was a major project for which huge resources were deployed by major banks. At that time, the fear of TQM officers, who acted as “the service police”, was the beginning of wisdom for employees. Unfortunately, like most similar themes copied from ‘The Developed World’ without enough rigorous study or adept localization, it petered out. Banks had to redeploy staff elsewhere, and the existing structures were scrapped. Today, no one in that industry talks about TQM.
It is against that background that I discuss another ‘popular’ theme, “celebrity endorsement” (CE). Although CE started in Nigeria in the early 1990s, it was telecommunications companies that popularized it. However, it has now been adopted by many sectors, including oil and gas, real estate, manufacturing,automobile, financial services, consumer goods, brewery, etc.
There are various reasons for adopting CE. First, organizations that target certain demographics (e.g. young, unmarried) assume that their sales could be boosted when theysign-on musicians, comedians, actors etcas brand ambassadors, because they are ‘influencers’.
Second, they believe that CE helps to build brand awareness and preservemarket share. It is also considereduseful for brand positioning, especially when introducing a new product/service, or facility. For instance, a new music studio and adult education could be endorsed by a popular musician and a literary giant respectively, both fitting two demographics: the young and the mature. Organizations also believe that adopting CE helps the publicto remember their advertisements, and by extension, they remember the product/service.
However, there are contrary views regarding its adoption. Some people perceive CE as another drain-pipe steeped in ‘herd mentality’, i.e. “everyone does it”. They do not see any correlation between CE and sales improvement and/or sustained profitability.
Another argument against CE is organizations’erroneous assumption that the psychological and cultural nuances that encourageits wholesale adoption elsewhere also exist in Nigeria. I, therefore, ask: why would an average Nigerian consumer buy that product just because his favourite artisteis the brand ambassador? Why would he pay for a service because a popular faceadvertised it? Are the sociological and emotional underpinnings in the US and Europe similar to those in Nigeria? It isargued that folks in those climesare easily swayed to buy anything attributable to celebrities due to their better socio-economic conditions, and that the average Nigerian would rather interrogate price, utility (and later, quality) before considering any celebrity’saffinity in making his purchase decisions.
Also, the quality of the advertisement is more relevant than the persona of the brand ambassador; hence, adopting CE for a poor ad is wrong-headed.
Trust is another factor. Do members of the public trust your organization? Are you presenting a high-quality product? Adopting a well-known/well-liked personality as an ambassador for a rogue organization or a rogue organization’s product/service may notimprove sales. For instance, subscription rate for a telecommunications company or internet service provider will not likely increase in a place where service quality remained poor, its celebrity endorser notwithstanding. Even if the endorsement worked and new buyers areacquired, would they keep buying the product if it did not meet their expectationonly because it was endorsed by a celebrity? No!
Going beyond Nigeria, research from a book,“Contemporary Ideas and Research in Marketing”, stated that 85% of people surveyed agreed that CE enhanced their confidence in, and preference for, a product, but only 15% said that celebrities had an impact on their purchase decisions. Also, 51% of consumers said that CE had little or no impact on their purchasing decisions. Boston Consulting Group (BCG), in 2013, reported, after a survey of 10,000 consumers, the following ratio of CE trust: China (21%), Brazil (17%), USA (15%), Germany (6%), with consumers in all the countries placing greater trust on what their families and friends said offline about products, followed by what they said online. In all, CE was the least trusted brand promotion method!
It is likely that the value of the organization or the endorser diminishes due to changing circumstances of either party. For example, an organization may suffer if the endorser suddenly turns to bad behaviour (e.g. scandals, immorality, and crime); just as the endorser suffers if his fan base got little value-for-money from a product/service for which he had them influenced. For instance, in 2009, Tiger Woods’ infidelity affected General Motors, Gillette, Accenture, AT&T and Gatorade and they dropped his endorsement; while Nike, which stuck with him,lost $1.65 million in sales and 104,717customers. In fact, shareholder-value losses by his partner-companies were estimated between $5 billion and $12 billion.
Notwithstanding, should an organization choose to adopt CE, a critical factor to consider is determining a ‘fit’ between the product/service and the celebrity. Unfortunately, there are several cases of abject CE mis-matches in Nigeria. For example, what is the ‘fit’ between a “Nollywood” (the discomfiting name for Nigeria’s movie industry, a parody of Hollywood) actor endorsing a sports betting company? What could attract buyers to a filling station because a famous female musician endorseditspetrol and lubricants?Is it money well-spent to have a comedian or an actressact as brand ambassadorfor a bank and/or banking products in acommoditizedindustry?It was for this reason that a liquid toilet-wash advertisement campaign endorsed by a popular comic actor reportedly failed.
There is a more worrying aspect of CE: real value accruable to the organization. How many organizations have executed a “before-and-after-analysis”of CEwith a view to determining whether they were wasteful, or required improvement? What measurable value is accruable to CE to justify resource deployment to it?
Another misgiving about CE practices in Nigeria is its core thrust. In Europe, David Beckham, for example, endorses a sportswear without using a competing brand. However, here, a celebrity endorser acted as brand ambassador for Samsung yet publicly used a Blackberry; and another endorsedRange Rover, but used competing brands without scruples. Also, acelebritycomic actoreasily defected from endorsing a telecommunication brand to a competitordue to higher fees. These examples strike at the heart of CE, suggesting that it is all about the money for celebrities; and not about brand loyalty, values, beliefs, or affinity.
In choosing to adopt CE, organizations should ask hard questions: Why is the celebrity good for marketing? Is there a ‘fit’ between the celebrity and the company and/or its products/services? Does he have a beneficial influence pool? Can he easily convince the influence pool to purchase your product/service? Would he likely build a lasting memory of a product/service in the mind of targeted segments to elicit purchase? Would the endorsement result into sustainable profitability?
If organizations are unable to interrogate these fundamental issues, and strategically take their sales and marketing/corporate communication teams to task on CE, they might have been naively throwing resources into a bottomless pit. So, is your organization’s CE a structured marketing communication strategy or a mere fad akin to keeping up with the Joneses?
Tajudeen Ahmed
