In the fiscal year 2011, David Beckham earned 29.1 million
euro from advertisement while Cristiano Ronaldo, another famous football
player, earned 17.3 million euro from selling his image. However, those two
players were just still behind many other athletes in the list of richest
athletes. Not only in sport do we witness a huge amount of money used to hire
the celebrities, but also in other areas such as showbiz, politics… A pair of Nike shoe has the average price of
nearly 200 euro. A contact with Rafael Radal costs more than 4 million euro. It
means Nike has to sell more than 20,000 pairs of shoes to earn enough revenue just
to cover the promotion cost of Nadal alone, not to mention other celebrities.
Why nowadays are companies paying so much to have a famous person appear in
their posters? Are we, as customers, moved by such promotion? And does George
Clooney influence my decision when I go shopping?
What is a celebrity? How can we become a celebrity? What
makes a celebrity different from us – the commoners? There are many ways of become
a celebrity. In the old times, you’d better have a talent. You can sing, dance,
write novels or swim across the Atlantic. Or you need to commit a heroic act
and get a medal from the President. Or easier, you are born in a royal family.
Make no mistake, Royal is the highest status of celebrity. You may not know the
best athlete of your country, but you are taught and told about your king and
his queen since you are a kid. The common point of all those kinds is that no
matter what you do, you need to be famous if you are a celebrity. The more
famous you are, the better it is. Why was Beckham paid more than Rooney?
Because in the football world, he is far more well-known than Rooney. You have
a bigger chance to encounter Beckham’s image than Rooney’s [That helps explain
why Tiger Wood used to be the richest athlete on Earth]. Once Nike has Ronaldo
appear in the posters and commercials, it has made sure that the customers are
going to recall Nike’s image many more times since then. It does not matter
whether you hate or like Ronaldo, after you see him wearing and holding Nike
shoes, you are going to think about Nike whenever you see him, even at that
time he is not doing any sport. Pay much for one time, and now the companies
can rest assured that their brands will appear in our brain for a long time.
The second magic power of celebrity that marketers have
taken advantage of is that we all want to be a celebrity, or at least, want to
be like them. In our conception, celebrity is living their dreams. Yesterday I
heard that Brad Pitt was about to buy a shooting field for Angelina Jolie as a
wedding gift. 3 days ago, I saw a photo of Tom Cruise riding a naked bike,
which is my favorite kind of motor. Today, I acknowledged that Messi had just
bought a new super car. To us, the lives of celebrities of are far beyond ours.
It is a wonderful life when you can buy whatever you want, dine in the finest
restaurant, go the party the hottest girls, wear the most glamour clothes that
are made only just for you. We want to be one of them and to have such a life.
However, of course, we cannot. Some has succeeded in becoming a celebrity. But the majority of us are not able to do
that. Therefore, what about trying to be like them, at least, in appearance?
Wear the same Rolex Roger Federer wears, and we can become as gentle and mainly
as him. Use the sampoo Ronaldo uses and we are lady killers like him. Dressing
like them, acting like them, using the same stuffs as theirs does not make us a
celebrity, but it can somehow satisfy the strong secret desire that we can be
them. So, why not turn off this tab now, go to an online shop and buy you a
shirt which is designed based on Ryan Glossing’s shirt in the movie “Drive”?
The third benefit of using celebrity instead of me in the
promotion strategy is that even a “small” celebrity has more fans than all of
my friends’ combined. You like Adam Levine? Let’s watch The Voice and buy
Victoria Secret because his girlfriend is a model there. I have to admit I
watch nearly all George Clooney and Josept Gordon-Levit’s movies because I am
their fan. Though some celebrities has anti-fans too, it is not a too big
problem because those anti-fans can help them become more famous.
But one problem arises. There are not enough celebrities. And
those existing celebrities do not know how to maintain their magic power?
Marketers need more celebrities. We cannot expect to see a heroic act or an
arrival of a royal baby every day. Then comes the last and largest source:
those with talents. So, now you know why there are too many reality shows
nowadays. Those shows are created to find, discover, build and create potential
celebrities, which can be used to trick us into buying goods. And the more we
watch, the more they become famous and of course, the better the effect is. Together
with finding now celebrities, marketers have to make sure that the recent one
is still useful. They have to maintain the magic power. One of the simple rules
of being a celebrity: you cannot be too reachable. Contact and communication is
needed to create a friendly image. But too much contact will make a celebrity
become normal. That’s why their usual meeting with public only lasts 30 minutes.
And only a few people know why royals wear long gloves. Not only for elegance,
but also to create an intentional psychological distance from members of
public.
And do you how to boost the popularity ratings of a royal
family? Host a royal wedding and welcome a new child.
Anything can sell.
Kz and Inor.
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